If you are considering buying the newest, hottest instrument, accessory, gadget, etc., it’s worth asking yourself a few questions:
Is this item made out of materials that are usually used for fine jewelry or the dashboards of luxury cars?
How likely is it that the most visually-attractive materials also happen to have the ideal acoustical qualities? Is there really a good reason to believe that this particular material sounds better than other materials that happen to be less pretty and less expensive? Is there some reason to believe this couldn’t be made from practical and low-cost materials like steel or aluminum or oak or birch, or any of the incredible and endlessly varied synthetic materials?
Does the item come in a variety of materials at a variety of price points, with the most expensive materials being pushed as the best-sounding?
Does the marketing pitch sound like it might really be describing how the material looks, rather than sounds? “The brilliance of silver,” “the smooth dark sound of grenadilla,” “the rich sound of our proprietary gold alloy,” “the complex character of our highly-figured maple.”
You should use the instruments that work best for you. If precious metals and fragrant exotic woods make you happy and you can afford them, then you should have them. But be careful not to get caught up in a sales pitch that is more about bling than about real benefits.
I’m spending the summer studying for my doctoral comprehensive exams. One major component of the exams will be woodwind literature, so I’ve been trying to narrow down lists of really essential pieces. It has been an interesting challenge to select a list long enough to have depth and short enough to be manageable (I’ve was shooting for around 100 pieces total – I’m a little over).
I wanted the list to be a balance of a lot of different things: commonly-taught and commonly-performed literature, pieces of historical import, pieces representing style periods from Baroque to the 21st century, pieces covering a range of difficulty levels, and so forth.
If you are practicing and concerned about fatigue during an upcoming performance, here are some (woodwind-centric) things to consider.
Embouchure. The embouchure is a frequent site for fatigue, but it shouldn’t be. Embouchure pain or tiredness in a conventional performance situation is usually a sign of incorrect tone production technique. (Not a matter of needing to “strengthen the muscles” or “build endurance,” neither of which makes sense for a well-formed, properly relaxed embouchure.) Rather than relying on the small, weak muscles of the embouchure, use good…
Breath support. The breath support muscles in your torso can (and do) work all day. If you are feeling fatigue in your embouchure or other small muscles, lean on your breath support more.
Breathing plan. Another frequent cause of fatigue is oxygen deprivation. Reconsider your breathing plan (you have one, right?) and make sure you are getting enough oxygen to your body and brain (and venting carbon dioxide, too).
Practice. Ask yourself how you can practice in a way that will leave you less tired and prepare you for a performance situation. Consider starting your practice with breaks frequent and long enough to let your body and mind rest, and gradually making them shorter and less frequent. When I’m preparing for a recital, I usually do a few rounds of recording the whole program: the first recording might take me half a day with longer breaks, but later recordings happen within a shortening time frame, approaching my intended recital length.
Equipment. I had some pain and fatigue in my back a number of years ago when I was practicing a lot of tenor saxophone. I bought a new neckstrap and the problem went away immediately. There are lots of products and alterations available for various instruments that can reduce strain on your body.
General health. Playing a musical instrument is serious physical activity. Make sure you are getting good rest, nutrition, exercise, life balance, physical and/or mental health care, and whatever else will keep you energized.
Here’s a comment I made by email to Sy Brandon, regarding the saxophone movement of Divertissement, the new multiple woodwinds piece he is writing for me.
So much contemporary saxophone music is bombastic and grating—I always make sure I bring some aspirin when I attend the saxophone conferences. But the saxophone has such wonderful lyrical qualities, and I’m pleased that the saxophone got assigned to play something pretty in this piece.
Don’t get me wrong; I love the saxophone’s expansive palette of tone colors, and will happily flutter-tongue or play multiphonics or whatever. But it’s nice to play a melody once in a while.
I have a question about maintenance on your doubles. Once you feel like you have a good foundation and can play them at a high level, how do you maintain that in your practice routine?
There’s no great answer to your question. Playing one instrument “at a high level” takes lots of time and commitment, and playing several just multiplies the requirement.
