Tag Archives: Improving Musical Performance

Resonance, Time and Ease (A Warm-up Meditation)

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Just as my practice goals and strategies evolve over time, so does my conception and implementation of warming up to practice.

Recently, one of the musicians that I coach asked me to elaborate more specifically how I’m currently warming up. So I thought I’d share my thoughts here with you all.

In the past few months, I’ve given myself a specific warmup project: playing one-octave modes from various scales (major, minor and harmonic major) legato, in slow sixteenth and thirty-second notes (half note equals 12 to 15) bpms).

I started out doing this as a way to challenge and improve my sense of what I call my “temporal imagination” (how vividly and accurately I perceive  time and pulse). As I continue to work daily on this, the components (or objectives, if you will) of my daily warm-up have become distilled into the integration of these three things:

1. Optimal resonance

2. Perception of time

3. Psychophysical ease

Allow me to elaborate a bit on each of these components.

Optimal resonance

As a saxophonist, this has a very specific meaning to me. It involves finding the “balance” (or “exchange of energy”)  between my air stream and my instrument. (Some of you saxophonists might notice that I simply said my “instrument” and not “the mouthpiece and reed”. I find this to be a more accurate description of the acoustic reality of the sound making process.)

In finding that balance, I’m looking for a consistently responsive  and  flexible  breath support, coupled with an awareness/allowance for my voicing mechanisms (soft palate, tongue, jaw, nasal cavity, etc.) to “come alive”, so to speak.

I aim to feel the sound resonating gently inside my head (particularly, my nasal cavity), as I connect that feeling to the sensation of the sound inside my horn. I connect all of this immediately to how I hear my sound out into the room.

So I’m calling into play both internal and external sensory awareness and sensations.

Perception of time

My coordination, my technique, sound, expression…virtually everything I do is conditioned by my sense of time.

As I play each of these modes slowly with the metronome, my aim is to be present with each note.

What that means specifically is that I am connecting my “optimal resonance wish” with my internal perception of time, and how that internal perception of time relates to the reality of the metronome (an external cue for time) and my sound in the room.

When the metronome clicks so slowly, it becomes tempting to try to “play each note in time” by imagining how “evenly” each note should sound.

But as I try to play that way, I virtually always end up rushing just a bit. I tend to try to manage what my fingers are doing as opposed to truly listening and responding. It’s as if I’ve lost the sense of the wholeness of the phrase I’m playing.

So what I do instead is aim for optimum resonance on each as it moves in time to the next , while I hold in my imagination the anticipation  of where the next click will fall on the metronome. This helps me integrate my internal consciousness (my intention and imagination) to the external world (hearing my sound; hearing the sound of the metronome).

Whenever I do this, my time instantly becomes lovely and easily precise. I can hear the evenness of not just every note that I play, but also the entire phrase as a whole.

Metaphrically, it’s as if I’m standing on top of a large mountain looking down on the whole valley. This is an immensely pleasurable experience, and it has significantly bolstered my confidence in my sense of time, as well as rhythm and meter.

Psychophysical ease

This is where my experience both teaching and learning (and applying) the Alexander Technique comes in handy. As I aim to integrate optimal resonance with my perception of time, I’m doing so through the foundation of a good “use” of my entire self.

(This is the central organizing principle of all my work as I warm up and practice.)

You might notice that I use the term “psychophysical ease” instead of “physical ease”. I do so because “psychophysical” is a more complete and accurate description of how we as human beings function in activity.

The “ease in my body” is incumbent upon my “ease and clarity in my thinking”. It is impossible to have one without the other.

So what I aim for as I’m connecting my optimal resonance to my perception of time, is finding the ease that is already there inside myself.

I notice my balanced connection to the floor through my feet, the mobility of my joints, the poise of my head on top of my spine (very important!) and the elastic quality of my ribs and torso as I breathe.

If I happen to notice something in my reaction (how I’m using myself) that I don’t  want, I simply make a decision to stop doing it, and bring my attention gently back to the ease in my body, and the calm but alert clarity in my thinking, as I stay present with my sound and with the time.

As I mentioned above, my aim in warming up is to integrate these three components into one, singular, omnisensory experience. I’m never sacrificing one component at the expense of another.

The challenge in writing or talking about this , is that it sounds much more complicated, slow-moving and cumbersome than it actually is. In reality, my thoughts are quick, quiet and thorough. Powerefully effective in helping me to react optimally.

