Tag Archive for 'robert marcellus'

Alive with Music

Published
by
dtclarinet
on July 27, 2008
in Musician's Life, Orchestral Playing, Performances and The Music
. 0 Comments

OK, so I go for the corny, million dollar phrases, but the title Alive with Music captures so much of what we strive for as musicians. Over the past half century, recordings have both stimulated and undermined the popularity of live classical music. On the one hand, recorded music allows ready access and exposure to music by those who might not have had the opportunity to hear much. I could ask myself, “Would I have become a clarinetist if I hadn’t fatefully heard that recording of Robert Marcellus playing the Mozart Clarinet Concerto?”

However, recordings also create a false standard for live music performances. Current technology allows for recordings to be edited down to the level of single notes, so it is possible for all flaws to be removed from almost any recording before it is released. Granted, the music is still performed by live orchestras, but the drama of the moment, with close calls, near misses, and belly flops, has been removed to be replaced by the security of artificial perfection by correction. (I wrote an article about this subject saeveral years ago, called Music Recordings Byte Reality.)

What I am trying to say is this. Though the music may be the same, the difference between a live performance and a recording is as apples are to oranges.

Tonight, the musicians of the Columbus Symphony had a triumphant performance in Vets Memorial Auditorium. The crowd of at least 2000 swarmed in late, with many people caught in the snarled traffic jam involving the Jazz and Rib Fest., which shared parking lots with our event. Even our conductor’s arrival at the hall was delayed by the traffic. One supporter friend emailed me after the performance telling me they were turned away for parking and missed the concert.

The conductor for tonight’s concert was Alessandro Siciliani, who was Music Director of the Columbus Symphony for 12 years. He certainly has an avid following, and the electricity of a live performance is most definitely enhanced by the audience in attendance. Tonight, the repeated standing ovations signaled their adoration for him, and for us through him. Maestro Alessandro had no trouble living up to his reputation in his performance, both with the orchestra and his adoring fans.

His tempos were characteristically exciting and very, very flexible; something akin to riding fast on a rubber roller coaster, most assuredly an exhilarating ride. Yet, despite the musician’s occasional discomfort, something exudes from a performance with “Big Al” which could never happen again, ever. Each moment is unique, and something to be cherished as it passes forever into oblivion. And the audiences of Columbus tune into that energy, as if it’s something they have needed to feel for a long time, to be reminded of the preciousness (and excitement) of the moment.

The musicians of the Symphony were proud to have members of the Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati orchestra in our midst tonight, creating a new level of attention and freshness to our playing. Those orchestras in turn are showing their respect for us as a world class musical group by their willingness to play music with us. Again, the unique spirit of this performance will never be recreated.

As an encore, Alessandro wanted to play the entire last movement of the Dvorak 8th symphony we had just played. We tried to start a murmuring revolt, repeating a rehearsal number near the end, which would allow us all to play just the last page. After all, we were tired! But Al persisted, and we played the whole last movement again. And, much as I hate to admit it, I ENJOYED doing it a second time. It gave me a chance to squeeze a little more emotion out of every note. The orchestra sounded fantastic both times, but even more free and spirited the second. That’s something a recording can’t do.

One inside story needs to be shared. During Rossini’s Overture to the Italian Girl in Algiers, someone’s metronome (a clicking device to assist with rhythm practice) somehow clicked on in their case, during the middle of the performance. We were all very busy with lots of notes, and no one had time to search nearby bags and cases to locate the rogue metronome. The thing is, the beat of the clicking device was much, much slower than the piece we were playing. There was something comical about this lazy, summer-night-rhythm ticking away blandly in contrast with the flurry of hurried activity going on the woodwinds (where the metronome was centered). The little thing just happily clicked it’s laid back tempo until the end of the piece. I offer commendations to those woodwind players who had to play difficult, rhythmic solos to play while this lazy beat persisted in the background.

Ah, there’s nothing quite like a live performance of music, or I should say a performance “alive with music”.

Before the Music Begins

Published
by
dtclarinet
on May 3, 2008
in Behind the Scenes, Clarinet and Personal
. 0 Comments

(The following story was submitted to the Columbus Dispatch for their First Person column. I hope it will be printed in the next week or two. It is a heavily revised, more accessible version of my previous post, “Why I am a musician“, with several new paragraphs.)

