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Author: ruben
Date: 2025-07-05 13:43
There are rushers and there are draggers. I would say that for every dragger, there are 15 rushers. Do you have any techniques -besides the metronome- to keep oneself or others from doing this? I feel the reason for racing is often psychological: an unconscious, irrational fear of not playing fast enough.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2025-07-05 22:54
For me, I found thinking of rhythm more as a "chunk of elapsed time," is more helpful. Counting seconds is a good place to start (60 beats per minute on your metronome). And you can practice anytime you use the microwave. Count down by units of 5, looking away from the counter, then checking at every 0 and 5 to see how well you're doing every time you heat your Hot Pockets.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2025-07-05 23:13
ruben wrote:
> There are rushers and there are draggers. I would say that for
> every dragger, there are 15 rushers. Do you have any
> techniques -besides the metronome- to keep oneself or others
> from doing this? I feel the reason for racing is often
> psychological: an unconscious, irrational fear of not playing
> fast enough.
>
I think the reason for rushing difficult passagework is usually some level of anxiety about the notes involved in a passage. Not necessarily irrational - the fear may be entirely realistic.
When I catch myself rushing, the result is usually jumbled fingers from unconsciously trying to play too many notes at once. It helps me to sing through the passage so there's no longer any finger coordination involved and then play the passage the way I've just sung it.
Rushing slow, or even moderate lyrical passages depends on how the player hears the music and senses its meaning. Again, singing first in a way you find musical can establish a tempo when you're the only one playing.
In an ensemble situation, of course, we're not individually in control of the tempo. You have to be conscious of the tempo the group is playing, and when you practice those passages away from rehearsal you first have to be able to remember what the conductor's/group's tempo is. If necessary, slow down and sing-then-play to eliminate the muscular tension and work back to the needed tempo (or a little faster, so long as it's under control).
Karl
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2025-07-06 02:04
On the clarinet board, where if you want "10 opinions you need ask only 4 people" (lol) I think, despite this, we can agree that the following is NOT a method to achieve the OP's objectives.
(BTW: This doesn't happen, it's theater. Teachers who did half of this would be thrown out on their keister. Even Revelli couldn't get away today with half the stuff he did in his tenure.)
https://youtu.be/GBvBu5ErSSo?si=0YkXqS6tGVlG4P3n&t=143
Undesired tempo changes often arise from nerves and exhaustion. Practice, with a slower beat first, addresses both, albeit it creates exhaustion as sure as it develops proficiency with less effort (i.e. endurance,) which also helps stave off some exhaustion.
...a more inspirational approach, if not also theater:
https://youtu.be/ad5pKiflwew?si=QxnDSHRu-pVBmgBL&t=123 
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2025-07-06 06:16
Yes, the above snippets are just caricatures of what music looks like to people who are not musicians.
I couldn't possibly be the only person who HATED Mr. Holland's Opus with a passion. Everything was beyond the "suspension of disbelief."
Whiplash is also a cartoon, but there are still folks around who played in Buddy Rich's band who have some interesting stories.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: ruben
Date: 2025-07-06 10:39
Karl: -great advice: the singing bit! Anxiety brings about a "jump the gun" syndrome. We fear the tricky bits in the music and fear causes haste, which in turn, makes waste. As for rushing slow movements and passages -this also exists- it is often due to impatience. The one thing that often improves with age is the playing of adagios. Youth is impatient.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: kdk
Date: 2025-07-06 17:00
Paul Aviles wrote:
> I couldn't possibly be the only person who HATED Mr. Holland's
> Opus with a passion. Everything was beyond the "suspension of
> disbelief."
>
>
At the risk of seriously diverting the thread, I disliked Mr. Holland's Opus for a different reason - futility. In the end, as I remember, nothing anyone did or said mattered. The position was lost and everyone, presumably, went their way.
A little too realistic and close to home in my view at the time (and, although I've been retired from public music education for 18 years, probably still).
I did suggest to a student and her mom a few years ago that they watch Whiplash when my student was having a problem with a band director she thought was unreasonably negative. I told them, basically, "if you think your guy is bad..."
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2025-07-06 17:02
Paul Aviles wrote:
> I couldn't possibly be the only person who HATED Mr. Holland's
> Opus with a passion. Everything was beyond the "suspension of
> disbelief."
>
>
At the risk of seriously diverting the thread, I disliked Mr. Holland's Opus for a different reason - futility. In the end, as I remember, nothing anyone did or said mattered. The position was lost and everyone, presumably, went their way.
A little too realistic and close to home in my view at the time (and, although I've been retired from public music education for 18 years, probably still).
I did suggest to a student and her mom a few years ago that they watch Whiplash when my student was having a problem with a band director she thought was unreasonably negative. I told them, basically, "if you think your guy is bad..." They told me they had a good laugh as they watched it.
Karl
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2025-07-06 21:24
> >
> >
> At the risk of seriously diverting the thread, I disliked Mr.
> Holland's Opus for a different reason - futility. In the end,
> as I remember, nothing anyone did or said mattered. The
> position was lost and everyone, presumably, went their way.
Do know Karl that l I completely appreciated where your thoughts above are coming from, particularly with your Music Education background and likely witness to real life threats to arts programs I suspect you've seen. To your point, Louis, the character which Mr. Holland spends time working on the rhythm of this thread, as I recall, is killed in Viet Nam.
And at the end of the movie when budget cuts effect Mr. Holland's district's music program, but not core programs like English, I remember the quote, which I'm sure I'm only paraphrasing, about "without music, what will there be to write about."
But that said, and despite some of the campiness of the movie, I'd like to think, both for you and the movie's protagonist (were he real, and the role Dreyfuss played was very real for many of us), as well as for its viewers, that it was the positive impact Holland had on students during his tenure that is the true legacy.
In case a little inspiration is needed, here's the character Gertrude, initially too shy to play "Stranger on the Shore," inspired by Holland, then getting it right in performance, where the "confidence seeds" are sowed for her character to then become Governor of Oregon, the State in which the movie occurs addressing an auditorium packed with Holland's supporters upon his retirement.
Sure---again, it's campy but the impact my music educators had on me, and I suspect a lot of you, and I hope for you Karl as an educator, has been positively profound.
https://youtu.be/Q_oKiecsAZE?si=Ze0iVAH5z1qYk_Md&t=130
https://youtu.be/Q_oKiecsAZE?si=w0UT1hwBsM5p6PBX&t=286
https://youtu.be/tQqjIVUQdTI?si=-Vd4mVjWmmfE-z6w&t=30
Post Edited (2025-07-06 21:28)
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