 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: tonyscarr
Date: 2014-10-03 04:35
In faster etudes, any general thoughts on how close to indicated speed one should get before moving on to the next etude? More specifically, with the Uhl etudes? Thanks for all feedback.
Tony Scarr
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-10-03 05:23
These pieces are not meant for performance and metronome marks (or even in some cases verbal tempo markings) are not always the composer's, although I don't know enough about the Uhl studies to know who provided those indications. I have always thought of studies like these as vehicles through which to expose the player using them to certain technical skills and musical styles. The Uhl studies, for example are very different both technically and stylistically from the Rose studies (or the string studies they're base on) or anything Klose wrote or compiled. All of these can easily be approached spirally - i.e. you can "master" them at one level at one time in your development and then come back to them when your playing has matured and work further on them.
If a set of etudes or even a single one from a set is so beyond your technical readiness that you need to use unmusically slow tempos just to get through them, they may be better left entirely aside for a later time. But I don't see any reason why etudes must be learned to complete mastery at some ideal tempo if you feel you've learned to play them cleanly at a musically sensible tempo and have hit a plateau. At that point, it's often, IMO, better to go on to something new that may provide more stimulation for its novelty.
In any case, metronome marks are not in themselves sacred scripture even in music meant for public performance. Composers who provide specific metronome marks have often been know to perform their own compositions at different tempos than the ones they notated in the published score. The ones given in an etude collection are one person's view (either the composer or an editor) of how fast Allegro con spirito or Scherzo ma non troppo should be, and even composers can hear tempos in their imaginations that don't turn out to work well in real sound.
Don't worry about the metronome marks as much as the musical spirit of the piece. In the end what you achieve from practicing a study is more important than whether it meets some objective standard of speed.
Karl
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Author: Johan H Nilsson
Date: 2014-10-03 19:20
I find it useful to practice technical pieces with a metronome. I tend to play the difficult passages slower than the easy ones. I don't think I am unique.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-10-03 20:56
But it depends on why you're practicing the etude whether or not this is truly a bad thing (slowing down the hardest passages). If everything is clean and controlled and you're able to take your mind off the fingerings and note durations enough to notice phrasing issues and other musical features (starting with the tempo and dynamic changes that are written into the music), it seems counterproductive to me to remain with a study long enough to get those fast passages up to the tempo of the rest of the piece if they are proving to be especially resistant to improvement. This, given a player's level of technical control at the time, might take far more time than the eventual benefit will be worth. More productive, in my opinion, to go on to some new challenge than to get stuck in a plateau that will in any event have improved the next time around just because of the player's general progress.
What's important is that the passage you're playing slower out of context is in itself controlled and steady.
BTW, a metronome is far more useful as a standard for keeping a tempo or pulse regular, whatever the speed of the pulse is. It isn't so important that you reach a specific number, but that you get to a point where your tempo, whatever it is, is steady and under control.
Karl
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Author: tacet
Date: 2014-10-03 22:48
I think it is likely that the metronome marks in the Uhl 48 were <intended> to be taken seriously. There is a preface in some of the printings indicating that the studies are supposed to familiarise the student with the technical demands of "contemporary music" (which refers to non-atonal music in the german tradition up to the 1930s obviously). Uhl (not a clarinetist but a composer of some standing) was reportedly assisted on technical matters by a prominent clarinetist of the time. So there would have been a clear understanding of both the musical and technical objectives, which includes the speed aspect.
That said, I agree with kdk that it is more important to play even these studies clean than to play them at the exact indicated speed. I would suggest working up to a speed at which you can play the entire study cleanly and musically, then "perform" it to yourself (or, better, your teacher) and note that metromome setting in the page margin -- as a benchmark to challenge the next time you come back to it.
(tacet)
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Author: Johan H Nilsson
Date: 2014-10-04 11:01
KDK, I agree an etude can have more important ingredients than tempo. The question is why not to slow tempo down so you can play the etude evenly.
Playing with a metronome once in a while gives these benefits IMO:
1. Detecting the passages where you slow down and need to train on.
2. Preventing a bad habit of unintended tempo change.
Post Edited (2014-10-04 11:02)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-10-04 17:54
Johan H Nilsson wrote:
> KDK, I agree an etude can have more important ingredients than
> tempo. The question is why not to slow tempo down so you can
> play the etude evenly.
No reason not to do this. The original question was whether or not to move on once that has been accomplished with an etude or wait until he can get through the entire thing at the full indicated metronome mark.
For example, in #3 of Uhl's 48 Studies, if I have a student who can play most of it at quarter=96 or somewhere close to it, but breaks down a little in the 5th line (arguably a little more awkward) but can play it cleanly at quarter=84, certainly there's nothing wrong with going back for continuity's sake and playing the whole thing at 84, although I'm not sure doing that repeatedly offers a real benefit. But, if 84 represents a plateau for that passage - continuing practice isn't getting it faster, I wouldn't recommend staying resolutely with the etude until the whole thing can be executed cleanly at 96. The next two etudes, if you're doing them sequentially, exercise different skills.
If, however, *in order just to get the notes right,* the student needs to drop the tempo as far as 40-48 and struggles to move much beyond that, my reaction would be that the etude is too hard - in this case that the book itself should wait until later.
Of course, Tony hasn't identified the etude or described the difficulties he finds in it, so there's no way to be specific.
>
> Playing with a metronome once in a while gives these benefits
> IMO:
> 1. Detecting the passages where you slow down and need to train
> on.
> 2. Preventing a bad habit of unintended tempo change.
>
Yes, I agree with this completely. And in neither case does the actual numeric tempo matter, but rather that you have a stable tempo standard to judge your playing against.
Karl
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Author: Johan H Nilsson
Date: 2014-10-05 00:07
Karl, it seems we were discussing two different things. I was slightly off-topic. Btw, I am the non-sequential, multi-tasking guy always practicing 10 different etudes at the same time. It gets too boring otherwise and I think the brain can only take a limited dose of one etude per day. With a teacher things are usually more sequential.
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Author: yeahhhboiieslice
Date: 2014-10-08 07:42
I'm working in the 32 étude book by Rose and my teacher will mark a tempo, but then he tells me I need to find places to slow down. I think as a performer you have to kind of feel the music. Tempo markings are really just suggestions if you're playing by yourself. If you followed it the whole time it would sound robotic
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