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.
After a performance, I like to have a little talk with myself or with my students about how things went. Here are some examples of questions to ask:
Were there any breakthroughs? New accomplishments? Higher levels of performance than previously achieved? If so, what contributed to these successes?
Was there any backsliding? Things going worse than in previous performances? Why?
How was your mental state before and during the performance? Did it have an effect on how you sounded? What aspects of that can you control?
How was your physical condition before and during the performance? (Tired? Hungry? Sore?) Did it have an effect on how you sounded? What aspects of that can you control?
How was your preparation? Is there anything you would do to prepare differently or better next time?
What feedback, spoken or otherwise, did you get from your audience? Should, or does, that color your evaluation of your success?
Is there a difference between your objective evaluation of the performance and how you really feel about it? Why? Is this significant/important?
Is there a recording? Were there any surprises when you listened to it?
What do you hope to build upon, improve, or otherwise change for your next performance?
Some post-performance reflection on both positives and negatives can be valuable for setting new goals and preparing for the next one.
Just about every day I have a student show up for a lesson with an etude or repertoire movement they have been working on for a week or more, and there are little, silly problems that haven’t been fixed:
A spot where a fingering choice needs to be made, but hasn’t.
A page turn in an awkward spot.
An unfamiliar foreign term that hasn’t been looked up.
An ambiguous accidental that need to be double-checked against the piano part.
It’s easy for them (or me) to ignore or procrastinate small but easily-fixable issues while busily drilling technical passages. But I know they—and I—are doing our best work when those details don’t slip through the cracks.
It’s not worth it to spend a week practicing something in an incorrect or compromised way because you haven’t gotten around to fixing the fixable problems. Would any of these help you solve those issues more promptly?
Print an alternate/trill fingering chart and keep it with your practicing stuff, or bookmark an online one on your phone.
Put a few dollars on your copier/printer card/app so you can photocopy a page when needed.
Keep a good music dictionary in the pocket of your instrument case.
Keep your piano score and solo part together so you can always use them in tandem.
Consider what other easily-fixable problems you haven’t bothered to fix, and ask yourself what you can do to remove friction so they get solved right away next time you practice.
Earlier this month I posted about a fundamental practicing concept that sometimes escapes my less-experienced students. Here is another:
Me: Play your D melodic minor scale.
Student: [Begins D minor scale, plays a wrong note in the second octave.]
Me: Whoops, remember to play B-natural.
Student: Okay. [Starts over, makes same mistake.]
Me: Please start at the second-octave A, and play just from there to—
Student: [Starts from second-octave A, makes the same mistake, proceeds to finish the scale.]
Me: No, I want you to start at the A, play just to the B-natural, and stop.
Student: [Plays.]
Me: Okay, that’s correct. Now—
Student: [Starts over, makes same mistake.]
Practicing in overly large segments is an issue for less-experienced students for at least three reasons. The first is that is it makes it difficult to notice exactly where the problem is happening. Students may tend to “power through” a section and evaluate it as a whole (“That wasn’t very good”), then simply start over again and hope for the best. Sometimes my younger students are surprised when I point out that they are actually making the same mistake over and over. In their minds, it’s a roll of the dice every time, hoping that everything turns out right, and if it doesn’t, then start again and hope for better luck this time. Practicing in smaller segments makes it much easier to identify and isolate problems.
The second issue is that even if the precise problem is known, practicing it within too large a segment increases the cognitive load—it’s hard to devote enough attention to the actual problem when there are so many other notes to think about. Plus, practicing too long of a segment raises the stakes in a way that often doesn’t work well for inexperienced practicers: by the time you actually arrive at the problem spot, the pressure is really on to get it right, since you’ve already invested a lot in this run-through. If you isolate the problem to a much smaller segment, it’s not such a big deal if you have to start again.
The third issue is efficiency. If your goal is to correct one wrong note, which lasts less than a second, and you play 30 seconds’ worth of music leading up to it and another 30 seconds’ worth after it, then you can only get about one repetition done per minute. Even if you get it right, it will take you hours to really solidify that passage. But if you can narrow the problem down to two seconds’ worth of music, you can do many repetitions per minute.
In most cases, the problem that needs fixing has to do with getting from one note to another successfully. It may be that the second note isn’t the right one, or that it doesn’t respond right, or that the articulation isn’t correct, or a variety of other things, but the crucial concept is that there is a pair of notes, and the first note is right, and the second one isn’t.
Step one is to practice just those two notes, not just once through, but many times. If this is only accomplished with difficulty, it may be due to the second note having a less-familiar fingering, or perhaps some kind of particular response difficulty. Practice those two notes—and only those two notes—over and over until they improve. If they don’t, consult a teacher who can help to you diagnose and improve your technique.
