 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2008-04-03 03:28
I know that seams like a sacrilegious question, but here is what I am thinking...
We only have so many hours in one day to practice, and performance dates will not wait for you to be ready- they come when they are scheduled, no later. Should musicians really worry about perfecting such-and-such really intricate pattern in every key at quarter=140 BEFORE they worry about playing the actual thing that they have to perform on the concert? If the work has a scla then practice to perfect THAT scale, if it has an arpeggio then practice to perfect THAT arpeggio.
Do any of the teacher/performers here think there is a point when practicing scales and arpeggios becomes a waste of percious little time and the we will benefit more by using the time to practice the pieces that we play? Why spend 1-3 hours/day exclusively on scales and arpeggios when I could use that time on a pieces of music that I may actually perform one day? After all, I have more chance to perform the music in public, right?
Putting myself in the hot seat...
I practice long tones, scales, arpeggios a lot when I don't know what I will be playing next. If I know that I will be playing X on such and such date, then I start practicing the music more and the basics go on the back burner. Maybe I run through them, but I do not focus on them much.
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Author: gwie
Date: 2008-04-03 05:39
It's better to master the skills in scales and scale exercises than to have to try to learn them over the course of learning a piece of music. If we can already *do* everything required to play a work, we can spend time on *interpretation* rather than trying to get a pinky finger to cooperate (for example).
The trick here is knowing what to practice...
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Author: nbblazer
Date: 2008-04-03 07:08
I agree, you never stop working on fundamentals. Scales are used as a vehicle to work skills such as articulation, air support, rhythm. Sometimes, to learn something complex, it's best to break it down into it's simple parts. It is important to always be working on the interpretation and musical segments in etudes and solo literature while you analyze and break down the fundamentals so that you can apply the fundamentals in the music. Think of studying fundamentals like a spiral staircase. Your teacher might work on one fundamental and then go to the solo stuff. In a year, the teacher might come back to the fundamental skill at a higher level of musicianship.
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2008-04-03 09:40
The trick, then, is to keep it interesting. Can anyone help me with this? :-)
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Author: NorbertTheParrot
Date: 2008-04-03 10:34
I think the whole purpose of playing etudes is to get some of the benefits of playing scales, without it being quite so horribly boring.
The Rose etudes don't quite do this for me, because they try too hard to be music rather than hammering away at technical issues.
I have a soft spot for the Thurston Passage Studies. These are based on real music so are interesting to play, while concentrating fiercely on particular technical issues. There are three volumes, of increasing difficulty. If ordering unseen, don't make the mistake of thinking "I don't need volume 1, it calls itself 'Easy Studies', must be for beginners". Volume 1 is "easy" only by professional standards. It is at least grade 7 by ABRSM standards, especially if played at the indicated metronome marks.
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Author: tdinap
Date: 2008-04-03 10:52
I am unqualified to make a judgment either way about this topic, as I have a lifetime of work ahead of me before I can even consider this. But I will throw this into the mix, just to play devil's advocate:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=103758&t=103756
My Adobe reader isn't working at the moment, so I'm not sure exactly what the direct quote is, but it seems that Marcellus may have stopped intensely practicing at some point. (Ironic given the numerous pro-practice quotes that came up during my search for that thread.)
Tom
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Author: tdinap
Date: 2008-04-03 12:17
Upon further testing, it seems that my Acrobat reader is fine, but the links are no longer good. Anyone have a current link to the Marcellus interview? I never got a chance to read it.
Tom
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Author: GBK
Date: 2008-04-03 12:28
tdinap wrote:
> Upon further testing, it seems that my Acrobat reader is fine,
> but the links are no longer good. Anyone have a current link to
> the Marcellus interview? I never got a chance to read it.
Interview with Marcellus
...GBK
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2008-04-03 15:39
The answer to your question is FALSE.
Marcellus said that playing every day in the Cleveland Orchestra (with Sell's radar ears checking every note) kept him sharp.
You keep scales interesting by making music with them. Among other things, you use Tabuteau's 1-2341-2341 pattern, so that small cells of notes have a musical shape and go somewhere. The Galper "upbeat" scale book does the same.
Unless you're at the Marcellus level, and play all day every day in a top professional orchestra, you need to pay attention to keeping up your fundamental skills. It's like a professional chef, who touches up his knife edges every morning.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2008-04-03 16:23
sky:
I think it all has todo with what you want to do with your practice time and what are your goals. If you aspire to be a pro, or for that matter play every passage cleanly, you cannot compromise. Fundamentals are essential and you need to make sure every day that you have them mastered. What Marcellus did is in some way irrelevant unless you can claim to have the same skills In any case, I am sure he practiced enough his fundamentals if only for warm ups and such.