The powerful symphony we are about to play, and my ability to play it, seem to come from somewhere beyond human capabilities. Yet it highlights my humanity and my frailty, my nobility and my baseness. It reaches across ages and shows me how history and art have formed me and the civilization I live in.

Who wouldn’t want to be inside Einstein’s head, or Picasso’s or Martin Luther King’s as they thought and felt their great deeds? My life’s commitment is to get into composer’s heads and recreate their great music for others.

The first note we play is a commitment to our colleagues, the audience and the music. Egos may clash off stage, but conflict disappears as the conductor raises his baton and we come together to go beyond ourselves.

But a lot happens behind the scenes before the concert.

My clarinet’s reed is the heart of the instrument’s tone; it must be perfect if I am to perform with utmost skill. I carve a tiny piece of wood off the base of the reed. Almost nothing. I put the reed back on the mouthpiece and fasten it with the ligature. I form an embouchure and play the scale I repeat hundreds of times a day to check reeds. The raspiness has gone from the reed’s vibrations. Now it has a bell-like ring through the instrument. Ahh!

After two hours of working on reeds, I am tired. Add several hours of rehearsals today and that’s a full day. But I haven’t finished. I still need to review sections of tonight’s music. I need to be sure the reed will resonate in the low register for the famous opening clarinet passage of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. The clarinet’s dark, brooding low notes are perfect for the mournful melody.

Why do I do this? I smile as I ask myself. “Because I love it” might be one answer. But that’s not quite it. It’s more like an itch that needs to be scratched. Since age 12, after hearing a recording of the instrument (Robert Marcellus), I had the “ring” of the clarinet’s tone in my head, an ideal to strive for.

As a child I always enjoyed science, especially botany, chemistry and physics. I also enjoyed music, perhaps because it seemed a bit like science to me. I began studying piano at age 6. During one of my first piano lessons my teacher had me face away from the piano and listen as she played various chords. I was to identify their happy and sad qualities. It fascinated me that a few musical notes could render such varied emotions.

Upon returning to the US after growing up abroad as a Foreign Service Diplomat’s kid, I was treated like an alien by other children my age. When I was introduced to clarinet in the 6th grade, I latched on to it as something secure and knowable. Over the years clarinet became my identity. While other adolescents grappled with the meaning of life, I strove to climb the mountain before me: mastering the clarinet. I competed in and won many competitions to hone my skills. My parents never had to push me to practice. However, I often took criticism hard, as it exposed my fervent desire to be the best.

10,000 hours of practice is the only way to master an instrument. Like an athlete wishing to win the Olympics, I constantly strive for machine-like perfection with an all-too-human body and life. Beyond practicing clarinet, I have worked a great deal behind the scenes to make it seem “effortless” on stage. I exercise regularly and I have studied various techniques for focus and poise.

Of course, playing the instrument alone is still only part of this process. I am a clarinetist because I love classical music. I’ll never forget playing Brahms’ fourth Symphony for the first time, age 17, at the Interlochen Summer Music Camp, an intensive “boot camp” for aspiring young artists. Brahms’ gypsy spirit shone through the almost tortured discipline of his North German Protestant upbringing. I related to the conflict of those emotions; freedom emerging from limitation. That sense of balance in conflict, and other such ideas learned from music, have fed my attitudes in life.

Being able to communicate music directly to an audience is my dream come true. A live performance reflects a unique snapshot in time and, like sports, happens in real time. And just as the excitement of a supportive crowd can urge a team to victory, an audience affects a performer with its attention and enjoyment. The smiles of listeners inspire me to fresh new depths of expression and heights of emotion.

Many in the audience probably think they know how this piece will sound. They have undoubtedly heard it in recordings. But tonight they will enjoy a fresh, new journey through this rich music, as performed by me and my fellow musicians. Maestro Hirokami brings down his baton and I am fortunate to be able to recreate the sad beginning of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth symphony. The end is never clearly known, and tonight I somehow sense that the ending of this symphony will be more optimistic than usual.

