 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: jonathan.wallaceadams
Date: 2017-04-11 20:22
I'm a well-rounded player. I'm roughly mediocre at both technique and expression. I just started lessons with a new teacher and I'm excited to continue instruction with him. A big focus in our lesson was relaxing while playing music. Making it seem effortless. I can't figure out how to do this, however. I'm a very tense player currently and everybody who listens to me says that I sound rushed and frantic in my playing. Any suggestions?
Just an aspiring student.
Buffet Tradition
Mpc.: Hawkins "G", Barrel: Moba, Reeds: Reserve 3.5+
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Author: ruben
Date: 2017-04-11 20:29
Playing a lot of solo tempi-heartfelt adagios- and focusing on breathing as you do it.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-04-11 23:01
I think from what you write that it may not be possible for you at first to learn to "[relax] while playing music." You may need to go back to a more basic level and play material that doesn't distract you from the goal of playing "effortlessly."
As a "very tense player" you've developed a number of destructive habits that will need time and attention, not so much (as when you're working seriously on literature) to what's coming out of your clarinet, but to what you're putting in to get the result. So, my advice would be to start out with slow scales. Not the ones with a gazillion flats or sharps, but the basic, easy ones at a tempo that seems too slow. You may need some direction from your teacher, since he's there and can see what you're doing, to guide you on how to form your embouchure and use your fingers in ways that provide for the needed amount of muscular engagement without contorting or applying unneeded tension. This probably will have to be done with scales and fairly easy music played slowly, so that technical issues involving your fingers and your tongue are not involved. Your concern in playing this way is not to as much to make beautiful music (although playing these simple materials as beautifully as possible would be an excellent result) as to make the process of producing the music as easy as possible. Over a period of time (weeks?) you should be able to gradually increase tempo, but not beyond the point where you feel tension building.
We've already discussed using double-lip as an aid to relieving embouchure pinching - I forget if it was another thread of yours or not. Also, it should go without saying that if anything in your setup is encouraging extra tension, it needs to be adjusted or replaced with something easier.
You probably will not be able to limit your playing in this way for long periods of time - almost certainly you'll run out of patience with it before you've gotten through a full practice session. So, after spending time with the "ease-of-playing" approach, you'll want to try to apply it to more involved music. This probably won't be a quick change in your playing if the excess tension is as habituated as you've described, so be patient. Look for ways to apply what you discover. I think that, as you begin to be able to reproduce a more relaxed approach from session to session on easy, undemanding material, you will begin to be able to apply it to the rest of your material. Play a fast etude at a moderate, smooth tempo instead of the too fast tempo you want to use. Play a staccato etude both slower and with a longer note length than you would normally do.
Eventually, of course, by monitoring the tension levels in your fingers and your mouth, you'll be able to correct excesses as you feel them building. At that point you'll be right there with most of the rest of us. Any time you feel extra tension building, step back, slow down and get it under control. It's a constant task.
Karl
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2017-04-12 01:44
If you sound "rushed and frantic" in your playing it probably has to do with how you play the time. Jazz/blues players and especially drummers are very aware of whether they are playing on the front or the back side of the beat. These are tiny deviations from playing the notes metronomically. Listen for example to Errol Garner on piano and how unbelievably late his right hand comes down compared to his left hand and the rest of the band. Many classical musicians, while believing that they are playing in time, are actually often slightly in front or behind the beat. Usually this has to do with whether they are playing crescendo or diminuendo and where they consider the high point of their phrase to be. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and fits into what Daniel Barenboim describes as "signs of life" in music making. However, I believe that in all styles of music, it is good to develop an awareness of these micro deviations from the beat so that we can use them deliberately.
For you it might be useful to practise playing late on the beat. Another way to look at this would be to try to fill every beat or subdivision as much as possible: play as long as you can force yourself to before moving on to the next note. Of course this won't be ideal for all pieces of music, but might be a useful tool to try to avoid sounding rushed all the time?
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Author: thereallukasj
Date: 2017-04-12 10:10
How I relax while playing is to mainly to express myself when playing. If I feel like holding a crescendo note longer in a solo because it feels right to me... I do it. Another thing is to make sure your instrument is good (I would be incredibly tense and rushed if my instrument was bad or needed work). A good way to express yourself is playing improv. One example of relaxation and pure expression is Michael Lowenstern playing "Summertime" on bass clarinet. You can tell he is in his own world of enjoyment, self expression, and pure relaxation. Look that song up on youtube it's incredible. Be confident, enjoy what you are doing, and most of all be yourself
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2017-04-12 18:15
Then again, some very great musicians just don't do "effortless" much. They're naturally wired to push tempo and other things. They learn to make it work.
