So, the Rousseau Celebration has now come and gone. It was an incredible event, great to see so many great saxophonists and old friends and spend a weekend playing, listening, and talking about saxophone! I’m very happy to be able to say that my performance of the Heiden Solo went quite well. The performance itself, however, is not all that important. What is important are the final steps I took to be fully ready to perform.

First and foremost, know that what I do and how I practice the last week or so prior to a performance really is not all that different than what I do the first few weeks. The reality is that, if good practice techniques are being used from the start of preparation, there doesn’t need to be a major change in strategy in the last week. One of the best parts of practicing smart throughout the entire process is that, usually, there isn’t much of a need to panic at the end. That panicked feeling that can set in a week or so prior to a performance — you know the one where you don’t feel you’re going to be ready in time — often comes from using poor practice techniques early in the process of learning a piece. That’s not to say that poor practice is always the problem — issues such as misjudging the difficulty of a piece or simply not having enough time available can be a significant part of the problem. But, if the assessment of the difficulty was close and something like oh, the composer not getting the piece finished until the 11th hour don’t interfere, practicing correctly from the start also means no cramming, no desperate avoidance of everything except the literature, and a week of being able to fall asleep.

For this piece and this performance, if anything, I allowed more time than was necessary, so I was able to continue my normal practice routine, with a few exceptions. During the last few days of practice, I did not stop doing things like scales, long-tones, and other literature. For the most part, I also continued to practice the Heiden as I described earlier.

Some things that I did do differently, though. First of all, I spent more time playing from beginning to end, without stopping to correct mistakes. These practice performances were also done at my desired performance tempo. The goal of doing this is to practice maintaining concentration for the duration of the piece, and to get better at recovering from mistakes that invariably happen during a live performance.  The ideal way to do this would be to be able to work with your accompanist, but that rarely works out. When this isn’t possible (translation … until I win the Powerball….) I find other ways to model playing with the accompaniment. Using Smart Music is sometimes an option (if your piece happens to be one that has a Smart Music accompaniment). Another option is to play along with a good recording, or to have your accompanist record just the accompaniment for you.

The one other thing I find helpful during final preparation is to record myself practicing, and the practice performances are especially insightful. When I go back and listen to myself, I then have a realistic idea of any passages that are muddy, or any fundamentals that could use some work. It’s also really helpful in evaluating the musical content … basics like the pacing of dynamics, articulations that need attention, accents … all those details. Recordings never lie…

The last steps I take have little to do with actually playing. During the last 24 hours, I make sure I know exactly what the hall looks, and if possible, I go stand on stage so that I can visualize myself in the space. I try to get a good night’s sleep the night before, and on the day of the performance, I make sure to eat no matter how I may feel, but I keep it light.

Heiden is coming along nicely, maybe even a bit ahead of my schedule. At any rate, I was looking over what I wrote last week, and I realized I failed to mention why I started this piece. That’s sort of central to my point in journaling my progress on this one!

When I was at IU, I was one of Eugene Rousseau’s students, and believe it or not, he turned 76 this year. In honor of Dr. Rousseau’s 76th birthday, there is going to be a “Rousseau Celebration” hosted at the University of North Carolina – Greensville. As one of Rousseau’s former students, I have the opportunity to perform a piece either recorded by or dedicated to Dr. Rousseau. The Heiden “Solo” was dedicated to Rousseau back in 1969  — AND he recorded it. It also happens to be reasonably approachable, which is really important to me since I’m still in the “rehab” phase of my performance. Although I perform nearly every week, it’s been about 8 years since I’ve done any sort of high profile/major performance, so I want to be sure that this is successful for me.

So, here’s what I’ve been up to. One of the things I’ve been really focusing on has been identifying and working out what I’ll call, for lack of a better term, “nuisance” passages. One of the biggest nuisances in this piece, at least for me, is at the top of the third page:

If you look at this passage at the level of a single beat, there isn’t anything really hard about it. What does present a challenge, at least for me, is that each beat is similar, but enough different to trip me up. One of the strategies that I find especially helpful with sections like this is to work out each beat, then start building the passage by practicing two beat blocks, then three beats, then four … until I’m comfortable with the entire passage. I also prefer to start at the END and work back towards the beginning so I’m always playing to something I know and am comfortable with — really helps to keep me relaxed.

The other things I’ve been really focusing on are pushing tempi and identifying what fingerings I want to use when there are alternates available. Those two things — tempo and fingerings — are not only important, but they are also related.  Tempo first….

