We're getting warm

I came of age in the land of the warm-up.  In High School we would spend whole classes in the warm-up process.  Hours upon hours were spent warming up the ensemble.  Nothing could be more interesting, or boring, depending on your point of view.  
Warming up is the ONLY thing you can do for yourself that is GUARANTEED to make you better.  I can, and will, go on and on about what you can do to improve, but none of it is a guarantee, they're just really good ideas.  This...this process that not enough people take enough time on is the one common thread that runs through all great wind players.
I'd said if you interviewed some band kids you'd find that most of them are quite bored by the warm-up process and find little value in it, they just know that their director insists on it.  I was never one of those people.

Where I come from, the warm-up is the only thing we've got, kind of like when we tell our kids "You'd better be nice to your brother/sister because one day they're going to be the only thing you've got."  If you don't have a warm-up, you don't got nothin'.  

I can hear the arguments now "But, if you warm up all the time you won't have any time to rehearse!"  On the contrary, Bass-Confucius say "If you warm up regularly your band will sound good enough to rehearse."  "If you warm up all the time and then you can't get in a warm up at a crucial time then the band will suffer."  Bass-Confucius say "If your band warms up constantly and you can't get in a warm up before a big show your band can walk off the bus and win the show (my Alma Mater has done and will continue to do this at least once a season.)  "Oh my golly good gosh!  I have to get married to a warm up routine as soon as possible or our band is going down the tubes!"  Bass-Confucius say "If you get married to a warm up your band will become so inflexible that they won't be able to take a shorter warm up when it is warranted."
To me, these are big "DUH"s if you're a band director, but what if you are just practicing by yourself?

Today, I went up to school to teach a couple lessons.  I brought out my short horn (in case you don't keep track, and you should ;o), it's a 1959 Leblanc 400) and didn't have a ton of warm-up time.  I felt kind of hamstrung my whole lesson because I didn't get to warm-up AND I was playing a horn that I don't play everyday that I haven't tailored my reeds to.  A good 30 minutes of warming up would have solved my problems.

I know, I know, you're thinking "Well, if I played the same horn everyday I wouldn't have those problems."  Oh contrare' mon ami!  If you play the same horn everyday and you HAVEN'T been doing this then you STILL need a lengthy warm-up.  You basically have no idea what the instrument will do from minute to minute, but you are warming up regularly you will become more and more aware of what the instrument will do when you put air in it.  Moreover, if you continue to do that and you, by chance, are playing a different instrument one day you won't need AS MUCH time to get acclimated.  Even if you're playing a leaky horn you'll be able to isolate the leaks almost instantly as you warm up because the feel won't be right.  You see, you can diagnose AND learn control at the same time.

I know, I know, now you're thinking "Yeah, that's cute, I can't play a leaky horn, it won't do anything."  Ah, Bass-Confucius say "If you've been hammering your warm-ups, you'll get to the point where you can play anything in any condition in a serviceable way."  Now, I'm not saying you'd go out and play a recital or an audition on a leaky or otherwise "broken" instrument, but you could get through a concert or marching band show or a practice session without it being a total wash.  Let's say you can reasonably repair your instrument, now you know what's wrong.  I've got that problem right now on my 400, and I'll get around to it, but I still have the 430!

Now, what if you don't have a leaky horn and everything's fine?  Well, get to it!

What....

You don't know what to do.  What kind of stuff you should be playing to warm-up.  You're unsure if what you're doing is working, or going to work.  I have a solution!

Warm-up the way you did in band.  Don't get cute, just do things that work.  An example:
 
(all in written pitch)
 
Long tones on the C, F, and G scales.  No skimping, do them all and really work it.
 
Equality of tone is highly essential here.  If you're not careful you could spend a massive amount of time realizing all the notes you have that are not equal in tone to the notes around them.
 
5 note segments in all major and minor keys (at a moderate tempo, play each one 3 times before stopping)
-  You may slur
-  or slur 2 tongue 2
-  or tongue 2 slur 2
-  or mix them up (play Slur 2 Tongue 2, then Tongue 2 Slur 2, Then tongue 1 Slur 2 Tongue 1 consecutively in one rep.)

You could very easily alter the articulated notes from legato, to staccato, to marcato, to a "swallowed" note that almost ends before it begins.  You could get lost in this if you really wanted to.
 
