 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Maruja
Date: 2020-08-26 14:33
During lockdown, I have been reviewing my clarinet technique and have made a check list of all the things I need to think about before setting off on an étude or short piece... these include embouchure, when to tongue and slur, keeping a wide oral cavity and many more. My question is: is it a good idea to isolate these and say to myself - on this playthrough I will concentrate on, say, embouchure, but on the next one I will make sure my timing is accurate (these are just examples). At some stage I need to bring these all together and I am concerned that in dealing with them in isolation I am not learning how to keep lots of balls in the air at the same time. Or by isolating, will I be making certain things automatic and then I won't need to think about them consciously any more?
Any thoughts?
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2020-08-26 15:03
To my mind's eye it always made sense to tackle a specific task in order to work it and improve it. You see that in all disciplines to include sports where professional athletes do drills as part of their regular training routine. Just like that though, you can mix that up from hour to hour or day to day and have time in the day where you bring that together (mixing up how much percentage of time is devoted to isolation vs. integration). It's all about variety and maintaining your interest.
To that end though I have to ask, when you say "wide oral cavity," are you saying that you believe you should drop your tongue or configure as if saying "AAAAH?"
For more focus (in a traditionally orchestral sound) I'd say that a relaxed position of the tongue (when you're just sitting there typing on your computer for example) or perhaps a position one takes when pronouncing the sound "EEEEE" would be preferable.
Something to consider when you are isolating tone.
.................Paul Aviles
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Author: Ken Lagace
Date: 2020-08-26 16:37
Another tip - record yourself. That is a 'friend' in the room with you who can help.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2020-08-26 22:07
Maruja wrote:
> During lockdown, I have been reviewing my clarinet technique
> and have made a check list of all the things I need to think
> about before setting off on an étude or short piece... these
> include embouchure, when to tongue and slur, keeping a wide
> oral cavity and many more. My question is: is it a good idea to
> isolate these and say to myself - on this playthrough I will
> concentrate on, say, embouchure, but on the next one I will
> make sure my timing is accurate (these are just examples).
People are different in their learning styles and their ways of focusing their attention on things. Some are comfortable starting with a whole and breaking it down to its parts as needed. Some are more at ease perfecting each small element and building them into a larger whole. I don't think either is wrong - except if you try to force one procedural approach on someone who is more naturally inclined to the other (or gradations in between them).
The real issue is whether or not you're connecting whatever you're working on to the result it produces. You have to be sure you're listening to your playing. Recording, as Ken suggests, may be useful if the technical aspects don't become a distraction from your main purpose in practicing, which is to improve your playing. But no matter what you're doing, practice results need to be judged and, if necessary, adjusted according to what you hear. Embouchure and oral shapes have no purpose except to produce a musical result. Slurring and tonguing, as distinct from the technical aspects of legato fingering and clean articulation, have no real meaning outside of a musical context.
However you organize your practicing, critical listening needs to be part of the process with the goal of enjoying what's working well and improving what isn't.
Karl
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2020-08-27 02:24
>> People are different in their learning styles and their ways of focusing their attention on things. Some are comfortable starting with a whole and breaking it down to its parts as needed. Some are more at ease perfecting each small element and building them into a larger whole. I don't think either is wrong - except if you try to force one procedural approach on someone who is more naturally inclined to the other (or gradations in between them). >>
What I'd say is important is HOW you break the whole down into parts.
What you did in your original post was to isolate concepts like 'embouchure', 'oral cavity', 'timing' and so on, and then think of your playing as constituted by them.
But the reality of playing isn't constituted by such concepts. No proper player builds their playing out of them; they are thinking about the musical result.
You're better off dividing your playing into smaller, REAL parts, and then looking in detail at how those work, or not. You could pick out a passage that you find unsatisfactory, and then listen to that in isolation. It could be a couple of bars, or even a few notes.
Playing that small extract will of course invove all of embouchure, oral cavity, timing and so on in combination. But because you're concentrating on IT, you're able to improve IT by repetition and listening.
I wrote a short post about choosing just THREE notes from a passage, and how it may be helpful. You can find it here.
:-)
Tony
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Author: Maruja
Date: 2020-08-27 15:39
Thank you all for your contributions. I think the general consensus is well summarized by what Tony says in his article in The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet - ' we do best to think beyond the technicalities and towards the music'. I shall do more listening to myself and finding out what works for me.
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2020-08-28 08:03
Yes, all good advice, especially Tony's. The question you ask is interesting-- about thinking about only one aspect of your playing while playing through the exercise, then a different aspect the next time.
Another idea may be to pick an easier etude/short piece so you are able to as you say, juggle more balls.
A really brief way of describing my approach is
1. basic stuff-embouchure, position, tone, etc. on very easy stuff or 1 note.