After my warm-up (which takes me about 10-15 minutes) I’m ready to work on anything (psychophysically ready!), and the rest of my practice session, virtually without fail, goes along constructively, efficiently and pleasurably.

So how do you warm up? What do you aim for specifically? What do you do to get yourself there? How do you know if/when you are  “there”? If you’re not clear on the answer to these questions, I encourage you to investigate and experiment. (And please know that I’m here to help you if you need it.)

Deep Listening: Thoughts from a Master Improviser

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One of my all-time favorite musicians is pianist, composer, improviser and educator, Ran Blake, who has been teaching at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music for over 40 years. He has also amassed a significant body of recorded work that is simply stunning.

The first time I heard his music, the most formidable impression it made upon me was how startlingly unique it was, in combination with it being so clearly conceived and masterfully executed. The first recordings I heard were of him improvising over “standard” songs. I’d never heard anything like it before in my life.

I remember thinking, “How does he ‘hear’ things this way?” Where does all this come from?” He made me imagine what Charles Ives might have sounded like if he were a jazz musician. Yet even that doesn’t begin to describe his very personal approach to improvising music.

Well, the short answer to my two questions above has to do with one very  specific thing:  Ran Blake plays the way he does largely because of how he listens to  and hears music.

Recently I read a copy of his book (first published in 2010), entitled, Primacy of the Ear. What a wonderfully apt title! Primacy of the ear, the “ear” being the most significant  organizing mechanism in creating music.

To musicians, the word “ear” means so much. Everything from how accurately we perceive pitch, to how we conceive of form and structure, to how we hear and interact with other musicians, to how we imagine music yet to be played. And much more.

Even as an Alexander Technique teacher who specializes in working with musicians, I continue to learn more and more each day about how explicitly the “ear” impacts coordination, skill and expression. It’s huge.

So I was intrigued by the idea of perusing the thoughts on this topic from such a master.

In this book, Mr. Blake shares his wisdom and knowledge in both a theoretical/philosophical way, as well as practical one (with very specific exercises and activities to work through).

I’d like to share what I consider to be a few of the most significant ideas put forth from this book that resonate most with what I’ve discovered in my own explorations (both as teacher and performer) with respect to hearing and listening to music:

On the primacy of the ear in creating a personal music style:

Your single most crucial ally in this personal exploration is the ear. When you listen, the ear reacts before the brain has time to process; it is an honest broker. When you play, the ear pulls you to a sound faster and more confidently than your brain; it is the part of you most in the clutches of the muse.

(Scientifically speaking, the ear doesn’t “react” before the brain, as your ability to “hear” is a function of  the brain. But I think what he means here is that you can hear something even before you become cognizant of what it is  you hear. Hence, the word “primacy”.)

And this is true in so many ways. Ultimately, all expressive music is “played by ear” (deeply internalized and imagined), whether improvised or notated. I think this is what saxophone legend Sonny Rollins experiences, in part, when he is “accessing his subconscious”.

On listening to live and recorded music:

Not all listening experiences are equal, of course, and Mr. Blake describes several categories of consciousness when listening to recorded music, from “background” listening (completely passive), to what he calls “quiet listening” (giving your full attention), as well as “listening while falling asleep”, etc.

He also talks about the importance of repeated listening and analytical dissection in listening, and gives specific advice and guidance about carrying out these activities in an effective way.

On listening to recorded music as an artistic discipline:

This is a major area of discussion in this book. Mr. Blake believes (and I do, as well!) that active, intentional listening should be a daily component of musical study for any serious musician. It should be approached with the same care, strategy, documentation and edification as any other part of daily musical practice.

As a performance coach and teacher of improvisation, I’m still amazed by the percentage of musicians who come to me for help who are not listening to music in this intentional, strategic manner.

For aspiring improvising musicians in particular, this is often the missing piece of their study routine that is creating the kind of frustration that leads them to seek my help in the first place.

Deep listening means listening to everything, not just the pitches being played by the soloist. It means studying the color of the soloist’s sound, inflections, dynamics, use of space, and more. Not to mention listening specifically to what each member of the ensemble is doing in response the “whole” of the music being created.

On avoiding “ear fatigue”:

Yes, discipline yourself to listen deeply and purposefully, but respect your ears. Mr. Blake mentions that he consciously limits his intake of kind of “background music”, and treats his ears with the same care any instrumentalist should have with respect to avoiding overuse and getting adequate rest.

He advocates for designating periods of absolute silence to help “restore” the ear. (This is another thing that too few of the people who come to me for help do, as well!)

