 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: BethGraham
Date: 2021-11-11 20:16
Today's quote is courtesy of Canadian clarinetist and teacher Avrahm Galper. What I take from it is that it's important to correct mistakes the first time you make them, rather than ignoring them and hoping they'll magically go away.
My teacher says -- and I've read this just about everywhere -- that once you've start playing the wrong thing, it is very difficult to unlearn it and play it correctly. Better to start off slowly and reinforce the correct notes, etc., every time you play.
Dear Mr. Galper also writes, "Do not ignore difficult passages -- practise them SLOWLY until you get them right." (Galper Clarinet Method Book 2, p. 4)
I'm thinking about slow, "perfect" practice this morning as I go through my daily work. I am an impatient adult learner, and would much rather "get to the good stuff" than, as basketball coach Red Auerbach famously said, "learn the fundamentals."
Learning clarinet is a test of my patience and focus (or lack thereof!).
Anyway, just wanted to share what was on my mind this morning.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2021-11-11 21:14
Bud Herseth, principal trumpet for decades with the Chicago Symphony, was fond of saying "Never practice, always perform." He believed in giving full attention to anything he played, including isolated technical studies, intervals, and scales by playing them as if an audience was listening. The object was to make them sound as good and interesting as if they were music. That was his version of practicing perfectly, and it works for clarinet as well as trumpet. Not only play the exercises accurately as written; find the alchemy to turn them into something worth hearing. Even he considered this this disciple difficult so he divided practice time into segments of 45 minutes each, separated by rests. He let his mind wander during the rests but clarify back to full awareness during the "performance" practice sessions.
Post Edited (2021-11-12 23:41)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2021-11-11 21:45
>> What I take from it is that it's important to correct mistakes the first time you make them, rather than ignoring them and hoping they'll magically go away.>>
Yes. But, you don't want to practise in such a way as 'not to make mistakes'.
The important thing is to NOTICE the mistakes you make. We play slowly because, if we play too fast, there's not enough time to notice them in detail.
You LEARN by noticing the mistakes you make – sometimes even more than by not making them.
'Pedantic' practice can build in its own problems.
Tony
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Author: BethGraham
Date: 2021-11-11 22:57
"We play slowly because, if we play too fast, there's not enough time to notice them in detail."
Yes, indeed! Mindfulness seems to come into this a great deal: Practice slowly, but know what the timing *should* be, know what the scale pattern *should* be, know what the phrase *should* sound like, so that when one is slowly practicing, one can notice the things that don't fit and fix them.
This is where having a trusted teacher comes in: to help one develop one's ear so one can be aware of when a mistake has happened.
Thanks, Tony! (What you said about "performance practice" makes a lot of sense, too, seabreeze.)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2021-11-12 15:57
When I we had this discussion before, the converse situation was mentioned, in which it's important to think about the different skills needed for passages that are intrinsically fast. I learned a huge amount from this video that was posted (I think it was Paul who posted it.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89ZtpOWEt4s&t=1s
I completely understand what you mean about the great wish to learn to play fast.
I hope the video helps.
Adult learner, Grade 3
Equipment: Yamaha Custom CX Bb, Fobes 10K CF mp,
Legere Bb clarinet European Cut #2.5, Vandoren Optimum German Lig.
Post Edited (2021-11-12 16:08)
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2021-11-12 17:43
How slow to play, how fast....how many mistakes to make....?
Provided that difficult material we seek to master is normally performed at a meter faster than we can play it correctly, we should choose a speed in which we've been able to play such music accurately before, but not one so trivial that we fail to advance, or one in which we virtually make no mistakes.
As soon as a mistake occurs we should slow things down to a speed at which we can play that section accurately. If we don't, all we "human creatures of habit" will be doing is reinforcing playing it wrong: something that the more we do, the harder it will be to break.
Beth: I hear on the impatience. Think of it this way. There are no quick tricks to advancement, just straight and curvy paths towards mastery: the straight paths being faster, but by no means fast. So, if impatience is the issue, recognize that for all its deliberateness, this "play no faster than you can take it accurately, but no slower than a rate at which you'll occasionally make mistakes" is your fastest route, even if by no means fast itself.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2021-11-12 21:03
Quote:
I'm thinking about slow, "perfect" practice this morning as I go through my daily work. I am an impatient adult learner, and would much rather "get to the good stuff" than, as basketball coach Red Auerbach famously said, "learn the fundamentals."