2. right notes.
3. right rhythms.
4. musicality--"what do you want to say", as they say. Dynamics, etc.
Some may disagree about where no.4 fits in.
2 & 3 can be learned without playing the instrument if that helps.
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tomheimer.ampbk.com/ Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001315, Musicnotes product no. MB0000649.
Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
Post Edited (2020-08-28 08:05)
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Author: brycon
Date: 2020-08-28 17:23
Quote:
A really brief way of describing my approach is
1. basic stuff-embouchure, position, tone, etc. on very easy stuff or 1 note.
2. right notes.
3. right rhythms.
4. musicality--"what do you want to say", as they say. Dynamics, etc.
Some may disagree about where no.4 fits in.
2 & 3 can be learned without playing the instrument if that helps.
Even if we were to accept this method of practicing, the ordering doesn't make sense. When we get to "musicality," for instance, there's an effect on the previous bullet points: e.g. for many students, a crescendo will result in an increase in tempo, opening up of the embouchure, etc. You would then have to go back and redo some of the work you had done on 1 through 3.
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2020-08-28 22:26
brycon, I see what you are saying, and don't really disagree. I guess what my order is saying is that if you are going to perform a piece of music, your notes, rhythms and tempi should be doable without thinking. Then when you are set with that, work on dynamics, subtle ritards, accelerandos, musicality in general. That way you can feel comfortable musically because the piece is easily within your technical grasp.
Or, don't try to play a piece musically if it is too hard for you technically.
I guess same can be said for etudes, studies.
I have in the past witnessed (or talked to about) the odd band director of beginners who will emphasize playing musically--because that is after all, why we play... But at the same time, there may be technical problems with their band-- wrong notes; nice crescendo, but like you said, they speeded up.
I guess there are different philsophies.
Back in college as a music major, I was taking some class where the prof. played 2 excerpts of clarinetists playing the Mozart Concerto. Knowing I was the clarinet guy, he pick on me to ask which I preferred. I picked the guy who had my idea of the perfect dark clarinet sound over the guy who didn't have such a "perfect" tone, but played much more expressively. Since the prof. was trying to make a point about musicality, I guess I didn't win his favour by picking the WRONG GUY! But on my list, good tone comes before musicality.
The Most Advanced Clarinet Book--
tomheimer.ampbk.com/ Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001315, Musicnotes product no. MB0000649.
Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
Post Edited (2020-08-28 22:32)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2020-08-28 22:49
Gustav Leonhardt once stopped the OAE mid-rehearsal and said, “Someone in the violas is playing MUSICALLY.
“I don’t like it.”
What did he mean?
Tony
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Author: kdk
Date: 2020-08-28 23:13
Probably someone adding expressive gestures that were out of character with the music and out of sync with the rest of the section.
Karl
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2020-08-28 23:26
So why did he call it ‘musical’?
How does this relate to #4 above?
Tony
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Author: kdk
Date: 2020-08-29 00:13
Tom H wrote:
> Then when you are set with that,
> work on dynamics, subtle ritards, accelerandos, musicality in
> general.
Well, I guess this may depend on the kind of learner you are. I can't imagine for myself, even at first sight of a piece, plowing through indicated tempo changes and clearly marked dynamics. My first impressions might need refinement later as I learn more about the piece, but I can't just put everything but notes and rhythms off until later. .
> I have in the past witnessed (or talked to about) the odd band
> director of beginners who will emphasize playing
> musically--because that is after all, why we play... But at the
> same time, there may be technical problems with their band--
> wrong notes; nice crescendo, but like you said, they speeded
> up.
> I guess there are different philsophies.
That band director may (IMO will) in the end have taught his students more than the one who insists on technical perfection (all the right notes and correct "counting"?) as a prerequisite to anything else. In the first place, technical perfection in a beginner band is an oxymoron. And the "expressive" demands or needs of beginner music aren't sophisticated enough to really allow much separation between mechanical and "musical" execution. Where does one end and the other begin? Wrong notes? They're far less destructive (again, IMO) than poor tone, chaotic lack of rhythmic ensemble, choppy one-note-per-breath phrasing and constant mezzo-something dynamic levels. Surely, even a beginner can play louder or softer and smoother or less connected as the music calls for, with a controlled tone, without having gotten to the point of never forgetting the key signature or blanking out on a fingering.
> Back in college as a music major, I was taking some class where
> the prof. played 2 excerpts of clarinetists playing the Mozart
> Concerto. Knowing I was the clarinet guy, he pick on me to ask
> which I preferred. I picked the guy who had my idea of the
> perfect dark clarinet sound over the guy who didn't have such a
> "perfect" tone, but played much more expressively. Since the
> prof. was trying to make a point about musicality, I guess I
> didn't win his favour by picking the WRONG GUY! But on my
> list, good tone comes before musicality.
