No serious music teacher neglect the matter of tone development.
Every great musician has an unmistakable, personal sound, which is recognizable to aficionados. I got to be pretty good at recognizing the better known jazz saxophone players when I was listening to a lot of jazz. I'm sure lovers of violin music can tell immediately whether they're hearing Heifetz, Menuhin, Stern, or Grumiaux.
We amateurs strive to produce a sound that is beautiful and our own, and we are taught that the way to do so is, first of all, by playing long tones. I have done a lot of that in my day, trying to turn the practice into a meditation, trying to listen hard to the sound I'm producing. But, how interesting can you make that?
About a year ago I found a pdf file of Marcel Moyse's book: "Tone Development Through Interpretation," and printed it out. The theory behind the book is clear: long tones can only get you so far; you have to put the notes together into musical phrases. Moyse, who played in orchestras, took a lot of arias from major operas and turned them into exercises, challenging the student to transpose them into different keys. For a while I was diligently playing through Moyse's exercises, but, in the end, I don't like opera that much, and playing Verdi or Donizetti arias didn't send me.
I love to play standards, however. So, I reasoned, why not use standards, especially ballads (right now I happen to be hearing John Coltrane playing "You Don't Know What Love Is," one of the greatest ballads in existence - and what Coltrane does with it!!!!) for tone development?
Musicians can use whatever music they enjoy playing as exercises in tone development. We don't need Moyse. But we have to remember to play very slowly, so that we can be attentive to the sound of every note, and to the connection between them.
Every great musician has an unmistakable, personal sound, which is recognizable to aficionados. I got to be pretty good at recognizing the better known jazz saxophone players when I was listening to a lot of jazz. I'm sure lovers of violin music can tell immediately whether they're hearing Heifetz, Menuhin, Stern, or Grumiaux.
We amateurs strive to produce a sound that is beautiful and our own, and we are taught that the way to do so is, first of all, by playing long tones. I have done a lot of that in my day, trying to turn the practice into a meditation, trying to listen hard to the sound I'm producing. But, how interesting can you make that?
About a year ago I found a pdf file of Marcel Moyse's book: "Tone Development Through Interpretation," and printed it out. The theory behind the book is clear: long tones can only get you so far; you have to put the notes together into musical phrases. Moyse, who played in orchestras, took a lot of arias from major operas and turned them into exercises, challenging the student to transpose them into different keys. For a while I was diligently playing through Moyse's exercises, but, in the end, I don't like opera that much, and playing Verdi or Donizetti arias didn't send me.
I love to play standards, however. So, I reasoned, why not use standards, especially ballads (right now I happen to be hearing John Coltrane playing "You Don't Know What Love Is," one of the greatest ballads in existence - and what Coltrane does with it!!!!) for tone development?
Musicians can use whatever music they enjoy playing as exercises in tone development. We don't need Moyse. But we have to remember to play very slowly, so that we can be attentive to the sound of every note, and to the connection between them.