Chromatic Scale (all slurred from E to C, no fancy pants extended range)     
 
Remingtons (movement in half steps downwards from a tonic)
-  I prefer starting on open G, that makes the pattern:
G, F#, G, F, G, E, G, Eb, G, D, G, Db, G, C
-  Then change the tonic to C:
C, B, C, Bb, C, A, C, Ab, C, G, C, Gb, C, F, C, E, C, Eb
 
Playing the remington studies is the easiest way to hear if your pitch and tone are stable.  It's also the best embouchure workout there is.  Try not opening your mouth the breathe, but breathing through your corners and never really releasing your embouchure until you're done.
 
Now, I know this is simple stuff, but that's it.  Some variation on this stuff will do.  Just don't run off with some pretty warm-up, you'll get bored quickly, change is a good thing in these situations. 
 
How long should it take?  Well, if you're really working it you could go for a solid hour and not realize it.  Seriously!  This stuff is important!
 
You'll start to see a difference when you really start working this out.  It's a maturation process that will net a wonderful long term result, but won't necessarily blow you away in the short term.  You've got to be patient.  I spent 3 years warming up like this constantly, another 4 playing 3 hours a day on my own and the last 9 holding to a warm-up of AT LEAST this level every time I play.  No joke.  Try it!

Stop-action tonguing

So, I was in a lesson today and saw an interesting little article in my student's folder from a big-time Clarinet professor.  They had all these articulation exercises written in and one in particular was intriguing...

There were 4 eighth notes each followed by an eighth rest.  The instructions written were:

Do this for 5 minutes and move up one notch on the metronome each week, but the music was titled "stopped tonguing."  I love this stuff!

So, one can only assume that "stopped tonguing" means stop the note with your tongue and then move on.  Ok, I can get down with that.  So, how do I do that?

I look at it this way.  Tongue the note, release the tongue in order to sustain the note (yes, you are sustaining it, even if the note is mega-short) and then come back and stop the air with the tongue.  

That means you're supposed to be doing 3 things to play one note, a note that might even be a half count long.  That requires alot of control.

Control implies that you have to sound good, so, if you're having tonal issues (I mean, like you're just NOT HAPPY with your sound, then wait for this.)  If you're cool, then control is pretty easy to obtain.

Definitely, just playing nice, easy, open notes with simple rhythms like 8th, 8th rest, 8th, 8th rest, etc... is a good idea.  Definitely, set a certain amount of time you will venture to do this.  You can do this in minutes (I'll do this for 5 minutes) or you could say "I'll do this for 24 bars."  However, you can go two steps farther.

Step 1)   Practice something with stopped notes.  You could be practicing just about anything and, as a part of working something out, you just stop all the notes in that passage just to get in the groove of stopping notes.  

Step2)  Try it in an ensemble setting.   If you're in a band or orchestra you could use this technique in musically appropriate places.  Using the stopped tongue as a device to further separate (not shorten) notes is a great way to use the stopped tongue, cultivate it, and add ammunition to your articulation arsenal.

Stopped tonguing increases pressure in the back of your mouth, so it will feel funny but it's fun to do if you really get into it.  Try it sometime!

Making Thine Ears Sensitive

I remember, distinctly, being in rehearsal in HS and begin asked (as a part of the group) to sing something in our part.  What?  I don't sing!  That's why I'm in band people!  I didn't have any sort of relative pitch and I certainly didn't know how to carry a tune.  How am I supposed to make my voice sing the notes you're asking for?  Confusing!
 
Then I get to college and Theory and Sightsinging are taught in the same class period.  No problem there.  However, the class was slanted towards singers and piano players and there was no instruction in how to enact your voice.  I have a really low voice and most people don't so I always found myself uncomfortably singing below other people (which I would not continue to do) or not being able to sing as high as required.  Once again, it also didn't help that the class was slanted towards singers and piano players (it also didn't help that there was no actual teaching going on.  No one started from the beginning and assumed we all knew nothing and then taught everything.  It was more like having someone look down their nose at you every day because you didn't have the training they expected you to have so they wouldn't have to actually teach you anything.)  To say the least, I was disheartened.
 
