Abe Weiss on practicing

ByBret Pimentel

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I mentioned in a post yesterday how impressed I was by Abe Weiss‘s presentation at the IDRS conference. Mr. Weiss is principal bassoonist of the Rochester Philharmonic.

Here are a few points from his talk that stood out to me.

  • “Academic understanding is not the same as performance ability. … Practice is converting academic understanding into performance ability.”
  • Mr. Weiss made an convincing case for using the Oubradous Scales & Exercises, something I have in my collection but hadn’t really used much because it seemed so elementary. Mr. Weiss recommends using it, and using it thoroughly—taking the time to thoughtfully play the whole-note scales, playing all the articulation variations, etc. He pointed out how quickly students learn their Milde scale studies once they’ve conscientiously practiced Oubradous.
  • Practice passages in very short segments. Repetition is most effective when the previous repetition is still in short-term memory.
  • If you’re been practicing something for 5-10 minutes without measurable improvement, it’s time to review your practice methodology.
  • It’s easy to focus on tone alone when you think you’re evaluating your overall technique, but it’s possible to get a good sound with poor technique. This comes at the expense of endurance, response, dynamic range, etc. Make sure you are aware of these factors, too, for a bigger picture of your technique.
  • If you’re making bad reeds consistently—all turning out with identical problems—check your embouchure. Don’t alter your embouchure to make a new reed play. Use your best embouchure and alter the reed to suit it. “Make the reed come to you.”
  • Someone asked Mr. Weiss if he does a “cool-down” at the end of his practice session. He said he didn’t but thought that it couldn’t hurt anything. At that point, Mr. Weiss’s brother, oboist David Weiss, jumped in and suggested the opposite: using the end of your practice session for a “burn,” working long tones and other chop-busters for endurance.

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    Oboists trained in the “American school” of oboe playing, like myself, tend to hold the instrument at around a 45° angle from the body. Oboists in many other parts of the world hold the instrument at a higher angle, a few degrees closer to horizontal. This is one factor (of several) that accounts for the difference in tone between American oboists (often described as having a “darker” sound) and, say, some European oboists (having a “brighter” sound).

    The reason the angle is important is because it affects the embouchure. Holding the oboe in a genuinely horizontal position situates the lips on the reed’s blades in an even way:
    oboe-bad

    This allows the reed to vibrate in a balanced, efficient way, with lots of vibrance and color. But holding the instrument at an angle makes the lips contact the blades of the reed in an uneven way:

    oboe-good

    Note that the upper lip is nearer the reed’s tip, and the lower lip is a few millimeters nearer the thread. This uneven contact reduces the reed’s efficiency, muting some of the overtones for a sound that is less colorful but also less strident—in other words, characteristic of the American oboe sound.

    A bassoon’s bocal brings the reed to the bassoonist’s mouth at a nearly horizontal angle, and a poorly-formed embouchure will create roughly equal contact with the upper and lower lips, causing a buzzy sound. But the bassoonist’s “overbite” technique makes the contact uneven, darkening and containing the sound (as well as improving response). This is actually upside down compared to the oboe, since the lower lip is nearer the reed’s tip and the upper lip is nearer the first wire.

    bassoon-good
    poorly-formed bassoon embouchure
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    Well-formed oboe and bassoon embouchures require attention to angle and overbite (respectively) to produce the best sounds with the least effort.

  • Student-selected online woodwind pedagogy articles

    ByBret Pimentel

    If you are teaching a woodwind methods course, you might be interested in my book.

    In the past I have had my woodwind methods classes make woodwind pedagogy notebooks. The idea is to have them explore some available pedagogical resources, and assemble them into a resource they can use for reference in their future teaching. But that assignment is starting to feel a little weird, especially since I have been trying to go increasingly paperless in my own life, and because it has been increasingly difficult to persuade my digitally-oriented students to go to the actual library and look at actual books.

    To be clear, I’m a lover of libraries, and for me there’s no question that there are tremendously valuable resources there that are not available online (yet?). But it seemed like time to experiment with embracing an online approach to the assignment. So during the past semester I had them each locate some online articles they thought might be useful. Then they used a discussion board to collaborate on vetting the articles for usefulness and author credentials, and to compare their content against the concepts we covered in class.

