Clarinet practice journal: Creative PracticeChoose your practice: the query o...

Clarinet practice journal: Creative PracticeChoose your practice: the query o...: Creative Practice Choose your practice: the query of the day. A great way to start: Choose one, or two intervals; play these interval...

Creative Practice

Choose your practice: the query of the day.


A great way to start: Choose one, or two intervals; play these intervals (i.e. a major 2nd, and a perfect 5th), and play (your choice) Bb, C, F---;  Now play A, B, E.  You've gone down 1/2 step.  Continue 1/2 steps down, or up, into your comfortable range.


Now take the major 2nd, and a perfect 5th, and play them in consecutive extended intervals (Major 2nd, minor 3rd, Perfect 4th); Play these up, or down, through your comfortable range (i.e. a minor 3rd: Bb, C, F; Db, Eb, Ab; E, F#, B; G, A, D).


You will find your fingers warm and pliable without trying, and you will be working on new material that would not have been thought about!


Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach

Basic Music Vocabulary Genome - December 21, 2012: With New Prologue

Prologue 
(of December, 2012)

I'm giving you the complete fundamental set of genes contained in the basic cell of the Major/Minor Diatonic musical vocabulary, and how to practice and  internalize it; how to make it your personal store of musical building blocks.  You can hear and copy and practice many licks of your own, but they will all be forms of bits of the materials I offer here.

You can copy licks you like from the greats and practice them in every key, and this is a very good thing, for when you play these 'licks', they will sound the way you 'hear' them, and that's not a copy, but your own innovation.  The building blocks of the 'licks' will again be found in this information on 'basic vocabulary'.  All unique, original material is derived from the fundamentals, then using your creative processes, transformed into your unique way of hearing.  This is always your own and original, as long as you've internalized the 'basic vocabulary' and submerged it into your subconscious pool.  The  
way you express the vocabulary will depend on the intensity with which you're hearing in the present moment as you perform and on "the vividness of your aural imagination"---and on the technical processes (I will soon be posting an essay/blog on what processes are and how to develop them) you've developed in long hours of practice. 

Good luck in developing your destiny.
Errol Weiss Schlabach December 22, 2012  

**********

     For years, I’ve been a compulsive practicer, attempting to acquire ability in as much of the musical vocabulary as time permitted.  ---Ahh, the RUB!: “as time permitted”.

     Of course, the combinations for those 12 pitches of the chromatic are endless and no one can hope to cover all musical vocabulary, no matter how much time you are allowed.  But over the last year I have developed a system, whereby in 12 days, in about an hour a day, you can literally cover just about every arpeggio and scale that you well encounter in any situation, be it in the written literature, or in improvising over a  harmonic situation.

As Betty Davis said seventy years ago: “get ready for a bumpy ride”, for learning to improvise is just that: BUMPY !!!!

Oh but SO rewarding.

As you become more and more able to control the MATERIALS of musical vocabulary, the power of that ability becomes exstatic, and all in life seems possible.

This elixir can be so enticing, that itmust be handled with care. as examples as Miles and Gerry mulligan prove the precauticion.

Enough of my poetics!!
On to the practice routine:

u now have all the basic raw material for just about any tonal music ever written, or yet to be written.  As you begin  this study, the first thing

to do is make sure you can play all of the scales and arpeggios from memory, for this is essential to using your vocabulary spontaneously.

I believe the best way to do this  is take one note of the chromatic scale for

the days practice and play all the 14 arpeggios and 14 scales from that note, as I have done from  ‘C’ in the above examples.  In 12 days you will have played virtually all arpeggios and scales that you will normally encounter.

Please leave your comments on how you like, or dislike my words, warnings, and expressions of joy at learning the vocabulary of MUSIC!!!!

Sincerely,

Errol Weiss Schlabach

(genomemeuzik1942.blogspot.com)

TONGUING TECHNIQUE

Woodwind play and practice

WITH ONLY ONE DRUMSTICK

THE NEXT PART OF THE WARM UP TO A PRACTICE SESSION IS A DISCUSSION ON ARTICULATION, THE SINCLE MOST IMPORTANT FACET OF PLAYING TO GIVE A PLAYER HIS PERSONAL STYLE.  THE INFLECTIONS GIVEN BY THE TONGUE ON THE REED ARE AS NUMEROUS AS THOSE GIVEN BY A VIOLIN BOW ON THE STRING BOARD, OR THE DRUM STICK ON A DRUM HEAD, AND ALL THREE ARE SIMILAR IN EXECUTION.

