I Want To Do A Ballet

But I don't want to do a stuffy ballet that has no elements of modernity in it.  I want to do a ballet where a dancer gets to fully participate in the creation process.  I want the dancer to have a chance to design half the dances herself without the input of any music, and I would love to give her half the music to use to choreograph.  I saw some of the most amazing dancers today just from a local studio, but these were strong girls who were artistic, creative and fearless.  I want to work with people like that.  I want the ballet to be an indie pop/rock album, but I want it to mean something to little girls who want to be dancers as they watch someone who is strong and still young absolutely killing it visually.  I just think that would be so cool.  Not just for me but for the girl does the dancing, a chance for us both to create something wholly unique.

Too many projects and not enough time :)

PS–Guys, if you don’t already know, girls are STRONG, and most of them can snap you in half.  The “girlier” things they do, they’re probably even tougher.  You need to recognize.  Girls rule, and us boys, we drool ;)

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!

Music Is Not All Tears

I had my first rehearsal for a gig I do every year with a training orchestra here in town.  It's a lovely group, and the conductor is fantastic.  I played about half a movement of a piano concerto and Jupiter my time with his group ten years ago, and every year there is something really interesting going on in the group.  I have fun when I go to rehearsal, and this year is no different.  However, I was thinking about all the posts I see on Tumblr about crying and practicing and the like.  I wasn't perfect, but I wasn't crying.

Learn To Laugh At Your Mistakes

If you are laughing at your mistakes, you tend to get over them faster.  You are not to be so amused that you do not appear to care, but you should be able to laugh at yourself and say "Maybe I'll play that right next time" or "Oh, I actually played it right that time."  It won't be wrong at the next rehearsal, and you can enjoy yourself while in rehearsal.  Remember, I'm getting paid, and I'm laughing at myself...because I know what I'm doing.

Interact

Be interactive in rehearsal.  You cannot sit there and say nothing, and you cannot be the person who picks out every little perceived problem on the part.  You need to play your part well, ask questions if they really need asking and pipe up every now and then to let the conductor know you're still alive.  This is more fun because piping up leads to some fun banter between you and the people around you or even the conductor.  I was doing an Austin Powers impression in rehearsal...I don't know about you, but that's way more fun than sitting there all stone faced and angry because there might be a wrong note in this new part and I am going to theoretically analyze it to prove I'm right when I bring it up because how dare the conductor give us parts with wrong notes on them.  Just a tip--SHIT HAPPENS.  Play well, take it seriously, but have fun.

Don't Be Shy

I'm not necessarily advocating messing with the conductor, but I am advocating playing out until you get told to shut up.  You will have some nice exchanges over the quality of your sound this way.  You can see how far you can go, and you will learn how the group sounds.  This is especially important if you have not really played with most of these people before.  I play loud enough to get one dirty look from a flutist in front of me every rehearsal, and I love it.  They're not used to it, and I'm not playing out of tone, so it usually works :)

Don't Take Critiques Seriously

It's just a critique.  Like, I played the same passage out of time a couple times in this last rehearsal because I didn't want to insert as much space as was required because there was a phrase marking on the paper.  I tried to play it in a cute fashion, and it didn't work.  He got on my case ever so slightly, then I said I would stop playing it cute and it was fine.  That's all.  No hard feelings.  This conductor is a great guy.  Sidenote:  You can tell when the conductor is actually being horrible to you...make sure you discern the difference.

Don't Be Too Prepared

What I mean is, you are not so prepared that you can't flow with the group.  It's like the freshman who says "this is my spot."  That doesn't work...you need to know your part, but you need to flexible so you can move with the group and the feeling you get from the music.  This is NOT like playing excerpts for auditions (which is a flawed system in and of itself because it never accounts for musical feeling.)  This is just going with the flow.  If you're thinking that you have to railroad everyone to play your tempo, that won't work.  You need to follow everyone else.

Remove Anxiety

Well, that's what we just did.  Get rid of the anxiety and you are going to have more fun.  Playing your instrument is fun...even if college made you forget that.

 

Patreon, Here We Come

So, I am slowly creating a Patreon profile so that I can get more funding to complete my work.  This is not a sales pitch, it's more of a PSA.  You can use Patreon to create a great many things, and it might help you pay your rent, etc.  It's a very cool platform.  If you wanted to donate to me, that's great, but there's lots of good people on the site, and that is a very cool thing.

Improvisation IS For You Even If You Think It Isn't

(Off the top, my thanks go out to Emily for encouraging me to improvise and not be afraid...she's the reason I can even talk about this without fear...)

Have you ever been stuck with your own thoughts?   Have you not tried improvising because it's reserved only for the best jazz soloists, and you can't do it because you might not play a jazz instrument?   Time to take those thoughts and turn them into something.

Improvisation has no wrong notes , and you can always turn around some misplaced notes.   You just have to try it... You have thoughts in your head that will eat you alive or get lost because you are not using them... Don't give them away and sit alone with thoughts you can't use. 

Improvisations are literally NEVER wrong.  You cannot screw them up.  I used to think that because I didn't play a jazz instrument (and I was never allowed to audition for jazz band) that I just couldn't do it.  I never felt comfortable in that world even though I know how to read changes and all that.

The problem with missing out on jazz band was that no jazz band director ever wanted me to beat one of their tenor sax players.  The problem with thinking that improvisation is a jazz form is that it isn't.  There's an organ competition every four years that has an improvisation round.  There's a whole society for improvisation that's mostly classical musicians doing their thing.  I improvised for like 10 straight minutes in a (very short) recording session because the guy wanted some extra material.  After he said he just let me keep going because he was so interested.  That same session we did about 7 minutes straight up with no plan at all...and he's coming back to the church where I'm the choir director so we can shred.  HE HAS NO IDEA THAT I HAVE NO JAZZ EDUCATION.  Nor would he care.

You think of tunes...try to write them down, or just play them.  Whatever works for you.  Your tunes could turn into anything.  When I get my channel really going on YouTube I have hours of improvs that I did in the sunroom of my wife's great aunt and uncle's house.  It's really good, and it's all made up.

I know you might be afraid of it, and I was, too, but you can totally improvise.  You just can, and I have to thank Emily again for encouraging me to do it in the first place because now I can't imagine why I wasn't doing it sooner.  It is not a mystical art.  It is just your ideas as they come out.  Don't be afraid, it's actually pretty cool.