Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-08-17 18:40
Jon,
Just to try to unmuddy the waters again, let me put what I was saying another way – if not for your benefit, then perhaps for others.
The point of practising is to establish a match between what you intend and what you get.
So a really fluent player is someone who has achieved that, pretty much across the board. They get WHATEVER they intend.
All the practice techniques: slow practice, dotted practice, chained practice (as in the Jason Sulliman thread, http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=398239&t=398079) are designed to have what you GET be what you intended.
But sometimes, if it proves difficult to get what you intend, it can be a good idea, for a bit, to go the other way around: to change what you INTEND so that it matches what you GOT.
That requires detailed listening in order to determine 'what you got'. (And indeed, that detailed listening may be one of the most important parts of the process.)
So, if you find, by listening, that you tend to play an unwanted note between two notes that should simply connect; then:
You INTENTIONALLY play that note between them.
The point is: INTENDING to to do 'what you got' gives you power over it. It's then no longer an aberration.
Now, you can move on to intend other possible 'aberrations' – things that are similar to what you got, but are still not what you ultimately want.
That could be: DIFFERENT notes between the two notes that you want to 'simply connect'. In particular, the notes/non-notes that occur if you lift different fingers 'too early'.
I sometimes liken this whole process to taking the time to explore the streets around the direct route to somewhere, instead of continually going straight to your destination. Each exploration, because it's intentional, doesn't interfere with your ability to go the direct route. And it takes you closer to your ideal of being a fluent player, who as I said, pretty much can always achieve WHATEVER they intend.
I applauded your attitude to practising:Quote:
When things are not working out I try different approaches and methods to try and break through to the next stage, and this is one of those different approaches. ...because it's the best way to make progress. Learning for yourself is probably always better than listening to what people shout at you that you SHOULD do – particularly here, where no-one really knows what your actual problems are.
I quoted Russianoff on 'light fingers'. The passage in question is on p6 of his CLARINET METHOD BOOK 1. You can see that it's as I described it.
Normally I avoid quoting other people; perhaps I should have done so in this case, because I didn't NEED to, and I distrust reliance on written authorities, especially when those authorities aren't available to expand on what they wrote.
That's true even of his writings, though I know he was a great and inspiring teacher in person.
What he writes in his book about blowing and support is mere handwaving, for example. That's because though he could undoubtably DO it, he didn't understand it well enough to be able to explain it.
Tony
Post Edited (2014-08-18 04:01)
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