Now, I know, the common wisdom about tempo is to practice as slowly as you need to to play without making a mistake. I’ve repeated that mantra to students and to myself over and over and over and over again — and it is extremely important. Don’t think for a minute that I’m not spending a lot of time working out the kinks slowly and methodically. The other piece of the equation, though, is that you need to spend some time teaching your fingers to move at the performance tempo and, when a piece has technical passages that extend of several beats (or lines or pages!), you really need to get your brain thinking and processing all of that information at the speed you need it to go. I’m not say this very eloquently, and I’m not sure if that was really clear, so if you don’t understand, leave a comment!

The other thing I need to do is to at least get to the point that I can play passages a couple of beats at a time, at or above performance tempo, fairly quickly so I can really hone in on fingering decisions. Take this passage, for example:

If I’m plugging away at a nice, slow tempo, I’m inclined to just use standard fingerings the whole way through this, but as I approach performance tempo (somewhere around quarter note = 120 bpm) the palm key E down to the F and back up to palm key E is a bit of a pain.  The biggest problem for my fingers is in my right hand, moving from right side key 3, getting my first finger down for the F, then shifting back up to get back to RSK3. Simple solution — don’t use the first finger to play the F, just use the middle finger. That simple shift keeps me from having to move my right hand/wrist to get to and from RSK3. If I’d taken my time gradually easing the tempo up, yes, I would have eventually made that decision. In the process, who knows how many times I would have played it using my first finger before I made the decision, which in turn would have meant having to UN-learn before I could LEARN. Plus, when I get nervous, I find that if I haven’t been 100% consistent in my use of specific fingerings, I have a tendency to make mistakes simply because I choose the wrong one, drop a note, then break my concentration and drop a few more notes.

Day One

For me, the first day of working on a new piece is THE most important day of the first week. I use the first day to really identify the things that I will need to focus on not only during the rest of the first week, but throughout the whole learning process. I start with the obvious: major structural sections, tempi, key signatures. I also look for anything that I need to do some research on (e.g., a strange, new term or new type of notation … pretty rare to run across these for me at this point, but every now and then, there’s a new foreign word to learn or some new, strange type of notation….) With that done, I look for specific skills or problems that I know I’ll need to work on in some way. Some of the key things I ran across in the Heiden:

Intervals

Many of the technical passages are fairly disjunct, with some reasonably large skips. A typical section:

I usually don’t have much difficulty with the leaps up … it’s the leaps down that can give me fits. Spots like this get turned into long tone exercises with the intent being to focus on embouchure and voicing so the intervals both speak clearly and are in tune.

Diminished scale vocabulary

Typical of most advanced saxophone literature, this is a fairly chromatic piece, and as I’m first starting it, there seems to be a fair amount of diminished scale vocabulary. Although the piece is far from being based strictly on diminished scales, no other specific scale vocabulary is immediately obvious to me. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there, I’m just not catching it on day one. Translation — good opportunity to review those diminished scales!

Articulation Patterns

There are several spots that make fairly extensive use of articulation patterns similar to this:

What I think is especially fun about these is the register and the dynamic marking. It could certainly be worse, but those first two E’s need to be crisp AND quiet — not the easiest thing to pull off. If I find I’m having problems with this, aside from isolating the sections, I’ll add some of the articulation patterns that aren’t as clean as I’d like into my scales.

Days 2-7

Depending on the overall difficulty of the piece, the remainder of the week on a new piece could be spent getting all the notes securely under my fingers so the piece can start to ‘gel’ (fairly easy pieces) to just focusing on a few of the most difficult sections and trying to gauge just how much time it’s going to take to learn the piece. This piece isn’t easy, but it isn’t horribly difficult either. My goal for the ‘Solo’ was to get the bulk of the passages to at least 75% of the performance tempo cleanly, and identify the sections that are most likely to cause problems. I came pretty close to the 75% of performance tempo goal.

So, now I’m on to week two. More to come….

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Actually, not tuning to the piano (or the organ, for that matter) is just a matter of routine at this point, at least in this situation. I don’t usually think about it all that much, but for some reason, I got really paranoid at the last minute — maybe because the piece I was playing started on a written 4th space E-natural. Everything worked out fine, as it usually does, but it got me thinking about the whole concept of intonation and tuning.

