 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2016-06-11 21:14
Let's do a music (rather than equipment) topic for a change. :-)
I have 10-12 performance pieces I am working to maintain and polish. For an extended period of months my routine on most days has been to play about 8 of them at tempo with my backing tracks. So each piece would get played at least 2 out of 3 days. Occasionally I would work an individual piece slower (without backing- had not figured out how to slow down Cakewalk Sonar), especially where there was trouble. But not routinely.
About 2 weeks ago I had an "aha" moment with Sonar*, and promptly made slower tracks for all of my songs- either 120% or 130% of time. That doesn't sound like much, but man it is SLOW. At first I tried 200%- no way.
So now I am doing a slow, then a regular speed play, for 3 or 4 songs per day. That means a given song is played about every 3 or 4 days. I think I am gaining precision on everything- some of you are thinking "of course". OK I am an old dog but I can learn new tricks. The slow tracks are WONDERFUL- especially compared to playing with no track- for helping me increase the precision and (perhaps) complexity of my improvisations- it's always been a moving target.
The slow iterations are making me play more long notes especially on songs that were already slow. I think that's good.
So what do you think about more work on fewer songs per day?
Eventually I expect I'll post some slow vs normal clips here.
*Edited to add- All along I had been trying to figure out how to temporarily alter the tempo in Sonar Cakewalk whenever I wanted to slow down (I think an early MIDI-only Cakewalk version even had a half-speed button). But audio tracks will not respond to tempo changes, so nothing obvious would work. Finally I realized I could take my mixed backing track for each song and add it as a new audio track with a predefined time stretch, usually muted. When I want slow tempo, I just "solo" the slow backing track and the live clarinet track (gives me reverb). Easy once I got it down.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2016-06-12 18:09)
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2016-06-11 21:52
I'll vote for slower and more precise practice over "trying to get through" them any day.
In a nutshell, once you've worked up a piece, it will NOT take as long to bring it "back" to performance ready. Particularly if you play through it regularly (your every 4 days would be fine to have it a a level that will make it very easy to work back up).
The only thing to just keep in the back of your mind (and it's a small thing) is to not get in the habit of different breath marks. Logic says you can play more measures at a faster tempo than at 120% slower, so you will probably have to breathe more often at the slower tempo. When you work it back up, make sure you're breath spots are correct.
Alexi
PS - this is the same argument as to why people work through scales and excerpts regularly. Even though you might not have played that scale or excerpt for a while (maybe a few weeks, months, etc), it's easier to recall and work it back up if you spent the time previously working on it. I don't know the last time I've worked on an f# major scale in thirds. But when I see it music, I won't be starting at level 0 because I HAVE worked on it in the past.
US Army Japan Band
Post Edited (2016-06-11 21:53)
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-06-12 05:14
"especially where there was trouble"
Spoken generally:
"Never practice faster than you can take a piece or section of music" is a music teacher's credo, and should be.
Research has reinforced our ability to more easily recall/relearn and speed up (to a point) that which we've done correctly, even if taken slower, over that we've repeatedly taken too fast, [partially] messed up, and trained our minds (creatures of habit) to repeat. (Alexi's thoughts in part.)
Introducing a mechanism which causes you to reinforce error (in this case tempo) has very limited use in improving proficiency, beyond the "okay, you see why I don't want you doing it this way," opportunity for knowledge transfer.
Such students have to start from square one, at slow speeds, and work their way to proficiency much slower, having the task of not only breaking the old bad habit, but learning the new. Confidence issues over getting the section right become a viscous cycles. Worrying messes you up. Messing up makes you worried. Slowing down turns them into virtuous cycles.
This is not an endorsement of the "always practice slow school." Rather, I'm an advocate of making frequent alternations to the speed (at accurately doable tempos) so that when called upon to make adjustments to tempo that might be beyond the player's control, they're not stuck at the ability to only play at one tempo. Knowing that I may do this, I've deliberately changed tempos on students. You would be amazed at things young minds can take fast, but not slower. I call that tempo inflexibility (someone else probably did before me.)
Ideally, practicing to the point of accuracy, at slightly faster than needed tempo, like running with ankle weights, improves ability and confidence (which improves ability) come performance.
Less practice material, done correctly, less frequently, (within reason) beats the fast approach no differently that a smaller well built net often catches more fish that a big one with holes in it.
I don't fashion myself to have shared anything everyone doesn't already know already, and yet might not realize or appreciate.
Heck, pick up something you've never played before and work on it. I think anyone's repertoire might improve as a result, and doubt it will be hurt. *
We all need to remember, moderation and pragmatism in this type of training. Don't repeat the measures to the point of repetitive motion injury. Don't take the entire piece at the one slow tempo at which you can handle the hard stuff.
You're time is too precious. Use the metronome and use it properly: to better you with accuracy and tempo consistency. If you fight it, it works against you and always wins the speed war you lose.
* (and what book has all the other pieces in it? Klose, Baermann, Kell, Lazrus, Rose, and Kroepsch, to name a few, know that one. They are to our performance pieces what the dictionary is to great novels.)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-06-12 06:34
Whether with reeds or with practice approach, it seems to me important to avoid becoming obsessively intent on systematic process at the expense of specific goals.
