 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2013-12-31 15:30
A well argued case against practicing fast passages slow.
http://youtu.be/f9X4h-cY1uw
Curious to hear what the teachers on this board think. As someone who has always struggled with fast technique, I will give this a try for a few weeks.
As Jason Sulliman points out in the video, I agree that playing slow involves a different set of finger technique and brain pathways than playing fast and have felt this tipping point on the metronome where different technique and possibly brain activity is used on each side of that point.
Perhaps the most striking example of this is an alternate fingering for a fast trill.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-12-31 16:26
In essence it's playing a fast passage at speed, but playing it by starting with the first note only and adding each note at a time only when you've got things solid, then starting at the last note and adding the previous notes one at a time to build a fast passage up from the end (but still in order).
Any problematic intervals are isolated and then the notes previous to it are added, then the notes afterwards are added to incorporate it into the passage. I'll have to give this a go.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2013-12-31 16:28)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2013-12-31 22:26
I'm an amateur, but fwiw -- I've found that it's important for me to get the notes right the first time I play something. Otherwise, although I don't have total recall, I do learn the wrong notes enough to have trouble un-learning them later. So for me, that first run-through needs to be silent: read the music and "hear" it in my head while writing in any alternative fingerings that aren't obvious at a glance. The first time I play the music aloud, I do it slowly but try to play as closely as possible to the same way I would play up to speed. After that I do try to go full-blast, because otherwise I'm learning to play the piece adagio and I have trouble unlearning that, too.
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: Paul Aviles
Date: 2013-12-31 17:29
This is only just 'another way to practice.' I will post a new "How to sound like Larry Combs" topic, but one other thing that was important to Larry was S-L-O-W practice; always having it under your fingers. For me, as I contemplate this approach I am now arriving more at the idea that it is a matter of having the intervals solidly implanted in our aural pathways even more than a physiological event. Back in the day, MANY fine teachers would say that you are "building muscle memory," or "spinal cord memory." Though there is a physical component to all this, I firmly believe now that mostly it is having that SONIC memory firmly in place that is key.
Another version of S-L-O-W practice came from Clark Brody who would have you practice a difficult section (as in the above video) slowly, with exaggerated finger movement (thrusting up AND plopping down assertively) a couple of times. Then, just shake it out, and try the passage again at (or near) tempo.
My only fear with the posted method is that it makes it "ok" to play a passage over and over again with it being slightly ragged. This makes the aural memory of it ragged............but I see the value in having another approach.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2013-12-31 22:53
I wonder how much we need to account for the differences between technical difficulties on a fingered instrument vs. a trombone, on which the muscle movements are much larger. The dexterity involved in accurately placing a slide and coordinating it with a level of embouchure tension is fundamentally different from what's involved in the small movements of individual fingers in sometimes unnatural ways (coordinating fingers in ways not needed in everyday living). I'm not saying one is more difficult than the other, but that the two sets of technique involved are different enough that what's a good practice approach for one may be less efficient or useful on the other.
I often, both in my own playing and in working with students, make use of both what he calls forward and backward chaining - especially backward chaining - and never at ludicrously slow tempos that change the nature of a passage. But I'm not as convinced as Jason Sulliman that taking some off the tempo at the beginning necessarily changes the process to the extent that he describes. A little common sense is helpful.
Karl
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2013-12-31 18:05
Yes, a case well made.
I thought even more interesting, and something I hadn't thought of at all, was his 'missing beats' metronome (MBM) idea. I downloaded it; though I don't suppose I'll use it very much myself, it could be a way in for people with a limited sense of pulse.
Obviously a good sense of pulse involves creating some sort of REPRESENTATION of the pulse against which one can judge one's playing. Perhaps that representation could be in some other modality -- a body FEELING rather than a body movement -- and be delivered by a MBM that squeezed your arm, say.
Most child musicians have that representation naturally, but it's difficult to help the ones that don't.
Tony
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2014-01-01 00:20
Tony Pay wrote:
> Most child musicians have that representation naturally, but
> it's difficult to help the ones that don't.
>
Tony, by "child musicians" do you mean young children who are accomplished musically, or most children if they're exposed even informally to early musical experience?
I've never worked with children younger than 8 or 9 years old, although I've seen video and read anecdotes that indicate infants' ability to sing simple songs with quite steady tempo. But one of the characteristics I find most consistent with the youngest ones I've taught is that, while they in general do indeed have a very strong innate sense of musical pulse, each tends to feel that sense at his or her own tempo, almost as a kind of physiologic imperative (I've read opinions that link this tempo to that of the individual child's heart rate and other neurological characteristics), and getting them in general to learn to modify their individual pulse drive to be able to perform in an ensemble is one of the most basic hurdles in teaching them.
Karl
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-01-01 03:13
It seems to me that if you're exposed to music in your life sufficiently, then you're likely to pick up the ability to represent pulse to yourself. I remember, though, that I had trouble with getting the hang of some sorts of rhythmic notation, compound time in particular, as late as 10 years old. (I say 'hang', but I think I mean 'feel'.)
