Archive for the 'Teaching' Category
June 6th, 2009 by David H. Thomas
A few months ago I stumbled on an lecture/article from the International Clarinet Society archives which I shared briefly, but did not write about. It’s worth reviewing and quoting here because it outlines the map to becoming a great player.
In today’s über-competitive music world, students must consider the mountain they are climbing. You cannot just be talented, or just work hard, or just have a good teacher. You must have all these, plus a vision of what you wish to become.
A failing of many students these days is to ignore the traditions and accomplishments of great players of the past. Most students take for granted all the modern tools they have at their disposal, such as recordings, electronic metronomes, tuners, machine made mouthpieces, numerous reed and reed tool choices, lots of great teachers, plus the added benefit of books on how athletes train, and the Alexander Technique for how to use the Self. 50 ears ago, recordings were a luxury. Now they are ubiquitous and accessible with a click of a finger.
Few or none of these existed 100 years ago, yet some players broke through the crowd to map new territory for their instrument’s technique. How did they stand out? Were they simply geniuses? Lucky?
On the contrary, they worked their asses off PLUS they thought outside the box. They didn’t just settle for being the best. Instead they created a whole new level of “best” for everyone else to match.
Students these days often wait for a teacher to solve all their problems for them. If not, the teacher must not be good enough. I try to teach students to identify, isolate and solve their own problems, with my guidance.
The article/lecture outlines and details five traits of truly revolutionary players. Though many of the descriptions are somewhat obvious and mundane, the basic message is clear.
Great players set their goals high and broad, then find a way to fill in all the details through patience and perseverance.
Here is the introduction, including the five traits:
This lecture explains why it is important for musicians to study the greats of the past, understand what made them stand out from their peers and how to apply these traits to themselves. Through brief profiles of Carl Baermann, Ernesto Cavallini and Buddy DeFranco, 5 traits are introduced which today’s musicians can develop to improve their musicianship and artistry. Also included is an article called Internalizing the Music which describes the process of learning that these great players go through when practicing.
Five Traits for Today’s Musicians to Develop:
1. Playing with spirit and emotion
2. Having a deep theoretical, historical and overall knowledge of music
3. Playing with flawless technical command of instrument
4. Developing an individual style and sound
5. Internalizing the music
My views follow-
1. Play with spirit and emotion- Why are you a musician? What does music do for you? If your answer is “Because I love music.”, then why? Keep asking, and when you get to more questions than answers, you are ready to begin the real search for spirit and emotion in music. Listen to every recording of the Mozart Concerto, or whatever piece represents your instrument for you, and pick your favorite one, or two. Then ask yourself as you listen, “Why does this appeal to me?” and/or “What would I do differently?”.
2. Have a deep theoretical, historical and overall knowledge of music- This search becomes obvious after pondering the first trait.
3. Play with flawless technical command of instrument- keyword “mastery”. It’s not about getting the notes, it’s about playing the instrument as easily as you walk (which can be an exploration itself). A lot of soul searching is required to face this minefield path. Patience, perseverance, and intelligent problem solving are the keys. Without such exploration, injury and limiting habits are guaranteed. Again, use questions to guide you. “What is causing this technical limitation?” The answer is not merely “more practice”, but instead “more practice with better understanding of causes”. The cause is often far removed from the symptom, and may stem from mis-use of your whole self. Great players mine these questions with scientific precision and patience, though they may not broadcast it.
4. Develop an individual style and sound- Don’t copy; emulate. Marcellus told me that many of his students suffered because they tried to sound like him (including me). Trusting your own internal concept takes courage. You may not sound the way you want right away. But don’t give up and return to imitation. I again suggest listening critically to many recordings to create your own “recipe” for sound and style.
5. Internalize the music- Cipolla offers a number of suggestions for doing this. I recommend memorizing a passage almost immediately to engage the more primal memory of the body. I also recommend singing passages to train your ear. (this is especially important for wind players, who, unlike string players, can more or less “push a button” and get a note without hearing it first.
The lecture/article is called Historical Perspectives of Excellence for Clarinetists, by John Cipolla, from the ICA ClarinetFest® 1999, Oostend, Belgium, July 10th, 1999.
Go read it now. Then practice with a new attitude.
June 2nd, 2009 by David H. Thomas
I’ve been thinking about previous teachers recently. I was practicing some excerpts when I turned to a xerox of Till Eulenspiegel and saw the signature of Alan Balter at the top.
