 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: JPMarcellus2011
Date: 2011-11-15 03:28
Why should we be learning etudes? Can't all of our lessons be learned from the repertoire? Why would I learn how to tongue fast from Rose so that I can apply it to Mendelssohn, when I just can just learn it from Mendelssohn? Why learn JeanJean for whole-tone patterns when I can just play the first clarinet part to Faun? I've never been a big etude person, although, through my teachers, I have gone through Rose 40 bks. I & II, Rose 32, Delecluse Grand Etudes, the Paganini Caprices, Gambaro and Cavallini, all of Kroepsch bks 1-4 and the Bach cello suites. My colleagues seem very excited to go through etudes and find new ones, but if I'm going to spend my time learning something, it's going to be the repertoire that I'm going to directly be performing - - excerpts, concerti and chamber music. If my point is not valid, could someone tell me what an appropriate percentage of my practice that etudes should use? And, can you explain how that time is better spent on an etude, instead of on an actual part, please? I'd love to be one of those people who is excited for a new etude, but I really don't see the practicality. Any help?
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Author: TJTG
Date: 2011-11-15 04:06
It is important in professional development. Learning a new etude a week improves your ability to learn a new piece of music quickly. It enhances your abilities, more-so if you understand what the etude is working on regarding your playing.
It sounds impressive that you've gone through those books, but I doubt you have worked on those etudes in a way that is very meaningful to your development. I work on rose 32, No. 1 every once and a while and it makes me feel like an inadequate musician. It's not just about playing the notes and getting to the end of the etude, too many people use them just for that.
Etudes hone instinct in a simpler setting to be employed later in a piece. It breaks down concepts so in the Mendelssohn is easier when you do approach it.
Also, the Bach Cello Suites aren't etudes... so why include them?
In addition, aren't scales just an exercise we can skip?
Are you in high school or college? It sounds like you are approaching this with a real young mentality.
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2011-11-15 04:48
I can understand your point, but it would important to know what your future plans are.
If you're planning on a career in music, continue studying etudes. No music education is complete without them, and it's impossible to become a truly complete player without etudes, etudes, and more etudes. Restricting your practice to the solo literature just won't do it. I didn't enjoy every etude I had to learn, but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.
On the other hand, if you're playing the clarinet for fun and have no plans for a career in music, you can back off on the etudes. I wouldn't completely exclude them, but I'd look around for etudes that are the most musically interesting. I'll agree that many are a real snooze, but there are some very nice ones out there.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2011-11-15 05:15
Nothing magical about etudes, you can do without. Etudes are nice as short pieces of music you can learn from start to finish quickly and set aside. You can go from sight-reading to polished in a week or two, which gives you time to address the full range of issues on a micro level. Lots of aspects of a piece of music can tend to be pushed off until after a piece is thoroughly learned, and so can be neglected until there's very little time left before a performance, or ignored completely if a piece is abandoned. Etudes get you around these pitfalls.
Other than that, nothing special, and I lament that they're often treated as a rite of passage, or as some thing you play so you can get through the book so you can start the next book until you've done all the books and WIN!
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Trevor M
Date: 2011-11-15 05:22
You could. In a lot of popular genres like bluegrass and klezmer there aren't any real 'etudes', just easier and harder tunes, and those are considered a good training ground for learning technique. But I do think it's good that classical music has a body of material designed to explore different 'problems' of the mechanism or arpeggios or whatever that are musically interesting enough to stand along without accompaniment.
Still, I think people probably should play 'real' music as often as etudes. I wish somebody had given me a good excerpt book along with the Rose 32, and my favorite etudes are the ones that take a 'real' excerpt and extrapolate it out into a whole piece.
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Author: Tony M
Date: 2011-11-15 05:42
"You could. In a lot of popular genres like bluegrass and klezmer there aren't any real 'etudes', just easier and harder tunes, and those are considered a good training ground for learning technique."
I disagree with this. Etudes make a lot of sense in music where you will be required to move from a written score and improvise patterns and melodies over chord changes. The changes might be limited but you are not expected to be melodically limited when the bright light falls on you. Patterns that can be played in a number of keys, patterns that function to transition between parts, and so on, should all be there ready to be inserted. They might not call them etudes in bluegrass and klezmer but that is the work that they have been doing.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2011-11-15 06:05
When I was a college student I worked on 3-4 etudes a week for 4 years. Besides giving me the ability to learn new pieces quickly, it also provided my teacher with an opportunity to work with me on rhythm, phrasing, staccato, intonation, legato, style, tone, fingerings and transposition. I think there is a lot more to be gained from this than just practising a Brahms sonata for 6 months. Not many days go by in my professional life when I'm not happy that I did all this work back then. And I'm extremely grateful to my teacher for all the work he did with me.
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Author: Trevor M
Date: 2011-11-15 09:44
"They might not call them etudes in bluegrass and klezmer but that is the work that they have been doing."