A few years later, gradually having Stravinsky's metres be natural was a development of 'feeling' rather than of intellectual understanding. That came about, I think, as a result of being able to generalise the experience of pulse so that it admitted a quickly changing mixture of simple and compound rhythms of differing length.
Why I mentioned 'children' is that the most important things about music are learned -- as I learnt how to deal first with compound rhythms, and then Stravinsky -- in the full experience of playing with others, just as children acquire language in the full experience of communicating with others. But the beginnings of feeling pulse may be lacking in some people, even though others find it obvious.
If I introspect, then pulse isn't like the click of a metronome for me. It's more like a 'squeeze', but one that I can locate the centre of rather precisely. And because it's not a physical movement, it can be relocated instantly if the musical circumstances alter.
I thought that IF someone were missing the fundamental construct, the MBM might be a good way of having them create it.
(Silly story, but quite amusing:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/lookup.php/Klarinet/2005/06/000219.txt
:-)
Happy New Year!
Tony
Post Edited (2016-04-17 14:20)
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Author: CarlT
Date: 2014-01-02 12:31
Okay, before this one gets too far into the archives, assuming that Jason Sulliman's "passage" practice technique is a good one, would that translate to all practice such as scales, arpeggios, etc, as opposed to just passages? Personally, I don't think it would, but I'm certainly not a pro or a teacher.
I can see, however, that it could work well just for certain passages.
CarlT
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2014-01-02 19:51
Dear CarlT,
I think according to Jason Sulliman's video the answer is yes. There is just a speed at which fast execution of slow finger motion simply doesn't work and practice of fast technique at a fast tempo is required.
The slow practice argument is that you never ever play it wrong so you never learn it wrong, but I agree with the counter argument that learning to play the correct notes slowly can also be "wrong" as ultimately the finger motion and brain circuits involved in playing it fast are fundamentally different.
I will try to stick to his regimen for the next few weeks and report back.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-01-02 21:08
I kinda sorta want to take back what I said earlier about the "sonic impression." This doesn't really hold water in the example of a 'C' scale played brutally fast vs. a 'Gb' scale played brutally fast. You KNOW how it's supposed to sound but getting the coordination is a different story.
I can't see practicing Firebird or Daphnis like this being at all possible.
Allen Balter and Larry Combs would say ALWAYS PRACTICE SLOWLY.
Honestly, why would you want a passage to lack clarity?
.............................Paul Aviles
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-01-03 20:28
CarlT wrote:
>> ...assuming that Jason Sulliman's "passage" practice technique is a good one, would that translate to all practice such as scales, arpeggios, etc, as opposed to just passages?>>
Well, it would if you realise that you may be required to play both fast and slow parts of scales and arpeggios when they occur as components of different pieces.
The problem of playing perfectly the parts of an F major arpeggio that constitute bars 1 and 3 of the slow movement of the Mozart concerto is a different problem from the problem of playing perfectly the F major arpeggios that constitute bars 45-47 of the last movement of Weber's second concerto.
I've usually dealt with the latter occasions as and when they arise; but I can see that spending a bit of time on the GENERAL problem of high speed scales and arpeggios, as well as on the general problem of slow and medium speed scales and arpeggios, might well pay dividends. (Then something like the lightening fast B major scale in the Danse du Diable movement of l'Histoire du Soldat might not be so discombobulating:-)
Paul Aviles wrote:
>> Honestly, why would you want a passage to lack clarity? >>
No, you WANT it to be CLEAR; but in this scenario you allow it to lack clarity, rather than speed, during the process of achieving clarity AND speed. In some circumstances, that may well be better than allowing it to lack speed, rather than clarity, during the process of achieving speed AND clarity. Sulliman gives some rather convincing reasons why that may be the case.
A good analogy is a screen display: that may sometimes be 'progressively rendered', by starting out low definition and becoming clear over the course of a few seconds as it's processed.
Ken Shaw wrote:
>> Anything faster than totally under control is "faking it," which falls apart under stress.>>
Not so. Think how many exquisitely honed human skills are 'progressively rendered' over time. The child's acquisition of speech starts out as babble, and gradually focusses over time on their native language. Motor skills like running don't start out totally under control -- they're progressively refined. (And imagine being told to run slowly enough so as to be perfect, before you speed up; or DIVE slowly enough to be perfect!)
Of course, that's not to say that doing things slowly is wrong. What is wrong is to say that anything OTHER than doing things slowly is wrong, and damaging.
IT'S NOT DAMAGING. What's damaging is NOT LISTENING.
Now, these guys you all revere TAUGHT SLOW PRACTICE. And so do I.
But I don't say that if you try other methods, you'll damage yourself, as Ken Shaw and Paul Aviles do.
Paul Aviles wrote:
>> Allen Balter and Larry Combs would say ALWAYS PRACTICE SLOWLY.>>
Yeah? I once spent a day with Larry Combs as his guest in Chicago when I was on tour playing the Mozart concerto with AAM, and I bet what he'd say (like me) would be:
"PRACTICE SLOWLY!"
(It means you have time to hear, and see in a mirror, what may be going wrong.)
On the other hand, I bet HE'D be interested, as I was, in other ways of going about it.
So, who told you the ALWAYS?? Stop being MINDREADERS, already.
