 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: FT
Date: 2002-03-03 22:41
Are we allowed to tap our feet when playing in an orchestra ( when performing)???. I'm always watching orchestras and I never see anybody tapping their feet.
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2002-03-03 23:19
You don't see it is because it distracts the audience, so it isn't done. It really doesn't go well with any kind of performance except one where everyone is expected to "get into" the rhythm -- hoedown music, for example. If you need to do something to maintain your rhythm, try tapping your big toe. Do it *inside* your shoe, and that way nobody else will notice.
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Author: fredR
Date: 2002-03-04 05:02
Tapping is a way for an individual to keep time (a beat). In an orchestral or band setting that function is performed by the conductor. Tapping is not precise and can be influenced by both external and internal factors like a sluggish section playing the bass line or our own adrnaline rushes. In any group Ive ever played in the practice is looked down upon and I would think in pro world(classical) its not tolerated.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2002-03-04 09:06
fredR that all depends on how disciplined your toe is. Maybe SOME people discipline their toe to follow, just as well as you discipline any other part of your body to follow.
The main time I resort ot using my toe is when there is insecurity all around me and I am trying to keep secure myself in the midst of all this distraction. On these occasions my toe is more reliable than what I hear, and reinforces for me, where I perceive the beat to most appropriately be.
Perhaps this distraction phenomenon does not occur when all the players are top players. I don't have that luxury. I am often playing for conductors who are downright distracting, simply from lack of attention to what they are supposed to be doing.
We do not all play in an ideal world!
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Author: A David Peacham
Date: 2002-03-04 11:33
I used to have the foot-tapping habit; I found it difficult to play without tapping my right foot. The habit disappeared when I took up the piano, which gave my right foot something else to do. Maybe this wouldn't have worked if I'd been in the habit of tapping my left foot.
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Author: graham
Date: 2002-03-04 11:35
just say "no" to foot tapping
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Author: jez
Date: 2002-03-04 13:32
On my very first engagement with a big professional orchestra I was tapping my foot when the first clarinet stamped his foot as hard as he could on mine. I haven't done it since!
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Author: Sally Gardens
Date: 2002-03-04 19:38
>On my very first engagement with a big professional orchestra I was tapping my foot when the first clarinet stamped his foot as hard as he could on mine.
That's a bit extreme. I'd have stamped back. ;-)
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Author: Michael McC.
Date: 2002-03-04 20:06
Interestingly enough, I tap my foot when playing clarinet, but not while I'm playing piano. Considering I started on piano, I don't know if this is a learned habit from clarinet playing or not. It helps me keep time during strange time signatures, during rehearsals, but I usually don't do it during concerts. But I think it is quite amusing to watch particularly young bands perform and the foot tapping is not in sync.
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Author: Sandra F. H.
Date: 2002-03-04 20:48
In a high school festival the conductor banned all foot-tapping with the explanation that the physical up and down of the foot actually can alter the correct tempo (especially fast tempos). Probably true, especially for young players. Tapping the toe inside the shoe works well. It really does look unprofessional to tap the shoe loudly! Practicing to a metronome can help alleviate that. When the beat is internalized, there is no need to tap the shoe! What is particularly frightening is to see several unmatching taps!
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Author: Bob
Date: 2002-03-04 23:08
It's very aggravating and distracting to those who don't.....you get 20 demerits
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Author: Sneakers
Date: 2002-03-05 04:49
I remember in High School that we had a substitute one day directing the band. We informed her that the tempo was incorrect or that the beat was unsteady(I don't remember which, it has been too long), anyway she told us that she was getting the beat by watching the last chair flute player's foot tapping.
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Author: willie
Date: 2002-03-05 06:30
I do now use the big toe method in lieu of the "foot tap". I find it easier for me to keep the count in some pieces. What broke me of the foot tap was the soft area of the stage in our clarinet section. My music stand would start rocking back and forth to the point I couldn't read the darn music!
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2002-03-05 19:19
Toe tapping means you set your own tempo. Even if it's perfectly together with the group, you're still playing alone, and it sounds that way.
It's not easy to let go. Take a piece that's not too hard and you know well. Then keep yourself perfectly still and merge into the others, so you everyone is moving to the same big heartbeat.
Still working on it.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2002-03-05 21:31
Not quite as bad as smoking for wind players, just dont do it [as well said above]. I still find that I feel like doing it as a reflex action to see-sawing tempos among sections of our comm. band, but fight it! Years ago, a fine band conductor, while trying to improve two section's playing rapidly on and off the beat [we were all pretty-much agreeing on the on OR off], pointed out that foot-tapping always tends to slow the tempos, thus making a big mess of it all. Great discussion. Don
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Author: Sally Gardens
Date: 2002-03-05 23:19
>Toe tapping means you set your own tempo.
Really? I always thought it was a way of making the set tempo one's own, of "internalizing"/"embodying" the tempo. Some people are more physical than others, perhaps, when it comes to feeling the music; tempo as an intellectual abstraction fails, for them, to connect at the gut level.
As for the charge of being distracting, well, yes, loud, noisy foot tapping would be distracting, and is something generally outgrown by high school. However, silent toe tapping or other unobtrusive physical movement (slight jog of the knee/heel, without touching the ground) shouldn't be distracting to anyone who isn't already distracted -- and it's certainly less distracting than breaking into dance, which is what music moves ME to do, as often as not! Well, all right, not when I'm playing an instrument...but there's reason why they say music MOVES us...
:-D
In sum, my Humble Opinion is that wild foot stamping and flamenco dancing are out, but silent and slight physical movements are all right as long as they help rather than hinder. For that matter, they may not be entirely conscious. And at least a clarinetist can't HUM along while playing. ;-)
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Author: diz
Date: 2002-03-05 23:30
Sally - try humming while you play - can sound quite curious!
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Author: Sally Gardens
Date: 2002-03-05 23:34
diz, it's probably in one of those "21st century technique" books. ;-)
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Author: Sally Gardens
Date: 2002-03-05 23:35
(BTW, I was, of course, thinking of pianist Glenn Gould.)
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