Does vibrato = tone?

I don't think that I've ever considered this question thoroughly.  For years in High School I constantly heard "The vibrato is NOT the tone, it is an embellishment of the tone."  a concept  which I still agree with in simplicity.  However, how many people use their vibrato as their tone successfully?  Could those same people play without vibrato successfully?  What is so alluring about vibrato?  How do you learn to play with vibrato?

Personally, I never once took a lesson or played one single exercise involving vibrato.  One day, my Director said to me "You know, you should try playing with vibrato."  I was off.

I went to two people I respected as musicians and said "So, how do you do that?"  The first, a supreme Alto Saxophonist said "Don't try too hard, just vibrate your air, from your lip and your diaphragm, don't try to do too much of one or the other."  The second, a supreme Bassoonist and Saxophonist, started outlining all these exercises that required vibrating with the metronome.  I said "Cool, thanks" then went on my merry way.  So, I never practived it, I just started doing it.  

Rehearsal was the best place to work this stuff out because I was at the front of the section and no one was questioning me.  I furthered that by being tactful and not making the vibrato known until I thought I could do it tastefully.  A few months later I was using vibrato all the time.  Well, what kind was it?  I don't know, my vibrato is probably as broad as you can play it before people would recognize it as slow.  Back then the only vibrato title, and still the only, I knew was "french vibrato."  Ewwww, the dastardly french vibrato.  Too fast, too intense, too much vibrating, not enough sound.  Probably the reason I tend to play on the slow end.

So, is it acceptable on Bass Clarinet?  Is someone going to yell at you if they catch you using it?  Well, I've been jumped all over more than once by sectionmates in an adult band because the vibrato was messing them up.  Sorry, that's just how I do.  Funny thing, nobody ever complained before.  So, you might step on some toes, but the toes you're stepping on are not super sure what's going on, so they may just rebel, that's ok, we're all human.

How do I do this stuff?  Well, look at it this way.  Vibrato is a slight flucuation of the overall tone and pitch.  In order to play with an effective vibrato you have to have a good ear.  If you're not sure what "in tune" sounds like, then you are not ready for this.  Perhaps doing an intonation chart is a good place to start.   Get a sheet of paper and warm-up.  Tune the instrument to open G.  Now, start at the bottom of the instrument and play chromatically all the way up the horn.  Play every note "mezzo mezzo" (if you don't your volume will distort the pitch.)  Write down for every note how flat or sharp it was.  Now, you have somewhere to start.  As you begin to vibrate you'll now what you're doing to certain notes.  Without this information you'll be continually vibrating notes that are already out of tune, meaning they are most likely vibrating even MORE out of tune.  

Don't attempt to vibrate too much.  The vibration comes mostly from your air column, meaning down deep.  You've got to be able to have the air column vibrating before the air leaves your mouth.  Solely using the lip will sound more like a novelty act than classical music.    

Don't attempt to vibrate all the time.  The vibration needs to be reserved for notes that sound good vibrated.  For example, when "An American Elegy" begins the first note is in the low woodwinds and brass.  Just a simple low F I believe.  You can't vibrate this note.  It doesn't make sense.  You've got to use some musical sense.  Moreover, you can't attempt to vibrate this note to try to make it sound good.  You've good to have another method to enter and sound nice.  Vibrato doesn't always equal pretty.

If you are incapable of beginning notes without slapping the note upside the head then vibrato isn't for you.  If you cannot "non-articulate" or breath attack a note, then you can't substitute vibrato for poor fundamentals.

If you don't sound fundamentally good, meaning you can't produce a characteristic tone on the instrument, then you cannot substitute vibrato for the tone.  Vibrato will only make you sound worse.

So, as you can see, at its base vibrato does not equal tone.  However...

I've been messing around with a french-style vibrato for a couple months.  Let me tell you something, this stuff really works.  Now, I'm 31, so this means I've got 15 years under my belt playing with a vibrato but I've found that with a massive amount of control will allow you to vibrate so tightly (notice I didn't say quickly) that the vibrato and the tone meld into one unit, it's pretty cool.  So, a french vibrato is NOT fast and obnoxious, but tight, controlled, and blended. 

Does that mean it equals the tone?  No, but it does have "refrigerator rights" with tone.  There's big difference here.  Find it, and a solid french vibrato you will have.

How would I recommend practicing vibrato for vibrato's sake?  Play stuff.  I tend to stay with the Rose Studies.  32, 40, who cares, as long as it's solid music.  Teach yourself how to put the vibrato in there and how to control it.  As before, the other best place is rehearsal.  When you're tactful no one is going to know you're folling around with a vibrato, but it will improve because you'll be playing it pretty regularly.  

So, to answer the question;  No, vibrato does not equal tone.  It just has equal rights.

How about some basketball?

Alright, football season is over and now it's time for Basketball!