Perhaps the impatience you experience is a result of your practice not providing enough mental stimulation. The sort of slow, monotonous, repetitive, stick-with-it style of practicing I see often advocated for here would bore any sentient being. Jumping among tasks, what sports psychologists call "random practicing," can help with focus. Also, thinking less about technical perfection and more about musical expression can help.
We can think about a phrase or gesture, the shape, color, intensity, expression, etc. we want to achieve; try going for it without giving a damn about perfection; and see where the "mistakes" occur. The method of preemptively avoiding any mishap, by contrast, often leads to lifeless playing. Moreover, it doesn't allow you to fix your issues because you simply avoid making them: always playing softly, for example, so that your intonation doesn't go flat or always articulating legato so that voicing issues aren't so noticeable.
Quote:
As soon as a mistake occurs we should slow things down to a speed at which we can play that section accurately. If we don't, all we "human creatures of habit" will be doing is reinforcing playing it wrong: something that the more we do, the harder it will be to break.
I disagree. As soon as a mistake occurs, you need to determine for yourself what the cause of the mistake was. Maybe I was zoning out, thinking about when I'm going to start making dinner, and I flubbed something that I play correctly all the time, in which case there probably isn't any need to slow things down. Or perhaps it's some sort of issue with my playing, in which case perhaps I would try and replicate the mistake several times over so that I can figure out exactly what's happening. What's more, maybe the issue is with a single note connection, those pesky Ds to F#s in the D dominant arpeggios in the Mozart concerto, and it would be a far better use of my limited time to design some sort of exercise to address this specific problem rather than to practice an entire section of music at a slow speed.
Again, for me, this pedantic, one-size-fits-all, slow-everything-down-and-play-perfectly method is simply a terrible way of practicing the clarinet. But your mileage may vary.
Post Edited (2021-11-13 05:49)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2021-11-12 23:20
Brycon - I really like your explanation of how practice should work. The thing that really seems to work best for me is having the freedom to practise in a way that increases my enjoyment. I love being an adult learner, because I do have that freedom. I'm also really fortunate in having a teacher who is happy for me to do what makes me happy.
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2021-11-13 19:46
brycon wrote:
> Quote:
As soon as a mistake occurs we should slow things down
> to a speed at which we can play that section accurately. If we
> don't, all we "human creatures of habit" will be doing is
> reinforcing playing it wrong: something that the more we do,
> the harder it will be to break.
>
> I disagree. As soon as a mistake occurs, you need to determine
> for yourself what the cause of the mistake was. Maybe I was
> zoning out, thinking about when I'm going to start making
> dinner, and I flubbed something that I play correctly all the
> time, in which case there probably isn't any need to slow
> things down. Or perhaps it's some sort of issue with my
> playing, in which case perhaps I would try and replicate the
> mistake several times over so that I can figure out exactly
> what's happening. What's more, maybe the issue is with a single
> note connection, those pesky Ds to F#s in the D dominant
> arpeggios in the Mozart concerto, and it would be a far better
> use of my limited time to design some sort of exercise to
> address this specific problem rather than to practice an entire
> section of music at a slow speed.
>
> Again, for me, this pedantic, one-size-fits-all,
> slow-everything-down-and-play-perfectly method is simply a
> terrible way of practicing the clarinet. But your mileage may
> vary.
>
>
> Post Edited (2021-11-13 05:49)
Brycon, if the cause of a mistake can be determined and fixed without reducing meter.....great.
But if the material being played is just too much to handle initially at the meter played, slowing down yields better clues as to nature of the mistake and likelihood it won't be reproduced, allowing meter to gradually increase over time.
Boring...maybe....but consistent with how most people are wired--and improve with correct repetition so as to advance closer to performance tempo.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2021-11-13 20:46
Quote:
But if the material being played is just too much to handle initially at the meter played, slowing down yields better clues as to nature of the mistake and likelihood it won't be reproduced, allowing meter to gradually increase over time.
Sure but what is "the material"? A section of music? If you realize the issue is a connection between two notes, why not extract those two notes, practice them, and then put them back into their context.
