Zombie Myths and Bad Habits Perpetuated in the Band Room. C'mon Music Educators!

Some ideas just don't seem to go away.

As music educators I believe most in our field really do want to see their kids succeed and thrive. However, we seem to shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot from time to time. Often, it's by repeating the same statements or ideals made by our band directors. Hence, we have what I call 'Zombie Myths'; the myths which just don't seem to die! Beyond that, we often pick up some of the bad habits that we observed (but didn't necessarily know were bad) through our band/orchestra/choir directors or our private instructors. Our heroes aren't perfect, y'all. Neither is their teaching philosophy. As a music educator, or future music educator, one must look at the dogma of your teachers with a critical eye. Let's get a few of these zombie myths out of the music room.

• Some scales/keys are harder than others. FALSE. C# major has the exact same number of pitches as C major. If we start treating them the same, perhaps students won't stay awake the night before an audition hoping the judges don't call B or F# in the scale portion. I think as music educators we sometimes look as some keys as harder than others because that's how WE felt in the same situation. Let's get past that.
• High school band is all about marching trophies. No, it's learning how to be a musician and play your instrument. I came from a high school marching program which was very successful. Do you know how much that impacted my life as a musician the second the last contest was over? ZERO. You can enjoy marching band, perhaps even prefer that end of the field yourself. However, if you make that the central focus of your program, you are doing your students a great disservice. Enjoy the Blue Devils but look to the Chicago Symphony and President's Own Marine Band for more inspiration.
• Step up instruments/mouthpieces/reeds are one size fits all. STOP THAT. No, not everyone needs the same brand/model horn. No, saxophonists don't all do best on the Selmer S80 C*. No, all clarinetists don't need to be on a 3 1/2 strength reed by their junior year. Educate yourself on instruments and accessories outside of those you majored in in college.
• If your students know the shows of the last four DCI champions and zero pros on their instruments, they're doing it wrong. If you don't know at least 2 major names on each instrument to share with your students, YOU'RE doing it wrong. 
• The families/band boosters are their to support, not run, the band. You might occasionally need to gently remind them of that fact. See my statement about marching band. 
• Yes, you should still maintain chops on the instrument in which you majored. Show the kids that you love music so much that you still want to play, too. Besides, if YOU play at a high level in front of the kids, it might inspire THEM to play at a high level.

It's About the Music, Period.

Greetings after a short absence!


I was busy trying an interesting concept. Write less, practice more 😋

Having said that, the practice has been pretty specific to once and for all address deficiencies in my fingers and articulation and is slowly but surely coming along, thank you very much.


I have to keep reminding myself of that last bit....."surely coming along". I still have so many ingrained insecurities about my ability and fall into a lot of self fulfilling prophecies. I have a feeling that though my personal journey as a non-traditional student may be slightly unique; the insecurities certainly aren't.

This leads me to my lesson this week and a statement which has been a complete game changer for me.

I was preparing Karel Husa's "Elegie et Rondeau" for a recital performance this week and my professor, Mark McArthur, was listening to a run through with my pianist. Afterwards, in his commentary, he pointed out a series of glissandos in the Rondeau and said something to the effect of "What you did with these glissandos didn't fit the piece at all. Why did you perform them like that?". I responded that I was just trying to play them cleanly. Mark explained something fairly poignant to me......that I was worried about simple glissandos because I had such little confidence in my technique and then said something that sounds so simple on the surface but has caused a complete change in my mindset this week. I didn't write it down when he said it. I should have. However, the gist of the statement was this:


Never base your musical ideas or interpretation on what you think your technique is capable of doing. Instead, base your technique on what musical ideas you want to express.

It's a simple enough statement but for me, it was a total eye opener.


Yes, you need good technique.
Yes, you need a good sound.
Yes, you need to have solid reading chops.

Mostly, though, you need to have the ability to serve the music and use it to say what you and the composer wanted to say. If something gets in your way, don't allow it to affect the piece. Instead, get in the practice room and work the problem until you can get past it and just play.


Work hard
Get better
Just play and let nothing get in your way.

Finish the Sentence and Defeat the Demons.

I am one big ole hypocrite...


There, I admit it.


