The Little Details

"It's the little details that are vital.  Little things make big things happen." - John Wooden

The above quote is from a famous basketball coach but it might as well have been from a famous musician.  Oftentimes, as performers or music educators, we tend to focus only on the big things - "hitting" notes, rhythms, intonation.  But like in a magnificent church, it is the little details that make all the difference in the world.

How consistent are your note endings in all registers at all dynamic levels?

Even if your band is starting and ending a crescendo at the same volumes, are they all crescendoing at the same rate throughout?

Are your dynamic levels consistent relative to each other throughout an entire work?

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There are countless ways that you can make a performance more refined.  Truly inspiring performances are always the sum of those very small refinements.  Think globally. Act locally.

We're All Creatures of Habit

So do you grab the soap or the shampoo first in the shower? I'm personally a soap first kind of guy.  This is not for religious reasons.  It is not a family rule that's been handed down through the generations.  It is not for any practical reason.  And yet every single day, 365 days a year (I have a rule to never bathe on February 29th,) I grab the soap before grabbing the shampoo.  Without exception.

This is because I, like all of us, am a creature of habit.  Everything you ever do on your instrument, on the podium, on stage, anywhere is establishing or reinforcing a habit.  This is why it is imperative to play with your absolute best sound possible at all times.  As in every time you ever play a note.  Whether you are "testing" a note an octave lower in order to get a higher pitch in your ear, you are noodling around while a conductor is talking to another section, or you are "just" warming up, you must play with your absolute best sound possible or you are more likely to play with the same sub-par sound next time.

We are all creatures of habit, both on and off the horn.  When realized, this can be harnessed and used to take great strides in our craft.  If not, we are doomed to repeat our past failures.

(More tomorrow on the myth of breaking bad habits.)

Time to Get Honest Up in Here

You’ve got to start thinking outside the box. When you have a problem (with your playing), really admit it and address it. You have to be honest about it. You are only as strong as the weakest link in your playing. - Marty Hackleman

Looking back through old notes I was reminded of this call to action.  What is your weakest link?

Best Description of Articulation Ever

I've never heard articulation explained as well as Michael Mulcahy did in the Bud Herseth piece that is tomorrow's Monday YouTube Clip:

Arnold Jacobs had a tremendous vitality of attack, tremendous clarity. Not harsh, but more energy at the beginning of the sound than people associate with symphonic musicians.

More energy at the beginning of the sound is what I've been working 29 years to achieve and that is the best wording of it I've ever heard. Thank you Mr. Mulcahy!

Some Thoughts on Vibrato

Last week I saw Harry Watters perform an absolutely wonderful recital at the Eastern Trombone Workshop at Fort Myer in Arlington, VA. He titled the recital “A Tribute to Carl Fontana” and was joined by four colleagues to fill out a jazz combo. It was truly an incredible hour of music, especially considering the fact that it was at 10:00 AM!

There were many things to be impressed by at this recital. When you closed your eyes, you swore that you were listening to Fontana himself, live and in the flesh. Harry’s doodle tongue is perfect, his slide technique is textbook and his phrasing is clear and brilliant. But there is one thing not on that list that I keep thinking about some four days later: his vibrato.

Harry’s vibrato is really incredible and one of the best I’ve ever heard from a brass player. The jazz style that he was playing in features a lot of slide vibrato and he executed it to perfection. Listening to Harry’s vibrato reminded me that there are four basic variables in the effective use of vibrato:

1. The width of the vibrato.
2. The speed of the vibrato.
3. When you start the vibrato.
4. When you end the vibrato.

A great question to ask yourself as a player: do I always use the same width of vibrato? The same speed? Am I always predictable as to when I begin my vibrato? If you are Harry, the answer to these three questions is no. Within one recital, all within the same style of music and all while imitating the same artist the entire time, he had variety to all three of these parameters.

The vibratos of the late, great Roger Voisin of the Boston Symphony and that of Chris Martin of the Chicago Symphony are amazingly different in both their speed and width. Studying all different kinds of vibrato is essential for any student to develop their own voice in this department. That study, for the record, begins and ends with singers. They are who we all try to emulate, period.

It has been my experience that many students use vibrato on any and all long notes when they are attempting to play musically. Vibrato is a wonderful tool for making a long note interesting (one of the best in fact,) but to my ears having a vibrato which is always predictable really robs it of most of its effectiveness.