Intimacy with your Instrument, part 2

Published
by
dtclarinet
on November 2, 2007
in Clarinet and Mastery
. 0 Comments

If you think of intimacy with a person, the first words that come to mind are commitment, trust and communication. Also, to be close to someone, you need to know yourself first. That in itself is a lifelong process. No matter how compatible a couple might be, there will be problems: misunderstandings, a build up of bad memories, and plain complacency and boredom. All these things can kill a relationship if left unresolved. It is the same for your long term relationship with your instrument.

After graduating from Northwestern, I knew a lot about how I wanted to play the clarinet, and how others had accomplished that goal, but I didn’t know myself very well yet, and though I played well, I didn’t know my instrument very deeply. To carry the analogy of a human relationship further, it was as if, during eight years of private study I had been told by a very wise but dominant mother in law how to best relate to my partner, the clarinet.

During my year in Greensboro, I had plenty of time to be alone with the clarinet. The job only entailed 6 or 7 concerts and a dozen or so quintet gigs. It gave me a structure and some cash, but it was far from full time. Luckily my parents still helped out financially, so I didn’t need to seek other work and could focus on mastering clarinet.

I thought a lot about what I wanted to accomplish on the instrument. I knew how to sound good on it, but only with a lot of effort. In my attempts to sound and look like Robert Marcellus I had lost flexibility and adaptability. So rather than continue along that path, I threw out the idea of sounding a particular way, and strove for physical composure and balance.

At some point I wrote a few notes summing up the ideas I employed during many of my practice sessions. These ideas can easily be translated into a set of simple guidelines for any relationship.

1- Hear, Don’t Listen. The Ideal (sound) is always in your ear. You will move toward it, so don’t struggle with it. Let it happen. When I found my notes years later, I was perplexed by what I had meant by “hear, don’t listen”. But after studying the Alexander Technique for the past few years, I rediscovered the importance of keeping judgment out of self-analysis in any relationship. When interacting with your instrument, avoid all judgment of good, bad, right and wrong. Your goal is self-evident. Your love of music, your instrument or your partner is the ideal which will promote your development. If you stumble over every little mishap and error, you’ll lose sight of that goal very quickly and will get tangled in a morass of sticky judgment.

2- The breath should feel like a two way tube going from the bottom of the gut to the end of the instrument, at all times, especially during articulation. This advice obviously applies only to wind instrument players. Even so, I puzzled at the meaning of this strange image from years ago. Here again, the Alexander Technique helped me find a more concise and relevant way to put it. Breath support is just that, nothing else. It’s not breath “force” or breath “rigidity”. When the breath is let out, it is balanced by the resistance of the instrument. When this balance of resistance is accomplished, it does in fact feel like a two way tube! In a personal relationship, this particular advice might be translated to mean: give and take. You cannot push harder than the other is able to handle. It’s counter productive.

3- Play with your whole body. This advice seems obvious, but few of us follow it. We play the instrument using a bunch of rules about how to play or not play, forgetting our direct involvement all all times. Some of us think, “once learned, that’s it.” Others approach the instrument daily with fear and anxiety. A relationship, whether with a person or an instrument, is never “finished” or “complete”. It’s a continuous process. Every time you play, it’s a new experience. Leave the baggage behind and travel light. Look forward not back.

Beyond the above advice, some other ideas came to mind while re-examining my relationship with the clarinet the past few years. Try new equipment (with caution) and techniques to keep things fresh. I’ve been dabbling with mouthpieces and have learned the hard way to be circumspect before changing equipment. I’ll soon be writing a post about that experience, but I still stand by the suggestion to try new toys. They teach you to be flexible and adaptive. I’ve also been experimenting with new techniques such as double tonguing and circular breathing, not because they will make me a better musician, but because they keep me humble about my abilities. There’s always something more to be learned.

I also improvise occasionally, very late at night when no one is around, with the windows all shut. I have never been comfortable with improvising, but I know it’s the best way to free up one’s playing, both physically and mentally.

To be intimate with your instrument you need to trust yourself and play fearlessly. You need to face your limitations with an open mind and delve into problems systematically and without judgment.