On the importance of singing:

From a practical performance point of view, this is probably the essence of this book’s message. For anything you express to be truly yours, ultimately it must be heard (imagined) vividly and precisely.

Mr. Blake has recorded a large portion of his work with singers (most notably, the brilliantly personal Jeanne Lee!) He states that one of the things he likes best about working with singers is that you’re only ever hearing what they  hear. (He loves the immediacy of that of that phenomenon!)

There are no filters, no buttons to rely upon, no “muscle memory”, etc. When somebody is singing, you are hearing their imagination in its purest form.

And that’s the ultimate goal for virtually all ear training. Being able to immediately play what you imagine.

Bear in mind that being able to recognize a sound accurately (interval, scale, chord voicing, rhythm, etc.) is not at all the same skill as being able to re-create it from aural memory. You must sing everything you practice if you wish for it to become accessible to your muse!

This book is filled with lots of exercises, explorations, and strategies to help you “discover” and cultivate your ear. As somebody with a fair amount of experience studying “brain science” (neuroscience), I didn’t always agree with the author’s description and/or understanding of certain phenomena (as mentioned earlier on in this post about the ear and the brain, for example), but I most sincerely cherish the wisdom, insight, inspiration and immensely practical advice from this marvelous work.

Here’s a gorgeous rendition of the hauntingly beautiful song, Laura (composed by David Raksin), as played by Ran Blake and sung by the magnificentJeanne Lee. Enjoy!

Optimizing Practice: Giving Consciousness Priority Over Repetition

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Anybody who knows me as an Alexander Technique teacher knows that I’m not a big fan of what is commonly referred to as “muscle memory”.

Besides the fact that the name itself is misleading and overly simple (it’s not so much your muscles “remembering”, as it is your brain changing how it communicates with your muscles), it tends to invite mindless repetition during practice sessions.

In following the “muscle memory” mantra too far, the best case scenario is that you just don’t use your time optimally  when practicing something (yes, even long tones!) Sure, you accomplish something (the ability to carry out a particular movement or activity below consciousness), but you get it in an imprecise and inefficient manner.

In the worst case scenarios, mindless repetition in the pursuit of muscle memory leads to poor technique, erroneously conceived pedagogy, misdirected effort, and even injury.

A good deal of my job as an Alexander Technique teacher is in helping my students learn to optimize their thinking when they practice.

This by definition means bringing consciousness and intention  into everything you practice.

Trumpeter, Alexander Technique  student, Tyler Pfledderer sums it up beautifully and succinctly here:

I do not repeat a passage of music because I want it to be ‘muscle-memory’. I repeat it after I first ask myself ‘where should I place my attention this time?’

“Where should I place my attention this time?”

I ask myself multiple variations of this question dozens and dozens of times in each of my practice sessions.

It is the essential  question to ask in the pause I choose to take between repeating anything I’m working on.

Asking this question brings consciousness into what I’m doing and clarifies my intentions each moment I practice.

And this helps me cultivate efficiency in time and effort, effective problem solving strategies, continuous improvement, and immense satisfaction.

Frustration is largely non-existent when I practice with this kind of mindfulness. Anything that rises as a problem can immediately be addressed in a most constructive way.

So where do I  “place my attention” when asking this question before repeating a particular passage I’m practicing?

The answer is quite simple:

It depends upon what I was conscious  of when I played that passage.

“What did I notice?”

“What did I like?”

“What didn’t I like?”

“What would I want more of?”

“What would I want less of?”

“How am I ‘using myself’ (this is an Alexander Technique concept) as I play this passage?” (the ‘more of’ and ‘less of’ mentioned above are absolutely called into question here!)

“How (where!) am I hearing my sound?”

“How am I conceiving of the time/rhythm/pulse?”

“Am I really ‘hearing’ this clearly in my aural imagination?”

Etc….

And finally:

“Am I finished with this passage, or should I repeat with my new, redirected  thinking?”

My challenge here in describing this thought process is that it truly does take more time to “describe” it than it does to “think” it.

The pause I take between “takes” when practicing something is, in reality, quite brief. Seconds, not minutes.

And those are some of the most valuable seconds of my entire practice session!

No matter how little time I have to practice, I always give “pausing for conscious thought” the highest priority. Pausing to redirect my thinking is never  a waste of time. (Though sometimes thoughtlessly repeating a particular passage in pursuit of “quantity” usually is.)