I think we're in agreement, maybe, Tony? I just meant that there's not a body of material in those genres that is considered to be *just* for the practice room, the way clarinet etudes for classical music seem to be regarded.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2011-11-15 09:50
This would be a good point in the discussion to bring up the fact that one NEEDS to purposely and religiously include ORCHESTRAL EXCERPTS into the daily practice. Bill Wrzesian for one would have his students set up for four 'packets' of excerpts. Each packet containing a good mix (as well balanced as possible) of fast, slow, staccato, legato examples. You do one packet per day and see the whole bunch in less than a week...........THEN REPEAT. The idea being that all your standard excerpts lie under the fingers at all times much like your Baermann scales.........AND YOUR ROSE ETUDES !!!!
That is of course only if you're interested in employment.
......................Paul Aviles
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Author: Ed
Date: 2011-11-15 12:47
A number of years back Bill Blount wrote an article for Windplayer magazine about the importance of learning style through etudes. For example, he presents the argument that a player would become better prepared to play in the Italian operatic style by playing the etudes of Cavallini and Labanchi. These etudes contain the stylistic elements one would find in this music. The article is worthwhile reading.
Etudes were also designed to present certain technical and musical challenges to the player and to focus on various difficulties inherent in the instrument. I suppose that one could manage to be a player without playing etudes or even scales, but these traditional methods often give a better guided and focussed approach.
Post Edited (2011-11-16 14:42)
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Author: JPMarcellus2011
Date: 2011-11-15 13:28
Perhaps my question was more veiled than I intended. I'll ask through an example: I have 6 hours to practice today, and I am working on fundamentals, excerpts, chamber music and a concerto, where do the etudes fit in? Long tones take 30 minutes, Scales/3rds/arpeggios take 30, I have auditions coming up so I've got 4 excerpts that I'm relearning which takes about 90 minutes/day, I've got chamber performances coming up playing Mozart and Brahms quintets, so that takes about 90 minutes since I'm relearning there, too. And, I'm performing a concerto later this month, and that takes much longer.... so where is the time for the etudes?
I'm not saying that etudes are pointless, by any means. To be 100% efficient, where do they lie in the priorities? My time is desperately short as it is, and I'd like to begin playing etudes again. But when?
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2011-11-15 15:30
IMO, long tones are not as important. I'd say no more than 10 minutes of your practice session "should" be devoted to them. Once you're able to play Baermann, that (IMO) takes the place of long tones. In "real" music you rarely hold a single note for a long period of time, so Baermann is closer to "real" music in that respect, where you're moving your fingers fast and working on your tone production while doing so.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2011-11-15 19:14
JPMarcellus2011:
Play etudes when you have time to play etudes. They're just short pieces of music. If your plate is full of long pieces of music, spend your time on those. Also, for long tones, scales, etc., you can split them up into different days if they're taking up too much of your session each day. Do scales MWF, articulation studies TuThSat, and maybe give yourself a break from technique work on Sunday and spend a couple hours jamming. To get from first gear to second, you have to let up on the gas pedal, and I find the same to be true for learning an instrument. Recovery is a necessary, incredibly valuable, and often overlooked component.
Paul Aviles et al:
As far as I'm concerned, orchestral excerpts are bullshit that detract from musicality and time that could be better spent elsewhere, and DEFINITELY not a must when it comes to learning the instrument well. Further, treating the Rose etudes as something to get under your fingers, IMHO, defeats their purpose as etudes. I'm happy to discuss that at length, but perhaps in a different thread.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: mihalis
Date: 2011-11-15 19:50
Frederick Thurston in his book "Clarinet Technique" in the chapter
of Technical Studies says that "Some of the most valuable studies are those
that you can make up yourself around tricky passages in clarinet works."
And about books of studies he says that "Unfortunately many (of those studies) are very dull musically and are apt to continue for pages in the same rhythm. Some of the extreme examples have a patterned look like wall paper."
Some will not agree with him, some will. And I do.
Mike
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Author: Tony M
Date: 2011-11-15 23:23
For TrevorM: my apologies, I seemed to grab hold of the wrong end of the stick.
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2011-11-16 01:03
There are about a million and a half etudes out there, so let's answer a few questions.
1) Are the Baermann books etudes? Using the book often called "the bible" let's call those exercises, not etudes. It is expected that you're doing exercises.
2) Are the pieces that consist of the same pattern of notes over and over and over again with slight modulations etudes? I say yes.
3) Finally, simplifying this, there are all the other pieces that are, on the surface, just nice "short pieces" like some of the Rose etudes already mentioned.
But why do you play etudes? What does the word "etude" actually mean? It means "study." So etudes are written to help the player study. Ok, let me now be so bold as to ask why anyone who is post college or even in college would work aimlessly through the Rose etudes without any goal in mind?
I think of etudes, like many here, as a way to hone my skills. If I am working on a Concerto that has melodic passages in a tough key, let's say the Francaix in B, I would focus my efforts around learning an etude that emulates some of those difficult passages. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the B arpeggio at the end of the first phrase of the first movement of Francaix botched because of not enough breath support. In lieu of practicing that one bar over and over again in all the different articulations and rhythms (which one should be doing anyway), playing etudes such as Polatschek's or one of Jeanjean's puts those tough passages in context so, as Alex said, when you get to them in "real time," you don't screw them up.
