Tag Archives: Improving Musical Performance

Deep Mastery: One Project At A Time

I had the good fortune some years back to study the saxophone with Los Angeles woodwind doubler guru, Bill Green. The older I get, the more I appreciate (and put into practice) the things he taught me.

Bill played all of the instruments in the traditional woodwind family: the saxophones, clarinets, flutes, as well as oboe (English horn, too) and bassoon (including contra!) His ability to move from one to another and play with considerable ease, confidence and skill was his calling card. (He played on countless television and motion picture recording sessions.) Needless to say, he was a highly disciplined musician, who practiced a great deal.

One of the things Bill always had going on was a “project”, as he called it. This was his way of describing the ongoing, dedicated work that he applied toward developing (or improving upon) a very specific skill.

The need for these “micro” skills was constantly revealed to him through his work. He loved to find technical demands that “put him in the wrong”, and find a way to master them.

For example, some of his projects were things like: slurring rapidly between high ‘E’ and high ‘A’ on the flute; double tonguing in the first octave of the English horn; playing secondary minor triads in all keys on the soprano saxophone up into the altissimo register.

He went deep into these projects, was very methodical in his approach to them, and was entirely mindful and disciplined in his pursuit.

He told me that no matter what he needed to practice on any given day, he made a commitment to spend a predetermined amount of time on his project until he achieved his objective. For some projects this was maybe 10-15 minutes per day, and for others, as much as an hour.

By practicing this way, he developed three very valuable assets:

1. A continuously growing set of skills that expanded his capabilities as a studio musician, effectively increasing his chances to work more frequently, and express himself more readily.

2. A sense of self-efficacy. (He developed an iron-clad confidence in his ability to analyze and effectively prescribe and carry out the work necessary to deal with any pedagogical difficulty that might come his way.)

3. The intrinsic reward of solving problems. (He didn’t avoid the “impossible”; he actively sought it out and welcomed it with joy.)

For many years I have applied this approach to deepening my own skills, both as a saxophonist and as an improviser. I tend to balance the regular, daily work of my practice (tone production, technical studies, eartraining, Improvisational work, etc.) with some kind of a project.

Of course, these projects are often specific elements nestled into the above mentioned “daily work”. (For example, this last week I started a project involving slurring overtones on the saxophone in ever-widening intervals using the octave key; really helpful for adding complex color and resonance to my sound!)

Many of my projects are to develop specific improvisational skills, whether it be aural familiarity and control of specific tonalities (forming diatonic triad pairs from the 6-note augmented scale was a recent project), or of time, rhythm and/or form (playing “Giant Steps” in 7/8 was a project from about two years ago).

Here’s something very important that I learned from practicing this way: I never lose the skill I’ve acquired. I just keep building upon what I have. The skills become part of who I am as a musician, become integrated into what I do, and readily available.

So if you don’t have a project, I heartily suggest that you find one and dedicate yourself to carrying it out. Here are some guidelines that might help you:

Start with your need, and turn that into genuine interest. What would you like to improve upon? What sparks your interest? What would the possibilities be in your musical expression with this new skill?

Examine your motivation? Does your wish for this new skill come from inspiration or fear? It’s best if it comes from inspiration, from a place of love and positive energy (see my point above).

Balance addition with subtraction. Keep in mind that not all improvement means adding things. Lots of pedagogy is aimed at subtracting things: bad habits to be specific. If you’re struggling with certain things technically, ask yourself, “What do I need to stop doing to improve in this area?” (For example, are you stiffening your fingers, needlessly tensing your facial muscles and/or jaw?) Then aim at playing with greater ease and control by subtracting the excess tension.

Work as specifically as possible. Define not only your goal, but also, how you can best carry it out. Sit down with pencil and paper and think your practice strategy and prescription through. (It’s worth the time to do so, I promise you!)

