Tag Archives: Practicing Music

Imagination Plus Clear Direction Equals Good Intonation

I had a wonderful moment of revelation this morning as I practiced my saxophone. It was one of those experiences that helps me to better see how interconnected thought is to result when it comes to playing music (or doing anything else, for that matter). I was working on my intonation by playing long tones with a tuning CD (recorded tracks of drones consisting of fourths and fifths).

It is very challenging to play the saxophone in tune with this recording because of the nature of the saxophone overtone series. I have to play each note with a very particular internal embouchure (i.e., how I shape the inside of my mouth and throat) to stay in tune. It’s like walking on a razor’s edge. For that reason it’s great practice. It really improves my ears, and makes staying in tune with other musicians (who possess reasonable intonation capabilities) a snap.

But what I noticed today is that I would typically attack each note ever so out of tune, then within a millisecond I’d correct it. It was almost indiscernible, but it made me realize something: I’m not really imagining the pitch before I’m playing, so much as I’m reacting to the pitch I’m hearing, then correcting it.

Now, I thought I was imagining the pitch. But if I was, why was I slightly off in that first part of my attack? I thought it was time to investigate this question.

What I started doing was observing my thinking as I was playing. As I readied myself to play along with the drone, I asked myself if I was really hearing the pitch. I was sure I was, so I played. Same thing, slightly off (sharp), going immediately into tune.

How could this be? I explored this a few more times and found out something interesting about myself: I was imagining the pitch, to be sure, but I was not at all paying attention to what I was doing with myself as I did so.

So I gave it another go with the only intention being to notice what I was doing with myself as I prepared to play. What I discovered was that I was sort of “holding” my embouchure in a habitual way that wasn’t allowing me to attack the note with the kind of intonation that I was imagining. It dawned on me that I was dividing what I was imagining (the pitch) from what was going on inside my body (my embouchure as well as my head/neck/back relationship).

As I continued with this exploration, I realized that my “habitual” embouchure preparation involved tensing my neck ever so slightly, usually making me a bit sharp (flat on certain notes). I also noticed that I released this tension the moment I came in tune. (Actually, better to say the opposite: I came back in tune when I released this tension.)

In short I was reacting as opposed to directing myself with a clear intention.

Once I became aware of this, I simply gave myself a chance to integrate the two things into one whole: My imagination and my direction could be one inseparable thing. Immediately I found that I could make my attack with beautiful intonation. Consistently and easily. I was actually embodying my imagination.

I’m always so thankful for these experiences. Such great lessons that I seem to learn over and over again.

The Art Of Making Mistakes

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“Your biggest mistake wasn’t in playing the wrong note. Your biggest mistake was in what you did after you played the wrong note.” I heard this during a saxophone lesson I took nearly thirty years ago from the great teacher and woodwinds artist, Bill Green. I vividly remember what he told me word for word because it was such a moment of clarity for me.

What made me sound bad wasn’t the clunker note that I played in the etude during my lesson. What made me sound bad was how I sort of fell apart after playing that note.

I was so concerned with producing a “flawless” performance, that after I made my mistake I became at first flustered (thereby making more mistakes), and then I sort of gave up.

I still finished playing the piece, but at one point I just stopped seeing the point in giving it my full intention (after all it was now flawed!) I had effectively lost the music. Disconnected myself from it. Stopped feeling it and started judging myself instead.

At that point in my musical career I had the grand notion that, with enough hard work, I could play flawlessly like the great Bill Green. But what I learned from him instead is that his aim (and the aim of most great performers) is not to play flawlessly. Instead his aim is to stay present with the music.

When you stay present in the act of making music, you indirectly reduce the amount of mistakes you’ll make. When you stay present with the act of making music, you always stay within the realm of personal expression and artistry.

When I told Bill Green that I’d never heard him make a mistake, he just chuckled. Then he replied, “Oh, you’ve heard me make mistakes. You just didn’t notice them.” He said that the important thing is to keep the music going and stay present with your original intention. He went on to tell me an allegorical tale:

Imagine you’re in a dark forest, running for your life to elude an angry bear that is chasing you. You have a good head start on the bear, and if you keep running, you’ll make it to safety before the bear can catch you. But then (because it’s dark) you accidentally run into the low branches of a tree. Bam!

