…in all twelve keys, smoothly and evenly, the full range of your instrument(s)?
…with a beautiful sound on each and every note, and each note right in tune?
…with poised, elegant phrasing?
…in eighth notes at quarter = 100? 120? 140? 160? How about eighth-note triplets? Sixteenths?
…all slurred? All tongued? In mixed articulation patterns?
…with a variety of dynamic nuances?
…in pairs of ascending thirds, up and down the scale? Descending thirds? Fourths? Fifths? Sixths? Sevenths? Octaves? (Ninths…) How about ascending and descending diatonic triads? How about adding sevenths (plus ninths…) to the triads?
…using all relevant combinations of alternate fingerings?
…while double- and triple-tonguing? While circular breathing? While standing on your head?
I’m going to go practice for a while. Tune in June, 2018 for a follow-up post, “Now let’s try minor scales.”
I hope you enjoy your first classical music performance! Sometimes the etiquette can seem a little foreign. I’ll try to help you understand what to do, and why classical music fans do things that way.
The most important thing is not to distract the audience and the performers. Some common concert etiquette “rules” include:
Be in your seat before the music starts. Then, stay there until intermission (if there is one) or the end of the concert.
Don’t talk, even at a whisper.
Keep cell phones silenced, screens off, and put away.
No snacks.
If you have kids who might have trouble staying still/quiet, consider leaving them at home. (Except for designated family-friendly concerts.)
Applaud only at the “right” times. (More on this later.)
Avoid unnecessary fidgeting, coughing, and anything else that makes noise.
Why are the “rules” so strict? One reason is that classical music is usually performed in a special concert hall. Usually the music isn’t electronically amplified. The concert hall’s special design makes even the smallest sounds clear from a distance. That’s good when it’s a hushed moment in a violin solo. But it’s bad when it’s an audience member’s crinkling candy wrappers or ringtone. At an amplified rock, country, or hip-hop concert you can make noises like that, and no one will hear. But at a classical music concert people might hear those sounds even if they are far away. The performers can maybe even hear them from the stage.
Classical music wasn’t always such a stuffy affair. Some of the music was originally performed in more boisterous settings. And there are people in classical music interested in changing the current etiquette. But for now, the (mostly-unspoken) “rules” lean toward pretty strict and formal behavior.
And, for classical music fans, it’s one of the things they might love about it. The quiet atmosphere is a blank, unblemished canvas for the musicians to paint on. It’s a chance to hear every fine detail of a performance by highly-trained musicians. It can be immersive and meditative. You might find you enjoy it too.
To seasoned classical music fans, a disruptive audience member (even unintentionally!) might feel like someone standing in front of the TV during a crucial moment in the big football game. And, unfortunately, they might react like a sports fan, with dirty looks, unkind words, or other rudeness. That’s bad too, because it can scare away potential new fans of classical music. But it probably comes from a place of wanting to experience the music in a pure, uninterrupted way.
A polite audience member also shows appreciation to the performers, usually with applause (not so much yelling, whistling, “woo,” etc.). But pieces of classical music sometimes have multiple parts, with silence between. It can be tricky to know when is the right time to clap. If there’s a printed program, that might help you figure it out. But if you’re not sure it’s best to follow the lead of some of the other concertgoers. (There’s no prize for being the first one to clap.) Sometimes there’s a long silence between the end of the music and the start of the applause. Audience members may be waiting for the last note to finish echoing in the hall. And they might even wait a little longer to savor the magical moment of silence at the end. Don’t worry. The musicians will appreciate that too, and won’t take your hesitation as a lack of enthusiasm.
If you find all this off-putting, there are ways to appreciate classical music performances from home instead. If you enjoy it you can work up to an in-person concert. Or you may be able to find free or inexpensive concerts in your area, especially if there’s a university with a music department. You can try one of those and leave at intermission if you’re bored or uncomfortable.
Thanks for your interest in live classical music, and I hope you enjoy!
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:
Here’s what I teach my first-year music majors as they are preparing for their first public performance of solo or chamber repertoire. Customs may vary in your area.
