Bret Pimentel, woodwinds

Announcements and news | Woodwind playing and pedagogy

Woodwind Doubler Census results, part 3: education and training
ByBret Pimentel May 11, 2011March 16, 2017
More results from the Great Woodwind Doubler Census of 2011. Enjoy!

Education and training

Q: Which of these have been part of your education on woodwind instruments?

Out of 187 total respondents, every one answered this question. The complete wording of the possible responses was as follows:
- school band/orchestra program (high school or younger)
- private lessons outside of school
- summer camps, workshops, or other formal programs outside of school
- university band/orchestra program
- university/conservatory bachelors degree with concentration(s) in multiple woodwinds
- university/conservatory bachelors degree with single-instrument or other music concentration
- university/conservatory masters degree with concentration(s) in multiple woodwinds
- university/conservatory masters degree with single-instrument or other music concentration
- university/conservatory doctoral degree with concentration(s) in multiple woodwinds
- university/conservatory doctoral degree with single-instrument or other music concentration
- other university/conservatory music degree or certification
- self-taught on one or more instruments
The biggest surprise to me was the number claiming bachelors degrees in multiple woodwinds. I assume that many of these must be double majors or other oddities, since there are very few true bachelors degree programs in multiple woodwinds available.

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Announcements and news | Woodwind playing and pedagogy

Woodwind Doubler Census results, part 2: instruments
ByBret Pimentel May 6, 2011March 16, 2017
In the previous installment of results from the Great Woodwind Doubler Census of 2011, I shared some basic demographic information about the 187 survey respondents. In this installment (and those to come), we’ll dig into some real doubling stuff.

Instruments

Q: Which woodwind instruments do you play, and at what levels?

The top results are unsurprising: saxophone, clarinet, and flute being the most widely-played, with oboe in a distant fourth place. I was a little surprised to see folk/ethnic/period woodwinds edge out the bassoon.
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Woodwind playing and pedagogy

Woodwind Doubler Census results, part 1: demographics
ByBret Pimentel May 3, 2011January 1, 2018
First things first: thank you thank you thank you to all who participated in the survey, and especially those who Tweeted, Facebooked, and otherwise spread the word. I was bowled over by the number and diversity of woodwind doublers who responded: top professionals, rank amateurs, and everyone in between, for a grand total of 187 responses. Wow! It has been fascinating to see your answers and read your comments. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be revealing what I’ve learned in installments. If you’re not already subscribed in some way, you can grab the RSS feed, sign up for updates by email, or follow me on Twitter. And you can see all related posts in one place, tagged as The Great Woodwind Doubler Census of 2011.

And now, with no further ado, I give you:

Woodwind Doubler Census results, part 1: Demographic background

Gender

Although a number of talented and versatile ladies responded, as a group we are mostly of the male persuasion.

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Education

Advice for prospective college music majors
ByBret Pimentel April 22, 2011March 16, 2017
Photo, Surat Lozowick

Planning on being a college music major? Good for you! But if you’re like I was as a high school senior, there are some things you haven’t thought of yet. Now that I’m on the other end of things—a college music professor, teaching music majors—I have some advice that I share with potential students (and that I’d like to send back in time to my younger self). I hope these tips help you get off to a good start on your own college music studies.
- What you need the most right now, before starting college, is a good private teacher. If you’re not already taking lessons, it’s time to start. (Note that if you have your sights set on a top-tier school, most of the people auditioning will already have years of serious private study under their belts!) A good teacher can help you choose some possible schools, prepare audition material well, and get a sense for what advanced music study is like. Oh, and sculpt you into a fine young musician. The money you spend on lessons will pay off when scholarships are awarded.
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Career

“How I Became a Broadway Musician” at MusicianWages.com
ByBret Pimentel April 16, 2011January 3, 2018
Pianist David Hahn at MusicianWages.com recently posted a 5-part series on his path to becoming a musician on Broadway. Check it out!
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Woodwind playing and pedagogy

David Erato on his clarinet “journey”
ByBret Pimentel April 10, 2011January 3, 2018
David Erato, a Wisconsin-based woodwind doubler and teacher, describes the motivation behind his year-long “journey” to improve his clarinet chops:

The idea as a “doubler” is to make whatever instrument is in your hand not feel like a foreign object. One should really study the instrument as if it is the only instrument you play. Practice the same method books, etudes, solos, as a clarinetist in a symphony once did.

David devised a plan to work his way through a book of technical etudes, and carried it out. His plan was based on the a similar system he had used as a university saxophone student. The result?