But, it is also clear that not every one has the time to do fundamentals, learn new music, go to rehearsals and also raise kids or go to work, or possibly eat and sleep I certainly know what it is to practice only the repertoire I am playing so I do not look like a complete fool at rehearsals, although I always try to squeeze in some scale work at each practice session...
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: Cass Tech
Date: 2008-04-03 17:26
Time is of the essence. Aspiring to the condition of music (but only as an amateur), having a full-time job and being middle-aged, I only have an hour or two of practice per day; so I only play repertoire that I intend to perform. The only exception is duets with my friend. It might be herecy - and I'm certainly not recommending it to others - but it works for me.
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2008-04-03 18:34
Well, I don't think anyone is suggesting that one ONLY practice fundamentals. If I had an hour-long session and music to learn under a deadline, I'd put about 15 minutes for scale practice and about 5-8 for an etude. That leaves more than 35 minutes for "repertoire," which would include band music, solo pieces, etc., etc....
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Author: clarinets1
Date: 2008-04-03 21:14
I am not sure how relevant this is, but may be worth thinking about:
ballet dancers go over their fundamentals-- "class"--every single day. this includes barre exercises, floorwork, partnering, pointe work. then they begin work on repertoire or upcoming performances. even the top dancers continue taking class.
i realize many musicians don't, and often can't, spend eight hours or more a day dedicated to music, but it seems reasonable to give up ten or fifteen minutes of practice time to go over scales and long-tones, even in an abbreviated session. they are called fundamentals because they are fundamental to good playing. as our music is, largely, built on those scales, it seems reasonable to be able to play them well.
just my two cents...
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2008-04-04 02:07
Sylvian- "If you aspire to be a pro, or for that matter play every passage cleanly, you cannot compromise. Fundamentals are essential and you need to make sure every day that you have them mastered."
--
To clarify, I am not suggesting just playing through the music willy-nilly. I am also not suggesting that those fundamentals be tossed out the window. Rather, to use the music as a source of more material for technique fundamentals. Of course, attention is always paid to detail and accuracy. I came to this idea during practice of arpeggio repetitions. I thought, "I wonder if I will ever see C#-half-diminished 7 in the music in ascending patterns like this."
Although, I do understand the idea of "practicing the idea before you get to the music" I can't totally justify it, logically. It would mean that you can see the future. Let's just say it takes 2 hours to practice a small pattern to perfection. You now have a great ability to play those notes in that order, but it just so happens that you never perform those notes in that order in your whole life. Would it not have been better time management to spend those 2 hours perfecting a small section in a piece of music that you have more chance of playing?? I have piles of music in which I could find years of difficult passage work. Much of it will hive things that don't fall into the "nice little patterns that I have practiced."
I guess it is more a time management question.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2008-04-04 14:03
I'm grateful that my elementary school instructor didn't subject my beginning band class to day after day after day of scales and exercises before considering us worthy of real music. If he'd done that, I'm sure I would have quit. But as an adult amateur, I can't imagine ceasing to practice my scales and arpeggios and so forth, either. It doesn't take hours upon hours of crushing boredom every day to keep those basic skills reasonably fresh. The way I do it is, before I start working on a piece, I play the scales and arpeggios for the key(s) that piece is in. I think about the preferred fingerings going up and coming back down. I think about where the intonation pitfalls occur in that particular key. To me, that's not a boring way to begin a practice session: The minutes spent on fundamentals add up to a more satisfying experience with the music.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2008-04-04 18:19
skygardener:
Here is my *personal* experience.
Perhaps the weakest aspect of my playing is my technique, and it is exactly because I did/do not practice the fundamentals enough. I play in 3 amateur ensembles on top of a very full time job, so I definitely fall into the category of "practice the music" vs. "practice the fundamentals".
I have been given the chance to sit next to players that are former or aspiring professionals, and although I shamelessly pride myself in sometimes matching their tone and musicality, I never match their technique and sight reading skills.
While I spend hours working on a fast passage of arpeggios, the minute they see it they say "oh this is XX Major", look at the first note and play it right the first time.
This may not mean that they practice every combination of every scale everyday, but it surely means that they have them under their fingers at all times. What it takes to get there I don't know, as I obviously don't have the skills. But reading Sean Osborn or Robert Spring essays it seems working on fundamentals regularly is an essential aspect of one's development and upkeep of instrument mastery.
Scales are not the only way to work on fundamentals after all that is why people write etudes, but they are the basis of almost everything written before the 20th century.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-04-05 10:31
It's probably worthwhile looking at this on a slightly more abstract level.