Even practicing things I’m highly familiar with, I will accomplish far, far more with three or four mindful takes of a particular item than I would with 20 mindless takes “in front of the television” (or with an otherwise divided attention).

Consciousness instead of mere repetition.

With this approach, practicing saxophone has become a form of meditation for me. Truly.

So how conscious are you  when practicing? How mindful are you each time you decide to repeat a passage or an exercise? How clear are your intentions?

Are you engaged with choice, or are you running on your unconscious “auto pilot”.

Work on being mindful, developing your own  questions concerning “where you should place your attention” between takes. Not only will you improve more regularly, but you’ll also develop confidence in your “process”, and in your problem solving skills in the practice room.

And as a bonus, you’ll finish your practice sessions feeling connected, integrated and satisfied.

I’ll leave you with something paraphrased from the trumpet virtuoso, Rafael Mendez, who was known for spending long, long hours each day practicing. It went something like this:

As a younger man, I used to practice 8 hours or more every day. Now I practice half that much in a day, but I really listen to myself as I do so.

So enjoy the pause. Think a bit more. Play a bit less. Continue to grow.

The “Other” Essential Skill You Should be Consciously Cultivating in Your Daily Practice

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Your sound.

The sound you imagine and create on your instrument is the defining element of who you are as a musical artist.

I’ve yet to encounter a serious musician who doesn’t consciously  dedicate a certain amount of time daily exclusively  to the exploration and cultivation of their sound.

A beautiful sound is perhaps the  essential skill for any musician. It’s your voice.

A very wise bit of advice I’ve often encountered goes something like this:

Make everything you practice a study in producing a good sound.

In other words, consciously  play everything you play with your best possible sound. (The word “consciously” being key.)

I couldn’t agree with this more. (In fact, here’s a post I wrote about daily “sound meditation”.)

But I encounter far too many musicians who are not, on a daily basis, consciously  cultivating what I consider to be the “other” essential skill in playing music:

Time.

Specifically, your sense of time and pulse as you play your instrument.

Your perception of time (and how you interpret that as a continuous “pulse”) is not only an immensely important musical component (some might say most  important), but it is also foundational to your skill and coordination in playing your instrument (yes, even in producing your sound!)

And ultimately, your technique is only as good as your sense of time.

In my Alexander Technique teaching practice, I’m still taken aback by the percentage of musicians who come to me for help who don’t devote a specific amount of time in their daily practice toward the cultivation of their sense of time and pulse.

Many times, it is this lack of “vivid time imagination” (as I sometimes think of it) that is at the heart of the problems that brought them to see me in the first place.

Any coordinated effort (or intention) is dependent upon a sense of time  in order for it to be carried out. (As I mentioned above, even how you produce your sound.)

And the foundation of a vivid musical imagination is time and rhythm. Whether you’re improvising or playing composed music, the more vividly you conceive of pulse and rhythm, the freer and deeper your musical expression will be.

To be clear, I’m not just speaking here of the importance of making sure you’re playing with a good sense of time whenever you’re practicing (or performing) whatever you’re practicing.

I’m speaking of setting side a certain amount of daily practice time with the specific intention of challenging  and improving  your sense of time. (A “time meditation”, if you will.)

So if you’re not already doing this, but would like to start, here are a few things to aim for and/or keep in mind:

  • Address your specific needs-Take time to develop exercises for yourself that take you out of you comfort zone. What presents a challenge for you? Look for the things that give you trouble. But…
  • Keep it simple-Use melodic patterns (for example, scale or arpeggio patterns) that are very familiar to you as you challenge your time skills. Don’t get distracted by the sequence of pitches.
  • Work only with a metronome-Don’t use a drum loop or backing track. (See below for why I suggest this). Just the simple (but make sure it’s loud!) click of a metronome is the only tool you’ll need. (Drum loops and backing tracks are great practice tools, by the way, just not the best for our purposes here.)
  • Aim toward minimum clicks-This is the essential tool for improvement. In order to develop an accurate sense of time and a lively sense of pulse, you need to develop your “temporal imagination” (as I call it). This means increasing the “notes-to-clicks” ratio with the metronome. I rarely get my metronome over 40 beats per minute when I’m working on my time. If I’m playing eighth notes in 4/4, for example, I’m going to have the metronome click only on the first beat (i.e., eight notes per click). As I progress the tempo upwards, eventually the eighth notes are “transformed” into sixteenth notes (i.e., sixteen notes per click), and so on. Always be listening for (aurally imagining) where the next click falls. (See below!) When you’re playing with a drum loop or backing track, it is the loop or track that is “feeding” you the time and feel, rather than having you imagine it.
  • Imagination is key-What you should be working toward is “hearing” (aurally imagining) the rhythmic component of whatever you’re playing (continuous eighth notes, for example) as an even  “pulse within a pulse” (i.e., your eighth notes as a pulse that lines up with the slower pulse of the metronome). The better you get at accurately anticipating  the metronome clicks, you’ll find that you’re rhythmic pulse (i.e., the continuous eighth notes, in this case) becomes more uniform and even. (Really!)
  • Work daily to address and challenge yourself with these three components time:

