Playing Loud Is Not All It's Cracked Up To Be

I posted this past Saturday about playing loud.  I believe I said something like:

"Boy and girls.  Playing loud is something you have to practice...not a fancy you indulge.  Conductors can tell when you can't do it."

Well, that's true, but it goes much deeper than that.  Then I had a small exchange with a lovely person on Tumblr about that because she said she never plays loud enough.  So, I thought I should address it.

I have talked, long in the past....way far back....about the way in which you perceive your tone.  You have to have a tonal concept.  You have to know how you want to sound, and you have to work until you get that sound.  This tonal concept should drive everything you do, and it should drive you crazy when you are not getting the sound you want.

That tonal concept takes you to places that you will enjoy.  You will sound better overall, and you will learn quickly how to mane the most of the tone you do have.  If you are playing enough, you are going to learn how to produce large amounts of sound, and you are going to learn what your limits are.  HOWEVER, there comes a point of diminishing returns.

Bass clarinet is not an instrument you play loud...it just doesn't sound good that way.  You play loud to develop your sound, but those are not your best tones.  The best sounds you will make are RESONANT.  If your tone is truly resonant, it will be perceived as much louder than it really is, and that is a triumph in and of itself.

How do you get a resonant tone?  The concept.  You have to go back to the concept over and over.  A big billowing tone that just sort of wafts out of your instrument like smoke.  It goes everywhere and everyone can hear it.  THAT is what you are looking for.

Think of it like this.  You are in your room late at night, and you turn the TV down to not disrupt anyone.  As the night gets later and you binge watch a whole season of your favorite show, you keep turning the TV down because you start perceiving it as louder and louder.  It is NOT getting louder, but you perceive it that way.

In the same way, the more time you spend with your tonal concept, it gets perceived as louder and louder.  The only problem is that no one EVER talks about tone.  They just don't.  They talk about technique and cleanliness and stuff you can teach to a chair.  You cannot teach a chair to play with a resonant tone.  I get yelled at for it all the time, but the simple fact is that I am using about 30-40% of my available air when I am playing "loud" and no one even remotely understands that concept.  That is why you I play on such an open setup.  I don't need all the resistance.  I just don't...it prevents me from making the sound I want.

Ok, how do I do THAT?

Well, you have to open your mouth.  If you have ever been in band, you have likely heard some form of brass instruction that centers around dropping your tongue, using more air and air efficiency.  THAT is where I learned that.  So, you can blame a lot of people for me playing "loud" but none of them play woodwind instruments.  I adopted the dropped tongue, open air and pedal tone practice from brass players.

Guess what, folks.  You're practicing the wrong things :)  There are three things I can recommend that will change your life if you're willing to do them (and I am have just realized I need to make a video of this.)

1.  Remington's Chromatic Exercises

Remington knew what he was doing, and this works well for everyone.  Play F concert, descend by a half step and back up to F.  Then down a whole step and back up to F and so on until you end on Bb concert.  Start on Bb and use that as tonic.  Now you go down a half step and back up.  Down a whole step and back up until you have reached the bottom of the horn.  The only catch is that all the notes have to sound exactly the same.  That is 10 million times harder than you think it is.  Now play it loud.  It just got harder.  Now play it louder.  It got even harder.  Do that a few thousand times, and you will be able to resonate that exercise to make it sound like you are playing a VERY broad sound without using much air at all.

2.  Field Warm Ups For Band

This exercise comes from Jay Bocook's "Field Warm Ups For Band".  Play pretty darn loud starting on low Bb concert chromatically down to low E concert and back up in quarter notes.  Then repeat that immediately in eighth notes TWICE.  That is three times through the pattern.  Every note has to be the same, and it you have to make it to the end of the exercise.  Good luck with that, again, it is harder than you think.

3.  Use Softer Reeds For God's Sake!

Time for some tough love.  Yes, I'm talking to you.  Your reeds are probably too hard.  They just are.  Your tone sounds generic because the reeds are not flexible enough for you to do anything other than what the reed provides, and the reed is providing VERY little.  Guess what, use softer reeds.  I play on a Gonzalez 2.75 which is about a Vandoren Blue Box 2.5  I know, I hear you gasping.  Dude, it works.  It just does.  Stop wasting your money on reeds that you know deep down in your soul are too hard.  You are killing your sound from the inside out because you cannot get any air into your instrument.

Now you have a recipe for resonance.  The final step is to play with a BROAD sound, not a loud sound.  Loud sounds are annoying, broad sounds cover everything in the room.  Just imagine the difference in your mind before you dismiss that concept.

Good luck!