Keep your love of music in sight. If you lose that, you lose direction. That’s the hardest one for me as a long time player. It’s easy to become jaded and resentful of the repetition involved in maintaining high playing standards. It’s difficult to keep attitude and playing fresh. Writing about it or talking about it helps. Playing voluntary (unpaid) recitals is a great way to stay fresh.

Don’t ever just play. Make music.

Practicing Techniques

Published
by
dtclarinet
on February 17, 2007
in Behind the Scenes and Mastery
. 8 Comments

A musician can never stop practicing anytime in their career. I believe it was the great cellist Rostropovich (or was it Casals) who said, “If I don’t practice for one day, I notice a decline in quality; if it’s two days without practice, my wife notices; three days, my neighbor notices.”

Over the years my practice habits have sagged. Various illnesses and physical problems struck me down hard and repeatedly for about 5 years. And, to be honest, my passion for my instrument also sagged during those periods. I eventually went through a crisis in confidence and self-respect.

During that time I saw the movie Spiderman 2. In the movie, Spiderman loses his “powers” for some mysterious reason, but which had something to do with lack of belief in himself. He goes through a crisis of identity. I related to his condition at the time. My playing had not changed much from the outside, but my belief in myself as a strong player had declined seriously.

Over my long “recovery” of confidence, I rediscovered the most basic habits of good practicing. They are: Consistency, Physical Relaxation (Poise), Patience, Focus and Efficiency. These habits, of course, are quite general and can be applied to any complex individual task.

Practicing is a lonely task. It is tedious, repetitive, frustrating, and seemingly endless. The “myth of Sisyphus”, where Sisyphus pushes a huge boulder up a mountain everyday, only to find it at the bottom again the next, exemplifies the endless tediousness of practicing. But by cultivating the basic habits outlined above, one can chip away the mountain, or at least find the most efficient route to keep the boulder at the top more and more consistently.

Let’s look at each habit more closely.

Consistency: This is the most basic rule for accomplishing any long term project in life. And it is primary to being a succesful musician. One of my old teachers, Robert Marcellus, claimed that the students who practiced their scales daily were the ones most likely to succeed. A local trumpet player, whose playing is the most consistent I’ve ever heard, warms up exactly the same way before any rehearsal or concert.

I begin the day with slow scales, which can be described as combination of long-tones and scales. I start with the lowest register of the clarinet, where the air can be relaxed and full, where the embouchure can be the softest. I play the scale one octave, whole notes, using a full sound, then descend the next half step up, continuing up the to the highest range of the instrument. I also add some legato tonguing, to be sure that muscle is also poised and focused. This way I slowly warm up the body: fingers, embouchure, tongue and air without stress. This warm also helps me be sure my body is Relaxed and Poised.

Consistency does not just mean regularity here. One must be consistent in attitude and focus during each session and during the entire practice session.

Patience: One cannot practice in a hurry. That is when the most damage is done. An uncanny aspect of the body is that it learns fast, even mistakes. A passage played wrong once takes three times to correct. Slow down, mentally and physically. Find the level at which you can play something and work from there. Anger and frustration accomplish nothing. Take a break if you are on edge. Taking many small breaks helps me stay balanced and focused.

This brings me to the next habit, Focus. One cannot practice without being alert and focused. One of the most difficult aspects of being a professional musician is the odd hours we have to keep. My orchestra can schedule performances or rehearsals anytime from 10 AM to 8 PM. My body and mind must be able to focus at any time. The obvious implication here is the importance of proper rest, diet and exercise to maintain our real instrument, the body.

Practice time must be kept clear of distractions to allow focus as intense as a surgeon’s in order to refine and improve the smallest details in one’s playing. There is no other way to improve. Bludgeoning away at something without close attention will only ingrain sloppy habits. This brings me to efficiency of thought and action.

Efficiency: Like a scientist, we must closely observe patterns in our playing and analyze limitations for solutions. Developing problem solving skills is crucial. Experimentation is recommended if a solution is not obvious. A good teacher can help student learn efficient problem solving.

If I am learning a difficult passage, the first thing I do is isolate the biggest problem spots. Let’s say I am learning a passage of fast sixteenth notes where a group of four notes are slowing me down. I drop the rest of the passage and focus on problem group. I may repeat them slowly a few times, or try different rhythms to gain finger dexterity.