Then I was taking "Form and Analysis" (not really, they just called it that and the Organ Professor taught it really poorly) and I was struggling because there was no teaching going on and then we were singing stuff in harmony (which I can't do and wasn't taught to do) and was getting nowhere.  Then....
 
I got into Drum Corps.  The best part about that is that there are always recordings avialable, the shows are to the point, usually very well written, and easy to listen to over and over.  I acquired a few Cd's and started listening.  Then I discovered a few shows that I REALLY liked and felt compelled to sing along.  I found that I could easily crack my voice and sing in falsetto quite easily (something multiple college professors, with Doctorates, were too lazy to do.)  Then, I figured out that, after multiple listenings, I kind of had a pitch memory.  Like, I could actually remember what was coming up next and sing it before the note started and be right!  Yes! 
 
Then I started thinking...Can I have perfect pitch on my instrument?  Not actual perfect pitch, the kind you're born with, just perfect pitch on my instrument.  How else do brass players know what note they're gonna play?  How else would I know which note was which without seeing someone's fingers or reading the music they were playing?  Good idea!
 
So, I started to just think notes before I played them.  I "kind of" knew what everything sounded like, but not exactly, so I decided to start being much more specific with the level of sensitivity I had to pitch.  Amazingly, it helped alot.  Not only do I have a much better idea of how everything should sound on my primary instrument, but in playing anything, I have a much more acute awareness of how intervals sound and how harmonic progressions sound. 
 
I never realized how close half-steps were until I started listening to how far apart I was playing some of them on certain parts of my instrument.  Then I started listening to my private students and they were way off too!  Then I have a flashback...
 
If you were taking lessons where I went to college you took a Fall and Spring jury with the entire wind and percussion faculty.  I have no problem with this kind of stuff so I was never bothered by it, but I remember one instance in particular that I took a long time to figure out.
 
I was asked once "Do you feel like you're playing in tune with yourself?"  I had no response for that at the time and no explanation was given.  In fact, the subject never came up again.  Granted, I did change mouthpieces that summer and that did bring my overall pitch up (I tend to play low, it's a consequence of my open embouchure) but I just didn't hear about it again.
 
So, I'm teaching someone a couple years ago and it hits me!  Dang, all of these intervals are totally out of whack!  You aren't playing in tune with yourself dude! 

Now I can't stop saying it.  It's everywhere!  It's as if I can now see radio waves that were not visible before, like I've got X-ray vision.  Craziness!
 
Anyways, how do you make yourself more sensitive to the changing of the tides?  I don't know that there's a formula for gaining a more firm grasp on relative pitch, but I do know that there are things you can do...
 
-  don't get discouraged
-  if you're not a singer, become a shower singer (you know, like in the Golden Girls when Sophia realizes that Blanche's brother Clayton is gay "He's as a gay as a picnic basket!"  "Ma, how did you know!?"  "I heard him singing in the shower.  He's the only man I ever knew who knew all the words to "Send in the Clowns."  It won't be this revealing, but it will teach you about pitch memory.
-  if you like singing with the radio, you're in business as this will also teach you alot about pitch memory.
-  if you refuse to sing SOMETIMES you won't get any better at this stuff
-  if you're ever in a rehearsal situation where you are guessing who's sharp and flat you're doing the right thing
-  watch some American Idol and figure out how many of the singers are flat most of the time (hint - it's ALOT!)
-  do a full intonation chart for your instrument
-  try singing your parts to yourself, then check it against your own playing.  You'll be amazed how "off" you are sometimes.
 
Try it out!  Having a good ear is the best way to start moving around and changing instruments.  If you have a good ear, picking up something new will be alot easier when you know what things are SUPPOSED to sound like.

Reflecting on Challenges

Reflecting on my relatively short playing career (16 years of seriousness) I find that I'm constantly learning and never really mastering.  I was in a class today and the Director made a good point to his kids "If you think you've mastered this part, you're wrong.  Even professionals who make the big bucks [or don't] will be the first to admit that they are still learning."  No kidding.
 
I know that I don't make the big bucks, but I'm a hardcore serious player.  I've never really put a Clarinet down for longer than a couple months, and that is always necessitated by a lack of time.  I remember being able to do things in 10th Grade that seemed simple in 11th Grade, and then again in 12th Grade.  Every day from when I graduated from college to now I've improved a million percent.  I'm growing, I know I must be, but it's so hard to tell sometimes.
 