You’re not hurt, but you’re startled. You have to keep running though, so you continue to do so. But now your thoughts are on that tree that gave you a problem, and you keep looking back toward where it was. Then, Bam! You run into another tree. Same thing, you’re startled but not hurt. You keep running, still looking back at those damned low-lying branches that gave you trouble. Then, Bam again! And so on…

I think you get the point: once you’ve made a mistake, let it go. Stay present and keep moving forward toward your intended goal. It works in the forest running from a bear (it gives you better odds of survival, anyhow), and it works in playing music.

When I teach the Alexander Technique to performers who struggle with performance anxiety, I’m struck by one underlying theme: These folks are almost never in the present moment of their performance. They tend to live somewhere between fear of that which is yet to come (their fear of making mistakes), and regret of that which just happened (the mistakes they’ve made thus far).

This keeps them shifting back and forth from past to future, never having a chance to experience the exhilaration of the present moment. (Not exactly something that cultivates and supports an authentic and rich personal expression.) When I can get them back to the present moment, they are often stunned with the beauty and power of their performance.

There is art in all aspects of music making, both in what you intend to play, and in what you don’t intend to play. It comes down to how you react to what you do. To make mistakes artfully, you must react in such a way that allows the flow of your art to continue.

So notice how you react the next time you make a mistake while performing:

What happens in your body? Do you tense up? Stop breathing? If you notice that you become tense, see if you can discern a pattern. Do you stiffen your neck? Raise your shoulders? Lock your knees? Ask yourself if any of these patterns of tension might be preventing you from playing your best. If the answer is yes, practice not reacting with these patterns as you play. If you give yourself the chance to pay attention, you might also find that these same patterns of habitual tension rise up a great deal while you’re practicing as well. This is a wonderful opportunity to practice preventing these kinds of reactions. You can take this skill right into your performances.

Where does your attention go? (Does it move backwards or do you easily bring yourself back to the present moment? Do you “give up” on the performance, or stay with your intentions?) It’s important that you learn to let go of regret immediately after you’ve made a mistake. This takes a persistent, clear intention, as well as practice. But if you can learn to react by not reacting (no such thing, really, but I think you get the picture; just stay present and clamly alert) you’ll become a much more consistent, artful and authentic performer.

Saxophone Virtuosity

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I wanted to share this video I came across of the great Dutch saxophonist, Raaf Hekkema. The first time I saw it I was so impressed that I immediately had to find out more about him. After visiting his Website I was even more impressed with him. He has an insatiable desire to continually find deeper ways to express himself through his music.

Besides expanding his so-called “extended technique” (in this video performance you can hear spectacular altissimo control, multiphonics, slap tonguing, vocalization and other surprises) he is also interested in altering the mechanics of his instruments to better support his vision and imagination.

One of the great things about all this innovation is that it is all in the service of the music. There is no grandstanding (though some might think there is by sheer virtue of his stunning abilities). He is a reminder to me of how we are often only limited by our imagination and our reluctance when it comes to growing as artists.

Here he is playing Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 on alto saxophone. Besides loving what he plays, I also love how he gives himself time between each variation to redirect his energy and thinking. A true virtuoso. Hope you enjoy!

How Often Do You Stop Listening To Yourself As You Practice Your Instrument?

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I was giving an Alexander Technique lesson this morning to a young violinist who had come to me because of some problems with pain and tension (particularly in his left shoulder) as he played. This morning I wanted to see what he does with himself as he practices, so I had him practice an arpeggio exercise that he knew from memory. My intention was to let him play for about 10 minutes uninterrupted as I observed.

At one point in the exercise (playing the G diminished arpeggio), I began to hear his intonation go haywire. Most of his intervals became flat in pitch, and rather lifeless sounding, as well. It was in stark contrast to his typical intonation and complex tone color.

Yet he played straight through as if there were nothing at all wrong. Now, understand, this is a young man who is unusually mindful, very bright and has very nice intonation. (He’s the concert master in an honors youth orchestra here in Los Angeles.)