I can say after all of that, I really do feel like I’ve taken my technique game up several notches on clarinet. It may be hard to believe, but about half way through the book I felt more connected to the instrument. Even though I was in more difficult keys, larger interval jumps became easier than when I started. By the end of it, I didn’t have to think much about playing 4ths in the key of D# harmonic minor.

It’s worth reading the whole thing. There’s one key point from David’s story that I’ve discussed here before, but which is worth restating: as a woodwind doubler, you have to be a beginner on each instrument. David had already completed a technique-building regimen on the saxophone, prescribed by a good saxophone teacher, but hadn’t done so yet on the clarinet. Many of us make the mistake of thinking that such things transfer automatically. They don’t!

I know that many of my readers are college students and/or educators, and may have some discretionary time coming up when the spring semester ends. What fundamental techniques can you spend the summer shoring up?
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Announcements and news

The Great Woodwind Doubler Census of 2011
ByBret Pimentel April 5, 2011May 2, 2011
Attention: woodwind doublers!

The time has come to stand up and be counted. The linked survey is for anyone who considers themselves to be a woodwind doubler of any ability level at all.

All the questions are optional, so you can skip anything you don’t feel like answering, but thorough responses are much appreciated. The survey will remain open for an as-yet-undetermined amount of time. When there are enough responses to be interesting, I’ll post some analysis here.

The more responses, the better, so please share this with your woodwind doubling buddies. You can use the “Share” buttons (to the left, if you’re reading on a large screen) to pass this along to people via email, Facebook, Twitter, and others, or use this short link as you see fit: http://wp.me/pfZdF-TZ

TAKE THE SURVEY

Update: The survey is now closed. Thanks for your participation!

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Fun

A farewell to woodwind playing
ByBret Pimentel April 1, 2011January 3, 2018
Well, it has been a great ride studying, teaching, and performing on the instruments of the woodwind family. Thanks everyone for your support here at bretpimentel.com.

I’ll leave this website up for now, but I hope you will all check out my new project:

Bret Pimentel, brass
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Education

Dr. P’s Practice Club: using Facebook to acknowledge student achievements
ByBret Pimentel March 26, 2011January 3, 2018
I’ve been using Facebook this school year to semi-publicly acknowledge my university students who are meeting their minimum practice requirements:

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about it from Facebook friends who are music educators, so I thought it might be worth discussing here.

The concept is pretty simple:
- When my students come in for their lessons, I ask them to self-report their practice hours for the week. My students are good kids (born and raised in the Bible Belt), and I generally just trust them to report honestly. I also have them keep practice journals, which would at least slightly complicate fibbing about their hours.
- If they meet their minimum weekly requirement (it varies: more for performance majors, less for music education majors, etc.) they are automatically inducted into “Dr. P’s Practice Club” for the week. At the end of the week I post their names on Facebook and on my office door, plus usually a running tally for those who have made it for several weeks in a row. There are, at this point, absolutely no benefits or privileges to “club” membership other than a little recognition (and, of course, a week’s worth of improvement).
- I also use Facebook to give public kudos to students for their recitals, ensemble performances, and competition participation and awards.
- Most of my students have become my Facebook friends, so I can “tag” them when I post. This means that they get alerted that they have been mentioned in my post, and certain of their Facebook friends and mine will also be able to see it. For some of the students, this may include classmates, other music or non-music faculty, friends studying music at other schools, authority figures from work or church, and even parents. Read More “Dr. P’s Practice Club: using Facebook to acknowledge student achievements”
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Web reviews

A few more woodwind blogs you should be reading
ByBret Pimentel March 19, 2011March 14, 2017
A few months ago I posted some of my recommendations for good woodwind-related blogs, and shared a couple of tips on getting the most out of your blog reading. I’ve got a few more favorite blogs I’d like to share today, and another blog-reading tip, too.

This time I came up with a blog each for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone, plus a bonus one. Here they are in no particular order:

Barrick Stees (Barry Blogs)

Barrick Stees is the assistant principal bassoonist in the Cleveland Orchestra, and a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Akron. His blog is fairly new (started earlier this year) but is already full of good stuff. Professor Stees shares some insights on playing excerpts at a level suitable to one of the great American orchestras:
- Tchaikovsky 6th
- Firebird
He also keeps a travelogue of his tours with the orchestra, and comments on other items of interest to professional or developing musicians, such as:
- Practicing – planning ahead
- Myth buster #1 – you’ve either got it or you don’t
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