I took a few lessons with Alan during the 80’s while I still lived in Washington, DC. Though I had graduated from Northwestern U in 1982, having studied with Marcellus and Brody there, Balter taught me some things I never got from any other teacher.
When I played a note perfect Mendelssohn Scherzo for him, he commented how well I had played it, and then said it was missing one key element of the music, its dance like quality.
He encouraged me to learn to “spin the air” as I played, which freed up my air for more expressive subtlety, and also for a touch of vibrato when I desired it.
He helped me focus on the quality of motion of my right hand index finger, the weakest link in my finger technique.
I still apply these ideas and others to my playing and teaching to this day. I will always be thankful for what he taught me.
Unfortunately, I cannot thank him personally. Alan Balter passed away in 1998 from complications caused by some disease he had battled for over a decade.
He played 8 seasons as principal clarinet of the Atlanta Symphony and then went on to conduct after winning the MIN-ON International Concours for Conductors in 1976.
March 11th, 2009 by David H. Thomas
I strongly recommend all wind players read The Structures and Movement of Breathing by Barbara Conable and James Jordan.
Though written as A Primer for Choirs and Choruses, it is invaluable as a guide to any wind player wanting to improve their breathing skills.
It is a concise book, which in a mere 40 or so pages of text and illustrations details the scientific structures and movements of breathing and also lists numerous experiential interpretations of the sensations of the critical process of breathing and support.
The text, often light in tone, manages to convey exacting descriptions of necessary knowledge to educate any performer or teacher without confusion or obfuscating language.
For example, the section on the mouth states:
…the frequent injunction to”breathe low” is confusing to young singers, not because low isn’t important- it is terribly important- but because the injunction undervalues and distracts from the equally important higher movement of ribs and diaphragm. Our lungs and diaphragms lie higher in our torsos than any other organs except our hearts, which snuggle between our lungs, just above our highly domed diaphragms. Students ask, “Should we breather high or low?” The answer is yes. We should breathe high, and we should breathe middle, and we should breathe low, across the whole natural range of breathing movement. Fine singing depends on movement choices throughout the entire torso.
Or, in a description differentiating between the Body Map (internal feeling) of the trachea and the esophagus:
The common and very destructive confusion concerning the location of the trachea and esophagus and the function of the pharyngeal muscles is often accompanied by a misunderstanding of sound, which is that sound is a substance, something that a singer may, for instance, “project.” Singers with substance fantasies are prone to use the food-moving apparatus to sing. Sound is not a substance; it is merely and purely vibration in air. Singers who comprehend this fact fully move air cleanly in and out through the trachea, using their intercostals and their diaphragms. The esophagus waits there behind the trachea for something good to eat after the rehearsal.
Though the book is based on the ideas of the Alexander Technique, there is no requirement of previous knowledge of the Technique to benefit from the lessons in it.
The illustrations by Tim Phelps are of high quality with just the right amount of helpful detail.
March 10th, 2009 by David H. Thomas
I just had a great lesson with Emily Bacon, who has studied with me for a little over a year.
She is finally done with all her music school auditions, so we could move beyond the material required for those. (as much as I love the process of preparing music with a deadline, it hampers the real learning process, which has it’s own timetable)
We had nothing scheduled to work on during today’s lesson, so our time was a blank slate.
I decided to review some basic techniques with her. I gave her two exercises. The first is to play a chromatic scale, 16th notes, 3 octaves, and to articulate every other 16th. (tongue the first note, then slur two note groups all the way up, so the articulation is a 16th off the beat) This allows the player to keep the tongue very light and to emphasize the quality of air and voicing throughout the range of the instrument.
The second exercise is inspired by the first Parez Scale Book. C scale, slurred, one 8th and 16ths one octave up to an 8th at the top, stop-tongued, then an 8th on the lower octave C, stop-tongued. (I’ll write this out and post it below). Then the same scale on D (still a C scale), then the same on each note up the C scale. Then reverse and start from the top C coming down.
After we had reviewed and stabilized these two exercises, keeping the basics in mind (lose, open jaw, soft throat, soft “sinuses”, high back of tongue), I suggested a radical idea: playing with earplugs in!
What I love about Emily is her willingness to try something new and different. And she doesn’t just go through the motions, she really gives it a good shot, and she also trusts that I have some logic in mind.