    I’m going to provide here a heavily-edited report of their results with my own commentary. Some articles were proposed but were rejected by classmates as less useful or credible, and I don’t see any need to list those. Also, I wanted my students to go through the process of vetting online information, but I didn’t entirely agree with their conclusions, so I’m omitting some that I personally think are problematic. (If you’re wondering, my own blog posts were off-limits.)

    photo, Knight Foundation
    photo, Knight Foundation

    Here are some of the articles my students voted to be worthy of inclusion in a digital notebook:

    • Clarinet Basics: Maintenance Habits, written by Julie DeRoche for The Woodwind and The Brasswind. This one was very highly regarded by the class, and I am inclined to agree with their assessment. My students liked the article’s thoroughness and day-to-day applicability. Two cautions with this article: firstly, I think it’s wise to be careful with (paid?) articles from websites that want to sell you things, but Ms. DeRoche’s credentials are above reproach and the information checks out. Secondly, the article does describe briefly the process of oiling a clarinet’s bore, though it does not strongly recommend this procedure. That is probably information best not given to beginners—at that stage it should be prescribed and carried out by a professional.
    • Reed Help for Beginners, written by Sarah Hamilton. This oboe-related article was another top pick by the class, who appreciated its down-to-earth advice, clearly-explained concepts, and helpful illustrations. I agree that this is a great resource, though some of the reed evaluation and adjustment procedures described might be beyond the scope of what a non-oboist band director can or should attempt.
    • Beginner Clarinet Tips, written by “Andrea.” This one is really more of a table of contents to some other articles on the site. My class liked the breadth of material covered and the extensive photos. I find the information to be very similar to much of the conventional wisdom regarding beginning clarinet playing, which mostly but not completely agrees with my preferred approaches.
    • The Big Switch, by Amanda King. My students found this advice on switching students to the bassoon to be useful. I am on record as disagreeing with the premise that beginners should start on some other instrument before switching to the one they want, but the article does raise some relevant points for cases where that is happening.
    • Teaching the Beginning Bassoonist, written by Terry Ewell for The Double Reed. I’m including this excellent article even though it really is geared toward private bassoon teachers rather than band directors; it’s a good example of solid information that would be mismatched to this particular audience. It’s also a good (and relatively harmless) demonstration of the importance of using up-to-date materials, as bassoon reeds now cost well over $6 USD.
    • Tips for Teaching Beginning Flute Players written originally for BandWorld Magazine by Randy Navarre. My students liked the article’s concision and clarity. I generally agree with the information presented.

    I think some good things came out of the assignment, though I still feel like I sold out a little by excusing my students from visiting the library. I stayed fairly hands-off through the discussion process, and that did result in the students selecting some articles that weren’t really a fit for what I wanted them to learn. In the future I might consider being more involved with guiding the discussion. I’m also concerned that the final product—this blog post—isn’t as tangible as an actual notebook, and might not be as ready at hand, but hopefully they have developed some skills in evaluating information they find online.

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  • Pedagogical recipes

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    I want to follow up on something I touched on in my last post. I described in that post how I had my woodwind methods class evaluate some online pedagogical resources, and mentioned that I had them compare the information found online to the information presented in class. My idea was to prepare them to deal with conflicting information, which will be part of their reality as public school band directors.

    Woodwind pedagogy, unfortunately, is a mishmash of contradictory ideas. This is supported by a culture of hero worship of certain teachers and performers, a permissive editorial process for publishing pedagogical materials (increasingly so with the rise of the internet), and an attitude that music is not subject to scientific method.

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    photo, Sarah Horrigan
    photo, Sarah Horrigan

    There are many ways to make a chocolate cake. Some cake recipes might be objectively better than others by some measure or another. Some might produce results that are generally satisfactory but especially suited to certain tastes. And in some cases, two different recipes might produce results that are very similar. In those cases, the way the ingredients and techniques balance is significant: one recipe might call for two eggs instead of three, but has more of another ingredient that makes up the difference, or a difference in baking time and temperature.

    I think a similar thing can happen with “recipes” for woodwind playing. Equipment preferences are a fairly clear example: one clarinet teacher might favor very stiff reeds, while another prefers softer ones. Both might produce excellent results, so long as they are balanced properly—the first teacher probably balances stiffer reeds against mouthpieces with a more closed tip, and the other might use softer reeds with more open mouthpieces. One oboe teacher might clip his reeds to 70mm while another clips hers to 69.5mm, but they probably balance this with narrower or wider shaper tips, or tweaks to any of a dozen other variables.

    Playing techniques are a little more abstract and complicated to separate out, but I think the same concept applies. One bassoon teacher might encourage some jaw movement when articulating lower notes, while another teaches a more stable embouchure, but it’s always more complicated than that: the technique’s usefulness and effectiveness has to be evaluated in the context of each teacher’s approach to breath support, voicing, embouchure, equipment, and more.

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    ByBret Pimentel

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One Comment

  1. Abe-

    I find that an excellent method of practicing that incorporates musicianship, endurance and technical challenge is working enthusiastically with the Bach Uaccompanied Cello Suites and I find that Arthur Weisberg’s edition is marvelous in that he was able bridge and adapt the original version to the bassoon. It’s an amazing resource in fact for the bassoonist structurally and intellectually. You can’t get much better than J.S. BACH!

    Reply

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