Thoughts and Pedagogical Questions (Please feel free to respond here)

I think about things a lot. I have a pretty fair case of ADD (yes really). A side effect of this, I think, is that random thoughts pop in my head a lot. Sometimes, the thoughts are things like wondering why the lakes up here in Michigan are so much clearer than the ones back in west Tennessee. Other times they are about pedagogy. Recently, due to some master classes up here (done with various instruments, the most recent being clarinet guru Yehuda Gilad), I have started picking up on a few statements and think they carry through into saxo-world as well. With that said, I pose the following thoughts and questions about pedagogy. Feel free to join in the conversation!

• One of the statements made by Mr. Gilad is that we often try to artificially create things in terms of embouchure and things like voicing. He asks 'why mess with Mother Nature?'. The more I thought about it the more it resonates with me. Work with a student to where their embouchure is solid, flexible, and COMFORTABLE, with enough tension to create a seal around the mouthpiece and reed. Beyond that, leave it alone! As far as voicing, he really doesn't like the term. I believe voicing (and the training thereof) may have some different implications for clarinet than it does saxophone and the mindset might need to be a bit different there. Voicing on saxophone used to be considered an 'extended technique'. With that thought on 'extended technique'...
• I have a few questions about extended technique and how I'm going to apply them in my own teaching. First, isn't it about time we stopped referring to altissimo as 'extended technique'? If nearly every piece of saxophone literature today contains altissimo, it's simply part of the technique of the instrument at this point. Second-
• At what point does a teacher start incorporating these techniques with their young students? One thing I really began to understand this year is that if you don't tell your student that something is difficult (whether it be a technique or a piece of music), they go in with less fear and can generally master it much more easily. I wonder how much of this mindset should be applied to so called extended techniques. Should we teach our middle school kids about voicing as something which could be sprinkled on top of their long tone studies? If we are teaching them single tonging, why not add double tonging in high school? High school brass players learn it then and it's a technique which certainly has value for woodwind players as well. I believe some of these techniques are hard simply because we classify them as 'hard'.
• One of the big things I've picked up over the summer is how important it is to have your instrument really well adjusted. The good news with a saxophone is that if you mash the keys hard enough, even badly aligned pads will usually seal the tone hole well enough to get a sound. This creates long term problems, however, as it promotes using way too much tension to move around the horn and can cause hand and wrist issues over time. I've seen far too many musicians have to stop playing for extended periods because it became too painful to play. I would suggest watching oboists. They use only enough pressure to close the keys. While this might not totally work with the bell keys of a saxophone, I'd submit that most of us could use a much lighter touch; which, over time, would lead to not only healthier playing but a much faster technique.

Thoughts?

Comments?

Practice hard and practice SMART!!!

Get it done!