I actually wanted to start this entry with this cool picture I was going to draw in Inkscape — a stick figure saxophonist with his alto in playing position and a clear image of the mouthpiece. The idea was to label the part that is most important in determining whether a performance will be in tune. Well, the drawing didn’t … exactly …. ummm … well, I couldn’t decide if it looked more like one of my 3-year old’s drawings or a floating head smoking a crack pipe, as drawn by someone smoking a crack pipe. The point of that exercise is still good, though (even if my artistic ability leaves much to be desired….).  Most amateur and many developing saxophonists would go straight to the mouthpiece, specifically identifying the position of the mouthpiece on the neck/bocal. While it isn’t a bad thing (nor an unimportant step) to be concerned about the position of the mouthpiece on the neck, that’s really only a small step taken towards playing in tune.

Playing in tune isn’t ultimately about any physical step, nor any adjustment to the instrument. Yes, the mouthpiece needs to be adjusted to a point that allows the instrument to be close enough in terms of pitch to whatever other instruments are in an ensemble. (In fact, all instruments are designed to play with a pre-determined tube length, and if the length varies too significantly from the design of the instrument, it will be difficult if not impossible to even play in tune with yourself!) It’s also important that the instrument is warmed up to playing temperature (more on that when I talk about playing with a pipe organ!).

I’ve seen/heard/been told about the importance of learning to adjust the embouchure and oral cavity in relationship to intonation. Another incredibly important skill that needs to be mastered to play in tune. Use of a tuner is another technique that is frequently brought up in relation to intonation.

So, you’ve now adjusted your mouthpiece after dutifully paying homage to concert A (or B-flat, or whatever), learned how to manipulate the pitch with your embouchure, and you can make the needle on your nifty digital tuner move to what it says is dead-on pitch. You’re all set! Great! I wish it worked that way.

Going back to my floating-head-smoking-a-crack-pipe idea … had it worked, the goal would have been to point to the head (I know, you could argue for the ears, but the ears are just the means for getting the sound to the brain … at least for my purposes here.) My belief is that really good intonation ultimately depends on your internal concept of pitch. You MUST be able to hear and almost instantly adjust, and beyond hearing, you have to internalize pitch to the point that you are able to hear the next interval BEFORE you play it. The goal is to be able to hear when you are out of tune with yourself, even when there are no other instruments, and the tuner is nowhere to be found. There are a number of strategies you can use to develop this ability that I’ll save for  later post, but the key for me has been (shudder!) singing. Yes, Virginia, there is a point to sight-singing … and ear training, neither of which can really be isolated as a single skill (at least in my book).

So, back to not bothering with checking my intonation before I play in church … not something I’d recommend in most circumstances. I don’t want anyone to read this and think I’m saying not tuning up before a performance is a best practice. Remember, in the church situation I described, I perform with the same piano week after week after week. I know about where my mouthpiece should be placed, and if  I’m off a bit, either because I didn’t get the mouthpiece in quite the right spot or because the pitch level of the piano has changed slightly, I know how to adjust my embouchure and/or airstream to compensate until I can re-position the mouthpiece. I’m also handicapped in that, because of my other responsibilities during the service, I don’t have a chance to warm my instrument up at all, so even if I did “tune up”, I’d just be out of tune 30 seconds after I start. I also play with a pipe organ a LOT. That’s an entirely different ball-game worthy of it’s own post. Bottom line, it is best to tune, but always remember that tuning one or two notes (and maybe their octaves) does not mean intonation can be set aside for the rest of the performance. Concentrate, listen, adjust! More to come…

Since I started this “rehab” journey, I’ve been operating from the idea of practicing until I think I’m ready to stand up and perform. Quite honestly, it isn’t working. Even just looking back over my posts here, come on, there’s a post about rethinking priorities, a couple about setting goals. Those are reflections of the simple fact that I’ve been having a great deal of difficulty making the time to practice the way I need to on a regular basis. There have been a few periods when I’ve done a great job …  the couple of weeks before I had committed to performing the Bozza Improvisation et Caprice, the week prior to having committed to playing an unaccompanied Bach flute sonata, several weeks when I was expecting to perform the Morosco Blue Caprice along with some other miscellaneous pieces, but all in all, it is just too easy to let things like the kids, work, the house, or that evil barn push my practice time aside when I know I don’t have anything major coming up. That got me to thinking… every time in my life that I have really focused on practice, it’s been because I knew I had a performance scheduled. I NEVER learned a degree recital program and THEN scheduled the recital. I scheduled the recital, chose literature based on the time available, and then practiced my tail off. Competition dates were set for me, wedding dates are set for me. Even major church performances (Easter, Christmas, installation of our new rector) … all dates are set for me and the program develops based on the time available. When I was a band director, the school calendar and the performance dates were set before I’d even seen the kids!