But don’t be too specific about time. Aim for a clearly defined goal (for example, “to play this particular scale in sixteenth notes at quarter note equals 120 in all three octaves”). Carry out the work in daily sessions (with predetermined time allotments for each session), but don’t get too hung up on how long (weeks, months) it should take. If it’s taking more time than you think it should, reassess (and then see below:)

Smaller is better. Make sure your project is attainable in a relatively short period of time (one week, to let’s say, three months). Anything that takes longer is not really a project but is either an ongoing skill (a daily practice habit) or it is several projects needing to be separated out and defined. When in doubt, cut it in half. You’ll stay motivated this way, as you keep your effort in close proximity to the desired result.

Aim for ease in yourself. No matter what the goal of your project is, one of the requirements should be that you cultivate a natural and efficient use of yourself as you carry it out. If you’re adding tension to what you do, you’re most likely moving in the wrong direction.

Always have a project. Get in the habit of not only knowing what you’re current project is (and where you are in reaching your goal with it), but also, what your next project might be.

One of the things I notice with many musicians who don’t seem to improve (despite their daily practice) is a “maintenance” approach in their practice, addressing only the very general pedagogical skills, but with little (if any) deliberate work toward specific skills that are outside of their reach.

If you continue to work on the basics every day, yet always have a project that brings you into a deeper, more specific set of skills, you can’t help but improve. It worked for the maestro, Bill Green, it’s been working for me, and it can work for you, too.

Body Awareness And Music Making: Learning To Reinterpret Your Senses

So what is causing the problem?

In the simplest sense, it’s not a lack of awareness, but a misinterpretation of bodily sensation. You see, it’s not that most musicians have difficulty noticing these things (once they’re pointed out), it just that they often don’t perceive of these things as misdirected effort (the very thing that is causing their problems as they play!)

Instead they think of what they do is part and parcel of what it takes to play music. It’s a kind of “over-efforting” that not only feels right, but even seems necessary in order to play their instrument. Becoming aware of these tense gestures is the first step.

The next is to reinterpret them for what they actually are: unnecessary habits of misdirected tension. That’s not always an easy thing to do, as many musicians are quite attached to the physical sensations of playing their instrument. It’s not unusual for a musician to want to feel that they’re working hard (even though it’s creating difficulties). This sometimes becomes almost an addiction, an affirmation that they’re playing “well”.

And to make matters more complicated, my students will often have an almost religious reverence for certain points of pedagogy taught to them that they believe to be virtually indisputable (usually dispensed to them by another excellent musician/teacher).

My job is to connect the new experiences of playing without the excess effort, to my student’s reasoning, and (ever-increasing) knowledge. This is a matter of re-education: helping them to better understand the actual acoustical demands and principles of playing their instrument as it relates to the way their bodies can best accommodate these demands and principles.

I encourage my students to not believe what I say because I say it, but rather, because it can be tested and found to be true. I want them to know why they choose to do (or not do) something with themselves as they play. They need to own it. They gain this ownership through direct experience.

The next step in this process (once they’ve clarified their misconceptions about their bodies) is to learn how to play without going into their habit. This is where the real work (and real value!) of the Alexander Technique comes into play.

By design and necessity, this happens gradually. But the changes that take place can be absolutely remarkable.

Here’s the good news

Because you’re a musician, you already have the skill set to be able to notice many subtle (and not so subtle) things about yourself as you play. This is a HUGE advantage, and can really speed up your progress if you wish to change your habitual tension patterns. Whether you have problems with chronic pain, and/or coordination, being able to pay attention to yourself as you play gives you a definite leg up.

If you find a good, AmSAT certified Alexander Technique teacher, you can find how quickly you can learn to interpret what’s happening in your body in an accurate and more helpful way. You’ll learn that all that extra effort with your head, neck, back and shoulders, your locked knees, tense feet, noisy breathing and squinting brow don’t help you one bit when it comes to making music.

And of course, always feel free to contact me if y0u need help. I would be my honor and pleasure to do so!