And if someone WERE to insist on the ALWAYS, then I say that however good they are as players, in this particular regard they need to think again. Practice should always be creative.
Tony
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2014-01-03 15:47
Ken,
I am not sure we are in disagreement. The Gillet article in particular makes several mention on how the practice was done at performance speed:
"it’s also important to emphasize that the way Gillet had me work on difficult passages didn’t involve “slow practicing” as such."
or
"I could get all the notes accurately each time I played the altered passages even though they were still at performance speed"
So I guess I'd say that I am less interested in the idea of chaining than the idea that learning fast passages at a slow tempo may not be as effective as learning them at a quick tempo, but still intelligently (i.e. finding the problematic areas and finding a fix for them)
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2014-01-03 20:44
I think this is one of those "It depends ...." topics. Some fast passages are faster than others. Some are more intuitive to finger than others. Most of us have probably practiced playing scales. If the fast passage is a scale, we can probably recognize it at sight. No need to practice it slowly because we've already done that. Same with one of the basic arpeggios. The trick with those passages is to integrate them into what comes before and after. But if it's music by Stravinsky -- whoa Nellie.
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: Liquorice
Date: 2014-01-03 20:47
I find this an interesting idea. I've never practised fast passages like this. What I usually do is rhythmic variations in various combinations (eg. I have 10 standard rhythms that I apply to fast 4-note groupings). I hardly ever do slow practice. For me rhythmic variation has worked well for practising fast passages. (I've been doing it for about 25 years). But I'm curious to see how this "chaining" method works, because it does make sense to me theoretically.
I've decided to do an experiment: On Sunday I'm playing the first ever performance of a new concerto for basset horn. This week I've been using "chaining" to practise some of the fast passages. The results seem to be very good so far. Other passages I have exclusively practised in my normal old method of rhythmic variety. It's going to be interesting for me to see which fast passages don't go perfectly well in the performance and if there is any correlation between how I practised them in the last week before the performance. The results might not be scientific, but if anyone is interested I'll post an update after the concert.
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2014-01-04 02:54
Yes Liquorice, please report back!
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2014-01-04 06:25
Liquorice -
Best of luck with the premiere of the basset horn concerto. Who's the composer? Is there any chance that it will be recorded and be linked to?
Ken Shaw
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2014-01-04 06:41
Thanks Ken. The composer is Paul Hanmer from South Africa. I think one of the performances will be recorded. I'll see if I can put up a link somehow.
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Author: JonTheReeds
Date: 2014-01-04 10:27
I'm finding this thread really interesting and would like to know whether people find this technique useful and how they approached it
The video itself annoyed me a bit as it implies that everything can get fixed with 10 minutes of fast practice. I've tried this technique before under the name of "chaining" but haven't found it useful, although that could be the way I have done it, or perhaps because I haven't used it over several weeks
The other thing that occurs to me is that, isn't this technique really only suitable for people who are already accomplished musicians but need to get a new, difficult passage under the fingers? How useful is this technique if you can't already play to the required standard?
--------------------------------------
The older I get, the better I was
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Author: JKL
Date: 2014-01-04 13:22
Watching the video you get the impression that Sulliman presented a completely new idea. I am convinced that the idea of "chaining" is as old as people reflect on how to learn music, presented by Sulliman intelligently, but a bit too seductively and suggestively, for commercial reasons.
- For those who understand German (I am afraid there is no english version available): read the book "Einfach üben" by Gerhard Mantel, page 148 ff. about "chaining", referring to the Violin teacher Carl Flesch, and about the benefit and the limitations of practising slowly: page 152 ff.
JKL
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2014-01-04 18:54
I like this approach, and have employed something like it -- just not to this level.
I'm not certain that I would present this to students (I teach beginners up to those auditioning for music) until they had a critical mass of other practice techniques that I think are necessary. Not to mention a critical mass of well developed fundamentals!
I agree with Sulliman's thoughts on issues that occur in attempting to improve things solely in a linear fashion: start slowly, get it right, repeat X times, +4 BPM on the metronome.
Far more efficient for me and those I teach is to:
1. Start slowly.
2. Repeat until it's easy.
3. Imagine a faster tempo -- hear every moment of what you're going to play
-- adjust the metronome to this tempo--
4. Play what you heard in your mind. (when possible -- hear it in your head as you play it and superimpose what you're hearing on your playing)
5. If you don't already have it -- recapture the level of ease from the original tempo
6. Repeat until it's easy.
Return to the original tempo. Play a couple of reps.
Repeat process with a faster tempo.
The goal here, in hearing what you want and then playing what you heard (or better still -- just playing along with your conception of what your final goal sounds like), is to shorten the connection between thinking what you want and DOING what you want.
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2014-01-04 19:05
A great technique to add to this, for someone who wasn't ready for so many notes, would be the five-note slide:
1 e + a 2 (repeated till comfortable)
e + a 2 e (repeated till comfortable)
+ a 2 e + (repeated till comfortable)
a 2 e + a (repeated till comfortable)
etc etc etc...
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2014-01-14 19:23
Liquorice, do you have any update on how this practicing technique worked for you?
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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