Category Archives: Practicing Music

Time and Rhythm: Discovering the Magic Between the Beats

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“Many people think that how they commit to the metronomic beat is the only game in town. But in bebop, the game in between this beat and the next one is really the main game.”

-Charles McPherson

“The metronome is not my sense of time. My sense of time lies between the metronome clicks.”

-Bill Plake

Well, I have at least one thing in common with alto saxophone great Charles McPherson. We both agree about our relationship to time (and how we perceive it).

Many musicians who seek my help in improving their sense of time and rhythm tend to have this more “passive” approach to the beat, as described above. This is, in part, because they view playing with “good” time as some kind of burden, as something they are obligated  to do in a rather precise and inflexible manner.

But playing with “good” time is not a burden. It is a liberator,  making your music more vivid, along with optimizing your skill and coordination.

And for you to play with “good” time, you need to be flexible and dynamic in two specific ways:

First, you need to be flexible and responsive to the time/rhythm/feel nuances of the other musicians with whom you’re playing.

Second, you need to have a dynamic rhythmic imagination.

It is this “dynamic rhythmic imagination” that I wish to address here.

No matter what kind of music you’re playing, “between the beats” is where all the possibilities lie. If you’re playing “interpretive” music, lets’ say, Bach, for example, it is your imagination of the “unevenness” (the emphasis and de-emphasis) of each of the eighth notes in a particular phrase that give it a unique expressive quality.

In other words, it is how you “imagine” the eighth notes relative to the beat  that puts your personal stamp on the music.

If you’re an improvising musician, on the other hand, it’s not just how  you imagine the eighth notes relative to the beat, but also what  you imagine rhythmically.

By “what”, I’m talking about the complexity and richness of your rhythmic expression. I’m talking about more than just continuous eighth (or sixteenth) notes.

Syncopation, polyrhythm, metric modulation, polymeter…even silence…all of this can be part of your rhythmic imagination. The “game in between this beat and the next one”, as Charles McPherson says.

And for sure, as an improvising musician, the “how” of how you play your eighth notes, sixteenths, etc., relative to the beat, is a vital component of your expression. (I think of this as a part of your “time feel”.)

But the bottom line is that none of this happens without consciously strategic and constructive work. In the simplest sense, that means working on two specific skills:

  1. Your sense of pulse (your ability to imagine and accurately predict) the beat (or “clicks” on the metronome).
  2. Your ability to imagine and move with an ever-expanding vocabulary of rhythmic expression relative to that beat.

The key word here is imagination.  When you’re practicing, that might mean using a minimal amount of metronome clicks relative to the rhythm being explored.

So for example, if you’re working on feeling eighth-note septuplets (seven notes played within two beats), it would make little sense to set the metronome clicking on each eighth note of the septuplet. Doing so might make your eighth notes sound “more even and precise”, but will do nothing for your rhythmic imagination. Ultimately, it is your carefully cultivated “rhythmic imagination” that will make your rhythms most precise, whether your playing by yourself or with others.

It would be more beneficial to set the metronome click in three ways. From easier to more challenging, these are:

  1. One click per each septuplet.
  2. Two clicks per each septuplet. (Believe it or not, you’ll most likely find this to be a bit more tricky.)
  3. One click per measure. (So, in 4/4 that would be one click for every 14 notes)

Once you’re able to do all this fairly readily, next would be to displace the click of the metronome relative to the septuplets, perhaps having it click beat two of each measure (or if you’re really up for a challenge, having it click on the “and” of beats one and three!)

Working on rhythms with this kind of intention and precision yields remarkable results, whether you’re an interpretive or improvising musician. The music “between the beats” comes alive inside of you with sometimes startling energy!

I’ve composed an e-book filled with exercises to help you enrich your rhythmic imagination, as well as to improve your ability to predict  the beats. Working daily in this way will help you build measureable skills that apply to whichever kind of music you play.

In any case, I encourage you embrace Maestro McPherson’s assertion, and discover the magic between the beats. Here’s a link to Ethan Iverson’s excellent interview with Charles McPherson. Enjoy!

The Power of the Pause

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Freedom is the capacity to pause in the face of stimuli from many directions at once and, in this pause, to throw one’s weight (put one’s intentions) toward ‘this’ response rather than ‘that’ one.

