The New York Times published an article today on the question of whether practice is as important as talent in attaining a high level of performance. The article wasn't all that interesting, because, being an example of responsible journalism, it balanced the conflicting claims and concluded that people really don't know. But it impelled me to write about practicing, something I've been thinking of doing for a while.
I've been practicing the flute regularly for the past couple of years and have been making slower progress than I had hoped. Since I began playing clarinet about sixty years ago and have been playing saxophone for thirty years or more, I thought flute would be a cinch. I even thought at first that I wouldn't need a teacher at all. But I wasn't getting very far on my own, watching Youtube clips for pointers. So I found a fine teacher, Raanan Eylon, maybe one of the best flute teachers in the world.
Raanan has required me to work on the very basic elements of sound production, and our lessons have been almost exclusively focused on exercises with little intrinsic musical appeal. He is extraordinarily patient in listening to me, and he calls forth extraordinary patience in me. I am convinced that working on the very basics of music on the flute has helped my sax playing as well.
So how do I practice?
Some time ago I went to an informal concert by Yakov Hoter, an Israeli Gypsy guitar player, whose virtuosity was astonishing. Somebody asked him about practicing, and he said: The best way of practicing is to do the same thing every day.
Wait a minute! If you practice the same thing every day, how will you ever expand your repertoire?
Obviously he didn't mean to do exactly the same things every day, but he did mean - I assume, and that's how I've been working - to practice a core routine every day, before going on to try new things.
I've developed a core routine for flute, based mainly on exercises Raanan has prescribed, but also on my own long experience as a wind player.
First I do a long tone exercise given to me by Raanan (one that I also did on saxophone - apparently Marcel Moyse was the master teacher who devised it): You start on a note at the top of the register, middle C#, and you descend a half step to C, trying to keep the quality of the notes uniform. Then you go down to B natural, etc., till you get to the bottom of the instrument. I do this exercise at least twice, trying to get a focused sound, without blowing too hard.
Then I play a chromatic scale from low B up to high C. Sometimes I play the scale straight, and sometimes I go up from B to F#, then down from G to C, then up again from G#, etc. etc. That's an exercise I learned on the saxophone with my teacher, Stephen Horenstein.
After that I do a vibrato exercise that Raanan gave me. I start on the B in the middle register of the flute, play it for four counts with a four count vibrato, and then move up to C. Then I go up from C to C#, as high as I can go on the flute. I haven't yet managed to get to high C without a struggle. After going up, I go down chromatically, with the same vibrato, from B to D in the middle register.
I have three more exercises in my daily warmup: an articulation exercise, alternating a throat attack and tonguing (ku-tu-ku-tu); another vibrato exercise prescribed by Raanan involving the major and minor scales; and an exercise of my own based on the Tadd Dameron tune, Good Bait.
I play the tune starting on the low B of the flute, in E major. It ends on E, so I play it in A major, starting on E, going all the way up the flute till I reach the key of C major on the top of the instrument. Then I start the process on the low C of the flute and move up by fourths to Db major and then start again on low C# till I get to B again. I've been doing that for three months or so, and I still can't play the tune fluently in all twelve keys, but I'm getting there!
After doing all that, which takes me about 35 minutes, I play real music. I've been working on Mozart, Telemann, Handel, and Bach - but I also play some standards like "Stella by Starlight" or "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered."
Raanan insists on the importance of vibrato, because, he argues, it makes your playing communicate on a subliminal level (listen to Miles Davis' sustained notes in Stella). The vibrato comes from your diaphragm, which is the seat of your emotions, so it tells the listener what you're feeling.
An earlier teacher of mine, the late Arnie Lawrence, also kept urging me to play with vibrato, and it didn't come naturally to me, partly because my early training as a classical clarinetist, and partly because my playing is inhibited. But when I remind myself to employ vibrato, it does communicate more.
At this point all of this practice is more of an end in itself for me, a form of meditation. Listen to Raanan's sound in the link to the Schumann romances. I'll never even be halfway there!
I've been practicing the flute regularly for the past couple of years and have been making slower progress than I had hoped. Since I began playing clarinet about sixty years ago and have been playing saxophone for thirty years or more, I thought flute would be a cinch. I even thought at first that I wouldn't need a teacher at all. But I wasn't getting very far on my own, watching Youtube clips for pointers. So I found a fine teacher, Raanan Eylon, maybe one of the best flute teachers in the world.
Raanan has required me to work on the very basic elements of sound production, and our lessons have been almost exclusively focused on exercises with little intrinsic musical appeal. He is extraordinarily patient in listening to me, and he calls forth extraordinary patience in me. I am convinced that working on the very basics of music on the flute has helped my sax playing as well.
So how do I practice?
Some time ago I went to an informal concert by Yakov Hoter, an Israeli Gypsy guitar player, whose virtuosity was astonishing. Somebody asked him about practicing, and he said: The best way of practicing is to do the same thing every day.
Wait a minute! If you practice the same thing every day, how will you ever expand your repertoire?
Obviously he didn't mean to do exactly the same things every day, but he did mean - I assume, and that's how I've been working - to practice a core routine every day, before going on to try new things.
I've developed a core routine for flute, based mainly on exercises Raanan has prescribed, but also on my own long experience as a wind player.
First I do a long tone exercise given to me by Raanan (one that I also did on saxophone - apparently Marcel Moyse was the master teacher who devised it): You start on a note at the top of the register, middle C#, and you descend a half step to C, trying to keep the quality of the notes uniform. Then you go down to B natural, etc., till you get to the bottom of the instrument. I do this exercise at least twice, trying to get a focused sound, without blowing too hard.
Then I play a chromatic scale from low B up to high C. Sometimes I play the scale straight, and sometimes I go up from B to F#, then down from G to C, then up again from G#, etc. etc. That's an exercise I learned on the saxophone with my teacher, Stephen Horenstein.
After that I do a vibrato exercise that Raanan gave me. I start on the B in the middle register of the flute, play it for four counts with a four count vibrato, and then move up to C. Then I go up from C to C#, as high as I can go on the flute. I haven't yet managed to get to high C without a struggle. After going up, I go down chromatically, with the same vibrato, from B to D in the middle register.
I have three more exercises in my daily warmup: an articulation exercise, alternating a throat attack and tonguing (ku-tu-ku-tu); another vibrato exercise prescribed by Raanan involving the major and minor scales; and an exercise of my own based on the Tadd Dameron tune, Good Bait.
I play the tune starting on the low B of the flute, in E major. It ends on E, so I play it in A major, starting on E, going all the way up the flute till I reach the key of C major on the top of the instrument. Then I start the process on the low C of the flute and move up by fourths to Db major and then start again on low C# till I get to B again. I've been doing that for three months or so, and I still can't play the tune fluently in all twelve keys, but I'm getting there!
After doing all that, which takes me about 35 minutes, I play real music. I've been working on Mozart, Telemann, Handel, and Bach - but I also play some standards like "Stella by Starlight" or "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered."
Raanan insists on the importance of vibrato, because, he argues, it makes your playing communicate on a subliminal level (listen to Miles Davis' sustained notes in Stella). The vibrato comes from your diaphragm, which is the seat of your emotions, so it tells the listener what you're feeling.
An earlier teacher of mine, the late Arnie Lawrence, also kept urging me to play with vibrato, and it didn't come naturally to me, partly because my early training as a classical clarinetist, and partly because my playing is inhibited. But when I remind myself to employ vibrato, it does communicate more.
At this point all of this practice is more of an end in itself for me, a form of meditation. Listen to Raanan's sound in the link to the Schumann romances. I'll never even be halfway there!
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