Improving habits: use a timer

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Bill Plake wrote a nice blog post earlier this week, sharing a simple tip about using sticky notes to break bad habits. (Bill’s posts are excellent—make sure you subscribe in your favorite feed reader.)

The tip he shares is similar to something I do during final performance preparations: I jot two or three key reminders on a sticky note (“Take your time and breathe,” “Keep fingers relaxed,” etc.) and stick them at the top of the page, covering the first few notes. That way when I get on stage I can make myself remember and focus on those few key items, rather than stressing myself over all of the details, and I give myself an extra moment to think and relax while I move the sticky note out of the way.

I wanted to share an additional idea that I have used many times myself, and have had students use. I find it good for dealing with the really stubborn, ingrained habits: poor posture, excess tension, ignoring dynamic markings, using insufficient breath support, being inconsistent about vibrato (anything ringing a bell yet?), and so forth. These are the things that you can fix immediately, as long as you remember, but which somehow persist anyway. Have you had this experience, either as the student or as the teacher?:

Teacher: Play it again from measure 12, this time with better posture.

Student: [Corrects posture, begins to play, then slouches again.]

Teacher: Remember posture!

Student: [Corrects posture, continues playing, then slouches.]

Teacher: Posture! [Glances at clock.]

Something that has worked well for me when I find myself in this situation is to use a repeating timer. This can be a gadget, or, increasingly commonly, a smartphone app, that just beeps at you every few minutes. (I’ve been using Elapsed for iPhone [update: link dead], which is free and supports multiple simultaneous timers, but there are many, many options available.) At first I might set a timer as short as 30 seconds, and choose a single habit to focus on. Depending on the habit, I might stop playing to readjust what I’m doing each time the timer beeps, or I might readjust on the fly and continue. When I’m consistently making it through 30-second intervals without having to fix something on each beep, I can adjust the timer for longer intervals.

It’s surprising how easy it is to let my mind wander—even within a minute or less—and go into auto-pilot mode, losing track of what I’m trying to accomplish and further calcifying bad habits. The timer technique is a nice aid for me to keep myself focused on a specific improvement I want to make in my playing.

Staying connected to the clarinet

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Photo, KSMF Webmaster

In general, I’m not that concerned about keeping fingers close to instrument keys. A lot of woodwind players and teachers seem to believe that “close” fingers mean more speed, which I haven’t found necessarily to be the case. To me, a much larger factor is tension: if my fingers are tense (because, for example, I’m trying really hard to keep them close to the keys), they move more slowly.

But when I work with beginning clarinetists (whether first-time instrumentalists or doublers), many of them seem to have a great deal of trouble with squeaks and with notes responding sluggishly—problems that I think in most cases can be traced to fingers not completely covering toneholes, or not covering them in a synchronized way. And one of the major reasons that this happens is that the fingers are too detached from from the keys. It’s not a question of distance, per se,  but one of awareness.

One reason this is such an issue for clarinetists in particular is that so many fingers have multiple jobs. The left thumb operates a tonehole/ring and a key, which must sometimes be pressed individually and sometimes together. The left index finger has a tonehole/ring and two keys. The right index finger has a tonehole/ring and four “side” keys. And the pinky fingers have responsibilities exceeded only by the bassoonist’s thumbs. Throw in a couple of sliver keys, and you’ve got a lot of fingers constantly in transit from one key to another.

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Interview: Woodwind road warrior Terry Halvorson

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Terry Halvorson

I’m always pleased to hear from other woodwind players. Terry Halvorson has been a contributor to my Broadway woodwind doubling list for several years, we’ve communicated periodically online, and we even bumped into each other in person at an IDRS conference a few years back. Terry has been working as a musician with touring musical theater productions for a while now, and I  was curious about life on the road. He was kind enough to take some time out of his schedule to answer a few questions.

BP: What do you do for a living?

TH: I am a woodwind doubler (oboe/English horn, flutes, clarinets, saxophones, recorders, whistles). I am currently 44 years old and have been performing musical theater since I was 14. I have been playing the Reed 2 book (oboe and English horn) with the national tour of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast since February 2010 and will be continuing, switching to the Reed 3 book (clarinet, bass clarinet, 2nd flute) from late September through May 2013.

How did you get the job?

I was called back in late 2005 by a musical director friend to play a reed book on the tour of Will Rogers Follies, but I had commitments at the time that I couldn’t get out of, so I had to turn it down. However the reed player who was hired gave notice four months into the eight-month contract and I was able to join the tour in the middle, replacing him (my first experience seeing a high D on flute!). Toward the end of this tour, we were in the New York City area when NETworks Presentations (my current company) was holding musician auditions, and I was able to attend; I received a call five weeks later asking me if I would like to play with the national tour of The Producers, and here I still am!

What background (education, other experience, etc.) do you have that prepared you for this job?

Wow, loaded question… well, I have been a major woodwind geek since high school (I arranged my favorite band piece for mixed clarinet sextet when I was 14 years old, and we won a command performance at our regional solo and ensemble festival); I also played oboe, clarinet and bassoon in my local youth symphony in various years. I was, of course, a music major (oboe and clarinet) in college as well, beginning as an education major but switching to performance. I freelanced a LOT, playing mostly reed books 2 and 3.

What’s the best part of the job? What’s the worst part?

