I’m not a (medical) doctor or disease expert of any kind, but I’ve been thinking a bit about the instruments I play and the risks of catching or spreading disease. (At the time of this writing, Covid-19 is foremost in many people’s minds.) I’m presenting a few thoughts here in hopes that people with real expertise will be able to address them in an authoritative way, and I’ll update this post as appropriate with links to additional information if/when it becomes available. Update: I have created a separate page with links to research/resources.
As a player of reed instruments, I am of course concerned about reeds and mouthpieces (and related items like mouthpiece caps and reed cases, tools, and workspaces), and would like to implement some more structured, methodical ways of keeping them clean.
But the thing that worries me more is what is in the air when I am playing wind instruments, or near people who are. Some research/modeling (the accuracy/relevance of which I am unqualified to judge) seems to suggest that “aerosol particles” from a cough can travel far and remain in the air for a long time:
I can only speculate on how this relates to playing wind instruments, but it does leave me feeling uneasy. Some concerns that spring to mind:
If I am teaching lessons, even in my relatively spacious university studio, are my students and I both filling the air with potentially infectious particles, by blowing large amounts of well-supported air over sustained periods of time?
What surfaces in my studio are receiving these particles, and how long can germs survive there? Should I be altering my routine of teaching lessons all morning, then eating lunch at my desk? Do I need a routine for cleaning music stands, metronomes, and other items that are in the line of “fire?” Should I be concerned about what is settling on the bassoon reeds drying on pegs in a corner of the office?
When I or my students perform (especially in ensembles), how close are we to other people? I’ve certainly played orchestral gigs where there’s hardly enough elbow room to swab out a clarinet. What is being put into the air or onto surfaces when the entire wind section starts to play?
Contagious diseases certainly aren’t new, and I think some basic courtesies and hygiene will continue to be adequate to keep ordinary disease risks in check. But at the time of this writing we find ourselves in an age when we are more attuned to physical (“social”) distancing, handwashing, and mask-wearing, and when we receive somber daily tallies of those affected by a public health crisis we don’t yet fully understand.
Let’s all be listening to experts and thinking about how we can continue to share music with our students, teachers, collaborators, and audiences, safely and in good health. Stay well.
Lately I have been enjoying Sal Lozano‘s recent CD, Everything’s Gonna Be Great (available from CD Baby and iTunes). The album is 13 charts by Tom Kubis for 5-piece saxophone section with rhythm section, and Sal plays all five of the saxophone parts. It’s a lot of fun, Sal sounds great, and there’s an all-star lineup of guest soloists.
Even if you don’t know Sal Lozano’s name, you have almost certainly heard him play saxophone and woodwinds. He has recorded with artists ranging from Paul McCartney to Stevie Wonder to Christina Aguilera to Mel Tormé, played on movie scores for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and National Treasure, and performed in TV orchestras for the Academy Awards, the Emmy Awards, the Grammy Awards, American Idol, and Dancing with the Stars, among many, many other projects. He plays in Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, which just picked up another four Grammy nominations to add to an already-impressive list. (Also check out my interview with Big Phat Band saxophonist Jay Mason.) Sal also teaches at California State University, Long Beach, is a clinician for Disneyland music education programs, and is available for masterclasses and clinics.
Sal is very generous with his time and expertise, and was kind enough to answer some questions about his work and his new album. (He also asked me to let my readers know that they are welcome to contact him.)
“I’m a sax player.” That’s what I say to anyone who asks. I also teach saxophone at the university level. Just private students, about six, which has paid for my daughters’ education.
What education (formal or otherwise) and experience prepared you for the work you do?
I studied at California State University, Long Beach as a performance major on saxophone. Four years of private lessons with Leo Potts. Prior to that I studied with Greg Adams at a music education studio owned by Gary Foster. After college I studied flute with John Barcelona and Jim Walker (he kicked my butt). Then clarinet with Jim Kanter. I also have enjoyed playing in ensembles for many many years which is just as much a learning experience as any teaching I’ve had. I also started playing at Disneyland when I was 19 and that was a great learning experience. Too much to talk about now.
If you could do it over, is there anything you would have done differently to prepare for your current career?
Interesting. (This is my third rewrite of this question.) I’m not sure I knew of a plan then. I just wanted to play. Having said that, I wish I could have learned a little more theory and harmony, but maybe things happen for a reason.
What is a typical work week like for you?
