white capsules on yellow background

The wallpaper effect

ByBret Pimentel

Sometimes I see “challenges” similar to this posted on social media sites: can you find the letter J in the image below?

Of course you can. It’s not at all difficult. (But if someone online can convince you that it is, and that you’re one of the “special” few who can do it, then maybe you will “share” or “like” or whatever.)

Human brains are highly attuned to patterns. I’m not a brain scientist, but I suspect that’s why we like nice steady tempos so much. Dance music (from the Western Classical tradition to Country and Western to EDM) tends to have rock-solid pulses that make us want to move our bodies. Unsteady or inconsistent tempos? Not so much.

Have you ever been in a room with badly-hung wallpaper? A little gap or crookedness is immediately noticeable, and annoying.

In musical performance, little inconsistencies in patterns can be similarly distracting. Whether it’s a bebop tune or a baroque sonata, a tempo that varies when it shouldn’t is bad news. So is an unsteady trill, an uneven run, or off-kilter vibrato. An imperfection in the pattern breaks the spell.

While most kinds of music do place value on organic, human, dynamic elements, those need to be balanced against consistent, steady technique. For most of us, that means some long hours with the metronome, training our bodies to move predictably and unerringly.

To help your performance feel good, and get your audience tapping their feet, make sure the wallpaper is hung with care and precision.

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  • Things that aren’t jazz

    ByBret Pimentel
    Photo, frawemedia

    Okay, first of all: what I’m talking about here is the “mainstream” jazz tradition, insofar as such a thing exists (you can make a good argument that it doesn’t, really). “Jazz” is a wide net to cast. To flip it around, if I were going to list things that aren’t “classical” music, I might say “use of the electric bass guitar” or even “microtonality.” Are those things really mutually exclusive with classical music? No. But they are not part of the tradition of the Viennese masters, not what your local community orchestra would play, not what most people think of when they think of classical music.

    One misconception that many classical musicians seem to have about jazz is that since it has strong improvisatory elements, it must be very free and unstructured. I think the opposite is true: improvisation, at least in the mainstream-bebop/hard-bop-influenced style, requires fairly strict structural underpinnings. None of the following works well when someone is trying to improvise:

    • Free forms. Form in jazz is much stricter than in classical music. Most common jazz tunes have one of two forms. The first is precisely 32 bars in 4/4 time, with four eight-bar sections: AABA. The second is precisely twelve 4/4 bars, a “blues” form. Anything that doesn’t fit exactly into one of these categories is most likely very closely related to one of them.
    • Free harmony. Bebop and hard-bop jazz are extremely tonal. While improvisers may play pitches that fall “outside” the chords, it is almost always within a tonal framework: the notes function as upper extensions of the chords, or at least they are used in a sort of polychordal way that has reference to the underlying harmony and will ultimately resolve back to it. The idea that “there are no wrong notes” isn’t exactly true; notes can definitely sound very wrong if they aren’t properly contextualized with regard to the harmony.
    • Free or changing meter. Jazz makes frequent use of polymeter and syncopation, which can give the impression of shifting meter, but most jazz doesn’t actually change meters, especially in improvisatory sections. The polyrhythms and syncopations work because they are overlaid on an unchanging metric pulse, and resolve to it.
    • Rubato. Tempi also tend to quite strict in jazz playing. A musician might “lay back” in the beat or stretch a rhythm, but the underlying pulse doesn’t change. (In my experience, jazz players generally have much steadier internal metronomes than classical musicians.)
    The freedom that improvisers do have is to create melodies over these fairly rigid structures. The rigidity gives the improviser a predictable framework to work with (or perhaps against). At a more detailed level, there are certain melodic characteristics that classical musicians tend to associate with jazz, that I don’t hear when I listen to jazz or play with fine jazz musicians: Read More “Things that aren’t jazz”

  • Music guilt

    ByBret Pimentel

    In my professional capacity as a musician and music educator, I frequently have to lay down the law with my students or with myself about not practicing enough. The sense that I’m never quite good enough, and that it’s my own fault for not working harder, is a real professional hazard.

    But when I meet people who aren’t professional musicians or serious music students, they often seem to feel the same way. They confess regrets about an instrument collecting dust in a closet, about not “sticking with it,” or about never learning to play at all. Sometimes they tell me how much they used to enjoy playing, but how some additional factor like music theory or stage fright or scales took the joy out of it.