At this point (it was about 5 minutes into his practice) I decided I needed to stop him. I asked, ” Can you hear anything different about your intonation?” He paused, and said he wasn’t sure. So I had him go from the beginning again. When he arrived at the G diminished arpeggio, his intonation again began to suffer. I stopped him again and asked him this question:

“Where is your attention right now, more to what you’re doing, or more toward what you’re hearing?”

Without hesitation he said that it was much more toward what he was doing as he played as opposed to what he was hearing. (He wasn’t daydreaming or anything like that, he was just primarily focused on the mechanical aspect of what he was doing.)

I asked him if he started the exercise this way. He said no, that at first he had a balance between paying attention to what he was doing, and what he was hearing. As he got to the diminished arpeggios he said that he couldn’t aurally imagine them the same way he could with the diatonic arpeggios (tonic, subdominant). For that reason he realized he was trying to play the diminished arpeggio by concentrating on what he was doing at the expense of what he was hearing.

So first, I had him isolate and sing the G diminished arpeggio pattern that was part of the exercise. Then I asked him play it on his violin, but asked him to really listen to himself. Immediately he heard his bad intonation, smiled then began to correct it back to his normal, beautiful intonation.

All he had to do was to give himself a chance to actually hear what he was playing. It was that simple.

How often do you lose sight of your sound (of your whole self for that matter) when you narrow your attention to only take in the act of executing the music? I know that when sight reading or playing a difficult passage it’s easy to lose touch with everything (except the anxious anticipation of the unknown) .

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

If you find yourself doing this, simply shift your attention back to what you hear and what you are doing with yourself as you play.

In the case of my young violinist this morning, he had actually lost sight of both of these things, letting himself get wrapped up into the mechanics of executing the music, instead of the music of the music. (Yes, I actually meant to say that.)

What my student also realized was that, as he lost touch with his sound, he had also lost touch to how he was using himself. Because of this he went back into some of his old patterns of harmfully misdirected effort (his left shoulder began to tense up quite a bit). As he stopped to give himself a chance to hear himself, he also returned to the newer, lighter, easier, more efficient use of himself. (He let go of that shoulder tension.)

What you hear and what you do as you play music go seamlessly hand in hand. One supports the other. One relies upon the other. One affects the other (for better or worse). You might be surprised at how often you stop hearing yourself because you’ve stopped listening the your music.

The practice room is a great place to work on this expanded, integrated attention. And I know from experience that it is highly possible to cultivate this kind of attention. So see what you do as the music gets more difficult or nebulous. Then simply listen.

A Master Musician Talks About Growth And Improvement

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This is an excerpt from a video about the great cellist, Janos Starker. Here he is working with a young cellist in front of a group in master class. He listens carefully, then gives her one simple thing to change in how she produce her vibrato. Immediately we hear an improvement. You can actually see her face light up as she has one of those “aha!” moments that we musicians cherish and always remember.

I love when Starker says (giving advice about how she should use her thumb to anchor her vibrato), “Don’t press it. Feel it.” This invites her to be more kinesthetically receptive (not working too hard to find the sound), and more expansive with both her sound and her expression.

The maestro goes on to speak about what is necessary for musical growth. One of the most significant points he makes is that to improve as a musician, you must constantly edify yourself. (Specifically, you must change your beliefs about what works and what doesn’t) Advancement, as he says, means that you realize that you were wrong about doing some of the things you’d been doing to try to improve. (I’m paraphrasing and interpreting here, but I think you’ll agree.)

At the end of the video we get to see and hear Starker in performance. Notice how open and free he is as he plays. His arms appear so free, as if they were gracefully soaring away from his back. It’s important to keep in mind that no matter how well he played in that moment, that he was still open to the possibility that he wasn’t doing everything “right”.

F.M. Alexander said, “To know when we are wrong is all that we shall ever know in this world.” As a musician, you might find this to be true only in hindsight (still, true nonetheless). But it does allow the possibility that you can do what you do in a better way. I think Mr. Starker would agree, too.