-Rollo May, existential psychologist, from his book ‘Freedom and Destiny’

One thing that virtually every musician has to do in order to improve is to change what they are currently doing. This might mean changing your practice regime, changing your understanding of your instrument and pedagogy, changing your perception of sound, changing your quality of attention, etc.

It might also mean that you have to change the postural and movement habits you bring to playing your instrument.

Habits of breathing, standing and/or sitting, how you use your arms and hands, how you balance (or not), how you use your other senses, etc. It’s entirely possible (and even highly likely) that you are sometimes misdirecting your efforts in these areas as you play.

The Alexander Technique is a practical method of helping you to change your postural and movement habits for the better. And one of the most essential tools of the Technique is known as “conscious inhibition” (most students and teachers of the Alexander Technique just refer to it as “inhibition”).

In the simplest sense, inhibition is your ability to consciously prevent yourself from reacting in an habitual, unwanted way. Unwanted tension in your neck. Unwanted rushing of the tempo. Unwanted stiffening in your shoulders, Unwanted gasping as you breathe, etc.

By keeping the unwanted things “in check”, you are free to pursue what you do  want in a way that is more in accordance to your human design. You increase your odds for success.

From a neurobiological point of view, all skilled motor activity requires a balance between “volition” (muscles going into the desired, or helpful action) and inhibition (muscles refraining from undesired, or unhelpful action). Most inhibition in skilled activities takes place naturally and unconsciously (as it should).

But sometimes you need to use inhibition in a more constructively conscious  way in order to improve things.

Unfortunately, there can sometimes be a misconception about using inhibition consciously. To many people, conscious inhibition means “trying” to stop something from happening. It is exactly this “trying” part that can too often create a whole other set of problems when setting out to change movement and postural habits.

“Trying” sometimes means that you are struggling to stop yourself from doing what you habitually do. As if you have little or no control over it. Here’s something F.M. Alexander (the founder of the Alexander Technique) said about it:

When you are asked not to do something, instead of making the decision not to do it, you try to prevent yourself from doing it. But this only means that you decide to do it, and then use muscle tension to prevent yourself from doing it.

But that’s not at all the way inhibition is used in the Alexander Technique. Rather than “trying to stop” something, you learn to simply decide not to do it.

I know, I know…more easily said than done, especially when you have a deeply ingrained habit attached to playing your instrument. But still absolutely doable. That’s the skill you develop by studying and applying the Technique.

The first step in learning to use inhibition in a constructive way, is to embrace the pause.

It is within this brief instant before taking action that you can choose to redirect your attention and clarify your intention and effort. In that moment you come face to face with your habitual reaction, and can give yourself a chance to say “no” to it.

You can decide  not to do what you habitually do. And that’s where the magic lies.

Because if you decide not to react habitually you leave yourself free to find other ways to react. You move from habit  into the realm of choice.

It is the discovery, exploration and embracing of the pause that has given me tremendously powerful tools in managing (which I do quite well!) the focal dystonia in my left hand.

Without using the pause as tool for change, I wouldn’t be able to play saxophone at all any more with any kind of reasonable skill and control. Nowadays, I’m playing better than I ever have, thanks to the power of pausing and redirecting my attention. That simple.

But I gained so much more from the using the pause than improving the functioning of my left hand. Using the pause has helped me to practice everything I practice in a much more constructive, efficient and clearly intentional way.

And as an improvising musician, learning that I can pause, that don’t have to fill every second of my solos with sound, is liberating, and (at the risk of sounding dramatic) has been life changing for me.

I listen at a much deeper level when I play with others than I ever have before. I play with greater empathy, confidence, authenticity, passion, creativity and satisfaction.

All thanks to becoming more and more skilled at pausing.

And to be clear, “pausing” is not the same as “hesitating”. Pausing invites calm, reassured choice, where hesitation invites conflict, misdirected effort and a lack of confidence and clarity.

I use the pause countless times every day that I practice, and I bring it with me to rehearsals and to the bandstand.

When I’m practicing, sometimes I pause between iterations of something challenging that I’m practicing. Just a split second to stop and redirect my efforts makes all the difference.