Playing music can be much easier than you perhaps thought. Use your skills of awareness to help you discover how much easier it can actually be.

Ear Training For Improvisation: Three Skills To Develop

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No matter how much you study, analyze, understand or memorize, you still need good ears to improvise music with fluidity and authentic self-expression. You have to be able to imagine and carry out your internal aural impressions in real-time.

Developing your ear is of prime importance, and is something that a serious improviser spends a lifetime cultivating.

As I reflect upon how I work on my ear, I’ve come to realize that no matter what I’m working on, I’m always developing one of three skills:

1. Recognition

2. Retention

3. Sensation

I’d like to talk a bit about each one of these skills, and what you can do to improve them. Keep in mind that the they are inseparably connected, and work together to help you to turn imagination into sound.

Recognition

This is where it starts for many musicians: learning to recognize intervals, scales (and their modes), chord qualities and inversion, chord sequences, harmonic tensions, melodic patterns, etc.

I cannot stress the importance of this foundational work enough. The better able you are to connect the various elements of music to your ear and intellect, the more melodic possibilities you’ll find when you improvise.

It’s best to start from the simple, and build your skills toward the more complex:

Intervals-Melody is nothing but a series of intervals, so mastering intervals is essential. You should be able to recognize any interval in all forms (ascending and descending melodic, both within the octave and beyond the octave; and the notes of the interval played simultaneously). You need to do this work to the point where you don’t even have to think about which interval you’re hearing. Prepare to spend a good deal of time working with this, and allow periods of review, even after you think you can easily hear, sing, or play back on your instrument any interval. (It’s crucial that you practice both singing back and playing back the intervals you test yourself with.) There are lots of great resources to help you with this now, including some terrific smart phone apps that are very thorough and inexpensive (or even free!)

Scales-The material of much of the intervallic sequences that constitutes melodies comes from scalar material. To start, you need to be able to recognize and sing, major and minor scales in any key and from any inversion (mode). Then work towards the same competency with symmetrical scales: diminished, augmented, whole tone, as well as any other scales that either strike your fancy or challenge your ears.

Chord qualities-Much of the structural and melodic impetus of improvised melodies in the jazz tradition comes from the harmonic form. Therefore, it’s a good idea to master not only understanding the theory of chord construction and harmonic movement, but also, to be able to sing and recognize the various chords in their inversions. Again, start from simple (major and minor triads) and move toward complex (seventh, ninth, eleventh and thirteenth chords, sus7, altered chords, etc.)

Tension qualities-This is related to the skill above. Specifically, learning to recognize and sing the various notes of of any given chord relative to the chord itself. For example, hearing/recognizing/singing the 7th of the dominant seventh, or the raised 11th over a major 7th chord. Tasting Harmony, A New Approach To Ear Training, by Greg Fishman, is an excellent resource for this.

Chord sequences-Going from the smaller picture of hearing chord qualities to hearing and recognizing chord sequences is fundamental to your freedom of expression. Learning to recognize ii-V-I movement, with all its modulations and voice-leading resolutions, will help you memorize (and retain what you’ve memorized) when you learn standard songs or other harmonic forms. It will also significantly help you play by ear when you have no idea of the chord changes. A simple but effective way of working on this is to take chord changes off of a recording by ear. Use your instrument, your voice, a piano…anything to help you. Connect what you hear, sing and play back, with your intellect (theoretical understanding). Start with easy songs (could even be simple, children’s songs) and move on to standards, bop tunes, into modern jazz compositions.

Melodic patterns-Learning to recognize and recall common melodic patterns and licks will shorten the road from your imagination to your improvisation. Transcribing jazz solos of master improvisers is highly effective practice for this. It’s also important (and very helpful!) to play as much as you can by memory when working on patterns of any sort. Once you understand the structure, or formula of a particular pattern, and can sing it clearly and easily, strive toward playing it by ear. (Don’t write it out to help you learn it.)