If you have a bad reed day you feel like you're awful.  The only thing you hear is a rough buzzing sound or the sound of swirling spit and you think "Ugggh, I suck!"  I don't, but it's hard not to think that.
 
I would go to auditions in High School and College and think at every one "I SO hope that today's my day" like I wasn't prepared or something.  I never thought for one second that I was "the man" or "the guru" (a title given to me by my assistant director.) 
 
I was constantly tinkering with my playing back then, just like I am now.  I know when I went off to college I sat down in my first lesson with my Clarinet prof. and he said "So, what do you really want that you don't have?"  My response was technique, bottom line, I thought I had none.  His response was "Ok."  No, "Oh yeah, you really have horrible fingers, etc, etc, etc."  Just "Ok"
 
We talked a little about the state of my playing and I referenced someone who went to my High School AND went to the same college who was like 5 years older than me.  I said "I want to be as good as ___________."  His response was "You're better than __________ when they graduated from college, right now." 
 
Dang, that's nice.  I sort of walked around thumping my chest for a couple days until I was confronted with all the little issues in my playing.  Then I came back down to earth pretty quickly.  Looking back on it, my teacher was doing the same thing.  He's an incredible player, but as I see it now he was totally messing with his playing too.  He had, as I feel I do now, a massive understanding of playing, literature, etc, but he wasn't satisfied.  How do I know?
 
I remember hunting for literature and him just pulling things off the shelf.  The time he came up with Hindemith's "Acht Stucke" and saying "Let's try this" was pretty interesting.  It's a piece for unaccompanied Flute, I guess that says it all.  It felt like a challenge "Can you learn this?"  I bet it was also a personal challenge "Can I teach you this?" 
 
I loved the challenge.  I played many pieces like this and every one had the same caveat attached "Can you learn this?"  I guess that's where I'm at now.  Can I make this tweak to my sound?  Can I slightly change my tooth position on the mouthpiece and make it stick?  Can I start opening the first finger completely on Altissimo C# and D?  Can I totally eliminate the "spit sound" even if my reed is horrible today or too soft today?  Can I learn a tight french vibrato? 
 
Every time I want to make a change it's always spurred by this thought "Man, I suck!"  Now, I know I don't, but I can't help but feel that way sometimes.  My Director in H.S. used to always advise everyone to keep around them papers and tests you got incredible grades on because sometimes you need to be reminded that you can do this, especially when you feel like you can't.  I've got plenty of things like that around me as assurance, but I'm never going to get TOO into them, because if I do I'll get a big head about me. 
 
I guess everyone's in this state of flux.  Man, I rock.  Man, I suck.  Not in a Manic sort of way, it's just that sometimes you're doing great and sometimes you're not.  I hope I'm always trending up, that's all.  I get concerned that I might be going backwards.  Sometimes, just like in life, you have no idea what to do to not be going down.  Sometimes you have a pretty good idea what to do but you aren't sure how to enact your ideas, and it's hard not to get down on yourself because you don't know what to do.
 
It's so hard to fall back to this sometimes, since we're human and prone to stupidity:
 
Phillipians 4:13(NKJV)  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.   
 
Part of the strengthening must be the quest for betterment, but it's still of Him who shows you the way.  It's a delicate balance between striving and improving.  It's so hard to find the place where you can say "This makes me better and I'm not acting like a raving lunatic to get there."

Things That Bug Me: Playing Really High

Things That Bug Me: Playing Really High on the Bass Clarinet

I've been blessed with an extensive altissimo from early in my career. Actually, I'll never forget switching back to Bass Clarinet as a sophomore in H.S. and getting my first lesson in playing high. A guy who had just graduated (and was a phenomenal player in his own right) taught me how to play up to a Double C. I kind of held onto that and when I studied ith my first really good private teacher she started every lesson saying "Alright, let's play the "Traumatic Scale". She called it that because it was supposed to go up to Altissimo G every time and lots of her students didn't like that. However, that combination of the Double C and a really good private teacher birthed this altissimo renaissance in my playing.