So she put in some earplugs and played a few notes. “Ew, it sounds awful!” was the first, and expected, response. Then I had her play the exercises we had practiced before, and told her to trust the feeling of a soft open jaw, soft throat and sinuses and a high tongue. And she sounded GREAT! (to me, that is, since she could not tell how she sounded, only how it felt)
We continued, with earplugs in, by playing through some standard excerpts, such as the slow movement of Brahms 3rd symphony. When ever something didn’t sound right, I reminded her of the feeling of the basics, and it immediately improved.
I also recorded her playing these excerpts with the plugs in, so she could hear how good she sounded.
She then removed the earplugs and continued to play “by feel”, not allowing what she heard to influence how it felt. And, Voila!, she continued to sound really wonderful, with lots of ring in the sound all the way up the range, with perky articulations, clear attacks and releases of mid-range notes.
Today was the most rewarding kind of teaching, when a fresh idea takes root in a wonderfully receptive student. Thank you, Emily!
January 24th, 2009 by David H. Thomas
The breathing cycle is a beautiful and complex mechanism, which when used consciously in a natural way, gives us immense control over our phrasing, tone, pitch control and dynamics. Used unnaturally, problems arise such as shortness of breath, excessive nerves, hyper-ventilation while playing, fatigue and the numerous symptoms of those misuses in our playing; erratic phrases, out of tune pitch and strident or hollow tone.
Breathing correctly, or naturally, comes naturally, if you let it happen without unnecessary interference. (Inhibiting unnecessary interference is the engine which drives the Alexander Technique.) Unfortunately, most wind players have interfered with the beautiful and natural inborn cycles of breathing muscles in their attempts to improve it or master it.
The link below takes you to an animation of a child respirating. Children use themselves naturally for the most part, until they are instructed to do something another way, when the pernicious issue of self-consciousness comes into play, often causing misuse which may never be corrected.
I recommend watching this cyclical animation of breathing for numerous cycles, breathing along with it to experience your own breathing cycle.
To begin the demonstration, click “start”, then, to get the animation going, click “next” several times to see each phase of breathing. After that it should continue automatically. Be sure to also click “show ribs”, which shows the beautiful elasticity of the rib cage expanding up and out, and contracting down and in. Notice how the top of the lungs and rib cage expand just as much as the bottom.
An unfortunate limitation of this animation is that it doesn’t shows the surrounding body moving along with the ribs and lungs.
Watching someone breathe naturally is really mesmerizing, as the torso expands and contracts, rises and falls, seemingly independent from the head and neck. The shoulders, resting on the rib cage, only rise and fall as a consequence of the rib cage doing so, not from their own effort. Novices learning to breath consciously often think the shoulders should “be raised” when breathing, which creates tension in the neck and distortion of the natural cycle.
Scalenus Neck Muscles
To create inhalation, the diaphragm contracts, pulling down, creating negative space in the lungs, which then pull in air. As the same time, the ribs moves up and out (excursion) at the 24 (12 on each side) joints of the ribs along the spine, with the aid of the External Intercostal Muscles. The ribs also expand (excurse) at the cartilage tissue connecting the ribs to the sternum. Some of the neck muscles also help with inhalation, namely the scalene muscles of the neck, which connect to the top ribs and help them raise on inhalation.
Do not confuse these neck muscles with the Trapezius, right near by. These are the muscles used when you shrug your shoulders. At times it seems helpful to use these shoulder muscles to pull a bigger breath, but these create more tension than inhalation.
On exhalation, the diaphragm is passive, the lungs are eager to spring back to their smaller shape, just as a balloon released pushes air out, and the ribs pull in and down with the aid of the Internal Intercostal Muscles. Under exertion or while speaking or laughing or singing or playing a wind instrument, various abdominal muscles are used to push the diaphragm up and the air.
These abdominal muscles are:
-Transverse – the main muscles that hold your body insides … inside
-Rectus – this is the “six pack” area
-External oblique – the left and right side “twisting” muscles
-Internal oblique – inner muscles that counterpart the externals to help with twisting
Instead of attempting to describe exactly how these muscles are used, which is not only difficult to verbalize, but also nearly impossible to enact consciously, it is better to turn to the instinctual use of these muscles, as in speaking or laughing. when the subtle use of abdominal muscles is observed, they may be seen to contribute to smooth exhalation with a “group effort”. Here again, the concept of “inhibition” so often mentioned in the Alexander Technique is critical. Observation of our “natural” patterns often creates other misuses and un-helpful effort.