Or perhaps hold onto the note right before you mess up as though it were a short fermata, give your mind a chance to catch up, and then go on. As you get more comfortable, then, you can shrink this long note but use it as a "guide note" to ground your technique.
Or perhaps you could practice the passage with different rhythms, such as long-short long-short, so that you're both practicing slow and fast, requiring your fingers to move with motion similar to what you'll use when you perform it at tempo.
Or perhaps, when you get to it, play the beat in which you have an issue at half tempo but keep everything else at full tempo. Then when you bring the beat back up to speed, try to maintain the sense of articulation in the fingers and singing through the line that you had at half tempo.
And so on.
There are many issues that can arise when we're practicing, and therefore we need a many techniques of dealing with them. But it seems to me that the music should dictate how we practice rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all approach onto the music.
Quote:
Boring...maybe....but consistent with how most people are wired--and improve with correct repetition so as to advance closer to performance tempo.
Learning theorists, cognitive scientists, et al. say we're wired to learn best through boring, monotonous, incremental tasks? Where?
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2021-11-14 00:32
brycon wrote:
> Quote:
But if the material being played is just too much to
> handle initially at the meter played, slowing down yields
> better clues as to nature of the mistake and likelihood it
> won't be reproduced, allowing meter to gradually increase over
> time.
>
> Sure but what is "the material"? A section of music? If you
> realize the issue is a connection between two notes, why not
> extract those two notes, practice them, and then put them back
> into their context.
Nobody that I can see is disagreeing with you on this. Problematic material length can vary.
>
> Or perhaps hold onto the note right before you mess up as
> though it were a short fermata, give your mind a chance to
> catch up,
Again, nobody that I can see is disagreeing with you on this. You simply describe a variant of slowing down.
> Or perhaps you could practice the passage with different
> rhythms, such as long-short long-short, so that you're both
> practicing slow and fast, requiring your fingers to move with
> motion similar to what you'll use when you perform it at tempo.
>
I believe in this too. I find students learning to play a technique passage at one speed, where even slower speeds become unattainable. I advocate of course being able to play at performance tempo, but other slower tempos as well, to get the passage "in the fingers," which is just a way of saying getting it into the brain.
> Or perhaps, when you get to it, play the beat in which you have
> an issue at half tempo but keep everything else at full tempo.
> Then when you bring the beat back up to speed, try to maintain
> the sense of articulation in the fingers and singing through
> the line that you had at half tempo.
>
> And so on.
Here again, nobody takes issue with NOT taking sections that are manageable at slower speeds simply because other surrounding sections prove problematic. Some might argue this to be inefficient practice technique.
>
> There are many issues that can arise when we're practicing, and
> therefore we need a many techniques of dealing with them. But
> it seems to me that the music should dictate how we practice
> rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all approach onto the
> music.
I conceded there are variants of slowing down technically demanding music One size doesn't fit all. It's passage and player specific.
>
> Quote:
Boring...maybe....but consistent with how most people
> are wired--and improve with correct repetition so as to advance
> closer to performance tempo.
>
> Learning theorists, cognitive scientists, et al. say we're
> wired to learn best through boring, monotonous, incremental
> tasks? Where?
>
There are studies that point to repetition not being the best/only way to commit fact to memory. But physical motion; practice makes perfect.
Post Edited (2021-11-14 00:33)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2021-11-14 02:30
Attachment: gade.png (17k)
I've found that it frustrates me a lot to play slowly, so I tend to practice very tiny sections of the music at a time. This means that I can get to the point where I speed up much more quickly, and that makes the whole process much less frustrating.
As an example, I am learning the fiddly bit at the end of Gade's fantasty piece just now (attached). I have got nowhere playing the whole run of notes slowly. However, playing the notes in pairs, a hundred times, so they sound like a police car siren, is helping me to hone the transitions, and exclude the accidental grace notes.
If I do all the pairs a hundred time, then when I play the whole run afterwards, it is fractionally better.