Here I sit, putting on airs of being the bastion of positivity on this blog...having my classmates always coming to me to be the word of encouragement (looking at YOU, Lilah) and...truth be told...


I'M A GIANT MESS!

   It's simple. I put a ton of pressure on myself and spend way too much time in my own head. I live or die on every single note; let alone every performance. I'm aware of the risk I'm taking and it has creeped into my head and sits there lurking 24 hours a day. It decided to hop down off the bookshelf in my brain and tapdance on my ego during last night's lesson . At the age of 47, a combination of exhaustion, fear, frustration, and health issues took over and for the first time I can remember I cried in a lesson. Mark was great and was as much counselor as professor but I left with my tail between my legs.

   This morning's practice session wasn't much better. I was dropping notes, missing things I shouldn't, getting more and more frustrated and not able to calm myself. Furthermore I was too stubborn to do the very thing I tell y'all to do and walk away. Finally, I was to the point where I couldn't play the opening two measures of Ibert's Concerino da Camera cleanly because my left hand was just so tight and because I was just so angry and frustrated with myself. I realized where I was, put my horn up, and went to get lunch.

It was on the walk to lunch that I had the worst thought and then what alcoholics call 'a moment of clarity'.

The worst-  " Why the **** did you think you could do this?! You will NEVER make it as a saxophonist! NEVER!"


The moment of clarity began with one word--- "UNLESS"

"Unless you can learn to relax and work through these sticking points, in which case you'll be just fine so work on those this afternoon".


Wow. That was a simple answer. That one word, UNLESS, just changes everything.

"You will NEVER lose weight.....unless you improve your eating habits and exercise."
"I'll NEVER be able to afford that car....unless I stop going to the bar every weekend and lay off the new video game purchase every other week."

Now, does this choice 100% guarantee that I am going to have a fabulous jury on Monday and that I'm going to be a huge success in music?

No.

However, do you know what it does do? It puts the proverbial ball back in my court. It gives ME the control again.

I'm going to take my 'unless' and head back to the practice room to knock my demons out of the way.

Find your demon beating word
Finish your sentence
Get it done.

So Who Decides What's Hard?

I had a good lesson last night....


   Mark and I spent an hour working on Berio's Sequenza IX and Christian Lauba's Prelude to Vertigo (a multiphonic funky groove!). I walked out of the lesson thinking "Now I'm finally playing some real GRADUATE LEVEL lit!".




.....am I?


   What makes this grad level literature? Sure each work is challenging for various reasons but is it something that requires a piece of paper from a University stating that I'm worthy to delve into these works? Are these pieces actually more challenging than other saxophone works by, say, Ibert and Ingolf Dahl or are they just different?

   Who awoke one morning and decided that Lauba and Berio only wrote pieces for grad level and above?

  I think this is a mentality that I'm slowly see change in some studios

(Hey guys, I think the thoughts about mindset here are appropriate for every instrument but I'm a saxophonist so I'm going to use saxophone stuff to make my points, sorry.)

   So, back in the 1960s the saxophone virtuoso, guru, Supreme Leader of the Jedi Council Donald "The Don" Sinta released the album American Music. It was, and still is, one of the 'gold standard' recordings for classical saxophone. It's sort of the Kind of Blue of the genre...it should be one of the first in a saxophonist's collection.

  ....but let's talk about what's on the album...

   On this recording you had THE high level saxophone/piano lit of the mid 20th century; works by Paul Creston, Bernard Heiden, Warren Benson, Walter Hartley.....this was, for the time, grad level.

Now,  high school kids play the pieces....WELL.


   What changed? Well, I think for starters, we got more people teaching the saxophone at a high level. The second point, however, is I think the more important part...


   WE FORGOT TO TELL THE KIDS THAT THIS MUSIC IS HARD!!!


   If you don't instill a 'Oh man this is going to be hard' mindset in a student and instead instill a 'Man, a new piece! This is cool!' mindset, how much more could they accomplish?