One of the best analogies I have heard to date to indicate how the abdomen feels when properly supporting is from Robert Marcellus, who said it feels like there is a tire around your abdomen pushing in from all around. Nothing else should be involved, not your neck, not your back (except lower), not your legs, not your shoulders, not your jaw, not your tongue, not your throat.
An easy exercise to help observe our natural support abilities is to put your hands on the sides of your waist and say soft laughing “ha” sounds with a little gasp between each. Notice how the whole torso is involved without tensing. Now increase volume. Keep the “tire” image in your mind as you feel the various muscles around your abdomen work in tandem to exert the huffing “ha” sound.
I also had success with one student with the following exercise. From a standing position, release your knees as you bend at the waist. Put your forearms on your knees to support this stance as you relax your torso and back, letting your butt go out behind you as your head and back become parallel to the floor. Take slow deep breath, letting your butt relax away from your torso toward what ever is behind you, let’s say the wall. As your ribs round out and to the side, your head and neck remain relaxed, which allows the spine to “gather”. Let this expanding torso/gathering spine movement continue until you are gently full… then exhale, letting your a) butt continue relaxing away from you as your b) head moves the opposite way and your c) spine lengthens and your d) torso (combination abdomen and ribs) squeezes in. Your spine feels like a soft stretchy necklace of beads in the middle of a balloon. When the balloon expands around the springy bead necklace, the beads pull closer together. When the balloon contracts, the beads move farther apart.
The emphasis here is to notice the involvement of the butt area as it expands to accommodate the viscera being pushed down and out, and then how it becomes the “spring” point from which the team of abdominal muscles and rib muscles push the air up and out. After a few breaths like this, slowly begin to move to standing, letting your head come up and forward, keeping knees bent and butt moving away from your head. Keep awareness of the freedom of your butt!!
Enjoy breathing deeply! Don’t over think it. Just remember, breathing naturally really does come naturally. You don’t have to learn how to do it, just learn how to control it with out interfering with it.
November 13th, 2008 by David H. Thomas
I first learned to play the clarinet in 1972, after hearing a demonstration of various instruments, whereby I chose the clarinet because it “went the highest and the lowest” of them all.
The more I learn about playing music, the more I love teaching. At age 17 I was proficient enough in clarinet technique to instruct younger students. Through the experience of mentoring beginning players, I discovered that the process of deconstructing the mechanics of playing the instrument enables the teacher to better instruct himself. The enlightening experience of imparting knowledge to others has motivated me to continue teaching the skills of making music on the clarinet to this day.
Each new student shows me what they need. Since 1989, after moving to Columbus, Ohio as the Principal Clarinetist with the Columbus Symphony, I have had numerous students graduate from my studio and go on to study clarinet at the university level, including notably, Indiana University, Northwestern University, University of Michigan and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. I also coach university level students and adult professionals, helping them prepare for orchestral auditions or other performance events as needed.
I have no preference for any particular age group when I teach. All ages are a joy to teach, each with their own unique breakthroughs in learning to learn and to express themselves from the core of their being.
Better understanding of how we live inspires better teaching. Beginning in 2003, my teaching philosophy has included some critical concepts of physical awareness which I learned from the Alexander Technique, with great success for my students. The Alexander Technique emphasizes balance and poise in the use of the whole self, including proper body coordination, mental and physical attitude, and physical and mental focus. The Technique enables me to analyze the student’s use of his or her self, allowing me to craft a style of teaching tailored to each student’s needs. Rather than merely “getting to the goal” of playing all the exercises in a particular book, which often comes with many negative compensating habits, I teach the most efficient and natural way for a student to learn to play the instrument, and by extension, learn to live better day to day.
The ultimate goal of any teaching method is to impart to each student a greater awareness of the complexity and beauty of playing music through their chosen instrument.
I teach from my home in Columbus, Ohio.
July 28th, 2008 by David H. Thomas
This sweet note is from the parent of one of my students, age 14 going on 15.
We were thinking of you when we were hiking at Zion Canyon National Park in southern Utah. Robin LOVED it there–there are lots of ferny plants clinging to the rock cliffs on a trail that goes along (and into) the river–its absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. She took lots of close up photos of flowers and ferns. At one point she commented, “I wonder if Mr. Thomas has ever been here. I can just picture him playing his clarinet in this canyon.” I thought that was pretty cool and that you would like to know that she’s thinking about clarinet music on a hike in the woods!