And even in the middle of a performance, the “imagination” of the pause is always there, reminding me that I have more choice than I might have perviously thought.

So I encourage you to explore the pause. Before jumping right in to “fix” what you didn’t like about what you just played in your practice session (by starting over with the same misdirected effort that led to your dissatisfaction), give yourself a chance to stop, find ease and balance in your body, clarify what it is you want and don’t want, and begin again.

As I’ve said in some of my other blog articles, you’ll never waste time when you give yourself a chance to stop and consciously redirect your efforts. Embrace the quiet power of choosing to pause. Respond rather than react, and reclaim your freedom.

An Essential Quality that All the Best Sight Readers Have in Common

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Accuracy. Flexibility. Consistency. These are three qualities that are fundamental to good sight reading.

Accuracy of pitch (correct notes), intonation, time, articulation, dynamics, etc.

Flexibility in reaction (adjusting intonation, time, etc.) to flow with the other musicians.

Consistency (predictability) in results.

It is easy  to play with other musicians who read with the above listed qualities. But there is another quality that the best sight readers possess that makes playing with them an absolute joy and inspiration:

Expressiveness.

Put simply, the best sight readers I’ve ever played with, play the music they’re reading as if they already know it intimately. 

Fearless, heartfelt, humanly dynamic, intentional…

It’s as if the meaning  of the music itself is taking precedence over the details of the notated information on the page.

And they sound is if they are deeply connected  to that meaning.

In fact, some of the best sight readers I’ve ever played with don’t have 100% accuracy (though their accuracy is remarkably high). They do, however, have remarkable flexibility and consistency. Both of these qualities are nested into their ability to immediately find meaning in the music, then express it.

It is this quality of immediate expressiveness that can lift the rest of the ensemble to new heights.

So how do you cultivate this skill?

Well, nearly every time I’ve played with extraordinary sight readers, I’ve made it a point to comment upon their skills, then ask them about how they’ve acquired them.

Their answers, though varied, usually comes down to this:

The quality of how they practice.

This “expressiveness”, this “intentionality”, this “presence”…is a fundamental ingredient in everything  they practice.

To them, there’s nothing that is purely a “technical” or “physical” exercise in practice. Everything is mindful. Everything has meaning. Everything is played through this meaning.

Scales, arpeggios…even long tones, are played with musical meaning and intention. Everything has dynamics. (Everything is dynamic!) Everything “comes to life” in the hands of the musician.

Human expression. (Isn’t this why, ultimately, we are moved to play music?)

And these extraordinary sight readers all seem to have this in common, too: They love to read music! (Why wouldn’t they, right?)

Here are some things you can do in your practice sessions to help you become a more dynamic, expressive sight reader:

  • Read every day-When you read new music every day, you improve your ability to expand your attention (to more readily include more details in your expression). So read all kinds of music, from technically challenging, to easy and rhapsodic, to rhythmically complex.
  • Sing-When reading a “difficult” passage, isolate it, then slow it down until you can sing it. Singing it helps clarify your musical intention and expression. The clearer it is in your ear (musical imagination), the more likely your brain will carry out the physical work necessary to fulfill your intentions. (Did I mention that the best sight readers I’ve ever played with also happen to have extraordinary ears?)
  • Pay attention to details-Make it your habit to look carefully at the music you’re reading to include not just notes and rhythms, but dynamic markings, articulations, etc. Work toward seeing the “entire” piece of music the first time around.
  • Study-Take some time to become aware of and understand any kind of stylistic elements that are central to the music you are practicing, as well as any harmonic/cadential knowledge that gives you a deeper insight into what the composer is wishing to express. Learn to “think” like a composer when reading something at sight.
  • Seek your most beautiful sound– Let everything you read manifest itself as a celebration of your personal sound.
  • Play around with time-Even where rhythmic precision seems crucial, always feel free to be flexible with the time (so long as your conscious of doing so). It will help deepen your insights into the music and deepen your expression within it.
  • Let your ears lead everything-Yes your eyes are important. But work on strengthening the connection between what you see  in the notated music with how you vividly imagine  the music sounding.
  • Look for ease-In attitude and body. Let yourself be light, free, balanced, mobile and well-connected to the ground. “As you practice, so you perform.” Aim at making ease a habit.
  • Trust all this– Know ultimately (when you are actually sight reading at a rehearsal or performance) that you can trust that all the work you did (as listed above) will enable you to perform in more seamlessly expressive manner.