I still can't do it very fast, but practicing this way is satisfying for me, and so I am able to keep at it.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2021-11-14 02:59
Another way to look at this particular passage is to recognize that it is note-for-note a descending diminished 7th passage. Players who practice all the exercises in the Baermann method Book 3 will already have diminished 7ths, ascending, descending, and meandering completely under their fingers and will not need to "practice" passages like this. They will recognize them at sight. That is why the Baermann book has remained a staple in the formation of clarinetists for all these years. Most of the chord and scale patterns found in classical music from early Baroque to early Romantic are clearly laid out in Baermann to train both fingers and ears to hear and play them. You only have to practice note combinations you have not seen or played before. That is why a judicious selection of practice books can prepare you to play many pieces of music, at sight or after a few rough trials. The JeanJean 16 etudes, for example, help get players into Impressionist scales and harmonies that are rare in earlier Western art music. But once you've worked through them in Jeanjean (and it IS hard work), you recognize them in Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Griffes, etc.
Players who do not get the standard set of scale and chord patterns under their fingers may find themselves wandering perpetually through a forest of unrecognizable, shadowy shapes every time they confront a new piece of music. This may be a bit analogous to how learning the phonetic pronunciation of alphabetic letter combinations contributes to reading written text.
Post Edited (2021-11-14 03:14)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2021-11-14 03:45
SunnyDaze wrote:
> If I do all the pairs a hundred time, then when I play the
> whole run afterwards, it is fractionally better.
>
> I still can't do it very fast, but practicing this way is
> satisfying for me, and so I am able to keep at it.
I think the best way to approach passages like this, and many others that are built on standard scales or arpeggios, is to have a repertoire of those rudiments (scales, arpeggios, the chromatic scale) learned - trained into your fingers and recognizable at sight, extending seabreeze's suggestion about learning the diminished seventh arpeggios.
That said, your approach can certainly work, although I think with one modification (if you've completely described what you're doing). Instead of leaping from pairs to the entire run, you might put pairs together - the first two pairs, then maybe the 2nd and 3rd pairs, working to smooth just those quads. Then try to put them together to make six notes. You can start at the end with the last pair first. For variety you can start in the middle. But the process would be to start with the smallest pieces (the note pairs), then add pieces together rather than trying to put all the pieces together at once. You may already be doing this and just didn't include the intermediate steps in your description.
Thinking about all the ways of practicing that have been discussed so far, in my teaching experience the most common cause of students' mistakes (other than not maintaining a pulse through rests and long notes) is that they don't stop to see what is actually written and don't stop to figure out what their mistake is, or even notice that they've one. The first step toward correcting a problem, as I think brycon has been saying, is to identify it and figure out what's causing it. Unless the error was a fluke that never happened before and isn't likely to happen again, you can't get at a problem you haven't identified.
Karl
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Author: BethGraham
Date: 2021-11-14 04:06
"Thinking about all the ways of practicing that have been discussed so far, in my teaching experience the most common cause of students' mistakes (other than not maintaining a pulse through rests and long notes) is that they don't stop to see what is actually written and don't stop to figure out what their mistake is, or even notice that they've one. The first step toward correcting a problem, as I think brycon has been saying, is to identify it and figure out what's causing it. Unless the error was a fluke that never happened before and isn't likely to happen again, you can't get at a problem you haven't identified."
And this is why I stressed in an earlier post the importance of having a teacher who can work with you to develop your ear, scaffold your learning with assignments that build sequentially, and offer different strategies for tackling passages such as the one sunnydaze shared above.
I took lessons for less than a year prior to the pandemic, and then struggled on my own for a year, developing all manner of bad habits, before returning to lessons in March 2021. My learning has grown by leaps and bounds since March --- specifically because my teacher listens carefully to my playing and prescribes a variety of strategies to help me problem solve.
Danielle is also working me hard on scales, which I don't love, but which has really started to help my sight-reading. In the past, as a choral singer, I was more of an initiative reader (akin to the whole language model in reading education); now I'm learning how to transfer my scale work (or "phonics") to playing music, becoming a more fluid sight-reader.
I have more to say, but have to go watch a movie with my husband now!
Post Edited (2021-11-14 05:08)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2021-11-14 14:56
I wonder, myself, if the method of practising is driven a lot by what the player wants to achieve by their playing?
I spend a lot of time working on the psychology of my playing so as to find pleasure in the process. I think that is nicer than just concentrating on getting to the end by the fastest possible route. It's very easy to get distracted by dreams of the destination though, and to forget to enjoy the journey.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2021-11-14 19:31
Quote:
If I do all the pairs a hundred time, then when I play the whole run afterwards, it is fractionally better.
I hope you're just joking and you don't actually repeat that exercise a hundred times.