>
I would place good tone within musicality - I don't know how to separate them.
My feeling from this post is that your view of "musicality" seems limited to crescendi and diminuendi with maybe a superimposed accent here and there, and tempo alterations. It is perfectly possible, though, to play a musical performance of Mary Had a Little Lamb or Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star without any of that.
Not to mention that you've now encroached onto our perennial topic of appropriate expressiveness in playing Mozart. Had you, in fact, picked the WRONG GUY?
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2020-08-29 00:34
Tony Pay wrote:
> So why did he call it ‘musical’?
Conductors can be a sarcastic lot. I suppose he noticed the player because he was independently adding expressive swells etc. or accents and emphases within the rest of the section's bowing that were not only superficial but stuck out. Without knowing more of the story I would assume the conductor meant "musically" in an ironic way.
>
> How does this relate to #4 above?
My next reply to Tom may connect this more explicitly to #4. There's not really technical over here and musical over there - musical playing includes all 4 areas. What one "has to say" results from the interface of technical execution and the inner reactions of the player, the meaning you as a player or, ultimately, as a listener give to a work of music you play or hear.
Karl
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2020-08-29 01:26
kdk, I agree with your reply. You can play Mary Had a Litttle Lamb musically with very little or no dynamics. Of course phrasing is of utmost importance as well--I should have included that along with dynamics (crescendos, etc.).
I guess my Mozart Concerto example was to say that the guy with the great tone didn't do much with dynamics, and maybe even phrasing. The other guy did a whole lot, but I had no use for his tone. I'd say fix the tone first, but that's just me.
I once asked Russianoff (circa 1974) for his views on good tone. He said good tone means you play in tune. I have also heard people say you don't have good tone if you are say, playing flat all the time. Think I disagree on both accounts. I think you can play grossly out of tune yet have a very nice dark mellow sound (just don't sit next to me....).
The Most Advanced Clarinet Book--
tomheimer.ampbk.com/ Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001315, Musicnotes product no. MB0000649.
Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
Post Edited (2020-08-29 01:30)
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Author: brycon
Date: 2020-08-29 04:17
Quote:
brycon, I see what you are saying, and don't really disagree. I guess what my order is saying is that if you are going to perform a piece of music, your notes, rhythms and tempi should be doable without thinking. Then when you are set with that, work on dynamics, subtle ritards, accelerandos, musicality in general. That way you can feel comfortable musically because the piece is easily within your technical grasp.
Sure: if it works for you and your students, go for it.
My point in questioning your how-to-practice ordering, though, was to say that expression is a technique. If you think of technique, as you seem to suggest, as performing a particular physical task at a particular moment (e.g. lifting a finger here, touching the tongue to the reed there, etc.), then phrasing and expression are technique. That is, a player has to engage his or her blowing muscles in a certain way and at a certain moment in the music to produce a decrescendo. And this physicality needs practicing just like "getting the right notes and rhythms."
For me, I've noticed that students who put off expression in the way you recommend never get around to putting it back in.
And I find this approach very problematic. Aside from the physicality of expression I mentioned, the problem with holding off on expression is that thinking seriously about it can help a student achieve a particular technical goal. When I work with students on the Mozart concerto, for example, I often have them sing the opening phrase and listen to the quality of their singing, the way they direct their air, treat the eighth-notes, create an expressive "character," and so on. When they go back to the clarinet, many of the technical issues are much improved--all without me having to mire in the Paul Aviles muck of "be sure you tongue with the tip of the blah, blah, blah."
Perhaps this approach doesn't work all the time and with every student. But I think it's not a good idea simply to toss it out.
Post Edited (2020-08-29 04:18)
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2020-08-29 04:49
I can understand what you're saying. I must admit that at times I can be somewhat robotic in my playing, so your point of addressing what I consider technical problems to exclusion of phrasing, expression, etc. may lend to someone not getting around to putting it back in.
Yeah, as you say, whatever works.
My approach to such pieces I've played like the Nielsen, Martino & Smith 5 Pieces was notes and rhythm first. These pieces push me to my technical limits, whereas a top symphony player may find them a piece of cake and be well able to go right to the musicality and exactly what they want to say when performing them.
That is what I will do with less demanding stuff like, Weber, Mozart, etc.
I think one's technical ability may dictate which way they practice. And as I proposed, not a good idea to play something beyond your technical ability. I found that out early in my Band teaching career-- judges like an easier piece played well technically & musically better than a more demanding one not played as well.
The Most Advanced Clarinet Book--
tomheimer.ampbk.com/ Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001315, Musicnotes product no. MB0000649.
Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
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