I don’t know if I really play any of my instruments at a high level, but here are a few things that seem to help me:
Spend some time living in the world of each instrument. Read books and journals, buy and listen to recordings, attend concerts, masterclasses, and conferences. When I start to feel like I’m really getting a handle on an instrument, it’s time to go immerse myself in it and realize what is really possible. Last month I went to the John Mack Oboe Camp, and was blown away by the great playing I heard there. It made me really aware of some things that needed improvement in my own playing. I got to participate in some masterclasses and got some great suggestions.
Keep yourself challenged. I do a faculty recital each year for my college teaching job, and I try to crank things up by a small notch each year in terms of difficulty. Not because difficult music is necessarily better, but because I need to push myself. Find something you can’t quite do—a repertoire piece, a fundamental technique issue, an advanced or extended technique—and work on it until you can do it.
Focus on fundamentals. There just isn’t time in the day to give each instrument the 3-4 hours of practice they need. What time I do have, I try to really pack with long tones, scales, and other really fundamental stuff, and make everything as perfect, polished, and controlled as possible.
As a practical matter, I find that I need an hour or more with an instrument to make any progress when I’m practicing, and I need to practice it a few days in a row to get some momentum going. So if I’ve only got a couple of hours, it’s usually not useful to cram in half a dozen instruments. I try to rotate them in such a way that each instrument gets practiced for a few days in a row, then gets a few days off. Something like:
These are questions I am often asked about clarinet or saxophone ligatures, by blog readers or by my students.
Is there a ligature that can accomplish _____ for me? If you are looking for something to hold the reed onto the mouthpiece, then yes. If you are hoping to achieve something loftier, then probably not.
Should I get one of the rigid (usually metal) kinds, or one of the soft (usually some leather-ish synthetic) kinds? The very cheapest options are usually metal, and they generally work fine. If they are of especially low quality, they might break quickly, or scratch your mouthpiece or dig into your reed. The soft ones are a little more expensive, but have the advantages of (a) better gripping an oddly-shaped mouthpiece or reed and (b) surviving being stepped on.
What about a fancy one, with jewelry metals or cryogenic treatment or inset “tone jewels” or some other expensive gimmick? Won’t those make me sound better? This is extremely doubtful. There’s a possibility that you will sound a little different inside your own head, and that might make you play a little differently. Or that platinum plating (or just having spent a lot of money) will increase your confidence. But it’s very questionable that the ligature has some inherent sound quality that your audience can hear, unless you plan to hit it with a drumstick. Remember that in some parts of the world, top orchestral clarinetists use shoelaces. (I heard a story of one of these clarinetists being asked what kind of shoelace he used. His response: “Black.”) If you are deeply invested in the idea that a ligature needs to be fancy or expensive, Michael Lowenstern has a video you might find enlightening.
But doesn’t a ligature affect the reed’s vibrations? The vibrate-y part of the reed is the thinner part, away from the ligature.
Should I use the kind with one or two screws? What about those ones with no screws? Any number of screws is fine, as long as it holds the reed on the mouthpiece.
Should I get the kind where the screws go on top of the mouthpiece or underneath? I really cannot emphasize enough the unimportance of the screw situation.
How tight should my ligature be? Tight enough to hold the reed securely in place.
How far back or forward should I put the ligature? You could try some different positions and see if one feels better to you. Some mouthpieces have a line on them to suggest where the ligature should go. You are not obligated to follow this guideline, but if you are having difficulty deciding where your ligature should go then I suggest using this as a starting point.
If you would like to purchase something that will improve your tone quality or your articulation or whatever, I recommend getting some recordings of very fine clarinetists and some lessons with an excellent teacher. Enjoy!
One of the first “technical” things I wrote on this blog was about playing in tune. I ran across that now-embarrassing post recently and decided it is time to revisit that topic since my thinking about it has crystallized a bit more.
To play a woodwind instrument in tune, there are five factors to address:
Ears. If you don’t know what “in tune” sounds like, you probably won’t do it by accident. I still like the Tuning CD (now available as a download) for this. Follow the instructions for your instrument and do a few minutes every day over the long term. Sing, too. Electronic tuners have some uses but ear training doesn’t happen to be one of them.