Within a year I knew how to play up to Double C with techincal proficency and I made fast friends with someone who wrote a couple pieces for me. Back in the day he wrote his first piece for me, a concerto, in Db Major and wrote in some Double Eb's and said "Can you play this? I wrote it in pen." Well, now I'm stuck. So, I figured out Double Eb in short order and worked out some 4 octave scales. At current my Eb, E and F scales (written) are 4 octaves.

I found a fingering chart by Terje Lerstad that went far higher than I could have imagined and began employing the notes that were even higher than Double F in an "eek it out" performance practice. I ended up using a "Triple C" in a gliss from Double C to Triple C on the last note of the Artie Shaw "Concerto for Clarinet". It won me a second place tie with a Clarinet performance major (one year my senior) in a Concerto Competition.

At that point I decided to draw a line in the sand and start to categorize the "pretty altissimo" and the "it-comes-out" altissimo. Pretty went up to double F, it-comes-out went up to Triple Eb. I don't sit around using these notes all the time, but they do come in handy when I want to play something that isn't for Bass Clarinet and I want to play the piece at pitch.

Now comes the hard part. How do I get these notes to come out at all?

Increasing your range on any instrument is a slow progression. Wherever you're starting is good enough. If you can barely cross the break, that's ok. Start where you're at. Regardless of where I started I'd be playing everything the same way. No massive embouchure changes, no serious changes in air flow, nothing crazy. The only thing I would change is the throat shaping I'm using to produce the pitch. Now, from Low Eb on Bass Clarinet to Altissimo G should all be done the EXACT same way. Only above this note do you need different throat voicings to get the notes to speak clearly.

I would recommend playing up to whatever note you can get up to and stopping. Try to make that note and the 3 notes below it sound pretty good. Don't be satisfied with something that's just "alright" really work toward a very solid tone that is beginning to show your unique characteristics...a tone that fits YOUR tonal profile...then move on. Make sure the 3 notes before each successive pitch sound good as well and continue moving up the instrument. Straining, fussing and fighting won't do you any good, but consistent, steady, stoic practice will. Make sure you're playing all these notes up to Altissimo G just as you would play the lowest notes on the instrument, regardless of how high they are.

When you reach the Altissimo (C# just above the staff) then you will need to make sure that you are depressing the half hole lever (which will uncover the actual "half hole") You can't live without the half hole being open from now on. Once again, no straining, no fussing, no fighting, no hootin', no hollerin', nothing. Just play until the note speaks. Passing up the altissimo G you enter a whole new realm. Before I get into how to make these notes speak, I'll list the fingerings that I use to make them go. These may not work for you on your instrument. Personally, I play Leblanc Bass Clarinets, so if you have a Selmer, or whatever, then these may not be perfect for you, but they're probably awful close.

When I say 123 I'm talking left hand fingers.
When I say 456 I'm talking right hand fingers.
R means right pinky and L means left pinky(followed by the note the key plays.)
Reg means register key and T means thumb.
F after the 4 or 5 key means the fork key.
C# after the 123 keys means the banana key that plays low C#.
HH means the half hole is open.
S after the 12 keys is the sliver key.
SK means side keys and 1 is the lowest key and 4 is the highest key(ex. SK1).
A and Ab denotes the left hand A and Ab keys.
When I say LL after the note I'm denoting how many ledger lines it is above the Treble Clef staff (ex. 4 LL = 4 Ledger Lines above the treble clef staff.)
Got it? Cool! Off we go.

Altissimo Ab (4 ledger lines above the staff) T Reg HH SK1
A (4 LL) T Reg HH 2 3
Bb (5 LL) T Reg HH 2 3 C#
B (5 LL) T Reg HH 2
C (5 LL) T Reg HH 2 SK1
C# (5 LL) T Reg HH SK1
D (6 LL) T Reg HH 2 3 C#
Eb (6 LL) Open
E (6 LL) T Reg 1 4
F (7 LL) T Reg 1
F# (7 LL) T Reg HH 2 3 4 6
G (7 LL) T Reg 2 5 REb
G# (7 LL) T Reg Ab 2 5 REb
A (8 LL) T Reg HH 2 3 4 6 REb
Bb (8 LL) T Reg 2 5 REb
B (8 LL) T Reg HH 2 SK1
C (9 LL) T Reg (HH) 2 3 4 5 or (T Reg HH 2 SK1)
C# (9 LL) T Reg (HH) 2 3 4 6 or (T Reg HH SK1)
D (9 LL) T Reg (HH) 2 3 5 6
Eb (10 LL) T Reg (HH) 2 3 5

That's all I've got at current. Terje's fingering chart actually goes higher and, of course, I use alot of fingerings from his chart, so don't think they were my idea! So, what to do...