    I have to remember in those moments to keep some perspective. While my own musical goals demand serious daily work, lots of people find joy in dusting off an instrument once a month or once a year to play the same three songs again. Some people find certain aspects of a traditional music education boring. Some might play well, but aren’t interested in doing it front of an audience or a teacher.

    And that’s okay! There’s lots of room for musicians of all levels and aspirations (or non-aspirations). And, of course, we professionals need a public that is enthusiastic about music, not guilt-ridden and regretful.

    If you want to learn, it’s not too late. If you want to play or sing casually, you may. If you don’t want anyone to hear you, you don’t have to let them. Music should be fun for you.

  • Playing professional whole notes

    ByBret Pimentel

    I have spent many hours of my life absorbed in difficult études and repertoire. Challenging music pushes the limits of my abilities.

    But when I actually get hired to play music, it’s almost never anything that complicated. Many of my workaday gigs are very easy—on paper.

    One part of my career is playing with a nearby symphony. The repertoire occasionally has a few moments in it that demand my fleetest technique. But, as a wind player, I spend much more of the concert counting rests and waiting to play another handful of whole notes.

    I recently played in a recording session for a local band’s new album. I played a total of one note. I played it a bunch of times, but it was just the one long note, over and over.

    A beginner could play one note. So why hire a professional?

    The notes—fast or slow, easy or hard—need to be beautiful, balanced, in tune, started precisely, ended precisely, shaped appropriately, and stylistically appropriate.

    I’ve never been hired to play études, and almost never to play classical solo repertoire, but studying those has helped me develop the control and skill to play the whole notes just right, and that’s what gets me hired.

  • Answering equipment questions

    ByBret Pimentel

    I attended a small jazz festival a number of years ago, which included student workshops with some of the festival’s headline artists. Unsurprisingly, some of the first questions asked in these workshops were about the artists’ equipment choices.

    The responses varied widely. A few of the artists were excited to talk about their instruments, mouthpieces, and so forth, and to offer glowing testimonials.

    Others responded less enthusiastically. One of the festival’s biggest-name artists mocked a student for even asking the question. The student slumped down into his seat as one of his idols berated him in front of everyone.

    But I was especially impressed by one artist in particular, whose equipment choices are well-known and widely-imitated. “Well, I use _____, _____, and _____,” he explained, “but there are a lot of really good options out there, and what works for me doesn’t work for everybody. Plus, you should know that lots of music stores sell equipment with this brand name, but it’s not really the same product anymore as the one I bought decades ago.” Then he moved onto another question.

    Photo, Laurie Samet
    Photo, Laurie Samet

    I thought this was a very effective, responsible, and respectful way to answer the question: he didn’t make the student feel bad for asking, and he didn’t encourage the student to buy something specific that might not really be a fit. I also admired the brevity and matter-of-factness of his answer—it cast the question as what it ought to be: a curiosity, rather than something of great importance.

  • 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!

  • Making every marking audible

    ByBret Pimentel

    Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you.

    When my students work on études (musical pieces intended for study but not performance) I stress with them the idea of making everything on the page audible. That means that if I were unfamiliar with the étude but a skilled transcriber, I could listen to my student play, and write down with confidence every:

    • Pitch
    • Rhythm
    • Articulation
    • Dynamic marking
    • Tempo change
    • Breath mark
    • Expressive marking, like “dolce” or “pesante” or “broadly”
    • Title or form indication, like “Aria” or “Folk Dance” or “Rondo”
    • And any/all other words or symbols left by the composer/editor

    Sometimes it’s easy to get wrapped up in the pitches and rhythms and ignore or gloss over some of the other markings. But all of them have to be executed in a clearly audible way (otherwise, what are they there for?). If a performer technically tongues some notes but they sound slurred, then they weren’t tongued right. If some notes are marked with horizontal accents (like >), and some are marked with vertical ones (like ^), then they have to sound audibly different from each other. If the composer indicates that a certain passage should be played “dolce,” then it needs to sound audibly different from passages that don’t have that marking.

    In performance repertoire, I do think there are (rare) cases when it makes sense to ignore or alter the composer or editor’s markings. But well-edited études (my students most commonly play Ferling or Rose) are an excellent opportunity to practice making each and every marking meet the ear with clarity and precision.

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