Yes, sheer repetition of a task, what's called "blocked practicing," works to some extent. A better method, however, is to jump from task to task, what's called "random practicing." Perhaps practice your diminished-arpeggio exercise 5 times; then move on to some other part of the Gade or even some other music; then after 10 minutes or so, jump back to the arpeggio exercise and do it 5 more times; etc.
When you make the jump back to the exercise, your brain and body must recreate all the proper movements you had achieved 10 minutes prior. And this act of recall builds long-term retention. The difficulty, though, is that blocked practicing gives us the illusion of making more progress in the moment because 1.) since you are spending more time and getting in more immediate repetitions, the short-term improvement is better (though studies show that random practicing yields better long-term results) and 2.) many of us were raised with a "no pain, no gain" attitude, whereby the dullness and monotony of a task are directly proportional to its efficacy.
If you don't see results after several weeks of practicing (I would hesitate to try and play something "as written" immediately after going through your practice techniques or exercises because things often take time and not seeing immediate results can lead to frustration and/or anxiety with a passage), perhaps you've misdiagnosed your issues and aren't practicing what's best for you.
And again, here is where the automatic response, "slow down the tempo and play it perfectly," serves as an illustration of poor practicing. It's the underpants gnome problem: step 1, slow it down; step 2, ?; step 3, play it perfectly up to tempo. But it's the intermediary step of self-reflection and -evaluation that's needed. If things aren't working, record yourself, maybe even slow down the recording, listen critically (but not negatively), and see if you can't refine your diagnosis of the issue or course of action for dealing with it.
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Author: BethGraham
Date: 2021-11-14 20:54
Well, my personal goal is to be able to play in groups; specifically, in my community band (and perhaps, if I can improve enough, the community orchestra), so I need to achieve a certain standard so I can keep up and enjoy myself in those settings. This has been my motivation throughout the pandemic, though it's been hard sometimes to "keep my eye on the prize," with all the pandemic shenanigans going on.
The enjoyment, for me, is making music with others (and especially playing harmony in groups). I have very little interest in playing solos.
I have come to believe that in order for me to play my best I need to work hard on some of the stuff that's less fun for me, aka SCALES. Someday, if I'm diligent, I may be able to approach clarinet playing in more of the "see it, sing it" way I used to be able to when singing alto.
I think that, for me, the mechanics of playing an instrument (the keys! the embouchure! the everything!) have complicated my learning process -- especially since I started learning clarinet so Late in Life.
You are right to point out, Jen, that everyone has different goals in learning an instrument, and different things that motivate them and provide joy during the process. Thanks for that reminder!
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Author: BethGraham
Date: 2021-11-14 21:18
Thanks for giving me the language to talk about the different ways of practicing. I totally agree with what you say in your last paragraph about how critical that intermediary step of self-reflection/self-evaluation is.
My point in my OP was to consider how best to be efficient in practice -- one way, for me, by being reflective as I work by practicing slowly and correcting small things before they become big, entrenched problems. I really appreciate all the teacherly advice being offered here.
I'm currently working on Rose #11 "Larghetto" (Rose 32) and getting my butt kicked by the run in measure 7, which seemingly comes out of nowhere in a piece that's otherwise quite slow and fluid. Remarkably, what's helped most is taking some time away from the piece and working on other things. My brain, at rest, has been chugging away at this challenge and now, returning to it, the measure seems way more doable.
I'm starting to learn, too, about the importance of practicing in context: that is, don't just work on that pesky measure in isolation, but add in the surrounding measures and figure out how everything fits.
As the old saw goes, "every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better!"
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Author: BethGraham
Date: 2021-11-14 21:22
Man, I love this approach, seabreeze!
(I meant to respond the other day, but got distracted.)
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2021-11-14 21:46
Everyone has their own system. When I was in college I used this system. I'd play through each etude four times a day. Slowly enough to be able to play it and I'd stop at any measure I had trouble with and repeat it many times making sure fingers were correct and then go on. The second day I'd go over those tricky measures first and then play through a little faster doing the same as day one four times. I'd continue doing this each day I practiced playing faster each day until I got the tempo I wanted hopefully by day 3 or at least day4 if possible. I'd do the same with the difficult passages in solo pieces and orchestral excerpts but try to memorize the excerpts as well. It worked for me.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2021-11-14 21:55
Hi Beth,
It's really interesting to hear what your goal is, as it is so different from mine.