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Author: BrianLundberg
Date: 2017-04-12 18:46
As a disclaimer, I fight the similar battle as you. I have all my life.
Most recently, I have learned this about myself, and I hope it may help you:
I have cut back my practice times. Not because I think everyone should, but because I loose focus easily. Believe it or not, I go about 20 minutes at a shot (give or take ten minutes...)
Now that I can remember the areas I am working on in practice, I can stop "playing" and start "cleaning."
I practice very slow until it is completely in my fingers (developed muscle memory).
I don't bring the tempo up until I can play it from memory with intended phrasing and articulation. (I have a horrible memory)
Then I pull back, with tempo increased, and play the problem area in its context so I remember my goal of the phrase inside its context.
Do this with each area, but I limit the time I spend in practice sessions to shorter intervals.
I also work on the music in smaller "blocks," if that makes any sense.
After a short time, I find I can breathe without stacking air, count without the incessant need to tap the tempo, and best of all- I have the found freedom to sing. I can get past my frantic and tense playing... and not be so linear all the time where appropriate.
Hope this might help someone.
Brian
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Author: RKing
Date: 2017-04-12 19:00
I don't play with a double lip, but agree with every technique Karl suggests above. I had a similar experience when I came back to clarinet after many years on the sax. I was tense and my whole body was rigid as I tried to hold the instrument, find the little finger holes, and make beautiful music.
The main problem was my diaphragm. It was almost too tight to breathe and I would simply blow through breath marks until I gasped for air. Kind of killed the mood of the music. <LOL> It also prompted me to bite the reed and do many other bad things.
My solution was to consciously tell myself to RELAX and I still do it today. I have a nice ergonomic chair in my practice studio and the first thing I learned to do was to lean back and slouch in that chair like a bored teenager while I ran my scales every day. Playing like this keeps me relaxed at home and now I rarely have to think about it at rehearsal or performance.
Other things to consider -- I use a neck strap and that takes some of the strain of my right hand, wrist, and arm. I put the clarinet down in my lap and wiggle my arms and hands between numbers. Anything you can do to release tension will show up in a smoother performance, but it will have to be a conscious effort at first.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-04-12 20:17
BrianLundberg wrote:
> and best of
> all- I have the found freedom to sing.
I'm not sure Brian meant this literally, as distinct from "singing on the clarinet." But it brings up a point I didn't make before. Sometimes you need to imagine the music you're playing without having the technical demands of the instrument get in the way. Literally singing a passage can give you the freedom to conceptualize tempo and rhythm (even if you can't easily get the pitches right) more naturally. There are no tense fingers or pinching lip muscles to get in the way.
I know that many people get self-conscious when asked to sing around other people (getting my students to sing is hard even though I sing to them all the time), so this may be a practice technique best suited to the practice room when no one else is listening.
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-04-12 20:24
Philip Caron wrote:
> Then again, some very great musicians just don't do
> "effortless" much. They're naturally wired to push tempo and
> other things. They learn to make it work.
I'm not sure what or who you have in mind. If by "[pushing] tempo and other things" you mean they play faster or louder or softer or more staccato or more (fill in the blank) than other people (leaving the rest of us in the dust), then yes, great players push things when to them the music demands it. I don't think this equates to the OP's description of his playing as "rushed and frantic," which implies an out-of-control quality that no really great musician would get away with.
Karl
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2017-04-12 21:25
There are a lot of good comments here.
The problem can be how much muscle effort is needed to get a nice sound. Sometimes clarinet playing feels like doing yoga with a 15kg (33lb) weight around your neck.
Basic areas of posture and breathing bear attention. Long tones help.
Still, it can be tough to remember that you are in reality a musician trying to make cool sounds.
All the "gotta's" gets in the way: "I gotta remember to play that C# on the left." "I gotta remember to breath there." "I gotta hang on the stick." "I gotta stay with the singer." etc. etc. These make it tough to get in the slot and just make music. Even if you get there, it won't happen all the time.
And it isn't just clarinet: videos of Itzhak Perlman show him playing so wonderfully yet many times sweating over every note.
