illuminated stage of an empty theater

Five little things that will make a difference in your next performance, audition, or competition

ByBret Pimentel

When I listen to young and advancing woodwind players at the high school level (masterclass participants, scholarship or honor band auditionees, competition participants), I often think that there are some small fixes that would make a big difference in their success. There’s no substitute for lessons with a qualified teacher, but these improvements are easy and set you apart from the rest:

  • Slow down a little. Speed is only impressive if your playing is clean, even, and precise. If taking a slightly slower tempo gives you better accuracy and control, do it.
  • Breathe intentionally. Where you breathe in the music makes a huge difference in your phrasing. Never just play until you run out of air. Find places to breathe that sound natural. If you’re not sure, listen to a recording of a good player and copy their breaths, or record yourself and notice what sounds right or wrong. Mark the breaths in (all of them!) and practice them carefully until they are a habit.
  • Do bigger dynamics. Even if you think you are already following the dynamic markings, make your softs softer and your louds louder.
  • Choose reeds wisely. I hear lots of ambitious young players using reeds that are much too hard. If a little softer reed allows you to play with ease and comfort, you will probably sound better. And a performance isn’t the time to use a brand-new one, or one that is past its prime. A week or two ahead, break in some new reeds and pick the best 2-3 to have on hand.
  • Relax. Tension is the biggest thing that tanks even well-prepared performances. Practice releasing the tension in your body. As you feel tension creep back in, release it again. Take advantage of rests or other pauses in the music to release once more. Try a pre-performance ritual like box breathing to reduce your adrenaline response, focus and calm your mind, and steady your hands.

Sometimes the smallest adjustments make the biggest difference. If you are an advancing player, which of these do you think would help you the most? If you’re a teacher, what small fixes do you recommend most?

Similar Posts

  • Three stages of practicing

    ByBret Pimentel

    My practicing has evolved quite a bit since my beginner days. In those earliest days as a middle-school band student, my idea of “practicing” amounted to playing the scale/piece/etc. through from beginning to end, generally with a number of mistakes, and then (optionally…) doing it again. I did manage to make some progress, but the results were far from ideal: few problem spots ever really got fixed.

    As my musical standards, maturity, and commitment to practice time improved, it became clear that beginning-to-end practicing was not the best use of my time. As I started taking private lessons during high school, and transitioned into university music studies, I began spending more of my practice time focusing on the problem spots. With some work, at least some of those spots got solved, and my rate of progress ramped up noticeably.

    At that point, I found myself in the same situation that my own university students now sometimes complain of: they successfully improve the problem spots, but, frustratingly, the “easy” parts fall apart under pressure (in a lesson, a performance, etc.).

    photo, Wolfgang Lonien
    photo, Wolfgang Lonien

    For me, the third stage of my practicing development began when I realized the obvious: every part of what I am practicing needs concentrated, methodical practice. If the “easy” parts are falling apart, it’s because I have essentially been sight-reading them in the practice room, and under pressure my sight-reading ability suffers a bit. Instead I need to know every note, rest, and expressive marking intimately. Problem-spot practicing gets me up close and personal with the “hard” parts, but neglects the rest.

    So now I practice, and encourage my students to practice, phrase by phrase, measure by measure, even beat by beat, through every bit of the music, regardless of difficulty. Some parts might require more work, but every part needs work.

    When I explain this to students, I sometimes see in their faces the same hesitation that I initially had: this is going to take forever! It does require serious commitment, but isn’t it worth it to play the lesson or performance with confidence and control? Besides, it might not take as long as you think. Sometimes I walk through the math with a student to show them that it’s actually pretty doable. For example, suppose the student’s assignment includes a 50-measure etude. If the student spends two focused minutes on each and every measure, that only adds up to a bit more than an hour and a half of practicing, but begins an intimate acquaintance with the entire etude. That’s less than one day’s worth of practicing for most college-level music students, leaving quite a few additional hours in the week to shore up the hard parts plus practice other assigned materials.

    I think that, at least for me, this progression through three different stages was necessary; in other words, I don’t think it’s necessarily wise or feasible to push all beginners straight into something as intensive and committed as third-stage practicing. Your results may vary.

  • Ornaments are notes

    ByBret Pimentel

    I think there are some unintended consequences 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 “Ornaments are notes”

  • Brand snobbery

    ByBret Pimentel

    Photo, Steve Rawley

    I recently met a fellow woodwind player, and the conversation inevitably turned to gear. We had each recently tried out an instrument by a relatively new maker. My new acquaintance found it not to his liking. “I’m a _____ snob,” he proudly explained, naming a very popular and well-established instrument maker.

    I also recently read a woodwind-related message board thread (why do I torture myself?) in which some discussion was taking place about an accessories maker who had recently branched out into a new venture. A commenter scoffed at the new product and at the maker in general, indicating his disinclination even to sample any of their (generally well-regarded) products. He offered no explanation for his strong and seemingly arbitrary opinion.

    Your gear choices are your own. But if you find yourself clinging to brand names, and defending those choices with something besides objective comparisons, then you might be missing out.

