Using a pencil like a pro

ByBret Pimentel
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:

  • Translations of foreign or unfamiliar terms or symbols
  • Metronome markings
  • Breath marks
  • Accidentals marked in for unfamiliar key signatures
  • Alternate fingerings
  • Additional dynamics, to help shape each phrase
  • Landmarks of form
  • An outline of the harmony (perhaps in figured bass or chord symbols)
  • Corrections for pitch tendencies of your instrument
  • A little pep talk (Such as “relax” or “keep fingers close”)
  • Accompaniment cues

And don’t be afraid to erase. Pencil in some breath marks in what seem to be good places, then give them a try. If you don’t like them for practical or artistic reasons, erase and try again. But don’t just leave them out because you’re undecided—mark them and you’ll quickly discover whether they work or they don’t.

As a teacher, I find that pencil markings give me a lot of insight into my students’ thought processes. If their music is well-marked and I hear problems with their playing, I can tell immediately if it’s due to a questionable interpretive choice or to a failure to execute. It also clues me in to what “stuck” from last week’s lesson: hopefully they are actively looking for places to use that new fingering, and, if so, I can see evidence of it.

Keep those pencils sharp!

Similar Posts

  • Three Fingering Diagram Builder tutorials

    ByBret Pimentel

    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.”

    Read More “Three Fingering Diagram Builder tutorials”

  • Triplets don’t swing

    ByBret Pimentel

    It’s common among non-jazz musicians to think of “swing” rhythms as having a triplet-like feel, and it’s equally common among jazz players to regard that as hopelessly incorrect. That conflict over swing style has been widely discussed elsewhere, so I won’t rehash it here.

    But there’s another layer to the swing/triplets issue: It’s important to understand that real swing rhythms are essentially duple. The primary subdivision of the beat is into two parts, even though those parts aren’t equal in length.

    So, writing or playing lots of triplets is a common mistake that non-jazz musicians make when they are trying to imitate a swing sound. That’s not to say that triplets can’t or don’t exist in swing rhythms, but they aren’t the underlying subdivision, and in most cases are best used sparingly.

    For example, this can be played to sound like an authentic swing/jazz line:

    And even this notation, while problematic, can be translated into something authentic-sounding:

    But, to someone who knows jazz style well, this one never quite sounds like swing:

    It might pass for a shuffle or something else, but it’s hard to make it swing.

    When a well-written swing line does include a triplet, a fluent jazz player might play it to sound distinctly un-triplety:

    That approach (one of several possibilities) might make sense to a jazz player because they are stretching the downbeat note, and letting the subsequent notes fall later in the beat—a very similar approach to playing a pair of swung eighth notes.

    Written or improvised melodies, background figures, drum fills, and other things that are supposed to swing in an authentic way should avoid excessive triplets. Extensive listening and study of great jazz writing, interpretation, and improvisation are crucial to understanding real jazz swing style.

  • Interpreting wind articulation markings

    ByBret Pimentel

    It’s easy to think of articulation markings as being black and white (and not just literally). But sometimes the instructions aren’t completely clear.

    For example, I think most people would see this marking…

    …and understand it to mean that the D gets some extra length, perhaps so much that there’s no silence between the D and the following C. And there’s an implication that the other notes shouldn’t be that way, so perhaps they should have a bit more space by comparison.

    But how about this? (I ran into this marking in a piece I am working on this week, by an experienced composer.)

    The slur seems to preclude any space between the notes, so how does the tenuto work? You can’t reduce the space if it’s already zero, right?

    I think most experienced musicians would say that in this case the tenuto gets some other kind of stress, like a little extra volume, or a slight stretching of the beat, or maybe more intensity in the vibrato. But those are substantially different from the first interpretation. And if I do interpret the tenuto as some kind of stress, how is it different from, say, this:

    To interpret the markings, you have to take them in context. Musical notation is an expressive language, not a set of precise instructions for note-playing robots.

    And sometimes the markings are bad. There might simply be mistakes, or maybe the composer or editor isn’t entirely familiar with how wind players interpret articulations. How about this one?

    Wind players tend to think in terms of slurred or not slurred, and map this directly to a technique. When the slurs are doubled up like this, it doesn’t quite compute—I’m already slurring, I can’t make it any more slurred.

    So often the go-to explanation is that the larger slur is some kind of phrase marking, to show that those notes belong together, and the smaller one is an actual slur. Or, I guess, maybe another smaller phrase marking? And why do I need a phrase marking anyway—shouldn’t I already be playing phrases? And, if I decide to take out the smaller slur, then does the larger one still remain a “phrase marking,” or does it transform back into a slur?