Try working this way for a while, and transform your sight reading experiences from “labor” to joy! I’ll leave you with a quote to ponder, often attributed to Beethoven:

Wrong notes are of little consequence, but to play without passion is inexcusable.

Be Mindful of This Very Important Connection When Playing Your Instrument

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Whether giving an Alexander Technique lesson to a musician, or simply observing myself when I practice, I’ve come to notice one particular postural/movement habit that we all seem to have in common when faced with a potentially “stressful” stimulus when playing our instruments.

This is also something I can see as I watch musicians (and other performing artists) during performance.

When I say “potentially stressful”, I mean to include a wide range of things, from mild to powerful.

For example, a mildly stressful stimulus might be to slightly increase the tempo of a particular etude you’re practicing. Whereas a more powerfully stressful stimulus might be anticipating playing the first note of an important audition for which you’ve prepared.

In either case, there is an almost universal tendency  with respect to your movement and posture when faced with these types of stimuli:

You begin to lose your connection to the ground.

It is your connection to the ground that is the basis of support that encourages the freely fluent, agile and powerful movements you need to perform at your fullest potential.

Nearly all of our movement/posture, with respect to our human design (and with respect to our relationship to gravity), is based upon support (the ground) and suspension (the elasticity of our musculoskeletal system).

When you lose support, you also begin losing the elasticity  necessary for optimal suspension, and ultimately, optimal coordination.

So what does “losing connection to the ground” look like?

Here are a few examples when you’re standing:

  • You stiffen your feet and ankles, losing the mobility necessary to respond effectively to changes in balance.
  • You roll to one side or the other of either/both feet (this too, involves stiff ankles).
  • You hyper-extend (“lock”) your knees.
  • You clench your buttocks and/or compress you hips, while at the same time “lifting” yourself off the ground slightly.

And even when you’re sitting you can lose this very important connection to the ground. Here’s a few ways how you might do so:

  • You stiffen your legs, thereby diminishing the necessary contact of your sitting bones to the support of the chair.
  • You begin to push (or pull) toward one side or the other of your pelvis (and thus, your sitting bones).
  • You begin to draw your knees up into your pelvis (as your feet come up slightly off the floor).
  • You lift yourself up from the support of the chair by narrowing your entire torso. (This is something you also might to when standing.)

I should also mention here (with respect to the principles of the Alexander Technique) that when you’re engaging in any of the above listed posture/movement reactions, that you are at the same time stiffening your neck, interfering with how your head needs to freely balance on top of your spine (in order to allow optimal coordination).

And these tendencies are not only potentially problematic to the “mechanics” of your coordination, but are also (perhaps even more important!) evidence  that your quality of your attention is less than ideal. It has gone from being flexible, integrating and expansive (inclusive), to inflexible, disintegrating and narrow (exclusive).

(There is always a reciprocal relationship between the quality of your attention and what you do in your body. It’s sort of like, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” In any case, one conditions the other.)

But here’s the good news:

You’re not stuck with any of these tendencies.

Because they are only that. Tendencies. Or “habits” as we would refer to them in Alexander Technique jargon.

And habits can be changed.

Start by paying attention. Notice both when,  and how,  you lose your connection to the ground.

Notice what types of stimuli (thoughts, circumstances, conditions, etc.) seem to invite you to lose your connection (the “when” part).

Notice what you do with your entire self (including your attention) when you lose your connection (the “how” part).

Once you notice, you can practice pausing to gently redirect your attention, allowing yourself to be easy in your body and regain your connection to the ground. (And allowing yourself to reconnect to your intentions, and with the music itself.)

Finally, there is a difference between being “planted” (stuck hard and fast into the ground) and being “grounded” (surely, but dynamically connected to the ground).

Aim for being grounded, letting your weight pass freely down through your legs, through your feet, and into the support of the ground (when standing), or through your sitting bones as you allow the chair to support you (when sitting).