1. Perception of time (as stated above, how accurately and vividly you “imagine” time passing  and how you  feel  “pulse”)

2. Rhythmic complexity (placing ever-increasing demands upon rhythmic combinations as you feel these combinations against the pulse of the click, including simple and complex polyrhythms).

3. Meter (increasing your capacity to conceive of and hear various metric subdivisions within a given metric frame , for example, learning how to “hear” 3/4 over 4/4; as well as displacing the click of the metronome to the other beats in the measure).

  • Pay attention to your reaction-(This is me being the Alexander Technique teacher.) When you challenge your perception of time, it can be tempting to stiffen and compress your body. Make a conscious choice  to check in with yourself frequently so that you’re not compressing your head onto your neck, or stiffening your shoulders, or locking your knees, etc. You’ll find that if you stay in a relatively fluid state of balance and mobility, your perception of time will noticeably improve.

Here’s a simple exercise you can begin with to challenge your sense of time. (It’s also a useful way to discover where you are with your “temporal imagination). Take a simple major scale pattern in eighth notes and play it with the metronome clicking on beat one (the “X” above the first note signifies the metronome click:

Aim for playing this pattern as slowly as you can, completely legato. Start with the metronome set at 40 bpm, and begin by listening  to the clicks for a while without playing. Practice imagining precisely and vividly where the click falls amongst the silence, then try to “hear” the space (the silence) between the clicks. Think of the metronome and your imagination working together to form a sort of “rhythmic drone”.

Next, imagine the sound of the pattern (again, without playing) as it lines up with the clicks. When you’re able to do this with a reasonable amount of consistency, pick up your instrument and play.

Start working your way downward on the metronome to at least 20 bpm, or slower. Listen to each note  you’re playing as you repeat the pattern, as you also anticipate in your imagination where the “C” and the “D” line up with the click. Don’t go to a slower tempo until you can play it with considerable precision, consistency and confidence.

Once you’re confident you can do that at the slowest tempo possible, play the pattern I’ve presented below (sixteenth notes) at 40 bpm and work your way down to as slow a tempo as possible, aiming for evenness, vivid imagination of sound and pulse, and precise matching with the metronome click:

Don’t be discouraged if you can’t play the double-time pattern right from the start. Just stay with the eighth notes until you gain more skill and confidence. Keep things within your reach.

After you’re able to play these patterns accurately at as slow a tempo as possible, you can add a new challenge by playing the pattern with the metronome clicking on beat “2” (again, the “X” signifies the metronome click):

as well as:

And so on…

If you’d like to work more specifically in challenging your sense of time, meter and rhythmic imagination, I’ve made available for purchase two e-books:

Rhythmic Dissonance: Exercises to Improve Time, Feel and Conception, is a methodical approach to challenging your perception of time, as well as expanding your ability with polyrhythms. It starts off easy and gradually gets very  challenging. It’s like strength training for your “rhythmic muscles”.

Essential Polymeter Studies in 4/4 for the Improvising Musician, is a methodical approach to “hearing” and understanding the basic subdivisions of 3 (3/8 and 3/4), 5 (5/8 and 5/4) and 7 (7/8 and 7/4) against 4/4. If you’re an improvising musician, working from this book will liberate your improvisational concept and expression.

So here’s to encouraging you to find time in your daily practice routine to delve specifically into building your rhythmic skills. Exploring time and rhythm is a vast, interesting and edifying universe. Enjoy the journey!

Teaching and Learning Music: Being Mindful of Metaphors

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Whenever I give a first Alexander Technique lesson to a musician, it is not uncommon that certain misconceptions about playing music come to light.

It is ofttimes  an anatomic and/or physiologic misconception specific to the physical demands of playing the particular instrument.

It can also be a misconception about the acoustical principles involved with the instrument itself.