Dress professionally and comfortably. Formalwear/eveningwear is overkill and a distraction for most music major recital performances. I like to wear a necktie and preferably also a jacket, but something of roughly equivalent dressiness also works (slacks/skirt and a nice top are another example).
Enter the stage by walking swiftly and confidently. Stop just short of the music stand, so that it isn’t between you and the audience (at least not yet).
Before you do anything else, acknowledge your audience with a bow. (If you are on stage with collaborative musicians, wait for them to get into position so you can all bow together. Whoever is standing closest to the front should start the bow as soon as everybody is ready.) To bow: bend at the waist, look at your shoes for a second, then straighten back up. Keep both hands either on your instrument or at your sides. Don’t curtsy. Don’t shrug or roll your eyes or pull faces. (I suggest practicing your bow a little before your performance. Maybe take smartphone video so you can see if you are doing something weird.)
After bowing, make any last-minute arrangements or adjustments: arranging sheet music, checking reeds, etc.
If you are taking a tuning note on stage, turn to whoever is providing the pitch. Mostly listen, then play briefly, adjust, and if needed play one more time (briefly!) to be sure. Don’t play a long tuning note, like you’re trying to convince yourself that you’re right. If you’re uncertain about your ability to tune accurately on stage, you can tune to a tuner or other reference before going on stage, and use the onstage tuning as a chance to just play a note before you begin the performance.
During the performance, don’t make faces or gestures in response to mistakes. It calls unnecessary attention to what probably are barely-noticeable glitches, and takes you and your audience out of the moment.
As you and/or your collaborators play the last note of each movement or piece, freeze in place. Hold your position until the last note finishes reverberating in the performance space, then another second or two.
If you just finished a complete musical work (not just one movement of the larger work you are performing), you can bring your instrument down into a carrying position, look out into the audience, and smile to signal that the piece is complete. They should start to applaud at this point.
Leave the stage quickly. Don’t be caught still on stage when the applause ends. In some situations you can leave your sheet music behind to be retrieved later.
In some cases the audience will continue to applaud enthusiastically after you leave the stage. If you like, you can return to the stage for another bow and then leave quickly again. Sometimes the audience doesn’t bring you back for another bow—don’t take that personally.
For many household items, screws should be tightened if they seem loose. But for woodwind instruments it’s a little more complicated.
Woodwind instruments (flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and saxophones) have many screws on them. They are usually the slotted type, for which you would use a standard (“flat-head”) screwdriver. And some of them need to be tightened when they become loose, but some should be left alone—and it’s not always easy to tell which is which. If you aren’t sure, take it to your teacher or a professional instrument repair shop.
When tightening screws, always use a screwdriver that fits the screw very closely, to reduce the chances of damaging the screw. Mismatched screwdrivers can also slip, causing injury to you or scratches on the instrument’s finish.
Here are some kinds of screws you might find on your instrument:
Some screws simply hold some non-moving pieces together. For example, these screws on a saxophone hold this key guard onto the instrument. It’s not a moving part; the screws are just there so a professional can remove the key guard to do specialized work on the key. If these screws are loose, you can carefully tighten them just until they are snug.
The same is true of these screws that hold the oboe’s thumb rest in place—they are part of a non-moving assembly. If they won’t stay in place, the wood may be damaged (the hole is “stripped”). A good repair shop can fix it for you.
Woodwind instruments have many pivot screws, and also pivot rods that have slotted ends like screws. These allow some of the instrument’s keys to pivot (rotate) a little when you press and release them.
Here is one of the pivot screws on a flute. The threaded part screws into a post that is attached to the instrument, and the pointy tip of the screw fits into a void in the end of the key, holding it in place but allowing it to pivot smoothly. For a well-made and well-maintained instrument, usually you can screw these in all the way until they are snug and the head of the screw fits into the post without protruding. But if that makes the key stick or misbehave, it may be necessary to loosen it just slightly.
Here is a flute pivot rod. When it is screwed in it looks the same as a pivot screw, but when it is removed you can see that it’s long enough to pass all the way through a post and the keys’ hinge tube, and then screw into another post. Like a pivot screw, a pivot rod can usually be screwed in until snug, unless that seems to cause a problem.