This is the hardest thing to learn and the easiest thing to remember once you get it. It will be very much like learning to ride a bike. Promise.

If you're using a saxophone-like embouchure then you already have a nice amount of lip on the reed. Don't shy away from that. As you push with your throat and all the funny voicings start to jump out your lip being on the reed will cause a divide in the reed and give you all kinds of harmonics. This is excellent stuff, don't be afraid of it, you just don't have control of it yet. Heck, sometimes I don't have control of it.

When you ascend the instrument all the pressure is going to be coming from the back of your throat. As you increase and decrease pressure the aperture at the back of your throat gets larger and smaller. Sometimes you don't have to do a whole lot to get a speak as you push "a bit" newer, higher notes come out. Occasionally, you'll find a note that only speaks and a specific point, at a specific frequency inside your throat. For me, this note is Double A, for you it could be something else. Whatever you do, DO NOT apply massive pressure to the reed to get what you want. There is already pressure on the reed and you may need a tiny bit more to get a good sound...I can live with that, but do NOT try to do all this with your lip....it won't work. No joke people.

Westward Bass Clarinets!

Does vibrato = tone?

I don't think that I've ever considered this question thoroughly.  For years in High School I constantly heard "The vibrato is NOT the tone, it is an embellishment of the tone."  a concept  which I still agree with in simplicity.  However, how many people use their vibrato as their tone successfully?  Could those same people play without vibrato successfully?  What is so alluring about vibrato?  How do you learn to play with vibrato?

Personally, I never once took a lesson or played one single exercise involving vibrato.  One day, my Director said to me "You know, you should try playing with vibrato."  I was off.

I went to two people I respected as musicians and said "So, how do you do that?"  The first, a supreme Alto Saxophonist said "Don't try too hard, just vibrate your air, from your lip and your diaphragm, don't try to do too much of one or the other."  The second, a supreme Bassoonist and Saxophonist, started outlining all these exercises that required vibrating with the metronome.  I said "Cool, thanks" then went on my merry way.  So, I never practived it, I just started doing it.  

Rehearsal was the best place to work this stuff out because I was at the front of the section and no one was questioning me.  I furthered that by being tactful and not making the vibrato known until I thought I could do it tastefully.  A few months later I was using vibrato all the time.  Well, what kind was it?  I don't know, my vibrato is probably as broad as you can play it before people would recognize it as slow.  Back then the only vibrato title, and still the only, I knew was "french vibrato."  Ewwww, the dastardly french vibrato.  Too fast, too intense, too much vibrating, not enough sound.  Probably the reason I tend to play on the slow end.

So, is it acceptable on Bass Clarinet?  Is someone going to yell at you if they catch you using it?  Well, I've been jumped all over more than once by sectionmates in an adult band because the vibrato was messing them up.  Sorry, that's just how I do.  Funny thing, nobody ever complained before.  So, you might step on some toes, but the toes you're stepping on are not super sure what's going on, so they may just rebel, that's ok, we're all human.

How do I do this stuff?  Well, look at it this way.  Vibrato is a slight flucuation of the overall tone and pitch.  In order to play with an effective vibrato you have to have a good ear.  If you're not sure what "in tune" sounds like, then you are not ready for this.  Perhaps doing an intonation chart is a good place to start.   Get a sheet of paper and warm-up.  Tune the instrument to open G.  Now, start at the bottom of the instrument and play chromatically all the way up the horn.  Play every note "mezzo mezzo" (if you don't your volume will distort the pitch.)  Write down for every note how flat or sharp it was.  Now, you have somewhere to start.  As you begin to vibrate you'll now what you're doing to certain notes.  Without this information you'll be continually vibrating notes that are already out of tune, meaning they are most likely vibrating even MORE out of tune.  

Don't attempt to vibrate too much.  The vibration comes mostly from your air column, meaning down deep.  You've got to be able to have the air column vibrating before the air leaves your mouth.  Solely using the lip will sound more like a novelty act than classical music.    