I’LL FIRST DISCUSS SINGLE TONGUING AND THEN TELL HOW DOUBLE TONGUING CAN BE DEVELOPED ON CLARINET AND SAXOPHONE, AND HOW BY THIS PRACTICE THE EMBOCHURE AS WELL AS TONE AND SOUND WILL BE IMPROVED.

‘DAH’ IS THE BASIC TONGUING SYLLABLE I RECOMMEND, AND I SAY BASIC FOR AS ONE’S TONGUING BECOMES MORE ADVANCED, OTHER SYLLABLES WILL BE FOUND FOR VARIED INFLECTIONS.  WHEN ‘DAH’ IS USED THE THROAT IS OPEN AND RELAXED AND THE TONGUE VERY RELAXED, LYING AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR MOUTH.

THE TONGUING MOTION IS DONE BY PLACING THE REED ON THE TONGUE MAYBE ½ INCH BACK ON THE REED, AND WHEN THE ‘DAH’ MOTION IS DONE THE TONGUE FLICKS OFF THE REED, CAUSING THE REED TO START TO VIBRATE AND PRODUCE SOUND.  THE STRONGER THE TONGUE IS FLICKED OFF THE REED, THE STRONGER THE ACCENT OF THE NOTE PRODUCED.

MORE ON #2 TONGUING TECHNIQUE 

The Larnyx

CHAPTER ONE

Discovering your best personal sound

The larynx is a doughnut-shaped muscle, wrapped around the vocal cords, forming the “voice box”, and thus determining the timbre and quality of one’s voice.  Wind instrumentalists seldom realize the crucial role the larynx also plays in deciding the quality of their instrument’s sound.

By exercising and developing larynx flexibility you’ll accomplish the most important step in the acquisition of a beautiful, personal tone.

Chapter 4 of this book will be "Meuzik Genome", my name for the complete map of musical vocabulary.  Before one can use this extensive vocabulary, she or he must have voice: one that's beautiful is better.

So, that having been said, I will now go on to explain what, in my opinion, is this best and most effective way to begin a daily practice session:

Playing Harmonics with the Larynx.

This is done by choosing a fundamental tone, one which uses the ‘full pipe’ of your instrument: low Bb is good on saxophone, low E on clarinet, and low C or B on flute.  When attempting to reach an octave higher than this fundamental one, you are using the same technique as playing the bugle, which is all done with the larynx.  Below are the notes of the overtone series for each of the 3 woodwinds on the notes I mentioned. 

(Musical Example #1)

The pattern used to complete the harmonics should be chosen freely as in play, changing it daily; larynx flexibility develops by repetitively moving up and down the series, with absolutely no help from the tongue, and a minimum movement and pressure from the teeth, lips, and jaw.  Below are some pattern goals to strive for.

(Musical Example #2)

On saxophone there’s a really effective larynx warm-up, which I call ‘larynx trills’ because of the similarity to trumpet ‘lip trills’.

Below you will see the set of fingerings for the notes able to be ‘trilled’.  My good friend and master saxophonist, Ronnie Deale, ‘mined’ and assembled these fingerings.

(Musical Examply #3)

The feel of these ‘trills’ will take a bit of time to internalize, but to begin, press the fingering for the particular note, and while blowing the note firmly, feel the larynx fluctuate between the vowel sounds ‘eee’ and ‘ahhh’.  The notes being played should sound like the interval of a minor third, the ‘eee’ for the high tone and the ‘ahhh’ for the lower.  ‘Trill’ the ‘notes’ slowly at first, then gradually increase the speed, always remaining even and controlled.

The use of these ‘trills’ in practical playing situations can only be learned from the ‘Master’s Recordings’, i.e. Phil Woods, Michael Brecker, Sam Donahue, to name only a few.

Another enjoyable exercise is to simply play bugle calls.

The last part of this practice beginning is breath control.

In my next post, I will describe my method for choosing 'long tones' and their intervals that best flex the Larnyx.

Til then, God Bless and high regards,

Errol
Please give feedback and comments!!!
(genomemeuzik1942.blogspot.com)