  A good example involves a couple current freshmen at Arizona State. Dr. Chris Creviston brought in Matt and Tina this year and they are already tearing it up. Matt has already performed Edison Denisov's Sonata and Tina, by all accounts, is absolutely killin on John Anthony Lennon's Distances Within Me. Now, these are 'traditionally' hurdles for grad school students and they are being handled well by a couple of kids who just a few months ago were in high school. Do you think Dr. Creviston assigned these pieces and then said 'Just so you know, these are ridiculously hard and only grad students should play them.' ? More likely he assigned them and said 'Get it done!'.

  Another example is one of my professor's own students; Philip. Philip is currently a high school senior and I recently heard him perform one of the two 'heavy' pieces from my senior recital; Yoshimatsu's Fuzzy Bird Sonata. Do you think at any point Mark said 'Yeah, this is for seniors in college!'?

  What's the point? Well, perhaps....just perhaps....a lot of what's considered 'this level' or 'that level' as far as music literature has to do with stigmas and old mindsets.

Don't let someone else's mindset interfere with your goals. Challenge yourself. Get the chops and play the lit.

Get it done.

Lock It Down- Success....Simplified.

We all have goals....



   Some are lofty, some not so lofty, and some exist only in our dreams (I'm never going to be the reincarnation of Cannonball Adderley and perform with Miles...). However, we have them and are usually looking for ways to achieve them. Often, these dreams are also the source of our greatest frustrations. How do we get there? How do we achieve what our heart so badly wants to achieve?

  The answer is simple....but not easy...

  We lock down fundamentals to the point where we can get out of our own way and do what we want to do with our instrument.


I know...I know....

  Some are you are already saying 'but....but...I already do scales. I already do long tones. I already do etudes!'

 Ok, do you 'do' them or do you approach them with the same mindset that you would your dream concerto?

 You see, so much of what we do in the practice room ends up being 'instrumentalist on auto-pilot'. Yeah, we do scales. Yeah, we do long tones. Yeah, we do articulation work. How much effort do we REALLY put into these things, though?


"Thought of the Day: In music, it can all come down to whether or not you love practicing your scales." - Dr. Timothy McAllister


 Now, I don't know about ALL but he isn't far off here. You MUST give the fundamental work as much love an attention as you do your favorite lit.


 So you do long tones? Really? Can you play the lowest note on the horn with as wide a dynamic range and as in tune as you can the top note on your horn? Is there a significant difference in timbre? Do you have the control needed to play anything in the lit?

  So you do scales? Really? Are your scales at 120 bpm as smooth and even as they are at 60 bpm? How about 130....150....200? How about 3rds, 4ths, arpeggios, whole tone? You get the idea.


 Now, I freely admit, this is an area that I'm working on as well. I must. If I am to play the literature which I really desire to play (and play it at a level which will leave jaws on the floor).

Fundamentals never stop being cool. Don't do them because your teacher tells you. Do them because if you are going to take the time to learn an instrument then take the time to REALLY learn it.

Approach fundamentals from that place of joy and discovery. See just how far you can take things. More importantly, notice how much easier your literature becomes when you become a certified 'CHOP MONSTER'.

Turn on the metronome and the drone. Get your scale book out.

GET.IT.DONE.

The Morning After- Dealing With Performances Which Don't Go Your Way.

Wow.


 UNLV's Saxophone Studio Recital was last night and, well.....


....things could have gone better on my end.

I walked off stage feeling as if my performance of Ibert's Concertino da Camera would have Jacques spinning in his grave for a few days. I did the right things as far as stage etiquette: Smiled, acknowledged my collaborative pianist, bowed....but...

inside I was screaming "WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!"

I walked off stage, into the green room, and just sunk my head into my hands. I was nauseous, I wanted to cry, I wanted to apologize to the audience for what they had to endure.

So what happened?


This is new territory for me.....not having an off performance, but the reason why. I had almost paralyzing performance anxiety last night. I couldn't breath. My hands were shaking so badly that they almost fell off the horn.


I'm the same guy who, at concerto competition finals back at my alma mater just 18 months ago, was winking at his accompanist in the middle of a performance and was on stage to remind everyone else that they were competing for second place. I OWNED the stage.

Now, my current performance anxiety issue isn't the point of this blog. That's a journey for Mark McArthur (my major professor) and me to navigate. The point is, things didn't go the way I wanted them to and you know what?


The sun still rose this morning.