In both cases, these misconceptions invite lots of misdirected energy, preventing the musician from effectively growing toward his/her optimum potential.

There are many reasons these misconceptions arise and develop  (as I have sometimes written about in previous blog posts).

But today I’d like to address this specific one: confusing metaphor  with physical reality.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s definition of metaphor  is:

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.

The definition goes on to use the metaphor, “drowning in money”, as an example. (The operative phrase from the definition being “figure of speech”.)

Metaphors can be very effective in both creating visual (concrete) images about abstract things, as well as broadening one’s perception of a particular concept or object.

Sometimes a powerful metaphor can be the exact thing that fuels those “aha!” moments we all cherish (teacher and student, alike).

Yet, in learning and teaching music, metaphors can sometimes  be a “double-edged sword” (speaking of metaphors!), creating as many problems as they solve.

When a metaphor helps you convert an abstract idea into a palpable and positive psycho-physical experience, then yes, metaphors are wonderful.

But when a metaphor obscures the actual physical reality  of what is happening, then it can have limited usefulness (at best), and can even interfere with your progress (at worst!)

So many metaphors for playing musical instruments…

“Your fingers ‘dancing’ on the keys”…

“Your sound ‘bouncing’ of the walls”…

“Your arms ‘floating’ out of your back…”

Below are a couple of examples of some fairly common metaphor’s I’ve encountered in my teaching/learning experience as a wind instrumentalist that have produce mixed results, at best. The first involves anatomy/physiology, the second involves acoustics. Let’s examine them:

1. “Breathing from your belly.” (or the “belly as lungs”  metaphor, as I call it). First off, there is no air to be put in your belly, because your lungs aren’t located there. This metaphor is often given as an encouragement to engage more of the muscles in your abdominal region, as well as to prevent “shallow”, clavicular compression in the upper part of the torso.

So what’s the problem?

When so much emphasis is put upon getting the air “down there”, it invites you to misuse your entire head/neck/back mechanism to do so. This will usually get you to compress and distort your spine,  limiting the free, elastic and expansive movements of the thoracic cavity that are necessary to efficient breathing.

Whenever I work with a student on breathing, I demonstrate and explain to them (through images and videos) the actual coordinated movements involved in respiration, as well as giving them some hands-on help to have an experience of this natural and efficient coordination.

Rather than getting them to “breathe into their bellies”, I encourage them to invite the three-dimensional expansion and contraction of their torso that more accurately describes the reality of their physical mechanism. (I encourage you to do the same.)

2. “Your tongue is a valve that starts the sound”. Again, this is not indicative of what is actually happening acoustically. No matter which wind instrument you play, your tongue doesn’t start the sound. Ever. Your focused airstream  starts the sound. This “valve” metaphor is often used to call upon a more precise use of the tongue in articulation.

So what’s the problem?

Now to be sure, your tongue can be used to great effect to give precision to how your airstream is being used to start and stop your sound. But it doesn’t do that which only your airstream can do. If you think of your tongue as the “valve” that begins tone production, it can invite you to get too internally focused in producing your sound.

This can lead to lots of embouchure “micromanaging”, which can manifest itself into excessive jaw tension and misdirected “preparation” when attacking a note at the beginning of a phrase. In turn, it can also keep you from fully realizing and relying upon the voicing mechanisms as they need to work in relation to releasing air into your instrument.

Rather than getting my students to think of their tongues as “valves”, I encourage them to think of articulation as part of their sound.  And sound production on a wind instrument involves conception (imagination) and the movement of air (amongst other things).

So instead of thinking so specifically about your “tongue-valve” when articulating, try to imagine more vividly and precisely the sound  of your desired articulation (your expression!) If it’s clear enough, your brain will efficiently coordinate your physical mechanisms to realize your expression. That’s what you learn through practice.

So I’m not here to tell you to get rid of the metaphors. I use metaphor to positive ends in both my teaching and in my learning. I’m just suggesting to be mindful when using them (in both teaching and learning).

A metaphor (like any other thought) gets us to react in a specific way. If you (or your students) react in a constructive, flexible and exploratory way that invites better coordination, better understanding and better music, then great! By all means use it!

But even then, make sure you’re clear on the reality of what is actually happening. (In short, make sure you know that the metaphor is a metaphor!) Take the time to understand and learn the anatomy/physiology and/or acoustics that pertain specifically to what you do when you play your instrument.

Understanding the distinction between metaphor and physical reality can help you and your students continue to grow, improve and remain curious. All good things.