 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ali Straws
Date: 2011-03-29 23:38
I have absolutely no idea why, but when I try to play sixteenth notes, I get lost in them. Even if I sloooooow them down to quarter notes, when I try to speed them back up I get lost. :(
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Author: dtiegs
Date: 2011-03-30 00:04
HmmM... I've been in that situation. It brings back memories of a metronome being nearly thrown across the room. If you have a private instructor, ask him/her to aid you. Mine said to slowly work up the tempo, and by doing that he and I learned that my music reading skill wasn't up to par, so we spent time working on note-fingering-then-playing. BTW, I strongly suggest that you buy yourself a metronome(annoying as heck at first, but will become your best friend).
I hope that helps...
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-03-30 00:21
How old are you? Has your eyesight been checked recently and are your eyes able to follow the eye doctor's pencil as he moves it different directions? You may have a tracking problem or some other optometric difficulty.
More in the direction Dalton suggests, your problem may be related to the way you practice. Maybe you're going from very slow to the tempo you want to play too quickly. You need to grade the tempo enough that the increment you add doesn't re-introduce the problem. The goal of this approach is to speed up a little at a time in a disciplined way (using a metronome) and maintain your relaxation, control and contact with the music through each speed increase.
Or maybe a different approach might work in which you play a small fragment, perhaps a beat or so, and then, if you play it without getting lost or making a mistake, add a little to it. When you can play the expanded passage correctly without getting lost, add a little more. Keep doing this until, hopefully, you can get through the entire passage without a problem. I like doing this beginning with a fragment at the end of a passage. That way, you're more likely to repeat everything you've already done as you add backwards. If you start from the beginning there may be tendency not always to go all the way back as you add more.
Karl
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-03-30 00:53
Everyone has this problem. You do two things to deal with it.
First, get the Baermann III scale book and work your way through it with a metronome at EXTREMELY slow tempo. Your object is to engrave all possible scales, scales in thirds, arpeggios, etc. into your muscle memory, so that you play them without having to think. Slow practice is just as good as fast practice for this purpose, and letting yourself make even one mistake engraves that mistake into your basic technical equipment. You're like a medieval apprentice carpenter, whose first job was to make his own tools, which he would use for the rest of his life.
Second, read notes in groups. After you know the scales, you recognize a group by its shape, without having to read the notes. You let your finger memory play the group while you look ahead to recognize the next one.
There's much more to say, but you need to go to a teacher to work on it.
Ken Shaw
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2011-03-30 06:16
Ken Shaw wrote:
> Second, read notes in groups. After you know the scales, you
> recognize a group by its shape, without having to read the
> notes. You let your finger memory play the group while you
> look ahead to recognize the next one.
Absolutely. It's just like reading, which is more "pattern recognition" than "scanning letters one by one".
You'll have to learn that for rhythmic patterns as well as scale patterns, but once you got these halfway down, it's getting so much easier.
--
Ben
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2011-03-30 10:07
I suppose you are just getting 'psyched out' by the graphics. You do realize that there is NO set speed one has to play sixteenth notes. It's perfectly fine to play one sixteenth note = 80 beats per minute. Just do them at a speed that is well in your comfort zone. Then double it. That is, play them like eighth notes, then sixteenths.
If the hang up is the concept of playing four equal divisions within one over arching pulse, the above should help. Also JUST think of the individual notes being of equal length of time, playing one after the other.
.................Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-03-30 10:33
What exactly do you mean by "I get lost in them?"
Karl
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Author: BassClarinetBaby
Date: 2011-03-30 11:06
Karl asks a good question.
If you mean you get lost rhythmically, then a strategy is to change up the rhythm and articulation. Play the notes all slurred, all tongued or a combination of the two. Play the passage swung or in triplets or timkas. Play it legato or staccato. The trick is to never play the passage the same way twice. Once you've changed the rhythms a few times it will be easier to play the 16th notes cleanly and evenly.
If you get lost in the fingerings, split the passage into smaller sections. Personally I try and break it into what is above the break and what is below. Play each 'section' on its own until you have it fluent. Then try and add the sections back together one by one.
Also, try playing the passage backwards. I'm not sure why and didn't believe it until my teacher had me do it but something about taking the notes out of context helps.
Never Bb, sometimes B#, and always B natural! ♫♪
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Author: Noqu
Date: 2011-03-30 11:16
I had similar problems and believe the advice given above is very helpful.
A (somewhat IT-savvy) clarinet teacher compared the problem to the workings of a computer program processing data that is read from disk.
Essentially, there are two possible bottlenecks:
- I/O speed: how fast can the data be read from disk?
- CPU power: how fast can the processor process the data?
I liked that analogy. The "CPU power" in this case is the ability to play scales and patterns fast, using "muscle memory" so that the CPU is not required to "think about each note's fingerings". Playing scales and slowly building tempo helps here.
On the other hand, "I/O speed" becomes the bottleneck if you try to read each note by itself instead of recognizing patterns. Consciously avoiding to "read note by note" and trying to "look ahead" helps here.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-03-30 12:24
The analogy might go even farther. "I/O speed" has several stages. There's the type of port on the computer that accepts the input. Then there's the speed of the input device itself. Some drives access data faster, some can transmit it faster (through differing interfaces to the various ports) and sometimes a malfunction in a mechanical drive can cause data to be missed. There are "perceptual" difficulties that are often diagnosed in children as "learning disabilities" that are at their base individualities in the way we take in information for our brains to process as well as in the ways our brains process the data. There are also possible visual acuity deficits and other physical problems with the eyes and the musculature that controls them that can interfere with the split-second perception that reading music at speed requires.
One thing slow, incrementally accelerating practice can do, as you and others have already suggested, is build muscle memory while the speed is slow enough for the player to compensate for any of these "I/O bottlenecks". By the time the tempo is fast enough to trigger problems, memory can begin to take over. That takes a lot of practice and patience. *Sometimes* the bottleneck itself can be found and overcome, which is why I'd suggest at the least an eye exam, which is good to have anyway. I'm interested in a more detailed description only to get a better idea of whether this getting "lost" sounds like the garden-variety hand-eye challenges we all face or perhaps something more unique.
Karl
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Author: clarlin2011
Date: 2011-03-30 21:17
For me, it helps if i subdivide in my head while playing them. 1 E & A 2 E & A 3 E & A ...
I use to have a major problem with getting lost in triplets, so now if i think "trip-o-let trip-o-let trip-o-let" while i play i get them almost perfect.
My point is subdividng helps me alot. If i think about it in my head while playing it, i play it correct. Maybe you should try it and see if that works for you also.
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Author: clarinetcase
Date: 2011-03-30 21:31
From what you said, it sounds like a spatial-reading-processing problem. Rewrite a series of 16th notes and spread the notes farther apart than they appear in the music (easier if you use a computer). Does that help you play the 16th notes? If it does, your probem is processing. Work notes in pairs: 1st and 2nd note, 2nd and 3rd note, then move to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd notes. Next practice the 3rd and 4th notes, then 2nd, 3rd, 4th; and finally 1 to 4. It is VERY time consuming, but if you really work the piece you're playing now in this manner, it will get easier with successive pieces. Eventually, you won't need the "pair" work. A lot of people have langauge processing problems that don't become apparent until the language their encountering becomes complex and specialized. Music is just another language and when you have processing problems, they're solved in similar ways.
Disclaimer: I'm an educator who has studied/worked with learning modalities, MI, visualization, and processing.
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