Best parts are having a steady paycheck as a performing musician (how many people can say that?) and of course seeing and experiencing all the different places we play; I have played all fifty states and most Canadian provinces. The worst part is probably the lack of freedom to come and go and the strict adherence to a schedule.

What’s it like being on the road?

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Play reeds that fit

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During a rare visit to a music store this week, I overheard a very young clarinetist asking a salesperson to help him locate some unusually stiff reeds. The salesperson was as surprised as was I that the young man was interested in such an extreme equipment choice—but apparently for different reasons. “You must be very talented … Read more

Woodwind doubling and “similar” fingerings

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Photo, thorinside

Some of the questions I am most frequently asked about woodwind doubling involve the similarities in fingerings between the instruments:

  • “You play all those instruments? Well, I guess the fingerings must be pretty much the same, right?”
  • “I play the oboe, and I would like to learn the saxophone. How close are the fingerings?”

There are, in my opinion, two misconceptions at work here:

  1. Fingerings are the biggest hurdle to switching instruments.
  2. Similar fingerings are a good thing.

In my experience, neither of these is true.

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Report: John Mack Oboe Camp, 2012

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You know you are at oboe camp when the rules include “no crowing reeds before 7:30 a.m.” I’m back from the John Mack Oboe Camp, held every June at the Wildacres Retreat in the mountains of North Carolina. The camp has been an institution for over 30 years, and has been carried on by Mr. Mack’s … Read more

Internet forum field guide: conflict resolution

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Welcome to the second installment of the Internet forum field guide, a look at the inhabitants of the various woodwind-related message boards, forums, and email lists. (Read the first chapter here.) Today we will examine how the indigenous wildlife deal with conflicts.

One of the most common sources of conflict is the introduction of a dangerous threat into the community. It generally starts with an honest question:

Hey guys, just wondering which alloy gives an instrument a darker sound: 93% silver with 7% copper, or 97% silver with 3% copper? Thanks in advance.

Enter the troublemaker

Suddenly the herd’s status quo is endangered, unthinkably, by one of its own:

Well, actually, it turns out there’s over 100 years of well-documented, peer-reviewed scientific research that says the material makes no significant difference to the sound of a wind instrument. I know this because I went to the library and read actual books and journal articles about it.

The herd stampedes

This kind of affront is clearly unacceptable to the community, and they respond swiftly to correct the errant behavior. The alpha male is often the first to weigh in:

I have been playing for 40 years with some groups whose names you think you vaguely recognize, and I say the material does make a difference, so that should pretty much settle it.

He is followed shortly by a rival who will try to discredit the original poster:

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Using a pencil like a pro

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pencil
Photo, rutty

I know that my students (or I) are practicing badly when their sheet music remains in mint condition week after week. A good practice session involves lots of small successes and breakthroughs, many or most of which will be forgotten by the next practice session. Using a pencil is the obvious but somehow frequently-overlooked way to make sure tomorrow’s practicing builds on today’s successes, instead of repeating or rehashing.

It’s a mistake to think that pencil marks are amateurish or a crutch. Musicians in professional situations often have to learn music with little lead time or rehearsal, and a pencil is a professional-grade tool for making music with accuracy and poise. The most effective pencil usage depends on a couple of prerequisites:

  1. Have one. It’s embarrassing, unprofessional, and time-wasting to be caught without a pencil. Buy yourself a bulk package of cheap mechanical pencils, and stash them everywhere: Pockets, purse, instrument case, sheet music folder, gig bag, desk, reedmaking table, teaching studio. Tie one to the music stand in your practice space. Every so often, restock each space, since, if you’re like me, pencils seem to have a way of wandering off to be discovered later in the laundry.
  2. Read. If you’re the kind of player that tends to ignore markings printed in the part, then you probably won’t pay much attention to pencil marks either. Become a meticulous follower of written instructions. (If you don’t like the printed instructions, use your pencil and your well-informed artistic judgment to change them, then obey your pencil marks.)

Good pencil markings are clear, concise, efficient, and preferably easily understood by someone else at a glance. I find circles, stars, and highlighting to be so vague as to be pointless; don’t bother making a mark unless it’s adding information to the page. Most common woodwind fingerings can be readily identified with a letter or two (such as “S” for a side fingering or “L” for a left-hand fingering). Develop a vocabulary of markings and use them consistently, so that ultimately you can read them as quickly and accurately as you can read notes. If your sheet music is looking a little too pristine, ask yourself if your playing might benefit from having any of the following information right there on the page:

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Getting an “outsider” opinion

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bassoon
Photo, Pirate Scott

Saxophones, more than many other instruments, have a tendency toward mechanical noise: clicks and clanks are a hazard of the relatively large keys and articulated mechanisms and of the relative popularity of “vintage” instruments. Much of the noisiness can be solved by a good technician, but it’s sometimes surprising how much key noise saxophonists tolerate on their otherwise pristine recording projects.

The oboe has a particularly sensitive mechanism involving the right index finger and a linkage between the upper and lower joints. It requires a great deal of finger precision to avoid unwanted “blips” (brief, unintended notes) when moving between, say, A and C. If you are listening for that sound, you will find that it is not uncommon, even on recordings that are technically impressive in other ways.

I think a lot of saxophonists would be scandalized by “blips” in each other’s playing, and oboists would be equally appalled by rattling, clanking keywork. But it is easy to become accustomed to hearing those sounds in our own playing, and to stop really noticing them.

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Three Fingering Diagram Builder tutorials

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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.”

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