But I also look at all aspects of those notes and check off what might be causing the glitch. Is my air steady through those notes? This is often the hidden problem with technique on a wind instrument. Without steady air, no passage will flow easily.

Then I look at each change of fingering in the passage. Are the fingers moving as efficiently as possible, staying over the keys without tension or gripping? I may notice that the fingerings between just two notes requires 5 or 6 fingers to move. This may be the tripping point. If so, I’ll create a trill exercise using just those two notes. This is just one example of how detailed focus can improve one tiny passage in a larger work.

During this detailed analysis, I occasionally remind myself to “stay in the room”. By this I mean keep the body and mind in the physical present, so as not to lose awareness of creeping tension in any part of body or mind while focusing narrowly on a detail. Staying open physically and mentally during tedious practice is probably one of the most important habits one can cultivate as a musician.

The underlying foundation of all good playing is belief in oneself. A musician cannot accomplish much without that basic self trust. But by employing the habits detailed above, one can gain confidence and control over one’s body and instrument.

How to Play True Legato

Published
by
dtclarinet
on January 8, 2007
in Mastery
. 6 Comments

Legato playing, the smooth connection between notes in a musical line, is difficult on any instrument. Piano has more difficulty playing legato, since it’s basically a percussion instrument. Voice wins easily for the most true legato, since the larynx can shift subtlety from note to note with a pure connection.

You would think wind instruments, begin fairly close to the voice in their use of air to phrase, would have an easy task with legato. But the physical fact of a finger or pad covering a hole to change the length of the vibrating column commits an act of minor violence to it.

To compensate for this limitation, many woodwind players “chew” on each note with their air to give the impression of legato. The legato then turns into “wa-wa-wa” instead of a smooth line “wa-a-a”. Yet, though this alleviates the symptom of a note changing with a clunk, this quick fix doesn’t really solve the problem. Rather, it creates other problems, namely tension in the air column and lack of direction in the phrase.

During my studies at Northwestern with Robert Marcellus and Clark Brody, I learned the mechanism for the best possible legato on the clarinet. The key is in the steadiness of air support. This may seem obvious, but it’s actually very difficult to do. Remembering the “violence” of moving from note to note, and keeping in mind that each note will resonate differently depending on which holes are opened or closed on which part of the instrument, keeping the air steady is more elusive a task than it may seem. Our ears tend to tell our bodies to “wa-wa” to cover the clunkiness of notes changing. Our bodies will tense and flinch in anticipation of the sudden change in tone and resonance. So how do we resolve these issues?

To create beautiful legato on the clarinet, one must override these urges and discipline the body. The first step is to ensure one is using the highest quality support. This simple act takes years to master. The air must be released and sent into the instrument using the whole torso and diaphragm in a harmonious motion. (This will be the subject of another post) When this is accomplished, one must consciously play “one note” with the air while moving the fingers with disciplined commitment. Most importantly, one must summon the courage not to flinch as the note changes. This detail takes a great deal of self-awareness, since the tiny movements of embouchure, air and fingers are barely noticeable, especially if one has been unconsciously adjusting to alleviate the bumps between notes.

As an exercise, one might play a single note and imagine playing a simple scale. The fingers do not move, but the mind pretends they are, helping separate the integrity of air and embouchure from the air. Then play the scale very, very slowly, moving the fingers extremely slowly, so as to explore each muscle movement in every detail. This may cause some fuzziness or dead space between notes, but the exercise will accomplish its goal of giving the player full awareness of the movement. Meanwhile the air must remain a pure stream as it was during playing one note. Lastly, be aware of any changes in embouchure and override them. Play “coldly”, like a machine.

Ultimately, when the motions of the three components of legato are separated, namely air stream, fingers and embouchure, the player will have a chance to idealize the connection between notes. Flinching the embouchure and air will be reduced to the minimum necessary to “voice” the next note, no more. The fingers will move with disciplined commitment, with no unnecessary violence of movement. Then the player may give the smoothest direction possible to the line of the phrase, creating a clear, musical statement of intent and direction.