One of the fundamental principles of practice is that you should concentrate your attention on what you don't do well. Review what you already do comfortably and reliably, but practice - work to improve - those passages that are truly problems for you. If a piece (you call them songs, but I'm not completely sure what kind of pieces these are that you "play" at a rate of 3 or 4 per day) is secure, it doesn't need the same time commitment needed for another piece that still has awkward spots for you. If 90% of a specific piece is completely under control, it doesn't need the time or attention the 10% you can't play reliably needs.
It wouldn't be unreasonable to start a session by playing through at tempo one or two songs that you play well reliably and then move on to one that still needs polish You may easily plan to spend more time on that one than the first two combined. If 90% of a piece is completely under control, play through it (or not) and then spend time working with the problematic 10% in any way you find effective - slow it down, vary the rhythm in a note-y passage with awkward fingerings, slow and subdivide a rhythmically unsteady area, try starting with the last few notes and work backward, adding more notes at the beginning as you smooth each fragment out - the available practice techniques are many and each has its own way of helping with difficult-to-master passages.
IMO, you accomplish much more real improvement more quickly by practicing what you can't do well and letting what you can already do take care of itself through relaxed review. (Again, IMO) slow practice of pieces you already know is fairly useless as a systematic technique. Slow practice of an entire piece because there are a couple of bars you're having trouble with accomplishes nothing much for the already secure portion and takes time away from working out the troublesome measures.
The overarching point is that setting up a routine that doesn't take into account what specifically needs to be improved is likely to be under-productive.
Karl
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2016-06-12 07:01
Thanks for the comments.
I classify my "troubles" in at least 2 categories- 1) spots that are at the limits of what I am capable of- or are still unsettled as to what exactly I'm playing- so I'm frequently having a problem at any speed, and 2) phrases or lines that are usually well under control, but on a particular playing are flawed enough to bother me.
The 2's are kind of random, though they do happen more often at difficult spots than easier sections. I see them as more an indicator of overall play quality- am I fully warmed up? how's the reed behaving? (let's not go there), am I playing this song frequently enough?
The 1's are all places I have played well at tempo many times- just not as reliably as I would like. And I can stop and work them and it may help for today or tomorrow or next week- hard to know sometimes. Yes, in the past I have isolated these spots for slow play.
Playing entire songs at slow speed is a new thing to me, and it FEELS like it's good, but perhaps I will eventually abandon it as wasteful of playing time. For now it is forcing me to make sure the entire song is clean (or to think about anything that isn't). Oddly, or perhaps others know this- even an intricate passage can feel more difficult slower, I can "blow it" on the slow run and then nail it on the regular speed run, and I don't think it's just because it's harder to feel and hear mistakes at speed. Some weird mind things going on, I'm sure.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2016-06-13 00:17
Quote:
One of the fundamental principles of practice is that you should concentrate your attention on what you don't do well. Review what you already do comfortably and reliably, but practice - work to improve - those passages that are truly problems for you. If a piece (you call them songs, but I'm not completely sure what kind of pieces these are that you "play" at a rate of 3 or 4 per day) is secure, it doesn't need the same time commitment needed for another piece that still has awkward spots for you. If 90% of a specific piece is completely under control, it doesn't need the time or attention the 10% you can't play reliably needs. Excellent point. remjnds me of something I heard - something along the lines of, "if you always sound good in the practice room, you're practicing the wrong stuff"
US Army Japan Band
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2016-06-13 19:11
Duly noted. So now I'm working on cataloging the difficult spots, with a view to deliberately isolating them for priority work.
This concept is nothing new to me, but- like knowing how to exercise, diet, study, or whatever- knowing gets you nowhere unless you do.
I have always been concerned about maintaining what I already have under control, given my limited resource of practice time. So I will have to monitor what happens to the good stuff while I give extra time to the not so good. Stay tuned.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-06-13 19:19
fskelley wrote:
> I have always been concerned about maintaining what I already
> have under control, given my limited resource of practice time.
> So I will have to monitor what happens to the good stuff while
> I give extra time to the not so good. Stay tuned.
>
That's why a flexible rather than a regimented approach is preferable. If something begins to slip, you can always move it into the "needs work" class until it's back under control.
Karl
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Author: brycon
Date: 2016-06-14 02:53
Stan,
Like Karl, I don't really have a single method for getting something up to performance-ready and/or keeping it there; smart practicing is tailoring your approach to the specific piece.
But I have found that once I get something up to performance standard, it takes very little effort to maintain it. I've come back to pieces I performed four or five years ago and only needed a week or two to get it back up (technically challenging contemporary works too). So you may be wasting effort on trying to maintain your pieces--maybe they don't need that work. I think if you want to keep these pieces performance-ready, you should be frequently performing them (for friends, family, etc.). When you perform them, new issues might come up (issues that don't always arise in the practice room), and you can then tamp them down with your day-to-day practice techniques.
For me, your maintaining and polishing regime seems excessive. I assume some things that you play are never a technical issue? So why practice them so much? But, everyone's different, so it may work well for you.
If these pieces are improvised, you should really be performing them for people regularly because live improvised performance feels completely different than the practice room. Also, I've found (and most improvisers will agree) that backing tracks and play-alongs are crutches; they give you a false sense of security, the illusion of nailing the changes and having good time. Playing tunes with the metronome only (and recording yourself) is a much better use of practice time.
Anywho, good luck and apologies for the scattered nature of my thoughts.
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