Long tones. Oh… work? It’s all “maybe…” Maybe a recording or two (motion picture, TV show, CD recording, etc.), or if I’m doing theater my nights are busy with that (usually six nights a week if I happen to have a theater run). Teach on Friday. Perhaps a concert with the Phat Band, which is mostly out of town. That band is a lot of fun and travels well. Sometimes weeks can be very busy and some are sporadic. However, I try to do something musical every day.
What projects are you excited about right now?
I have the new CD out and have been getting great response. I am hoping to put out a playalong book based on the tunes on the CD. In April I will be on a solo tour in Japan playing with several local big bands. I’m also in the orchestra for the Oscars so things are great right now.
What instruments do you consider part of your current professional toolbox?
I play all the saxes, flutes, clarinets, whistles, ethnic flutes, and the EWI.
Are there others you are working on or would like to add at some point?
I was asked to play the ocarina last year on a Robbie Williams CD so I learned that. This year I’m on a project where I’m playing a bamboo sax from Argentina. Another calls for the shakuhachi flute so I may learn that.
Do you self-identify as a “doubler?” A saxophonist who doubles? Something else? Is it your intention to play all your instruments equally well, or are there one or more that you would prefer to focus on?
I’ll answer these in order: no, no, yes, and all equally well. To explain, I consider myself a woodwind player (I know, I don’t play double reeds, I tried and said “no”). When I pick up the sax, I’m a sax player; flute? a flute player, etc. That’s the attitude I’ve taken when approaching these instruments. I dive into the deep end when playing these because most of the time I’m sitting next to great players who only play flute, clarinet, oboe, etc. Many remarkable players.
What kinds of teaching/educational activities are you involved with?
I teach at California State University, Long Beach, which is a four-year university, teaching private saxophone lessons. For about 23 years I also have been a clinician for a program at Disneyland called Disney Performing Arts where we take students through a 1½ hour recording session, reading music written for that level and recording a soundtrack of a short clip of a Disney animated motion picture. We use a click track and everything that is involved with recording. Great program because the students react quickly when they hear themselves on the soundtrack. It turns out that they fix problems quickly. I also enjoy very much going across the country and playing with music schools of any type. Clinics, masterclasses, etc. I really get a kick out of that and would like to do more.
What is the best part of your job? What is the worst part?
The best part is playing music. Doing something I love to do. Hanging and playing with great players and writers and the joy of watching a student excel and succeed. Not sure if there is a worst part because I really enjoy it.
Do you have time for other interests, hobbies, etc.?
Oh yes. MLB baseball. College hoops.
Your new album is in sort of a Supersax vein, with a big-band-style saxophone section playing with rhythm section and guest soloists, but you recorded all the saxophone section parts yourself. How does that process compare to recording section parts with other saxophonists?
Well, first of all, I didn’t have to tell anyone in the section where to breathe and how to phrase. No one shows up late or has to leave early. I don’t have to tell the second alto he’s playing too loud. Tom Kubis told me he had written these charts and wanted to record them with the guys in the big band. I told him that I would record all the parts, and that was it. It is really fun to play in a section, or play chamber music where you have to listen and react.
In the liner notes, Tom Kubis (who wrote all the charts) compares your lead playing to Marshal Royal and Jerome Richardson. Does that ring true to you? Do you have other favorite lead players?
Marshal is one of my idols and heroes. I had the honor of sitting next to him with the Ray Anthony big band and he still commanded a lead alto presence in his mid- to late 70’s. He was the first guy I heard way back in junior high school and I was hooked. I’m a huge Basie fan and collect bootleg recordings from the 50’s of that band with Marshal playing lead. Great sound, great time. Jerome was a great influence while he was with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big band, especially on soprano. There is a huge list of lead alto players I love. The list is quite extensive and it wouldn’t be right to start to list because I can’t think of all of them. They all have this confidence in their sound, the way they go from one note to the next, in many, many styles, not just traditional big band.
Some of the charts on the album use the “standard” alto/alto/tenor/tenor/baritone saxophone section, but some use the less-common soprano lead. Any thoughts on soprano vs. alto as lead instruments? Other than paying dues on the horn, are there any other special considerations when you play lead soprano?
To me? Soprano saxophone requires a hard reed and a slightly open mouthpiece. Mine is an old S80 Selmer E with #3 traditional Vandoren reeds. I need to have the resistance to help me get from one note to the next and hold the pitch and sound I want. I’m not going to change this setup, only the reed. This goes for any playing situation. I most certainly put more air into lead alto playing than I do soprano.