If this seems like a lot of work, understand that it is, and that it’s something that you work toward improving and growing for the rest of your musical life. Nobody has a “finished” ear.

Even Charles McNeal, who is arguably one of the most prolific transcribers of jazz solos (he has an AMAZING ear and is a tremendous jazz saxophonist!) will tell you that he can transcribe the more “bop-oriented” soloists much faster than he can the “modern cats”. Why? Because the language of bop is more familiar to him. (It is for that reason that Charles welcomes the challenge of transcribing more modern players. He wants to constantly improve his ear.)

Retention

Once you are able to recognize intervals, scales, chords, etc., you need to be able to keep the aural impression of these elements alive in your imagination as you play (this is especially crucial in transcription and memorizing patterns/licks by ear).

Neuroscientists call this ability “working memory”. Specifically, the capacity to keep multiple bits of information available to your thinking simultaneously. (As an example, it’s easier to hold two notes in your aural memory than it is to keep an entire unfamiliar melodic pattern.)

One of the frustrations with some students of jazz improvisation is with retention. They can recognize intervals easily; they can recognize scales and chord qualities and tensions, as well.

But have them play a simple melodic sequence back by ear and they sometimes fall apart. Why?

Well, it’s often because they are not continuously hearing the melodic sequence in their imagination as they try to recall it. Often they’re getting stuck on one interval at a time, and before they know it, they’ve completely forgotten what it is they originally heard.

If you get frustrated with this, here are three things you can do to help as you play back melodic patterns by ear:

First, make sure you clearly hear the entire sequence and can “repeat” it back in your memory. Listen, listen, listen, as much as you need! (Shorten it into smaller sections if need be and work with one section at a time.) It is absolutely essential that you can internalize the material and can hear it in your imagination without singing or playing your instrument.

Second, now sing the sequence several times to affirm the accuracy of your aural imagination. If it is part of a transcribed solo, make sure you are singing the inflections, articulations, dynamics, etc. Make it come to life in your imagination.

Third, play it back on your instrument (again, with all the inflections). If you know your intervals and have sung the sequence lucidly, you’ll have no problem.

This is a skill (retention through working memory) that you can (must!) continually develop. My guess is that somebody like Charles McNeal has a very highly developed working memory from all the transcription work he’s done.

Through regular practice, you can get so you can repeat entire phrases (and even sections of transcribed solos) back as easily as you used to be able to play back 3 or 4 notes. Practice working on longer and longer patterns, always keeping the aural impression within your reach.

Sensation

The ultimate aim of using your ears should be to use them instinctively. You want to follow your ear, not your intellect. (The great improvising saxophonist, Warne Marsh, would sometimes chide his students as they improvised by saying, “I can hear you thinking.”)

This is where being open to your sensory experiences can be very helpful. Learn to imagine the feeling of the sound in the instrument, of the resonance and color, as you move from one note to the next when translating something back by ear. For example, if you play a wind instrument, “taste” the sound from one note to the next.

If you play the piano, learn to sense how you move and where you go spatially as you play back what you’ve heard or imagined. I can often easily find something by ear on my saxophone just by fingering (not blowing) what I imagine the sequence to be. That feeling of movement (kinesthetic sense) is in support of my sense of hearing and makes my aural imagination that much quicker and clearer.

A very simple way for you to begin working on this skill is by playing lots and lots of simple melodies (again, highly familiar children’s songs are a good place to start) in all twelve keys. Every day. As you do so, don’t try to intellectualize the melodic movement (interval to interval), but instead, play by instinct and sensation. Just let your fingers (and/or breath, etc., depending on your instrument) follow your ears, and other senses.

Sing as much as you can as you learn new melodic/harmonic material, not only to deepen the clarity of your aural imagination, but also, to give your brain even more of a chance to experience the music through your senses.

The more open and free you are with your body, (as an Alexander Technique teacher, I work a lot with my students on this), the more information you’ll be able to experience through your senses. (Excess muscular tension can significantly interfere with your ability to sense and hear the music.)

