Favorite blog posts, November 2013

Some good stuff from the woodwind blogs in November:

  • I’m totally stoked that oboist Cooper Wright is blogging again, from a new location. Add this one to your RSS reader to follow his transition into a new job as co-principal oboist of the Thailand Philharmonic, and, of course, his endless reedmaking.
  • Saxophonist Steve Neff reviews the new John Coltrane Omnibook.
  • Helen Bledsoe searches for the elusive tin oboe. Spoiler alert: she doesn’t find one, but she tries some interesting things along the way.
  • Saxophonist Bill Plake warms up body and mind.
  • Bassoonist Betsy Sturdevant thoroughly prepares the Beethoven 4 solo.
  • Matt Otto takes a closer look at the 8th-note “swing” feel of three of the great jazz saxophonists. (Please don’t make the “oh, it’s just triplets” mistake.)
  • Jennet Ingle reminds us that effective doubling requires more than just being able to play the solos.
  • Adam at A Classical Journey is studying musical instrument repair and documenting the experience very thoroughly. The class has started its woodwind unit, so if you’re fascinated by this stuff like I am, then now is the time to tune in.

Saxophone altissimo books: Raschèr vs. Rousseau

My university saxophone students are anxious to tackle the altissimo register, and it’s not at all uncommon for them to show up to their first lessons clutching the Sigurd Raschèr Top-Tones for the Saxophone book and wearing a hopeful expression. I also see the Raschèr book frequently and glibly recommended on online forums. With the greatest respect for Raschèr, I think this is a mistake.

Don’t get me wrong: the Raschèr book is a classic and contains a great deal of wisdom. It is a must-have for the well-read saxophonist. But I think most saxophonists would do better to start with Eugene Rousseau’s Saxophone High Tones, and have the Raschèr on hand for supplementary exercises and instruction.

Get this one first

Get this one first

Use this one as a supplement

Use this one as a supplement

I’m going to make the following point first, not because I think it’s necessarily the most important, but because it’s the one that will click with those of you who are hoping to “learn altissimo” in an afternoon by looking at a fingering chart: Rousseau’s fingering charts are much better. They are better suited to “modern” (Mark VI and beyond) instruments and more complete (in the sense of providing many more options for each note, though Raschèr’s chart does go a little higher). Rousseau also provides separate fingering charts for soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone, while Raschèr provides only one chart, which he indicates in the first-edition foreword is intended for “E-flat saxophones”—altos, that is. (I do have a few issues with the visual layout of Rousseau’s charts, and Raschèr’s too, but that’s another rant.) Read more

Ornaments are notes

I think there are some unintended consequence of the way ornamentation is notated in Western music. Often the ornaments are indicated with some kind of abstract symbol or with tiny “extra” notes (like grace notes), located visually outside of the music’s rhythmic structure. This sometimes leads less-experienced musicians to the conclusion, consciously or otherwise, that the ornaments do not have precise rhythms. Sometimes music teachers feed this problem by explaining the rhythmic aspects of ornamentation in a vague or misleading way.

For example, many of my saxophone and oboe students are initially stymied by this moment in the first of the Ferling 48 Famous Studies:

ferling-example.preview

An unclear but common way to explain this is to indicate the pitch pattern of the turn—up a diatonic step and back down, down a diatonic (or maybe half-) step and back up—and then say something to the effect that these notes “steal” time from the F-natural. The grace notes in the next measure can be poorly explained by emphasizing that they go “on the beat.” These explanations aren’t factually incorrect, and make some sense to someone who already understands what the end result should sound like, but leave a lot of unanswered questions for students who are less experienced with ornamentation.

To be clearer about the turn, I think it helps to think through exactly how many notes have to be played in the space of the F-natural (five) and some possible ways to fit them in. Here are a few: Read more

Farewell: Frank Wess

Last week Frank Wess, one of the great woodwind doublers in jazz, passed away at age 91. He was best known for his years with the Count Basie band, and for being an influential figure in bringing the flute into its own as a jazz instrument.

If you’re not familiar with his playing, definitely check out “Midgets” from the Basie April in Paris album. Sometimes classically-trained flutists are quick to dismiss jazz-playing doublers, in some cases justifiably so, for failing to pay proper dues on the instrument. While Wess’s tone doesn’t fit current ideas about a “correct” classical sound, there is evidence here that he is in control of the instrument: certainly good command of finger technique (and remember, classically-trained folks, that Wess is improvising here), plus some double-tonguing, a technique common in classical flute technique but relatively rare among reed players.

There is a nice tribute (with a YouTube video) at the NPR jazz blog.

Favorite blog posts, October 2013

Here are my picks from October. I strongly suggest that you read all of these, share them on your favorite social media outlets, leave thoughtful comments to the authors, and subscribe with your favorite blog-reading apparatus.

Great stuff, everybody, and I look forward to reading more in November.

Fingering Diagram Builder, version 0.51: flute half-holes

Okay, nerds. I got email from a composer acquaintance who pointed out, correctly but also politely, that the Fingering Diagram Builder was lacking a bit in the area of flute half-holing. Here is a minor release to fix that problem. Now you can do some different half-holes on an open-holed flute’s rings. Here is the most obvious kind:

Lengthwise upper half-hole

Lengthwise upper half-hole

But this may also be useful:

Widthwise proximal half-hole

Or, hey, get creative with it:

A variety of half-holes. On the right hand third finger, I’ve overlapped a lengthwise upper half-hole and a widthwise distal half-hole. Works great if you have oddly-shaped fingers.

You can even do this if you want to. It’s no skin off my nose.