Equipment. Play the best instruments, mouthpieces, etc. you are able to get. If you are picking out new equipment, intonation should probably be your top priority over sexier things like “tone,” which is both more subjective and more malleable. (Incidentally, this is one of the best arguments for playing new woodwind instruments rather than “vintage,” since, generally speaking, incremental improvements mean that each generation of instruments plays better in tune than the one before.) Sure, you can “play” a lesser instrument in tune, but let your equipment do as much of the work for you as possible.
Playing technique. This includes, for starters, consistent and powerful breath support, accurate and stable voicing, and a well-formed embouchure. Even small weaknesses in any of these areas makes your pitch less steady and predictable, and more significant weaknesses can make good intonation virtually impossible.
Adjustment of the tuning mechanism(s). This means pulling something in or out to slightly adjust the instrument’s length, but it could also include, say, selecting a clarinet barrel or a bassoon bocal. Assuming good equipment and solid playing technique, there will be a “spot” where the mouthpiece/barrel/headjoint/etc. should go for the instrument to play optimally in tune at its intended pitch level (A=440? A=442? etc.). Any deviation from this should be a carefully-considered compromise. For example, if you are playing with an ensemble that tunes a little sharper than you’re used to, you can “push in” to make it a little easier to get up to pitch, but you will find that the instrument’s intonation characteristics change: some notes will get a little sharper, some a lot sharper.
Adjustment of individual notes. Even on the best instruments, some notes have undesirable pitch tendencies. And sometimes you have to play a note a little “out of tune” to match another musician’s pitch, to meet the demands of “just” intonation, for expressive purposes, or for a variety of other reasons. These adjustments are best made by using alternate fingerings or by making slight temporary changes in voicing. Be wary of using any other technique, including things like “rolling” the flute or making any embouchure changes (“dropping the jaw”), which are unwieldy and compromise other aspects of tone production.
Development of good intonation is a cycle of revisiting each of these elements again and again: each improvement to your ears, each equipment change, each change in your technique, each adjustment of a tuning mechanism, and the needs of each individual playing situation may require further refinements of all the other areas. If intonation isn’t something you have tackled seriously before, then start by working on your ears, and be patient.
Spot on, Bret. This post reminded me of a certain woodwinds accessory company (who shall go unnamed here) that sells a ligature made primarily of string, with a minimum amount of metal parts (e.g., the screw). When I read about how the cryogenically treated gold parts “significantly” improve resonance and response (as opposed to the less expensive model, which has silver parts), I become a bit suspicious. And all this for a mere $200! Yeah, okay.
Thanks for this, Bret. I know your article is talking more generally about what to watch for, but I’m curious what you think about the lefreQue “acoustic bridge”. The marketing sounds like exactly what you are describing, but it’s being endorsed by some heavyweights (yes, they might all be paid endorsements) and also by personal colleagues. I haven’t had a chance to try one out yet, and given your skepticism I thought you would have the most pragmatic opinion on the product.
I haven’t tried one and so can’t give any kind of informed review. But the concept seems sketchy to me, and certainly the emphasis on shiny jewelry metals is suspect.
Most gadgets etc. that claim to emphasize or improve the vibrations of the instrument’s body seem to me to affect how the player hears themselves much more than how anyone else hears them. (See the Backus article listed in the notes of this old blog post for some good science on instrument body vibrations and their audibility.) However, if something affects the way I hear myself, then that might change the way I play (which someone else can definitely hear).
Your statement that “Most gadgets etc. that claim to emphasize or improve the vibrations of the instrument’s body seem to me to affect how the player hears themselves much more than how anyone else hears them” is right on, in my experience, and better stated than I’ve been able to articulate. I play with another gadget on my instrument (not a LefreQue, but a previous “fad” from about 15 years ago). It works great for me. Do I sound different to my audience? Not sure, but it makes ME feel like a million bucks when I play. It may be a placebo effect, but if the end result is a performance I’m happy with, it’s worth it to me. I don’t push them on my students, as I’d rather they put a couple hundred into repairs or upgrades rather than the latest trend.
Not sure how I stumbled across this post almost 5 years after the fact. But I do find the Le freQue acoustic bridge a curious one. I know there are these “heavy screws,” too, that screw onto the saxophones (I believe in the lyre screw hole) that claim to make a difference.