Maybe it’s just me. I certainly know myself well enough to know that I am goal and deadline oriented. That deadline is everything in terms of motivating my preparation. Yes, there is also my desire to play well and to give a great performance, but it’s ultimately the deadline. Without question, having the luxury of practicing until I’m comfortable and then scheduling the performance induces a lot less fear, but not only is it not working for me to do this, but it isn’t realistic.  Anyone out there ever gotten a call saying “Hey, we’d love to have you come play. Take some time to practice and let us know when you’re ready.”? Not me! I usually feel lucky if I get a couple of weeks notice!

With that said, to heck with the practice … I’m going out and finding performance opportunities! July 20th will be the first … a mini-recital in conjunction with my son’s baptism. Once the performances are scheduled, I have no doubt the practice will come.

When I set out on this little “practice rehab” journey, I was prepared to face some frustration, and I had a pretty good idea that I’d need to formalize my goals more so than I had when I was active. What I’m realizing, though, is the extent to which I need to rethink some of the priorities in my life so that I can get back on the track I want to be on.

Ten years ago, saxophone was an automatic priority. My entire life revolved around playing and studying saxophone. I studied music theory, history, education, saxophone literature, instrumental pedagogy. I paid my bills in part by teaching saxophone, and the rest were covered by a pretty crummy job managing at a McDonald’s in Bloomington. But once I was out of that environment, other priorities started to creep in — my wife, pets, my kids, a career, a house, more kids. Five months ago, when I decided to start getting back into playing, I either hadn’t thought through or didn’t fully understand how challenging it would be to re-prioritize all these things to create the time I need to practice.

Goals are a wonderful thing to have. So are things like motivation, desire and talent. But before those goals can be achieved, all the other “stuff” has to be prioritized. Many of the priorities I have in my life are out of my control. I can’t change the fact that I have to work to pay the bills. I can’t directly control the needs of my family. One of the best resources I have come across when it comes to setting priorities and achieving goals are some of Steven Covey’s books. The two that come to my mind are “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” and “First things First”. He talks a lot about differences between the urgent tasks we deal with versus the important ones. I don’t want to get into a review of his books — you’re free to read those on your own. This is a great over-simplification, but underlying all he has to say is the idea that it is very easy to get trapped by the urgent priorities — the emergencies — and to get caught in a vicious cycle of constantly putting out fires, thereby loosing sight of what is truly important. If the emergencies are pushed aside for at least part of the day to focus on what is truly important, not only do we have a better chance of achieving our goals, but the urgent tasks start to occupy less of our time. Simply put, it’s the idea of responding on a proactive basis rather than a reactive basis. I’m not really sure exactly where I’m going with this, other than that I know I’m in a very reactive space right now, which in turn means the emergenices are keeping me away from my saxophone. Something to think about….

Since my article discusses the importance of setting long-range, mid-range, and short-range goals, I’ll preface this by sharing that I had long and mid-range goals (the next year and the next few months) in mind as I developed the short-range goals I’m writing out here. I’ll touch on those later. I’m currently working on four primary pieces: Alois Haba’s Partita, Victor Morosco’s Blue Caprice, Ryo Noda’s Mai and Joan Tower’s Wings. I’m at very different places with each of these pieces. I’ve performed the Haba, Noda and Morosco at different points in the past, and the Morosco and Noda are in fairly decent shape. Haba … well, I played it on my first doctoral recital somewhat less than what I considered successfully about 10 years ago. I’ve avoided it since! I have a good aural concept of the piece, but the technique isn’t there. The Tower piece is new to me. I’ve never heard it performed, and I actually just received the piece about 4 days ago. In addition to these pieces, I’m working on regaining the consistency in my technique — it’s there, but not consistent or as clean as it should be. With that said, here are the goals I have set for the next few weeks.

Technique: focus on one key center per practice session, moving chromatically starting on B-flat. Since I’m relearning everything as I go, my technical development time will focus on major and harmonic minor scales by step and by third. As time permits, I will be including the corresponding keys from Larry Teal’s “Daily Exercises” and as needed, I will also include exercises from Trevor Wye’s flute technique books (primarily book 6 – Advanced Practice). Starting tempo mm 96-100 with a goal of at least 120 by this time in June.