Gah

If you’re going for something relatively simple, a few clicks will do it. For the first example (lengthwise upper), click the “Keywork” tab on the menu, then “Keywork details.” Scroll down quite a bit and set “Open holes” to “always” and “Lengthwise upper half-holes” to “always.” Now you are in business. For the key that you want, click the main key (biggest circle) on the diagram, then the open half of the hole, then the closed half of the hole. Bam.

I’m interested in making the FDB useful for new and interesting kinds of fingering diagrams, so let me hear your requests for future versions. Stay tuned for more new features and improvements that are already in the planning stages.

Music for its own sake

At least once every few weeks, my social media feeds get flooded with links to the latest article about how kids should learn music because it turns them into excellent businesspeople and scientists and politicians. The latest is an opinion piece from the New York Times.

Condoleezza Rice trained to be a concert pianist. Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was a professional clarinet and saxophone player. The hedge fund billionaire Bruce Kovner is a pianist who took classes at Juilliard.

Multiple studies link music study to academic achievement. But what is it about serious music training that seems to correlate with outsize success in other fields?

It may or may not be true that musical training sharpens math skills and teamwork skills and so forth. But I am irritated by the subtext that music isn’t something worth pursuing on its own merits—it is only valuable as cross-training for making a “real” contribution to society. Nobody ever seems to wonder whether education in mathematics or reading or science makes people into better musicians.

Photo, Bill Selak

Photo, Bill Selak

Read more

My studio “fresh air” policy

Last year I posted a small sign on my studio door:

Fresh air policy

If you smell of tobacco, alcohol, or illegal drugs, you will not be permitted to enter my office, whether or not you were the one using those substances. If your grade depends on you being here for a lesson, coaching, or other meeting, you will receive a zero.

Thank you.

Happily, I haven’t had occasion to enforce the policy since then, though I have previously had the occasional student who would have been in violation. It should go without saying that you shouldn’t ever show up to any college course or professional situation under the influence of any mind-altering substance, including alcohol, and my university also happens to be a “tobacco-free” campus, which is rare and awesome.

I wrestled a little bit with the “whether or not you were the one” clause, but it’s my workspace and I don’t like the smell of cigarettes, especially since my work involves a lot of deep breathing. Also, it means I don’t ever have to try to guess whether students are lying (not that any of mine would).

My students’ choices are their own, and I try to be extremely conscientious about not foisting my personal beliefs on them. However, I am also responsible to teach them to protect their health, at least as it relates to their woodwind playing, and to behave professionally. So fresh air—free of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs—is my policy.

Not good

I like to use a Socratic-ish method in my private lessons, and ask my students questions. It means that I have this conversation several times per day:

[Student plays.]

Me: How did that sound to you?

Student: Not good.

Me: What didn’t you like about it?

Student: It didn’t sound good.

Me: What aspect of it didn’t sound good to you? The tone? the pitch? the phrasing? the articulation?

Student: Um, I guess the articulation?

Me: What didn’t you like about the articulation?

Student: It wasn’t good?

It’s an ongoing battle to get my students to listen more deeply than that. Was the articulation “not good” because it started with air noise instead of tone? Because it was accompanied by an unwanted percussive sound? Was the articulation technique perfect but you failed to follow the composer’s markings? Or was it something else?

Often the “not good” is a combination of factors, but if my students can identify even one of them, then they can immediately start working in a focused way to improve it. If it’s just “not good,” then they tend to just play it again from the beginning without any clear approach to making it sound better, and repeat until frustrated.

Part of my job is to help them identify and verbalize the desirable and undesirable phenomena in their playing, and to teach them the techniques for manipulating the variables involved (breath support, voicing, embouchure, finger technique, and tongue technique, to name the most obvious ones). But it’s up to them to take that information and run with it. For my students to become independently-functional musicians, they need to learn to listen critically to themselves and troubleshoot.

For yourself and for your students, don’t be satisfied with bland value judgments (it sounded “good” or “bad”). Be factual and descriptive about what you hear, and tackle problems in a methodical way. Practice smart!

Review: Butch Hall Native-American-style flutes

For years now I’ve told anyone who will listen how much I love my Butch Hall Native-American-style flute in F-sharp minor. I recently bought it a little friend in G minor, and realized it is high time I did a proper review of these lovely instruments.

Hello, beautiful.

Hello, beautiful.

The modern instrument commonly referred to as the “Native American Flute” is related to a certain flute tradition associated with the Lakota people; of course labeling anything as “Native American” mistakenly implies that it is common to all the groups lumped together as “Native American.” As an additional complication name-wise, there are certain legal requirements regarding who can sell products under the designation “Native American,” so some flutemakers, for example, must sell their wares as “Native-American-style.” In general, flutes of this type, regardless of seller, are a contemporary take on a traditional instrument, often made with modern tools and processes and tweaked to suit contemporary Western-world pitch standards. This suits me just fine—I’m interested in the instrument’s history, but as a working musician I like an instrument that I can buy affordably and play in a variety of situations.

If you are in the market for an instrument of this kind, be very careful about souvenir-type flutes, including some popular makes sold on the internet and in souvenir shops as “professional” instruments. If you want an instrument that plays beautifully, easily, and in tune, and is genuinely suited to professional playing situations, I strongly recommend that you send money to Butch Hall immediately. These are real-deal musician-quality flutes, and the amount of money involved is shockingly small. Read more

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 29 other subscribers

Projects

Poll

Where do you buy your instruments, accessories, sheet music, etc.?

View results

Loading ... Loading ...