  • How to convince me not to play your newly-composed piece

    ByBret Pimentel

    My inbox runneth over with invitations to buy and perform composers’ new pieces. I’d like to play new works, but some composers make it harder for me to accept their invitations. Here’s how:

    • Failure of fit. If I’m clearly just on your email-blast list of 3,000 clarinetists, there’s a fair chance your new piece doesn’t have any special appeal for me. But if it scratches one of my particular performance itches (like pieces for multiple-woodwinds soloist, woodwind instrument with live electronics, or “world” woodwinds) then a more limited mailing or a brief personal note will definitely catch my eye.
    • No reference material. If I have to guess what the piece is like from a title or a description, I probably won’t invest the money or time to give it a closer look. Give me a perusal score or recording, and preferably both. Recordings that are mediocre or computer-generated are acceptable—I just need a strong hint about what the music is like, not your fully-realized vision. And watermarked or even partial scores work, too. If I can’t find the reference materials on your website, I’ll assume they are not available, and probably won’t email you to ask.
    • Too restrictive. These days my recital performances are for a relatively small in-person audience and a larger online audience. If you’re uncomfortable with me putting a video on YouTube, I’m less interested in putting time and effort into it.
    • Logistics too costly. Pieces with extreme difficulty, large or unusual ensembles, complicated staging, rare instruments, etc. present real, practical obstacles to performance. The piece has to be compelling enough for me to decide to spend limited resources (time, money, called-in favors) on it. Some flexibility, such as piano reductions, optional cuts, or adaptable instrumentation, can convince me to try the piece in a lower-cost situation first, and then maybe like it enough to keep it in mind for the rare concerto opportunity later.

    Let’s work together and get some new works performed!

  • Doubling reed tip from Lawrie Bloom

    ByBret Pimentel

    Lawrie Bloom, solo bass clarinetist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, starts this video talking about his reed break-in process, but spends some time toward the end (start at about 2:45 to cut to the chase) talking about his strategy for doubling clarinet and bass clarinet in a symphonic setting.

    Mr. Bloom recommends using slightly softer reeds than usual to compensate for the fact that the reeds will be somewhat drier than optimal, and using a mouthpiece cap whenever possible. Read More “Doubling reed tip from Lawrie Bloom”

  • Three Fingering Diagram Builder tutorials

    ByBret Pimentel

    Back in the olden days (2002), I wrote a paper for a college class on Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s simultaneous playing of clarinet and saxophone on “Creole Love Call” from the 1967 album The Inflated Tear. (When I started up this blog, the paper retroactively became a blog post.) In my paper, I included two fingering charts—one for right-handed clarinet, one for left-handed saxophone—that I thought looked pretty good and only took me a few hours to make. Ah, how young I was.

    Right-handed clarinet fingering chart. Click for larger.

    Left-handed saxophone fingering chart.

    Clearly, the time has come to update these sad old charts, and the Fingering Diagram Builder makes it fast, easy, and, dare I say it?—fun. I’ll show you how it’s done, using three particularly cool features (if I do say so myself) of the FDB. We will take a look at the FDB’s custom styles, custom keywork presets, and Dropbox integration.

    Custom styles

    For now, my plan is just to create enough diagrams to replace the ones in these old fingering charts—just the fingerings I figure Kirk must have used. But I don’t think Rahsaan would want me limiting myself to just those fingerings in the future. I’d better set up this project in such a way that I can come back later with new one-handed fingerings I’ve discovered, and add them to the charts with a minimum of fuss.

    The problem is that, what with the FDB’s highly customizable diagrams, I may not remember tomorrow whether the ones I made today have lines that are “medium” or “thick” or “heavy,” or whether I sized them “small” or “tiny,” or whether I was saving the diagrams as .PNG files for onscreen use or .TIF files for better printed results. The FDB does, of course, remember my current settings between sessions all on its own, but I like to work on several projects at once (Rahsaan would approve, I think) and I’ll use the FDB’s “custom styles”  to keep each project’s configuraton a click away. Here’s how:

    1. First I will set up things just the way I want them. Currently, settings that can be saved as part of a custom style are: diagram size, line thickness, color, file naming procedure (let the FDB name them automatically, or specify each filename myself), file format, save-to location (my computer or my Dropbox), and, if I’m using Dropbox, which folder to save the files in.
    2. Once everything is just right, I’ll click over to the “Custom styles” tab in the FDB’s menu to review my choices, and select which ones I want to save.

      As you can see, I’ve set the diagrams to be small, heavy-lined, colored in gray, .PNG-formatted, and saved to Dropbox in a folder called “kirkismyhero.” I have un-checked the box for “File naming,” since I don’t want the FDB to remember that for my purposes on this project—I’ll just go ahead and use whichever system I’m already using that day.
    3. I’ll type in a name (“kirk project”) for my custom style, and click the “Save current settings” button (or press Enter).

      I’m done—that’s all there is to it. In the future, whenever I want to create more diagrams like the ones I’m making today, I can just go to the “Custom styles” tab and click on “kirk project.”

    Read More “Three Fingering Diagram Builder tutorials”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comments that take a negative or confrontational tone are subject to email and name verification before being approved. In other words: no anonymous trolls allowed—take responsibility for your words.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.