Don't attempt to vibrate all the time.  The vibration needs to be reserved for notes that sound good vibrated.  For example, when "An American Elegy" begins the first note is in the low woodwinds and brass.  Just a simple low F I believe.  You can't vibrate this note.  It doesn't make sense.  You've got to use some musical sense.  Moreover, you can't attempt to vibrate this note to try to make it sound good.  You've good to have another method to enter and sound nice.  Vibrato doesn't always equal pretty.

If you are incapable of beginning notes without slapping the note upside the head then vibrato isn't for you.  If you cannot "non-articulate" or breath attack a note, then you can't substitute vibrato for poor fundamentals.

If you don't sound fundamentally good, meaning you can't produce a characteristic tone on the instrument, then you cannot substitute vibrato for the tone.  Vibrato will only make you sound worse.

So, as you can see, at its base vibrato does not equal tone.  However...

I've been messing around with a french-style vibrato for a couple months.  Let me tell you something, this stuff really works.  Now, I'm 31, so this means I've got 15 years under my belt playing with a vibrato but I've found that with a massive amount of control will allow you to vibrate so tightly (notice I didn't say quickly) that the vibrato and the tone meld into one unit, it's pretty cool.  So, a french vibrato is NOT fast and obnoxious, but tight, controlled, and blended. 

Does that mean it equals the tone?  No, but it does have "refrigerator rights" with tone.  There's big difference here.  Find it, and a solid french vibrato you will have.

How would I recommend practicing vibrato for vibrato's sake?  Play stuff.  I tend to stay with the Rose Studies.  32, 40, who cares, as long as it's solid music.  Teach yourself how to put the vibrato in there and how to control it.  As before, the other best place is rehearsal.  When you're tactful no one is going to know you're folling around with a vibrato, but it will improve because you'll be playing it pretty regularly.  

So, to answer the question;  No, vibrato does not equal tone.  It just has equal rights.

Things That Bug Me: Playing Loud

Playing loud....ahhhhhh, the glory days. There was a time when I viewed the Bass Clarinet purely as a volume machine. "How loud can I play this?" was the question settling on me every time I got to rehearsal. Yeah, I could play sensitively, but really, I wanted to just blast somebody out of their chair. That's fun stuff. For the longest time I never considered exactly how I could produce as much tone as I did. I was NEVER once brought down to size for playing with a bad sound, and only occasionally called on the carpet for playing out of balance.

That's the beauty of playing a low instrument, no matter how loud you play (if you sound good) you are bound to blend in. Now, I'm in no way saying that you shouldn't be sensitive to the ensemble or that you should totally abandon musical taste, but what I am saying is you have alot more leeway with volume than you think. The band is built from the bottom and a weakling will never be heard over an orchestra. It's a wonderful position to be in, to be at a seat where you can hear everything and support it at the same time. Honestly, I don't know how you can sit in the Flute section and not be able to drive the group. I'd get bored so quickly my little head would spin around. Besides, those instruments naturally carry. You could sneeze into a Flute and get a sound that will carry to the back of the hall. Put any kind of air into a Trumpet and someone will hear you. Sneeze into a Bass Clarinet and what do you get? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

That's why this is so important. You're going to be overcoming natural tendencies of the instrument. If you're playing Bass Clarinet and you find yourself not being heard. Not able to bring yourself, as Grainger would say "To The Fore", not able to really carry a group, being kept in the background, then you have a world of obstacles to overcome. How do I produce more sound? Am I using the right reeds? Am I using the right mouthpiece? Am I using the wrong embouchure? How do I get more air out of me and into my horn? Read on, this is not about produing a unique tone, this about making sure people hear your unique tone.

Let's start with air. This is always the easiest thing to fix. I'd say most people breathe too shallowly and allow for too little expansion of their lungs. When you sit to play, be sure that your back is straight, and this requires that you lean slightly forward in your chair and over the instrument. (This is also the point at which I recommend you use a floor peg AND a neck strap. No exceptions.) Placing the peg slightly under your chair allows you to lean slightly over the instrument and get your face up over the mouthpiece. This is a much more desirable angle for playing. Doing this also allows your neck to be straight which gives you a clean line from your lungs and through your mouth to blow air. If you're standing you can easily mimic this posture as long as you have a neckstrap that tightens well and doesn't slip (I prefer DeJacques, they can't be beat.)