Although the album seems to feature you primarily as a section player, you do take some nice solos, including one on flute. Are you as comfortable improvising on your doubles as you are on saxophone? I think a lot of doublers (myself included) really learn to improvise on the saxophone, and then discover that the vocabulary and fluency don’t automatically transfer.
I would suggest learning technical patterns on the other instruments as you would with saxophone. However, my overall objective is to play flute and clarinet with more of a “classical” approach, so I have had to catch up when improvising on those instruments. Listening to great jazz flute and clarinet players as much as I have listened to “classical” players is quite helpful. I have to remember that each of these instruments requires its own discipline, which is why I don’t consider them “doubles.” It just doesn’t work that way for me.
Any other behind-the-scenes information about the album that you would like to share?
For this project we started with bass and drums and a scratch lead alto/soprano part. Then, the following week, I sat down and played the parts, which took two six-hour days to play 13 charts playing all five parts on each. Eventually we added soloists, guitar, percussion, and piano.
What advice would you give to aspiring musicians who want to do the kind of work you do?
Practice everything, learn to write, arrange, play the piano, enjoy what you do, get into teaching once you feel comfortable in your playing. With the computer age, ProTools or other recording software makes it very easy to record anywhere.
So, with that comes a responsibility to music. Practicing scales with a metronome, playing long tones with a tuner. The reason is that these recording techniques require us to play along with instruments that are fixed pitched. Record yourself using GarageBand on a Mac or the PC equivalent and it will become apparent. [Ed. note: Audacity is one free, basic recording program for Windows or Linux computers.]
Play in every situation you possibly can, listen to music. A lot. To anything.
Do you have any favorite woodwind doubling (or general woodwind-playing) tips?
One thing I began to realize when studying was that the approach to putting air into these instruments grew to be similar. How I phrased and how I went from one note to the next and playing everything between the notes sort of became the same to me. Obviously embouchure is different but the air thing became the same.
Get a great mouthpiece/reed combination as soon as you can. Look for a decent flute or maybe a head-joint. Ask around, try out everything.
As you play keep in mind four things:
When you read music, the second time you see it you are no longer sightreading.
Listen.
Count.
Always look for beat one.
Thanks, Sal, for the music and for taking some time to share a bit of your experience and expertise!
Last year I posted a small sign on my studio door:
Fresh air policy
If you smell of tobacco, alcohol, or illegal drugs, you will not be permitted to enter my office, whether or not you were the one using those substances. If your grade depends on you being here for a lesson, coaching, or other meeting, you will receive a zero.
Thank you.
Happily, I haven’t had occasion to enforce the policy since then, though I have previously had the occasional student who would have been in violation. It should go without saying that you shouldn’t ever show up to any college course or professional situation under the influence of any mind-altering substance, including alcohol, and my university also happens to be a “tobacco-free” campus, which is rare and awesome.
I wrestled a little bit with the “whether or not you were the one” clause, but it’s my workspace and I don’t like the smell of cigarettes, especially since my work involves a lot of deep breathing. Also, it means I don’t ever have to try to guess whether students are lying (not that any of mine would).
My students’ choices are their own, and I try to be extremely conscientious about not foisting my personal beliefs on them. However, I am also responsible to teach them to protect their health, at least as it relates to their woodwind playing, and to behave professionally. So fresh air—free of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs—is my policy.
That people prefer to move in energetically optimal ways has been established for decades and now represents a central principle of movement science. … Energy optimization may also occur over the course of a lifetime, as years of experience could allow people to learn the optimal way to move in familiar situations and allow training to tune physiology to be more economical. An additional hypothesis—one that underpins many modern theories of motor control—is that people can adjust their movements to continuously optimize energetic cost.
I certainly see this phenomenon in my own woodwind playing and teaching. How many times have you encountered these?
More resistant notes failing to respond because there’s just enough breath support for the less-resistant ones
Embouchures losing their shape, reverting to a neutral/normal mouth position
Voicing, such as the high, cold-air voicing needed for clarinet playing, or the low, warm-air one for flutes and double reeds, lapsing into a medium, luke-warm state that negatively affects tone, pitch, and response
Pitch sagging at ends of notes as breath support peters out
These are often addressed by teachers as “habits,” which may be true, but they may also be fed by the brain’s capacity—and priority—to micro-optimize our muscle use to conserve energy. No wonder they are difficult to overcome! Patience and persistence are necessary to train our bodies to put the right amount of effort into playing our instruments.