My main goal at the moment in my clarinet playing, is to have one thing in my life where I please only myself. The rest of my life is very geared to meeting other people's expectations, coping with high-stakes conflict, and occasionally working the impossible, where failure would lead to significant suffering for another person. My clarinet playing is a wonderful oasis where I can do whatever I like, and that's okay. It gives me so much pleasure to play alone in my hallway, and not have to take criticism or ask permission or any of that.
I did used to play in a community orchestra, after 40-odd years of yearning to do so, and oddly, it didn't really light my candle at all. I was really surprised by that. I hope you love it when you get the chance though. I bet you'll be great.
Brycon - the thing about 100 repetitions is really fine and totally intentional. I have some problems getting my fingers to move together, which means that I get a lot of unintentional grace notes during transitions where I move more than one finger at once. I mean things like going from A5 to F5 and F5 to Eb5.
I'm doing these drills to set up the wiring in my nervous system that will allow me to co-ordinate my fingers in pairs really smoothly and on reflex. It's just the same deal as using a typing tutor to learn touch typing, as I did some years ago. I think it's really fine that I'm doing that, and I'm happy with that decision.
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2021-12-17 02:44
I like seabreeze's post the best among these many good and varied replies. You have your basic books--yes the Baermann ones, the Roses, Klose's, Kreopsh, etc.
Then you have the contemporary ones such as Jettel, Uhl, Polatschek, Russo, Zitek and oh, one more... to name a few.
These help you to NOT run into something so wild that you've never really seen it before.
The same can be said for just practicing difficult contemporary style solos, whether you perform them or not. I've found a lot of challenging stuff online at the Clarinet Institute of Los Angeles. Free to copy, no copyrights.
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 (2021-12-17 02:45)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2021-12-17 04:29
Eric,
I enjoyed your very practical approach to practicing the same note sequences in a multitude of rhythms. Most clarinetists are never formally taught how to practice rhythms, so they just sort of wing the rhythmic subdivisions or feel them. Rhythms need to be practiced systematically just as scales, intervals, and arpeggios do. The 5/4 sections in the Bernstein Sonata for example or the changing meter in both versions of Stravinsky's Story of a Soldier, or the multiple meters in Bartok's Contrasts may send the clarinetist to bite the dust if they don't practice rhythm analytically and consciously. Clark Brody said that Larry Combs got the job in Chicago because, of all the applicants, he played the most rock solid rhythmically, subdividing all the figurations exactly and never losing or anticipating the beat.
Some books that require conscious attention to less than obvious rhythmic patterns are Joe Allard's Advanced Rhythm, Paul JeanJean's 20 Progressive Studies (in 3 vols) which regularly alternates between rhythm patterns that look almost alike but are subtly different, and Ulysse Delecluse'a 14 Grandes Etudes which present riffs on orchestral excerpts that do unexpected things like putting the scherzo to Midsummer Night's Drean into changing meter!
We need to break the lazy habit of practicing technical passages all in even eighth or sixteenth notes, and instead start practicing them in rhythmically demanding patterns like you do in this video.
Post Edited (2021-12-17 07:50)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2021-12-17 07:00
Yes on the Comb's audition, but keep in mind he played the Weber 1st concerto (not rhythmically complex). The idea is that you can hear rock steady no matter how complex or simple rhythmic figures are.
.........................Paul Aviles
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Author: EricBlack
Date: 2021-12-18 06:44
Thanks for the kind words Seabreeze! I have never read through Allard's Advanced Rhythm or Delecluse's 14 Grandes Etudes so maybe I'll take the opportunity over the holiday season to do just that!
You're right that rhythm is legitimately difficult. I've known many musicians that are happy to wing it or essentially reproduce the rhythm by rote (after listening to recordings), which can work... until that time it doesn't. Making rhythm a priority gave me so much more confidence in, not only my sight-reading abilities, but also my ability to really "lock-in" with an ensemble. Thanks again for watching the video, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
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Author: BethGraham
Date: 2021-12-18 18:24
Holy cow, that was a good video -- I've forwarded it to my teacher, who recommends a variation of this technique. Liked and subscribed!
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The Clarinet Pages
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