This is a statement which, to me, is akin to 'You kids get off my lawn!'.
Having said that, years ago, when I was a young performance major at Memphis, a metronome was this thing with a big pendulum style arm and a dial in the back for winding it up. A tuner? Usually the old 'Strobe-O-Conn' , which was about 25 lbs and had a 1940s style microphone. If your program was lucky they MIGHT have a 'Doctor Beat' metronome somewhere. Oh, computers? Yeah, unless you had a Commodore 64 plugged into your TV, the average computer ran about $2500.
Times have changed a bit, huh? Shouldn't the way we use technology in the practice room change as well?
Now, I am in NO WAY suggesting that effective practice routines should be changed. My favorite pedagogical statement is 'Fundamentals never stop being cool'. Long tones are long tones. Scales, arpeggios, and patterns are still just as important now as they were when Mozart was composing. Articulation studies have as much merit as they always have. What I'm talking about, however, is using the current level of technology to better understand needs and how we progress in the practice room.
Many of my readers don't really remember the days before cell phones and even smart phones have been around for a decade or so now (WOW!). That is some serious world changing technology, isn't it? Yes, they're great for showing the dumb thing you just did on Snapchat but can also be a great tool in the practice room. To this end, most (I think) music students have some form of metronome/tuner installed on their phone. Fabulous. Let's discuss one in particular and the instant feedback it can provide.
It was just about this time last year that I had a grad school audition here at UNLV and my professor, Mark McArthur (Has it been a year?! WOW!) At the time I was using an app called 'Tunable'. It's a really well done metronome/tuner app. However, Mark turned me on to one called Tonal Energy. Tonal Energy did everything Tunable could do plus one BIG feature. It has a a spectrum analyzer where you can actually see what's happening when you play. Ok, first things first. I'm a big believer in the fact that you shouldn't use the visual aspect of a tuner very much. As the esteemed former sax professor at Michigan, Don Sinta, was fond of saying - "You don't tune with your eyes". Therefore, I believe in doing long tones, and even scales, with a drone. One cool feature of tonal energy is that it allows you to not only play against a drone, but do so with multiple pitches. For example, were you to use a C scale as a long tone exercise, you could set the tuner to drone a C and G; therefore giving you not only the tonic (C) but the dominant (G, the 5th scale degree) to tune against. It makes those ears work a bit harder.
Ok, back to the spectrum analyzer. This part gets a bit more involved, as it will require two phones, or a phone and a tablet. I use both a small iphone as well as an Ipad mini. I know the Ipad is a bit pricy for a lot of students. For this purpose, I recommend you look at the Kindle Fire. The Fire HD starts at $50 and will allow use of the Tonal Energy App.
Ok, plug some headphones in to the tablet and have it play the drone. Set the phone's Tonal Energy app to the spectrum analyzer feature. Watch what's happening? How quickly did you find the pitch? How steady was your sound? These are things the spectrum analyzer will show you. It shows progress but it also makes it impossible to ignore any potential issues.
Last night I took three screen shots of my use of the Tonal Energy app. The first was my alto mouthpiece pitch of a concert A. The second, articulation work. The third, I did a vibrato study as someone who was just beginning to learn vibrato might do. Here's what they look like.
First, the mouthpiece pitch:
As you can see, keeping the pitch steady and the air steady wasn't easy. It's a work in progress for even advanced players. (I know someone will notice that the pitch listed is F#. I had the tuner set for alto. It's another cool feature). I had a concert a droning through headphones.
Next, the articulation work:
Four quarters, eight eighths, sixteen sixteenths. Not bad, but I could make it more even. The visual really shows the detail of what I did, doesn't it? Note, I had the metronome on my phone playing through headphones so it wouldn't affect the analysis. The one downside of the app is that the spectrum analyzer picks up every sound; even that coming from the app itself.
Finally, a youngster learning vibrato:
The overall tone appears nice and full. However, the green line in the middle should be a steady pulse going from slightly below the pitch and back up to the pitch. In other words, it should resemble a sine wave. Something like this:
Now, I have no affiliation whatsoever with Tonal Energy. I just find that the more I use it in the practice room, the better some of the fine details of my playing become. It's $3.99 at the moment and if you get it for one device, you actually can download it on all of your devices.
Take your fundamental work and use technology for instant feedback on where you are and what you need to address....
Now...
GET OFF MY LAWN!
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