A vocalist friend's teacher told him to listen louder than he sings. This can help a lot.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-04-13 01:44
I like Liquorice's comments about how aware jazz players are of whether they are playing on, ahead of, or after the beat. Clarinet instruction often pays much more attention to fingering, tuning, articulating, and phrasing than to rhythm and meter. Many students would benefit from extensive practice in what Pasqual Bona called "Rhythmical Articulation" in an old voice training book of the same name (which every clarinet student should be able to read through with great rhythmic awareness and accuracy.)
There are several books that go beyond Bona's in drilling the basics of rhythm. Joe Allard's Advanced Rhythm book is very hard work to play through both in regular and especially in cut time. He gets you used to some very awkward rests, ties, and rhythms that most practice books ignore but regularly occur in music. Jeanjean's Etudes Progressive et Melodique (books 2 and 3) place rhythms side by side that sound similar but not identical, and it is great discipline to learn to differentiate them, especially since you also have to fight through difficult key signatures. Paco D'Rivera's 8 Etudes for Latin Jazz have tricky syncopated patterns that really make you listen and count and feel where the beat is (just as Allard's book does). Reading modern jazz charts (or practice material written by competent people to faithfully represent those charts) has a great transfer value to classical clarinet. Two good practice books are Bob Mintzer's 12 Contemporary Jazz Etudes and Bob McChesney's Jazz Etudes and Jazz Duets.
These are available on Internet. Anyone who can play fluently through them will have developed a solid grasp of rhythm and meter. Other useful practice books are Lennie Niehaus's three Jazz Conception volumes (based on be-bop) and the general intro book, Music Speed Reading for Beginners by David Hickman. Hickman stresses reading notes and rhythms in recognizable units, a concept sometimes known as "chunking." Bill Douglas (Stolzman's musical partner) stresses similar rhythmical ideas in his Vocal Rhythm Etudes, now available from reallygoodmusic.com. Players who can "chunk" through many many rhythmic combinations, always knowing and feeling where the elements of a pattern lie in relation to the beat will be much less nervous in performance than those who can't. Clarinetists who don't work to develop a solid sense of rhythm will have much to be nervous about. One reality check is to go through Leonard Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs, and clap and sing not just the clarinet part but the sax parts too, and then go back and play each one on the clarinet. YouTube has an old 1950s performance of this piece, conducted by Bernstein, and featuring Al Gallodoro playing both the lead alto and the solo clarinet parts, without missing a beat.
Post Edited (2017-04-14 19:17)
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2017-04-13 04:16
Karl, I was thinking in terms of individuals' temperaments. Some people are keyed tighter than others, and it is reflected in their personal style of play. They aren't uncontrolled in projecting something other than they intended, but they do take risks, both technical and musical, and sometimes audibly push themselves right along the edge of disaster. Listeners rarely hear their playing as "effortless". Often these artists are controversial, and "rushed and frantic" might in some of their performances be apt descriptors.
I'm somewhat familiar with classical pianists. Three pianists who often have displayed the kind of nervous temperament I refer to come quickly to mind: Horowitz, Cziffra, and Argerich. They've all been frequently accused of rushing and/or nervously energized playing. Among clarinetists, Martin Frost; though he's certainly capable of fully controlled "effortless" playing, whenever I've heard him do it he was not as interesting as when he allowed is wilder temperament free rein.
On the other hand, there are many great musicians whose temperaments tend much more toward control in every dimension. They do sound like their playing and interpreting is effortless and natural. In their performances, everything necessary is there and perfectly proportioned, and that's it. Pianist Artur Rubinstein and clarinetist Robert Marcellus (the little I've been lucky to hear of him) were like that.
I'm glad there's such disparity. I'd never advocate against developing control in every aspect of playing. But neither, if an individual is by nature fire rather than ice, would I want them to hamper themselves.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-04-13 06:56
Philip Caron wrote:
> Karl, I was thinking in terms of individuals' temperaments.
> Some people are keyed tighter than others, and it is reflected
> in their personal style of play.
> Three pianists
> who often have displayed the kind of nervous temperament I
> refer to come quickly to mind: Horowitz, Cziffra, and Argerich.
> Among clarinetists, Martin Frost;
Horowitz had a reputation as an eccentric, personally as well as musically. I don't know the other two pianists.