I’m open to the possibility but a little skeptical, too. But I will say that your statement, “if something affects the way I hear myself, then that might change the way I play (which someone else can definitely hear)” sums it up for sure.
Two instances of that come to mind. for one, I notice that any time I’ve tested a P Mauriat sax (several, now) I notice that the horns seem to always have a bit of “back pressure” to them – in other words, my Cannonballs blow freely like blowing through a garden hose; the Mauriat always seems to have a little resistance to the air flow. It DOES affect the way I play when I’m on one.
The other thing I notice that makes a difference too (which is why, although I’m skeptical, I’m open to the idea that it might make a difference) is that I notice a difference even with ligatures. One in particular is a Rovner that I have that has different “tone plates” that drop into a slot inside a pocket in the ligature. Playing with or without the plates does make a difference. In this case, I think it is more “resistance” that I feel, but that resistance does affect the way I hear myself, and like you said, I think it makes me feel different when I play, which, I believe, affects the sound.
Spot on, Bret. This post reminded me of a certain woodwinds accessory company (who shall go unnamed here) that sells a ligature made primarily of string, with a minimum amount of metal parts (e.g., the screw). When I read about how the cryogenically treated gold parts “significantly” improve resonance and response (as opposed to the less expensive model, which has silver parts), I become a bit suspicious. And all this for a mere $200! Yeah, okay.
Thanks for this, Bret. I know your article is talking more generally about what to watch for, but I’m curious what you think about the lefreQue “acoustic bridge”. The marketing sounds like exactly what you are describing, but it’s being endorsed by some heavyweights (yes, they might all be paid endorsements) and also by personal colleagues. I haven’t had a chance to try one out yet, and given your skepticism I thought you would have the most pragmatic opinion on the product.
I haven’t tried one and so can’t give any kind of informed review. But the concept seems sketchy to me, and certainly the emphasis on shiny jewelry metals is suspect.
Most gadgets etc. that claim to emphasize or improve the vibrations of the instrument’s body seem to me to affect how the player hears themselves much more than how anyone else hears them. (See the Backus article listed in the notes of this old blog post for some good science on instrument body vibrations and their audibility.) However, if something affects the way I hear myself, then that might change the way I play (which someone else can definitely hear).
Your statement that “Most gadgets etc. that claim to emphasize or improve the vibrations of the instrument’s body seem to me to affect how the player hears themselves much more than how anyone else hears them” is right on, in my experience, and better stated than I’ve been able to articulate. I play with another gadget on my instrument (not a LefreQue, but a previous “fad” from about 15 years ago). It works great for me. Do I sound different to my audience? Not sure, but it makes ME feel like a million bucks when I play. It may be a placebo effect, but if the end result is a performance I’m happy with, it’s worth it to me. I don’t push them on my students, as I’d rather they put a couple hundred into repairs or upgrades rather than the latest trend.
Not sure how I stumbled across this post almost 5 years after the fact. But I do find the Le freQue acoustic bridge a curious one. I know there are these “heavy screws,” too, that screw onto the saxophones (I believe in the lyre screw hole) that claim to make a difference.
I’m open to the possibility but a little skeptical, too. But I will say that your statement, “if something affects the way I hear myself, then that might change the way I play (which someone else can definitely hear)” sums it up for sure.
Two instances of that come to mind. for one, I notice that any time I’ve tested a P Mauriat sax (several, now) I notice that the horns seem to always have a bit of “back pressure” to them – in other words, my Cannonballs blow freely like blowing through a garden hose; the Mauriat always seems to have a little resistance to the air flow. It DOES affect the way I play when I’m on one.
The other thing I notice that makes a difference too (which is why, although I’m skeptical, I’m open to the idea that it might make a difference) is that I notice a difference even with ligatures. One in particular is a Rovner that I have that has different “tone plates” that drop into a slot inside a pocket in the ligature. Playing with or without the plates does make a difference. In this case, I think it is more “resistance” that I feel, but that resistance does affect the way I hear myself, and like you said, I think it makes me feel different when I play, which, I believe, affects the sound.
Good web site, by the way.