Most of the woodwinds also have at least a few adjustment screws. These allow a professional to fine-tune how some of the keys move. They need to be tightened a certain amount, no tighter and no looser, like turning the knob on an oven to get the right temperature. If it’s too loose or too tight, it will make the instrument difficult or impossible to play. Making these adjustments properly requires specialized skills.
Here are some of the many adjustment screws on an oboe:
And here is one of the few on a clarinet:
If you tighten these adjustment screws and don’t know what you are doing, you will probably need to take the instrument to your teacher or a repair shop to undo the damage. This can be time-consuming and expensive.
If you have screws that keep loosening on their own, this may be because they are dirty, damaged, or need lubrication. A good repair shop can clean and repair the screws or rods without damaging them (or replace them if necessary), and can determine and apply the appropriate lubricant. (Most household oils aren’t right for the job.) If the screws continue to loosen after this treatment, take the instrument to the shop again and they may use additional methods to secure the screws in place.
Most of them cost a lot of money. Replacing any of them would be expensive, possibly even prohibitively so. (If you haven’t already, get a good insurance policy from a company that specializes in musical instruments!)
I worked hard at choosing them. When I bought my oboe, I went to the IDRS conference and tried over 50, maybe 100 of them. Finding a replacement oboe that I’m really happy with could mean trying another 50 or 100. Even if you’ve got the time, opportunities to do something like that are rare.
I have invested a lot of time developing personal relationships with my instruments—getting to know their intonation and response tendencies, getting comfortable with the feel of the keywork, finding out how to coax “my” sound from them. Even replacing one with another of the same make and model means starting fresh with a stranger.
I recently asked one of my (woodwind) students why she thinks I make her practice scales. She didn’t have a ready answer, and I realized maybe I hadn’t been clear about the value of scales. Here are some reasons to practice scales (and arpeggios, and other methodical technical materials):
To develop good finger movement. Scales provide a systematic way to work each finger, and to work them together in just about every combination.
To build familiarity with the instrument. A rigorous scale routine makes you use every key and every fingering on the instrument.
To get comfortable playing in every key.
To explore the instrument’s range. Full-range scales are a good way to make yourself play in the highest and lowest registers of the instrument every day.
To provide a canvas for working on other techniques. Ever notice how woodwind instruments articulate a little differently on different notes? How different notes respond differently to vibrato? How some notes tend to be flat or sharp? Learn your scales well, and then use them as a way to take those techniques through every note on the instrument.
To train for musical situations. Most music is made up of bits and pieces of scales and arpeggios. Getting those patterns into muscle “memory” frees up mental bandwidth for sight-reading, ensemble, expression, and more.
To develop your ears. Internalize major, minor, diminished, whole tone, chromatic, and other modalities.
To satisfy requirements. If you are a music student at just about any level, scales are probably part of your lessons, exams, and auditions for the foreseeable future.
To have a familiar, habitual technical workout that you can improve upon for the rest of your life, without need for an étude book.
This sounds exactly like a conversation I had with Kirk Macdonald (http://www.kirkmacdonald.com/) the first time I met him.
I attended an audition prep workshop that took place 6 weeks before auditions to Humber the first time I auditioned… in that workshop we got a 30 minute lesson with a prof from the school. The first thing he asked me is if I knew my major scales … I said yes … BIG mistake! HAHA … He went through that whole spiel you just listed.
The crazy thing is … he CAN do all of that stuff and more on all his major scales (minor, bebop … you name it etc.)
This sounds exactly like a conversation I had with Kirk Macdonald (http://www.kirkmacdonald.com/) the first time I met him.
I attended an audition prep workshop that took place 6 weeks before auditions to Humber the first time I auditioned… in that workshop we got a 30 minute lesson with a prof from the school. The first thing he asked me is if I knew my major scales … I said yes … BIG mistake! HAHA … He went through that whole spiel you just listed.
The crazy thing is … he CAN do all of that stuff and more on all his major scales (minor, bebop … you name it etc.)
Guess it’s back to the practice module for me!