As far as getting air into your lungs, well, you just have to suck all the air out of the room with every breath. Your lungs have an amazing capacity to expand and to learn to function better than they do now. Even if you have a respiratory disorder (personally, I have asthma) then controlled and methodical use of your lungs will increase your lung capacity and potentially lower your need for medication (it did in my case.) As you continually work your lungs you'll find yourself becoming stronger and stronger. Over time you'll find that you may not be able to hold your breath longer, but you'll be able to broaden your tone because there will be SOME improvement in the amount of air you can take in. I've seen Freddy Martin (a DCI Hall of Famer) do very cool exercises that involve breathing and simple stretching (as I could see, it was to stretch the ribcage.) It's, by far, the best exercise regimen I've seen for wind players. Try combining those things sometime. My wife does Pilates (really well) and there's "Pilates Breathing" involved. But what if, just what if, you could do hard core wind breathing while doing something like Pilates? Nice combo I think. I'm not a fitness professional, but I'll say...anything that stretches your ribcage would be mighty helpful(Heather says a good mermaid should do ya.) The expanse in your ribcage helps an awful lot. Doing this to simple patterns (breathe in 4 and out 4, in 4 out 8, in 4 out 12, etc.) will greatly improve your lung strength.

Forcing the air out of your lungs requires sheer force of will. There's no substitute for desire here. You either want to get the air out or you don't. If it were me and I were trying to come about this on my own I'd play leaning over and squatting (causing me to contract my abdomen.) I knew a girl who was a Flute Performance major as an undergrad and she came back from her first semester of school telling us how her teacher told her to practice like that. I tried it for a while....it works (actually, it forces you to work like a dog to get something out of your instrument. Plus, I probably didn't do it enough.) I've also heard from someone who studied at the same school I went to that her/our teacher had her practice laying on her back. The idea is that you MUST be "wasting your air", moving it as fast as possible. Just remember this, in all of these exercises you should be training your body to push air up from the base of each lung, from your diaphragm (as if you've never heard that before.) People say it all the time, but they leave out the part where you exhale with your diaphragm. Yep, those details will get you every time.

Only one more topic to cover before you go and apply this stuff. Your setup. It really doesn't matter what mouthpiece you're using, and reeds are only slightly more important. I played on a Yamaha 4C and 2.5's all the way through my Sophomore year of college (now, that's NOT a volume-friendly setup.) You can produce a very broad, quality sound as long as your reeds are not too hard for you. The only thing stopping you now is repetition. If you're in an ensemble on a regular basis then you have ample opportunity to learn how to move air into your instrument. You have ample opportunity to experiment with your tone without ruining it for the group. If you only have the outlet of individual practice then you must LIVE with long tones. Stay in the middle of the instrument for as long as possible until you feel you're getting somewhere. It's at this point that you might want to try moving progressively up and down the instrument, being very careful to play as full on the bottom and top of the horn as you do in the middle. You'll discover that it is (obviously) more difficult to maintain a CONSISTENT volume the higher and lower you get on the instrument.

Imagine your sound as a box.  

(Go ahead, I'll wait...........)

Now imagine that box in various sizes depending on the volume you're playing. If you're playing, as my Assistant Director in H.S. would say "Prit-ty Darn Loud" then that box is "Prit-ty Darn Big." Now, as you move up and down the horn you have to keep the box the same size, no matter what note you're playing. As an individual this is considered "uniformity of tone." I know, it sounds fancy, but it means just what we talked about.... you tone doesn't make this drastic change with every change in pitch.

This is something that LOTS of people have problems with, but never really know it (Kind of like in Romans 7:7 when Paul says '...For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire.') If I had never heard of Tony Kniffen from my buddy and his whole thing about uniformity of tone I would have no idea I had a HUGE problem with that. This is a two way street people. If you figure something out, share it because you never know who may NOT know what's up unless you tell them. The moral of this story is simple. You don't have to play a volume friendly setup to produce volume. The setup doesn't produce volume, you do. Your instrument doesn't produce volume, you do. Go forth, be merry, and produce......sound that is.