A factor in this is establishing a suitably high bar for success. For a beginner, the only question might be, “did a sound come out?” For a slightly more advanced student, it might become, “did the correct approximate pitch come out?” A more advanced player might examine the precision of the pitch, the quality of the tone, and the immediacy of the response, among many other factors. It takes a relatively low amount of energy to meet the beginner’s threshold of success, but potentially much more for the advanced player’s.
Additionally, this intentional use of greater energy resources must be managed carefully to avoid its misapplication, which can result in excessive tension.
I find that when I am playing at my best balance of efficiency and effort, an hour of playing a woodwind instrument leaves me feeling like I have done some light exercise; I’ll feel the mild and pleasant fatigue of having taken a walk or reorganized a bookshelf. Serious tiredness or soreness are warnings that I’m overusing my body. (Your results may vary depending on your physical capabilities.)
Be in tune with your own body as you play, and teach your students to be in tune with theirs, so that you’re in the sweet spot of working hard enough but not harder.
Sometimes I have students cancel their lessons due to seemingly very minor, manageable health concerns (physical or mental). Other times students drag themselves to lessons when they are clearly miserable and contagious.
The better approach is clearly somewhere in the middle, but my newest college students are usually living away from their parents and the formal rules of high school for the first time and sometimes aren’t used to making those judgment calls on their own. Read More “When you’re too sick for a lesson”
I often have university students bring up the idea of graduate school and a university teaching career, and I have previously given general advice about that.
Perhaps since my graduate degrees and a teaching career are in multiple woodwinds, my students sometimes wonder if that’s a path they should take. Here are a few thoughts:
I’ve mentioned previously that, even for talented and hardworking folks, a graduate education is far from a guarantee of employment. Does a multiple-woodwinds degree help? I think it helped me, but I also had some significant luck.
The year I was on the job market, I applied for a small handful of multiple-woodwinds jobs and got a small handful of interviews. I landed in the job that was the best match. I kept an eye on job listings in subsequent years, and years went by without a single multiple-woodwinds job being listed. If I had graduated a year later than I did, I may well have been unemployed.
During my job search I also applied for single-instrument teaching jobs, and got zero responses. Having been on the hiring side of things a few times now, I understand why. Faculty jobs get dozens of applicants that need to be narrowed down quickly, and the ones whose qualifications and experience are laser-focused for the job in question rise to the top. Though I felt I had things to offer, my multiple-woodwinds background wasn’t a precise enough fit, and somebody else’s background was.
So is a multiple-woodwinds education better, employability-wise, than focused study of a single instrument? It’s a calculated gamble. When you’re on the job market there might happen to be a windfall of single-instrument jobs, and if you’ve been focused on multiple woodwinds instead, you may be out of luck. However, there are fewer multiple-woodwinds graduates, so if a multiple-woodwinds-geared job opens, your background might prove very valuable.
Multiple-woodwinds teaching jobs tend to be common at smaller schools with smaller music departments, and that may or may not affect your decision. I have a mixed but mostly positive relationship with my small-university job. If your heart is set on teaching at a major university, then most of the jobs won’t be multiple-instrument jobs, and your competition will mostly be highly-specialized, highly-focused single-instrument players.
One other factor to consider is what kind of multiple-woodwinds education you want to get. Do you want to have a “primary” and “secondary” instruments, or study them in an equal way? Do you want to do a masters degree and a doctoral degree both in multiple woodwinds, or one in multiple woodwinds and one in a single instrument? How you focus your studies will affect which theoretical future jobs you will or won’t be a match for. (Each degree program is a little different, so check with the schools you’re interested in to see how their programs are structured.)
Graduate study in multiple woodwinds can be valuable preparation for a career in higher education, but the job opportunities are limited and hard to predict. I suggest pursuing that path if you have additional reasons or motivations for doing so, like a fascination with the woodwind instruments and woodwind doubling.
Thank you for this discussion and the links. I’ve been wondering about this topic for a while, and you are the first source of real information (to the extent that any real information is known) that I’ve seen. Those of us who play in small or large ensembles would love to go back to rehearsals, but I’m not seeing that as being safe any time soon. Please keep the news coming!
Lately I have been enjoying 
What do you think of Rieger Clean USA for disinfecting reeds?
Thank you for this discussion and the links. I’ve been wondering about this topic for a while, and you are the first source of real information (to the extent that any real information is known) that I’ve seen. Those of us who play in small or large ensembles would love to go back to rehearsals, but I’m not seeing that as being safe any time soon. Please keep the news coming!