Then think of yourself as going up lightly, freely and expansively from your supporting surface. Let the earth play its role in helping you make music. Notice the difference.

Why “Feeling Relaxed” Isn’t Always a Good Thing To Aim For When Playing Music

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The word ‘relax’ can be a very dangerous word for some musicians.

–Karl Snider, singer, voice teacher, Alexander Technique teacher

One of the fundamental benefits of studying  the Alexander Technique and applying it to musical performance is in reducing or eliminating misdirected effort.

It is this misdirected effort (manifested through muscular tension) that leads to unnecessary fatigue, compromised coordination and skill (including problems with time/rhythm), and even injury.

My Alexander Technique students learn to play their instruments with far greater ease, efficiency, confidence, consistency and satisfaction than they did before studying the work.

Yet if you asked virtually any of these students (musicians from a large variety of genres) if they are more “relaxed” when they play now, compared to before they started taking Alexander Technique lessons, you might be surprised by their answers:

“I wouldn’t say I’m more ‘relaxed’ when I play now, just that I’m freer to move and respond in a way that is more conducive to playing my instrument the way I want to play it.”

The above is a quote from one of my students, an excellent guitarist here in Los Angeles, who’s been studying and applying the Alexander Technique for a number of years now.

(His response pretty much sums up and concurs with typical responses to this question from just about any of my students.)

If you asked this guitarist if he aims to be “relaxed” when he plays, he’ll answer with a resounding “no.”

Why is that? (you might wonder)

“Because (going again to what my student said) saying I want to be ‘relaxed’ is misleading.”

“First of all, it takes a certain amount of energy and tension to play guitar. Muscles are constantly working when I play. They have to. So it’s impossible to be completely ‘relaxed’ in the way most people think of being relaxed, and certainly in the way that I used to define that state of being.”

“Second, aiming for relaxation can often lead to other problems, like under-energized practice and performance. And before, when I didn’t ‘feel relaxed’ in the way I thought I should, I immediately became anxious, thinking I was doing everything wrong. That would lead me to playing with even less freedom and with more strain.”

As my student discovered, it’s this “feeling wrong” if you don’t think you aren’t as “relaxed as you should be” that often leads to even more misdirected effort.

If we go back to what my student does  want in his playing (what he has gained from studying and applying the Alexander Technique), it is more freedom.

Freedom to move lightly but powerfully. Freedom to respond in a constructive way to musical impulse. Freedom to use time more effectively.

Ultimately, freedom to choose.

If you were to ask this student what qualities he now seeks and enjoys when playing guitar, some of the words would be: balance, mobility, ease (not the same as relaxation), flexibility, efficiency, precision, satisfaction.

Freedom  instead of relaxation.

And this doesn’t even take into account the psycho-physical state of readiness necessary for actual live performance. So many musicians confuse the heightened state of arousal before and during a performance as “fear”, as something to be avoided at all costs.

While there are certainly some musicians who feel “fearful” about performance, the feeling of “excitation” necessary for optimal performance is too often confused with “fear” by many performers.

That’s unfortunate.

Because great performance is  exhilarating. It is  magical. It is  dynamic. It is  alive with energy (and even tension!) It is indeed  special.

But it is a far cry from anything anybody would call “relaxed”. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it is impossible to be relaxed during an authentically expressive musical performance.

So instead of aiming for “feeling relaxed” during a performance, perhaps you can wish for this instead:

To be free, mobile, supported by the ground, appropriately energized, connected (to the music, to the other performers, to the audience), inspired, curious, generous and loving.

And, perhaps…

You can wish for a light, easy upward and outward dynamic expansion throughout your entire body as you play.

You can wish for freely moving breath.

You can wish for an integrated attention, balancing what you think/feel internally, with what you experience externally.

You can wish for allowing yourself to use time to your advantage, never rushing ahead, instead letting the music unfold into its natural, easy rhythm.

You can wish for buoyant, freely flowing energy throughout your entire self.

You can wish to be graciously receptive of the creative impulses moving through you.

You can wish to be graciously receptive of the presence and energy of the audience and the other performers.

You can wish for economy of effort  instead of relaxation.

You can wish for clarity and freedom in thought and expression…

What else would you  wish for in practice and performance, if you could have anything you want?