So as you continue to grow your ear, please keep these three skills in mind. Make a decision to work everyday on improving and integrating them. The more you can transcend your intellect and connect with your muse, the more beautiful and expressive your music will be.

You, Your Instrument, Space And Movement

Three Misconceptions About Your Hands That Might Be Holding You Back

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Many musicians who come to me for Alexander Technique lessons do so because they have problems with their hands: chronic pain and/or coordination issues (these two can be very closely related).

Medical conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome and elbow tendonitis, as well as general discomfort and fatigue when playing can be, are often caused (or made worse), in part, by a misunderstanding of the structure/location and function (anatomy and physiology) of the hands, fingers and arms.

The same goes for coordination. I’ve lost count of the musicians I’ve encountered who are stuck at a certain level of technical proficiency (no matter how much they practice and how hard they try) because of the mechanical disadvantages they bring upon themselves through their habits (with their hands, arms, neck and back) as they play.

I won’t go into full detail here about how the hands relate to the arms, which relate to the back, which relates to the balance of the head on the spine. (Although this is of prime importance, and I’ve mentioned it before in several other articles).

Rather, I’m going to briefly talk about the three most common misconceptions (in my teaching experience) that most musicians have about the hands, wrists and lower arm. I’m also going to share some videos that will be highly useful in helping you to better visualize and understand how your hands, wrists and lower arms function.

So what are the three misconceptions I’m talking about here?

1. The location of your knuckles. Many musicians imagine their knuckle joints (metacarpophylangeal, or “MP” joints, as they are commonly called) as being in the location where their fingers connect to their palms (looking at the hand palm-side up). But in truth, these joints are lower than that. If you look at the topside of your hand and bend your fingers at the knuckle, while at the same time keeping them straight, you’ll see exactly where that joint is.

Now, bend your fingers the same way and look at the palm-side of your hand to see how much farther down those joints are from that fleshy place where your fingers meet your palms. If you play your instrument by trying to bend your fingers at this imaginary joint (where the fingers meet the fleshy part of the palm), you’ll create a signficant amount of excess tension and compression in your entire hand.

2. The joints of your thumb. Your thumb has three joints, not two. Many musicians think of the thumb has having one joint at the knuckle and the other joint at the fleshy location of where the thumb connects to the palm (an accurate, but incomplete understanding). But if you take the tip of your thumb (again, do this palm-side up) and touch the tip of your small finger with it, you’ll see how your thumb rotates from the bottom/middle part of your hand (from a third joint).

If you don’t allow for this movement when you play, you’re going to get a great deal of fatigue in you entire hand, and you’ll measurably interfere with the freedom and coordination of your other fingers. (I see this often in how woodwinds players use their right hands.)

Here’s a video excerpt from a DVD that I very highly recommend, called Move Well, Avoid Injury. This video not only illustrates my points about the knuckle joints and the thumb more completely, but also, offers a more constructive way of thinking about them:

3.How your wrist rotates. You have two bones in your lower arm (the ulna, which is on the small-finger side of the arm; and the radius, which is on the thumb-side of your arm). When you rotate your wrist at the elbow (let’s say, for example, what your left hand does as you play flute), the bones cross one another. (This movement is called pronatation and supination.) The most efficient way for this to happen is to allow the pivot point to be on the small-finger side (the ulna), so that the thumb can sweep radially into rotation (hence the name, radius).

If you try to rotate your wrists from the thumb-side, you’ll create a good deal of strain in your entire lower arm, as well as your hands and fingers. Your elbow joint, in particular, will be negatively impacted. This movement habit is what can lead to elbow tendonitis, among other things.

Here’s another video clip from Move Well, Avoid Injury to help illustrate this and suggest more helpful ways of thinking about it:

So whether you play, piano, guitar, saxophone, trumpet, drums (or any instrument where your hands are involved), by clarifying these three things you can play with greater freedom, less strain and more pleasure.