Philip, I understand what you're suggesting, but I don't think it has much to do with Jonathan's difficulty. For one thing, the only performer you mentioned who was primarily an ensemble (orchestral) player is Marcellus, who represents for you the unforced, unfrantic, effortless-sounding end of the spectrum. Unless Jonathan has his sights on a career as a soloist, he won't have the freedom to play in an edgy, frantic, on the edge style very often.
Ricardo Morales is another example of a polished player who makes everything *seem* effortless. But I'm certain he plays every note when the conductor drives the orchestra to to edge of the possible. I've never heard Morales play in a way I'd call frantic or rushed or near the edge (even when he's doing what to me seems humanly impossible), but at the very least he needs, to the extent that he ever goes in that direction, to be able to turn it on and off at will, not because nervous and frantic are innate characteristics of his temperament.
I think in any case Jonathan has it right when he says he wants his playing to *seem* effortless. Good playing is never, I would say, actually effortless. We still have to control the reed, the air we use to produce the sound and our fingers. The goal is to hide that effort from the listener. If we sweat while we're on stage, we hope the audience isn't close enough to see it. If we're shaking from nervousness or our stomachs feel queasy before we play, we want the audience to be blissfully unaware of it.
Karl
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2017-04-13 20:25
You have to be relaxed at all time..this is because in order to do what you want with the music..which of course you already know..then the pieces fall into place from there. I took some lessons with John McCaw and he said the Nielsen with Horenstein..this is the crazy solo in nr.5...he said it was easy because Horenstein put him at ease.
One of the reasons why orchestras..etc have high attrition rates is because of tension and the problems which arise from hurting yourself while performing!
M
David Dow
Post Edited (2017-04-13 20:29)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-04-14 02:46
D Dow wrote:
> One of the reasons why orchestras..etc have high attrition
> rates is because of tension and the problems which arise from
> hurting yourself while performing!
I don't disagree with your main point, David. but what orchestras are suffering high attrition rates? It seems to me in the top orchestras most players don't leave until they're forced to unless it's to go to an even better-paid, more prestigious and commensurately higher pressure gig.
Karl
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2017-04-14 05:54
Relaxing when I play helps A WHOLE LOT!!! I never noticed it till I worked on it.
To work on relaxing, I played basic scales, VERY slowly. Page 123 out of Klose or something like that, at quarter notes at 60 bpm. Take a few deep and relaxed breaths before starting. When focusing on relaxing, I would focus on moving my fingers SOOO lazily, that I could hear the fuzz and quartertones produced by the finger slowly covering the tone holes. So slow, I could feel the air buzz against the pads of my fingers. I focused on minimal movement of fingers (not raising them too high, just high enough to free whatever tone hole I wanted to sound). I imagined my fingers moving as though through thick jelly, how slow they would move. A lot of imagery, I know, but this is what worked for me.
I then increased speed slowly, focusing on remaining relaxed. My warmup before I play for a rehearsal is page 123 of the klose at 80 bpm. Fast enough that I can get it done with nice long steady breaths, but slow enough that I can keep my fingers loose and relaxed while warming up.
Of course I don't always play like my fingers are moving through jelly, but it got me in the habit of not using excess pressure to raise or lower my fingers, and helped me to release excess tension as I played. When I play unfamiliar pieces, or have to sight-read, certainly I'm a little more tense, but no where near where I used to me.
Alexi
PS - I recently had a co-worker remark she used to laugh when she saw me play cause I visibly relax and my eyelids droop a bit and it would look like I was falling asleep while playing pieces.
US Army Japan Band
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Author: sarawashere
Date: 2017-04-14 07:54
Stalk an opera singer. They do a lot of really helpful breath work that has helped me a lot in keeping more relaxed as someone who has the same problem. (My personal fav is Joyce DiDonato and a lot of her masterclasses are really great/available)
Post Edited (2017-04-14 07:58)
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2017-04-15 20:24
Karl did you check the Cleveland orchestra attrition rate in the early 90s and late 2001 season..they seemed to on the verge of a whole new group at one point. I am 52 and still play in freelance work with no problems..many flautist and oboe player by 60 years old are crippled. This is from playing with alot of tension..just like the same type used to type in a compute..it is called repetitive stress.
David Dow
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2017-04-15 21:39
For physical activity I took years of karate and also something called the Alexander Technique. You can also get into Yoga. All of these will surely relax you. Then you can learn to use these principals in music playing as well as your daily life.
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
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