So, what do you do in a situation like this? It's time to work things out in your head...


WAS IT AS BAD AS YOU (or in this case, I ), thought?
Probably not. In fact, if memory serves, the lyrical sections from last night were actually pretty darned good.


DOES THIS PERFORMANCE DEFINE YOU?
It doesn't even define you for the rest of the week. No one remembers the games where Michael Jordan went 2-20. They remember the games where he dropped 50 points on someone. This is a journey. This likely won't be your last performance.

LOOK AT THE BAD AND THE GOOD!
What happened? WHY did it happen? Is there a pedagogical thing which can be done to lessen the chance of it happening again? Were you simply not prepared? Were you being stubborn about some things. In my case, though I knew better, one of the problems was that the back of my mind had be set on playing the work at the suggested performance tempo because I'm a grad student and I should be able to do that, right? WRONG. I'd only had the piece for a month or so and only gotten three rehearsals with my pianist.

WAS IT RECORDED? GIVE IT A FEW DAYS BEFORE YOU LISTEN.
Listen with peers and/or your teacher after the wounds have subsided a bit. Allow yourself to be objective.


We're all going to have bad days at the office. We're all going to be sickened by them. What we cannot allow is for a bad performance to become an anchor which continually weighs us down. Shake it off, pick yourself up, and promise yourself that the next one will be better.

This is a journey. If you journey far enough you'll have your fair share of bumps and bruises. The journey makes those scars worth it, though.

My next solo performance will have jaws on the floor. I promise you that. More importantly, I promise ME that.

The Non-Negotiables for Wind Player Success.

So,


  I'm preparing to dive down into the orchestra pit for a three performance run of Prokofiev's wonderful ballet Romeo and Juliet. Before I do, though, I wanted to share some thoughts with you.

  You see, one of the cool things I get to do at UNLV is perform in the Wind Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Tom Leslie. Maestro Leslie is a big name in the field and has even been president of the American Bandmasters' Association. One of the things that I noticed when receiving the syllabus to the Wind Orchestra was a list from Maestro Leslie called his 'Non-negotiables'. It was basically a list of rules which, when implemented by the ensemble, would all but guarantee the highest level of performance and success. Here's the list:

 They make perfect sense, don't they?

It got me thinking "Great! These are good rules for an ensemble but how about for the rest of the day? What are steadfast rules which will all but guarantee success and growth for the wind player?" Well, here's what I came up with....


YE OLDE MUSIC MAJOR'S WIND PLAYER NON-NEGOTIABLES:

1. Do some form of practice daily (I include score study, critical listening, visualization, and active recovery in with this. Giving your chops a day off every week isn't a bad idea)
2. Do long tones, overtone work, mouthpiece work, etc EVERY practice session.
3. Do scales, arpeggios, scale fragments, or patterns and articulation work EVERY practice session.
4. Sight read as often as possible.
5. Use a metronome in EVERY practice session.
6. Use a tuner in EVERY practice session (By tuner I mean a drone or some sort of fixed pitch. You cannot learn to tune with your eyes).
7. Play with people better than you as often as possible. (This is a big one.)
8. Perform as often as possible.
9. Approach the practice room from a place of joy, gratitude, and curiosity. If it feels like a grind, pack up your horn and come back later. Your mindset is wrong.
10. Learn active recovery techniques. What we do is in fact a physical activity and repetitive use injuries are real and debilitating. You want to be able to do this for the rest of your life, right?
11. Learn Alexander Technique, body mapping, or some other method of proper alignment and set up to minimize the chance of injury and maximize playing enjoyment.
12. Record yourself often. Listen later so you can be objective.
13. Video yourself often. Look for hitches in your alignment, set up, embouchure, etc.
14. Tell them you want the gig, then SHOW them you want the gig.
15. Learn to market yourself as a performer not from a place of arrogance but from quiet confidence and professionalism.
16. ALWAYS be professional on the stage and in rehearsal.
17. Maintain balance. Find a non musical hobby. We all need a way to 'get away' mentally.
18. Learn to say 'no' when you need to. 
19. LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN- Find the best musicians in the world, not necessarily on your instrument, and listen constantly. 
20. HAVE FUN- If you aren't enjoying it, then why are you doing it?