There were long notes when Harry waited a long time before adding vibrato which created a real sense of tension. There were also some longer notes where he ended the vibrato before he got to the conclusion of the note, ending it with straight tone. This also has a really magical effect when done right.

But there was one note that really registered with me and is the note that inspired this blog post. During one of his jazz ballads, there was a long note that was screaming for vibrato. He had already proven to me that I didn’t know when he was starting the vibrato, when he was ending it or the speed and width of it. He already had me “leaning forward” in my chair in anticipation.

With this long note in particular, he waited, and waited, and waited, and finally the note ended and the vibrato never came. He went on to the next phrase without using the vibrato that I was specifically waiting for. What an effect! It was very moving.

So Harry taught me something last Friday morning. In addition to the four points above to consider when using vibrato I now consider a fifth: should I even use vibrato on any particular note, even if the entire rest of the tune features it. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

Sweat the Small Stuff

 

Try to make the simple beautiful.

- Marty Hackleman

The best musicians are the ones who can make a ton of music out of very few notes.  It is easy to play the best melodies ever written in a musical manner, but what about the other 99.9% of all composed music? A truly great artist can communicate as much in a one or two note phrase as they can in a long melody.

One of my favorite tuba parts in the orchestral repertoire is Brahms 2.  There is not much "meat" in this part.  There are very few long passages for tuba and nothing that is very technically demanding.  But there are some players who can make so much music in the one and two note phrases in the first movement.  Most young players would look at this part and label it as "easy."  But simple music can be deceiving.

I had the privilege of playing for a year in Dallas Brass with Tage Larsen who now plays trumpet with the Chicago Symphony.  I remember listening to his warm-up each morning.  The tone, the effortlessness, the music making! He could make so much music with his warm-up that it would make you stop and have an opinion.

How musical was your warm-up this morning?

Which Kind of Musician Are You?

There are two kinds of musicians in the world: those who subdivide and count through every long note they ever play and those who rely on others around them to do it for them. Even in the professional ranks, there are fewer of the former than you might think.

Which kind are you?

Teaching the Importance of Not Stopping During Solo Performance

I find that one of the most difficult things to correct in a student is a propensity for stopping - both while practicing and while performing in lessons. Of course, anything that happens over and over again when you practice will be overwhelmingly likely to also happen when you perform. Every one of my students, including those who struggle with briefly stopping to fix an error, know they are not supposed to stop. But telling yourself to not stop over and over again gets the mind thinking about one thing: stopping. To quote the great brass pedagogue Manny Laureano: “The human brain does not respond well to the word don’t.” His point is that we should always be thinking (and writing in our parts) a positive message and not its negative correlary.

Lately I’ve been taking a different approach to teaching the concept of always continuing with a performance, even one in a practice room. I subscribe to the Arnold Jacobs concept of always playing two horns - the one in your lap and the one in your head. The horn in your head should never stop because it never makes mistakes and never plays with question marks, always exclamation points.

The horn in your head should have the same autonomy over your playing that a conductor does. Imagine if Alan Baer made a mistake in rehearsal and cut off the New York Philharmonic from the back row in order to take another pass at the passage. Even a player as amazing as Alan would be unemployed quickly!

We are all capable of not stopping in rehearsals. So if we give the horn in our head the same respect that we give to conductors we will have no problem not stopping.

Opinionated Fingers

Valves on a brass instrument need to be up or they need to be down - not somewhere in between. This is always the case with the Pat Sheridans and Carol Jantschs of the world. Their fingers never get caught in no-man's-land. You could say their fingers are opinionated. They have a very strong opinion about when they are being pushed down and when they are being released. I always learn a lot about technique when I watch great trombone players. When watching Scott Hartman or Joe Alessi play I am immediately taken aback by their slide work. Their slides seem to always be in one position or another and never seems to be en route. And this is just as true when they play Rochut as when they are playing Till Eulenspiegel.

Those of us with valves can learn a lot from them.

Maintaining Focus In Performance

"Adrenalin will help us onstage but won't do everything for us.  Make sure we are still really focused 25 minutes into our concert." - Tiffany Hitz, Band Director at Mark Twain Middle School in Alexandria, VA

This was a comment my wife made to her band last summer at the UNCG Summer Band Camp. I think this is great advice for us grown-up kids as well. I have never had trouble focusing during the first tune of a Boston Brass show. But what about the 5th?

Adrenalin is an asset in any performance but must not be relied upon to maintain focus?