Any complex task is best handled by a technique known as 'chunking' -- you break up the task into simpler pieces, and deal with the task as the sum of those 'chunks'. (You can repeat the process on an individual chunk, too, creating 'sub-chunks' that sum to the chunk.) Having a fluent solution to a technical problem is therefore often a matter of having the relevant chunks available.
In tonal music, especially simple tonal music, bits of scales and arpeggios are the relevant chunks. (Notice, though, "bits".) So you're wise to have those available. But complex music cannot be so effectively broken down in this way, and it's a good idea to get into the habit of routinely creating 'customised' chunks of technique -- for highly random note non-patterns, 3 or 4 notes may be about right -- in order to have something manageable to practise in isolation.
I've posted my own solution to the problem here before:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=218262&t=218262
....it can be used to generate useful exercises from any sort of music, including both simple tonal music and complex atonal music.
In passing, I notice that Ken has brought up, again, the idea of "[using] Tabuteau's 1-2341-2341 pattern, so that small cells of notes have a musical shape and go somewhere."
I continue to maintain that this is an unwise recommendation. It builds LOCAL CRESCENDO right into the fundamental musical behaviour of a student, something that is extremely difficult to eradicate when they need to play music that does not require it. Watch out!
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1998/10/000412.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1998/10/000440.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1998/10/000421.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1998/10/000437.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1998/10/000474.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1998/10/000447.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1998/10/000834.txt
Finally, I have to say that after many years of playing 20th century music in the London Sinfonietta followed by a long period of playing relatively little of it, I find my ability to read extended complex note-patterns much diminished. I have to practise the parts much more to get to an acceptable level of performance. I suspect that's because my familiarity with 'unusual' chunks has evaporated -- use it or lose it. So, as well as practising scales and arpeggios, you need to sightread less tractable stuff in order to stay in form.
Tony
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2008-04-05 12:27
Thanks Tony for the exercise and the post.
This is essentially what I am talking about. As you pointed out, there is a point in music when "patterns" (no matter how well practiced) are not as applicable anymore. I sometimes run into trouble sight reading because I see the beginning of (what my brain expects is going to be) a chord or chromatic scale or something, and I get stuck in it because my brain has already started the chromatic scale before I realize it is actually not a chromatic scale. "Oh, wait... That is mostly a chromatic scale, but a few notes are missing." This is the opposite of what Sylvain mentioned... In this case, the preparation backfires.
On a related subject, I have been learning traditional Japanese music for the past couple of years. In all that time, I have never been given an "exercise" of any kind; with the exception of long tones. All of the technique comes from the music. All of it. If something comes up in the music that is difficult, then it is learned when it comes up. There is no "learning before you learn". Having said that, I must also admit that the technical demands of the music are exceptionally less speed-oriented than Western music.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-04-06 14:45
Skygardener wrote:
>> ...there is a point in music when "patterns" (no matter how well practiced) are not as applicable anymore.>>
I wasn't quite saying that -- I was saying that we need to have more than the tonal patterns practised. And, perhaps, that in your particular case, you might spend more of your practice time in reading and playing non-tonal patterns.
>> I sometimes run into trouble sight reading because I see the beginning of (what my brain expects is going to be) a chord or chromatic scale or something, and I get stuck in it because my brain has already started the chromatic scale before I realize it is actually not a chromatic scale. "Oh, wait... That is mostly a chromatic scale, but a few notes are missing." This is the opposite of what Sylvain mentioned... In this case, the preparation backfires.>>
Well, then you need to know BETTER what a chromatic scale REALLY looks like, don't you? In other words, you need to have practised, not just playing chromatic scales, but the act of READING both chromatic scales and things that are like, but not the same as, chromatic scales.
Things like the Uhl and Jettel studies are good for that. You can make subroutines out of those too, using my three-note exercise.
Tony
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2008-04-07 14:27
Tony Pay-"Well, then you need to know BETTER what a chromatic scale REALLY looks like, don't you? In other words, you need to have practised, not just playing chromatic scales, but the act of READING both chromatic scales and things that are like, but not the same as, chromatic scales."
Thanks. I think this is exactly my problem. Never quite thought of reading as an independent skill, but I suppose it is. As you may have guessed, I practice all my scales/arpeggios from memory. I always try to them in different ways (from top, from bottom, skips, etc), but always from memory.
I have always been frustrated with my reading ability being much lower than my playing ability.
Even when I "read" music I am very slow the first time, but then I can play quite easily. I may have gotten this bad habit from many years when I needed glasses, but didn't get them. Before I got glasses, I would sometimes even write "G Major", "E minor", etc. above the arpeggio/scale in question. I kind of use the page as a reminder to what I had mostly in memory.
I know a violinist (quite successful) that has the same problem (first time he reads things do not sound good at all) and he has exceptionally poor vision.
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