To just play them for the sake of having said you've played them is ridiculous. You've learned nothing...you've not "studied" the music.
Finally it's important to differentiate between good and bad etudes. Bad etudes, to me, are short pieces that don't focus on a technique, skill, or other facet of clarinet pedagogy. Good etudes need...no, MUST, focus on the music and the skill that they attempt to strengthen, for if they don't, then why play them? And don't assume that just because you don't see the purpose in a particular etude that it has no merit...is it possible you've just missed it?
Which leads me to an answer of your question in saying that etudes can be a very critical part of one's study. I would say, by percentages, I spent, at the height of my playing, about 20% of my time on etudes, or at least an hour a day.
Post Edited (2011-11-16 01:04)
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2011-11-16 01:42
Eddie, the sky is black right now. It's night. What should I practice at night? Maybe scary movie etudes? Hmmm
We can call it scary etudes. All atonal etudes!
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-11-16 08:47
You really should elaborate more on this. Which ones? And which are you comfortable with?
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2011-11-16 09:22
Dear Alex,
If one doesn't practice orchestral excerpts, one does not get into an orchestra.
Of course there are those who prefer the saxophone.
......................Paul Aviles
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Author: salzo
Date: 2011-11-16 14:32
I cant believe the crap I have read on this thread.
There are other more important elements than the technical aspects of playing the clarinet.
So maybe a good reason to practice etudes is to learn how to play music?
The technical elements of the clarinet are important so that one is free to express themselves musically without any technical hinderance.
Practice your etudes and keep in mind the whole purpose is to make music.
No one has any business playing a concerto, sonata, whatever, if they cant make a complete musical statement with a five minute etude.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2011-11-16 20:27
Paul:
If one DOES practice orchestral excerpts, one still doesn't get into an orchestra. Using "getting into an orchestra" as a goal for musicianship misses a huge swath of the musical picture and, imho, is largely responsible for problems such as the supposedly dwindling classical audience and the very real disconnect between classical musicians and the greater community.
I think that using excerpts as criteria for admission into an orchestra is a terrible metric by which to judge a musician, ESPECIALLY if those excerpts are mainstays of excerpt books and so on. It ends up being some f*cked up litmus test where the judges are looking for the slightest imperfection in time, articulation, or intonation by which to disqualify candidates. Practicing excerpts becomes a game of ultra-precision, where the myriad possibilities of the music are whittled down to one single "way I will play this excerpt."
Worse yet, I've heard many performances by accomplished musicians in very reputable orchestras where the soloist suddenly goes into autopilot at the appearance of the excerpt, which is so drilled into their fingers and psyche that it is unresponsive to the conditions of the moment and drained of any possibility of spontaneity.
If you have an audition coming up, learn the excerpts. Any musician worthy of inclusion in a given orchestra should be able to learn a dozen or so excerpts in a couple weeks, if the demands are reasonable. However, the excerpt lists have been so horribly inflated in some bizarro arms race to shut out less experienced candidates that it becomes a focus of practice, and an incredible waste of time and misdirection of effort for all parties involved.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2011-11-16 23:17
Etudes are helpful.
Practicing excerpts is good.
Solo pieces are nice if they are well written. If they aren't, I would suggest gently putting the sheet music in a drawer and never opening it again. When you move, leave the furniture containing the bad music behind, but warn the incoming occupants.
Six hours is a good chunk of time: you should be okay if you have a watch.
Watches are good if they keep time well. If not you will either be late or early. The consequences to your career as a musician might hang in the balance.
Musicians are good if they keep time well (and do other things well too, including showing up on time for gigs: see above).
You can get a watch at the Beachwood mall (not far from your location).
I would disregard the price, insofar as you are able, and buy one that keeps time well.
You've already lost practice time reading this post.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: Tony M
Date: 2011-11-17 00:21
Eric,
You don't know how relieved I was that I only read your post after I had finished this morning's practice. For a moment I jumped and then I realised that I had just put my clarinet away.
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Author: Buster
Date: 2011-11-17 01:04
Eric,
a beautiful summary. (and Beachwood is about an hour from my house inconsequentially)
To everybody else,
Why do we need to put a chasm between "technique" and "musicality" when they rely on each-other, and ultimately are one in the same thing.
-Jason
Post Edited (2011-11-17 02:03)
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2011-11-17 02:37
Jason--
Northeast Ohio is increasingly well represented on this Board.
You're probably the closest to the Football Hall of Fame, though. That trumps the Beachwood mall.
As to your point regarding the false dichotomy between technique and musicality, I've never heard an innately musical person become less musical by gaining technique: it's always the opposite. The degree to which they gain technique is the degree to which they're musicality is served.
Tony M:
Your losing even more practice time reading THIS post! Don't forget to pack your swab.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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