Morosco: since this is in pretty good shape, I will focus on maintenance and cleaning details. Entire piece needs to be played daily. In addition, about 10 minutes of focus on one page each day.

Noda: also in fairly good shape, so again, focus on maintenance. For those familiar with the piece, I’ll be using the glissandi as tone exercises daily and spending about 5 minutes on page 2. Days my kids aren’t in bed yet when I practice, the multiphonics and altissimo sections on page 3 will need about 5-10 minutes of attention. When the kids are asleep, I’ll have to leave these alone.

Haba: focus on the first movement for the next 2 weeks with a goal of playing the movement cleanly at a minimum of 80% of performance tempo. Movements 2-4 identify the problematic sections and revisit appropriate goals for these movements in 2 weeks (by May 21).

Tower: page one and the first 4 lines of page 2 to minimum of 80% of performance tempo. Read at least one additional page per day to develop an aural concept of the piece.

There is a method and a logic to these goals that I won’t get into right now — have to save something to write about for tomorrow! More to come….

I’ve always lived by the rule that, if you ate today, you practice. The only reasons to skip practicing under this rule are if you are so sick you can’t eat, or if you gave a major performance. Otherwise, practice. That rule has worked well for me over the years, but I’m not so sure it’s the absolute best rule for me to follow at this point in my life.

I am actually planning to not practice (at least not very much) tomorrow. What I’ going to do instead is to use that time to write out some practice goals. This is something very different for me compared to how I organized my time when I was actively performing. When I was giving recitals regularly, going to lessons, teaching, and rehearsing with chamber groups on a daily basis, I never found it necessary to formalize my goals in the way I need to now. I had the luxury of constantly having some external motivator in the form of an immediate deadline to force me to focus on specifics. That’s not a luxury I have now. Everything I’m doing has to come from internal, intrinsic motivation, and I’m also finding that, although I’m able to maintain my motivation, without those deadlines to meet, I need those formalized goals. So, I’m re-writing the rule to state that if I ate today, I should include some performance related activity in my day. More to come….

I’ve been trying to get my thoughts organized for a full reed article, and the list captures a few of the things I’ve been thinking about including – buried, of course, in a bit of sarcasm.  My plan for the next few posts is to talk about some of the things I listed. Plans, though, are always subject to change – at the whim of things like septic tanks and a certain three-year old’s antics!

So, Number 10 —  ”The more reeds you have in use, the more reeds won’t play.” Sounds like pretty simple math — if a percentage of reeds in every box are bad, then the more you have in use, the more won’t work, right? Well, yes and no…

I have always been taught and taught that it is essential to have multiple playable reeds in use at all times. For beginning performers, the logic is quite simple - if a reed breaks, another one needs to be available. For the average middle-school saxophonist, it is quite reasonable to have a limited number of reeds in rotation. At this level, having 2 or 3 reeds (that actually come off of the mouthpiece after band rehearsal!) is reasonable.

As your performance level advances, the rationale changes, and the number of reeds that really ought to be in use should increase. There are several reasons for this:

 1. As things such as temperature and humidity change, so does reed response. That reed that doesn’t work all that well today may be a great reed next week, and the reed that is great today may be one of the worst in your reed box.

2. Although advanced performers tend to accidentally break reeds pretty infrequently, reeds don’t last forever. As reeds are played, a combination of use and the digestive characteristics of saliva gradually break down the fibers and cause the reed to become progressivelly softer. By rotating through a supply of multiple reeds, there should always be a few fairly new reeds, some stable reeds, and some that are near the end of their lifespan available. Having multiple reeds available also allows the freedom to adjust reeds without having to worry about an unintended slip of the reed knife or taking just a little too much off the tip with that piece of sandpaper.

3. I find that reeds tend to last longer if they are used for a series of short durations rather than a few marathon practice sessions. Reeds aren’t free!

4. Most importantly — when you play on a single or very limited number of reeds, you train your embouchure to play on that single reed. While I will admit that, when I don’t follow my own advice and do this, my tone sounds a little bit better for as long as that reed lasts, I struggle once that reed is worn out. By playing on a lot of different reeds — rotating to a different reed every 10 to 15 minutes of practice — you train your embouchure to play the SAXOPHONE, not a single reed. You learn quickly to adjust to slight variations in reed strength, balance and response, and you end up sounding good on a lot of different reeds.

So with all that said, I think I’ll change number 10 to Dr. Burke’s Rule Number One — have a reasonable number of reeds in use at all times based on your budget and level of experience. More to come!