When I started studying the saxophone (and music) seriously, I had one goal … to be the best saxophonist I could be. Everything else I did was in some way centered on that goal, either to actually play better, or to position myself to find a way to make a living centered on the saxophone.  I studied music history because they made me if I wanted to stay in school; music theory because I thought it might help me get a job; flute and clarinet because… umm… well, because. Even though I was doing all those things, they were on the periphery. My focus was always the saxophone. In short, I had tunnel vision. Although I was going through the motions of a lot of musical activities outside of the saxophone, I didn’t really enjoy it, and I didn’t fully appreciate much music outside of the literature for the saxophone.

Last week, I had the opportunity to play for a Lenten Taize Service. Nothing really out of the ordinary for me at this point to be playing at a church service – it’s pretty much a part of my weekly routine at this point. The Taize music wasn’t new to me, either. We’ve been using several of these as part of the Eucharist for the last couple of years, at least. It wasn’t even strange that I was playing them on flute; I’ve been begrudgingly pulling my flute out for these (and a few other things) from the time it somehow got out that I could play the silly thing. Two things were different — the first is that we were able to recruit a really good violinist to play for these services. The other thing that was different — I caught myself having fun. Fun, playing flute, with violin and organ?!? What? After the initial shock and shame, I realized that this has been going on for a while now. I’ve been enjoying being a choir director, choosing to listen to things like Yo-Yo Ma playing the Bach Cello Suites instead of something on the saxophone. It really has happened … I’m no longer just a saxophonist, I’m a musician.

Where am I going with this? I have no idea (remember the blog is, after all, Random Notes!) Just a thought that’s been going through my head  In the meantime, I’m bummed that I have to miss the second Taize service tomorrow, but am looking forward to the third one on April 1st. Who knows, maybe I’ll even practice my flute!

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.

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.

WARNING! What you are about to see here is being attempted by a professional idiot under less than controlled circumstances. Do not try this at home!

In all seriousness, this isn’t a normal do-it-yourself repair. I spent 2 years teaching in a financially challenged public school and managed to accumulate quite a bit of repair experience — including having ample opportunity to experiment on instruments that were dumpster bound regardless of what I or a professional repair-person did to them. Even with what I know, I thought long and hard about doing this myself before undertaking the repair. The things that I took into consideration before breaking out the tool kit were:

• This is a decent instrument, but it isn’t my Selmer alto. I actually acquired it while I was at that financially challenged school for free, invested a few dollars in having it overhauled, and I’ve been having a blast with it since. If I had botched the repair, it wouldn’t have ruined the value of the instrument, and I wouldn’t have been out any more than I would have been had I taken it to the shop in the first place.
• There isn’t any lacquer left on the horn. If there was, I wouldn’t have even thought about doing this since I would have burned off a fairly large spot with my low-tech micro-torch, and I wouldn’t have a way to fix that.
• I needed my horn fixed ASAP. I perform on this instrument at least weekly, and I couldn’t be without it while it was in the shop.
• The post that broke free was in a location that allowed me to remove the key-work and have a clear shot without a really serious risk of damaging a pad or melting the solder on an adjoining post.
• Seemed like it would be a cool thing to put in the blog…
• Finally, I really need to take the horn in and have some adjustments done anyway, so I wasn’t too worried about knocking something out of adjustment or having a pad not seat when I put it back together.

So, here’s how I did the repair. Just remember, I’m not a professional repair person, so I make no promises as to this being completely right!

 Step One

The solder I used for this is a low-melt point Silver solder. It melts at about 430 degrees Fahrenheit. That means, in order to successfully reattach the post, both the post itself and the attachment point had to be heated to about the melt point. Pads burn at that temperature. So, I had to take the keys around the post location off, which translated to the entire upper and lower main stacks. To get the lower stack off, the palm keys had to come off as well. That’s in addition to the low B, B-flat, and C-sharp key and the G-sharp key.

Step Two

Once the instrument was apart, I carefully cleaned the mating surfaces of both the post and the body of the instrument. During the cleaning, the goal is to remove any and all oxidation, excess old solder and and dirt, grease, oil, lint, or anything else that might compromise the solder joint. I’ve found it works best to first use some form of abrasive (I used 220 followed by 400 grit aluminum oxide sandpaper) to remove the oxidation, and then some form of solvent to remove the dust and any other residue. For this repair, I used automotive brake cleaner (somewhere, a professional repair person is screaming “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!!!”) applied to a lint-free cloth. BRAKE CLEANER DISSOLVES LACQUER! It also dissolves your skin and a few other things (paint, your vinyl flooring, your newly refinished dining room table…) but since my horn doesn’t have any lacquer any more, brake cleaner offers a distinct advantage in that it is specifically designed to dry without leaving any residue. A less destructive option would be rubbing alcohol. Acetone is another possibility, but it is also pretty rough on finishes. Nail polish remover, although primarily made from acetone, is NOT a good option because it has oil added to it.

With everything cleaned and the disassembly done, there was just one more step before soldering — flux. This is an absolutely essential step. Flux must be applied to both surfaces or the solder will not bond with the parts you are soldering. It is also a step that needs to be done very carefully. If you use too little, the joint will fail. If you use too much or apply it on too large an area, when the joint is heated, it drips and runs all over the place, and it’s very difficult to clean off once the joint has cooled.

Step Three — Solder

If you’ve done a lot of work with soldering, this is the easy step. The hardest part here was making sure the post was in exactly the right position, but that wasn’t even too difficult on this particular repair. If you haven’t done much soldering … well, first of all, you shouldn’t be doing this in the first place … but if you are anyway, the keys to getting a good joint are 1) to heat the parts up and let the parts you are soldering melt the solder — DON’T let the heat source melt the solder directly and 2) don’t try to fit the two pieces together too tightly — there needs to be a layer of solder between the two surfaces.

Once the joint has cooled, there will be some slight discoloration, similar to what you see above. Significant discoloration means the joint was overheated, the area around the repair wasn’t clean (dirt, oil, or excess flux) or the heat source (if it’s a flame-based source) wasn’t burning cleanly.

I also put the torch I used and the solder I used in this shot. They are both important! The micro-torch produces a very small (hot) flame, which allows the heat to be localized to the repair site. It burns butane, so the flame isn’t TOO hot. I actually have an oxy-MAPP torch that produces a smaller flame, but that would have been hot enough to burn right through the instrument, or at least melt the surrounding posts off. As I mentioned earlier, the solder as a Silver based solder with a relatively low melting point (for Silver, anyway). Lead and tin based solders, although easier to work with because of their lower melting point, are not strong enough for this repair. Had this post been in a location that was subject to more stress (for exampl, the palm keys), the horn would have gone to the shop where they could have used a stronger Silver solder.

Last Step — Test Fit

Before I put the entire instrument back together, I test fit the affected mechanism. In this case, I was able to then put the rest of the keys back on without re-removing the low B/B-flat keys, but it is always worth the time to test fit. I got lucky — it fit perfectly, no binding, the rod went right in.

Once that was done, it was just a matter of getting the horn reassembled. All told, took maybe an hour, most of which was the cleaning and prep combined with getting all the springs back on correctly.