If playing the two notes is trivially easy, then the problem is something about the context in which they appear. Add one more note before the first one, and repeat it several times. If it’s still easy, add one more. Continue until the problem returns, and practice that sequence of notes slowly and carefully until it feels natural and solid. If it becomes clear that adding more notes before the problem isn’t what’s triggering it, then start again from the two notes and gradually add notes after them. Sometimes anticipating what follows can cause something to go wrong.
Don’t be overly anxious to put the (former) problem spot back into the “context” of a whole scale or etude or movement. Make most of your practicing small-segment work, and very gradually reassemble the small segments into slightly larger ones. Repeat the slightly larger ones many times, then combine them again into still larger ones.
Take the time to break your practicing down into smaller chunks, isolate the problem spots, and work them methodically and repetitively.
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:
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.
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.
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.”
For musicians on an academic schedule, summers are often wide open. This can be a great opportunity to get ahead, or a bottomless pit of procrastination and idleness. Here are some ideas for staying motivated to get some summer practicing done.
I’m not sure I can recall the last time I walked into a music store and bought something.
I hear every so often that I should support local businesses and mom-and-pop shops, and I have to admit that this sounds vaguely like a responsible and virtuous thing to do. But here’s why I don’t—and can’t.
It costs too much. Prices are inevitably higher in local stores. I understand that so-called “full-service” establishments have overhead, but so do I. If they can justify charging higher prices, it seems fair that I can justify shopping around.
They don’t stock what I need. Other than a few scattered specialty shops, local music stores stock what they can sell in volume, and that’s inexpensive instruments and accessories for the beginning band market. I live in a small town, but even in the fairly large cities where I have lived, I have, more frequently than not, been unable to get what I like. A few months ago I made a two-and-a-half hour drive to go saxophone shopping with a student at a large music store in a large city. The store was large enough to have a saxophone specialist on staff. The store regularly stocks one brand of (arguably) professional-quality saxophone (and it’s not Selmer, Yamaha, Yanagisawa, or Keilwerth), and had exactly two major-brand instruments available, used. We also contacted a small saxophone specialty shop that was a little farther away, one that actually has “saxophone” in the store’s name. They had zero pro-line horns in stock.
As far as I can tell, the “superior customer service” factor is largely a myth. I think most woodwind players have experienced the frustration of going into a music store and being “helped” by the heavy-metal guitarist behind the counter. And even in specialty shops, I’ve rarely found a salesperson who can answer serious questions with much more than regurgitated advertising copy or a personal opinion. And, while I don’t doubt that specialty retailers are passionate about what they do, it’s important to keep in mind that they are businesspeople and subject to motivations other than getting you the best possible product for the smallest possible price. Read More “Confessions of a mail-order shopper”
Yup. A pro horn is an investment. A lifetime investment. So, take your time and try a bunch out. And don’t be swayed by “brand names”. If you are looking for an Oboe, don’t assume you are going to get a Loree, try ALL them out.
Value is highly subjective. Here is an example: I learned saxophone on a 2933 Selmer Super Saxophone tenor, which I bought from the original owner in 1958. In about 1994, I had a chance to buy a Mid 1960’s Selmer Mark VI alto, to replace a 1920 “stencil” Martin I had bought in a pawn shop. I paid $4000.00 for the Mark Vi, and it was a great instrument. BUT, in five years of playing on it, I never did get used to the left hand pinky finger plateau system. Whenever I went for any note requiring the left hand pinky, I was never sure what key I was going to press. In 2005, I had a chance to trade it to someone for a 1932 Selmer “cigar cutter” alto. Normally, that instrument would only be considered to be worth about $1500.00, because it has been relacquered. But to me, because I can play on it, it is worth more than the Mark VI.
Yup. A pro horn is an investment. A lifetime investment. So, take your time and try a bunch out. And don’t be swayed by “brand names”. If you are looking for an Oboe, don’t assume you are going to get a Loree, try ALL them out.
Value is highly subjective. Here is an example: I learned saxophone on a 2933 Selmer Super Saxophone tenor, which I bought from the original owner in 1958. In about 1994, I had a chance to buy a Mid 1960’s Selmer Mark VI alto, to replace a 1920 “stencil” Martin I had bought in a pawn shop. I paid $4000.00 for the Mark Vi, and it was a great instrument. BUT, in five years of playing on it, I never did get used to the left hand pinky finger plateau system. Whenever I went for any note requiring the left hand pinky, I was never sure what key I was going to press. In 2005, I had a chance to trade it to someone for a 1932 Selmer “cigar cutter” alto. Normally, that instrument would only be considered to be worth about $1500.00, because it has been relacquered. But to me, because I can play on it, it is worth more than the Mark VI.