    Here are some things I try to keep in mind as I try to interpret articulation markings:

    • If the composer put it on the page, she or he wants to hear it. How can I make the marking audible? What is the composer’s likely intention?
    • Why did the composer pick that particular marking? If there is ambiguity, is it intentional, or at least knowing?
    • Do similar markings appear elsewhere in the piece, or even in the composer’s other works? Does that shed any light? For example, if the composer uses both tenuto marks under slurs and accents under slurs, the composer probably wants them to sound different from each other.
    • Is there a tradition surrounding this piece? Sometimes frequently-performed pieces begin to develop a sort of standard practice for how certain markings are interpreted. Sometimes these are reasonably reliable, such as if a recording was made with the composer’s input, but sometimes they are just popular guesses. If you have a better guess, you can use it, but it would be wise at least to know what the tradition suggests.

    We are used to thinking of music itself as an expressive thing, that hopefully causes our audience to respond in some way. But the art of music notation is also expressive—the composer/editor/copyist is trying to get some kind of response from the musician. (Which in turn gets the response from the audience.)

    If you have been reading articulations like a robot—or ignoring them—return to the score again and listen to what the composer is telling you.

  • Use your metronome most of the time

    ByBret Pimentel

    Why should you use a metronome when you practice?

    • Music is about organizing sounds in time. Often my students are so focused on playing the “sounds” (pitches) that they forget about the time part. They learn to play the right sounds in the right order, but not precisely in time.

    • The metronome helps reveal problem areas. Without a metronome, it’s easy to conveniently slow down or hesitate over a challenging spot. The metronome annoyingly reminds you that something went wrong.

    • Working with an audible steady pulse helps develop your inner sense of time, so you’ll play more accurately even after you turn the metronome off.

    How much should you use a metronome?

    • Probably most of the time. I use a metronome for at least 80% of the time I spend practicing.

    But doesn’t playing with a metronome make your playing sound too mechanical?

    • I know very few musicians who have the problem that their tempos are too steady. It’s important to practice the tempo nuances too, but if you can’t play the line in perfect time then you probably can’t do a convincing accelerando/ritardando.

    What about when you’re practicing something that doesn’t fit well with a metronome, such as changing time signatures?

    • Smartphone metronome apps have pretty amazing features these days. And music notation or audio editing software can create anything you can imagine. (For examples, see Adam Ballif’s “Ballif Beats” for clarinet repertoire, or James Barger’s classical saxophone accompaniment track videos.) Time invested creating practice tools like these can pay off in a big way. And in many cases you don’t have to create a metronome track for the whole piece, just for the spots that don’t work well with a standard metronome.

    What if you’re “not good” at playing with a metronome?

    • Practicing with a metronome is a crucial and mandatory skill for a developing or advancing musician. It’s time to learn.

    • Start slowly, maybe very slowly, and work in small chunks.

    • Learn to use your metronome’s features, including subdivisions and time signatures.

    • Make sure the metronome is loud enough. If feasible, consider using an earphone, an external/Bluetooth speaker, or metronome features like flashing lights or vibrations you can feel.

    But what if you heard a big-shot musician say you shouldn’t practice with a metronome?

    • In my experience, there are two kinds of musicians who think they don’t need a metronome. One is the top 1%, who have spent a lifetime developing world-class musical abilities. The other is beginning and intermediate musicians, who haven’t learned the value of metronome work because they haven’t done it enough. Don’t mistake a top-level musician’s musings for good beginner advice.

    Fire up the metronome and go practice!

  • Dear 2000

    ByBret Pimentel

    I’ve been reading the “Dear 1999” blogging project started by the guys over at MusicianWages.com. The project, which launched last month, was to have musician-bloggers answer this question:

    If you could go back to 1999 and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

    I enjoyed the responses, including one from clarinetist Marion Harrington.

    Although I was (*ahem*) not invited to participate, I’ve been thinking about the last ten years of my life and what brought me to where I am now. Over the last few weeks I’ve gotten a number of emails from musicians who are about the age I was ten years ago, who are interested in pursuing graduate school in multiple woodwinds, and so I’ve been in advice-giving mode already.

    Since I missed posting at the end of 2009 anyway, I figure I can go ahead and change the format a little, as I think I’ve got more than one piece of advice for 2000 me.

    Most of the “Dear 1999” bloggers are pursuing careers as performers, which I consider to be an important part of what I do, but my newly-begun main gig is as a university music professor. I am fortunate to be doing pretty much exactly what I love and what I’ve been aiming for for the past ten years, although sometimes it was hard to tell if I was headed in the right direction.

    So here’s my advice, 2000 Bret: Read More “Dear 2000”

  • 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.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comments that take a negative or confrontational tone are subject to email and name verification before being approved. In other words: no anonymous trolls allowed—take responsibility for your words.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.