In case I haven't made it clear, I'm a Lakers guy.  Right now, they're the best team in the league, and alot of good that did us last season ;o(

Currently, Kobe is still the best player in Basketball.  I'm not a Lebron hater, I just know Kobe's better.  Currently, Andrew Bynum is out and we're not suffering.  Currently, Phil Jackson is still the best coach of all time.  Forget that he had MJ in Chicago, because he had little else beyond Scottie.  Currently, we are facing a strong Eastern Conference and a stronger Western Conference.  I always get nervous around teams that SHOULD make me nervous.  Boston and San Antonio.  I never get nervous with teams that should NEVER make me nervous (try Indiana in 2000, or Philly in 2001.)  

Why?

Boston because they're our arch-enemies.  They're Lex Luthor to our Superman.  They're the Joker to our Batman.  I respect the Celtics, I hate them, but I respect them.  San Antonio is boring, and they play the dirtiest player in the history of basketball, Bruce Bowen.  In case I wasn't clear, I AM a Bruce Bowen hater.  Mainly because he makes far too much money to do something I could easily do, break all the rules of Basketball and fair play, intentionally injure people, and prove that I have no talent (which I don't.)  So yeah, I hate the Spurs AND I don't respect them.

The rest of the pack worries me not.  Do you really want me to be scared by LeBron?  He can't win a title in Cleveland.  The only way that's happening is if Phil starts coaching him.  (See the parallel, unreal superstar, nothing around him?  That's not a job for Mike Brown, which is a shame, because I kinda like him.)  Then there's the whole crab dribble thing.  Listen "king", that's called traveling.  Just tell it like it is.  

Are the Hornets supposed to make me nervous?  Once again, Chris Paul, David West, and what?  Nothing.  The Lake Show always has a million playmakers, not two.  The Celts always have a million playmakers, not two.  Even the Spurs (who I hate, don't forget) have multiple playmakers.  So basically, it's down to 3 teams.  LA, SA, and BOS.  That's it.  Some other teams are really good.

The Magic, Nuggets, Mavericks, Blazers, and Rockets and are all very good teams.  Honestly, do we expect these teams to go anywhere?  Hmmmm, let's see: Hasn't been anywhere yet, doesn't have enough pieces, their window closed, wasted a number 1 pick, and can't get out of the first round  Yeah, I trust them. (wink, wink)

And no, I don't want Shaq back in LA.  Did you see Kobe after the All-Star game?  He doesn't want any part of that.  I think it's clear, Shaq's at fault here.  He's the instigator, and probably has been from the beginning.  Anybody who has to come up with a new nickname for himself every 5 seconds has got to be hard to deal with.  No, he's not a cuddly teddy bear, he's a nuisance, even if he is one of the best players ever (which he is.)

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College basketball is always more complicated.  Somebody always comes out of the woodwork at tournament time.  Somebody's always sneaking aorund as a 2-4 seed and totally has the best chance at winning it all, but gets no press (see Arizona 1997, everybody knew they were good and no one recognized them until they won title game.)

There will be a ton of mid-majors who come out swinging and give much bigger teams a hard time(see Bucknell.)  Someone will always emerge as the next big thing (see Stephen Curry, my favorite player right now.)  Some team will look like a juggernaut until they can't hold it together anymore (see North Carolina.)  

About North Carolina.  Tyler Hansrough will last about as long as I would in the NBA (two seconds) and he's not a finisher.  Sean May was a finisher.  I knew Christian Laettner was a finisher first hand:

(That's one of the best plays in the history of sports people.)  (Did I mention a Duke guy, yep always have been, even when they went to the Final Four in '88 and got destroyed in '90 by UNLV.) 

Gregg Ostertag was a better finisher than Tyler Hansbrough.  He's not even the player of the year, Blake Griffin or Stephen Curry is.  So please, stop talking aobut him like he's the second coming.

When Kansas won the title game last year I realized that I don't dislike Kansas basketball.  I dislike Roy Williams.  He's got that one championship because he had the perfect confluence of players at the perfect time.  They took him to a title, not the other way around.  So, please don't tell me that he's going to push them through again this year.  He won't, he's not capable.

Rest assured of this:  North Carolina will not win a title this year, UCONN is still better than you think, Pitt's even better than that, and UCLA always lurks.  Beware the sure thing, it never comes through in college basketball, not since 1976.

Things That Bug Me: Playing Loud

Playing loud....ahhhhhh, the glory days. There was a time when I viewed the Bass Clarinet purely as a volume machine. "How loud can I play this?" was the question settling on me every time I got to rehearsal. Yeah, I could play sensitively, but really, I wanted to just blast somebody out of their chair. That's fun stuff. For the longest time I never considered exactly how I could produce as much tone as I did. I was NEVER once brought down to size for playing with a bad sound, and only occasionally called on the carpet for playing out of balance.

That's the beauty of playing a low instrument, no matter how loud you play (if you sound good) you are bound to blend in. Now, I'm in no way saying that you shouldn't be sensitive to the ensemble or that you should totally abandon musical taste, but what I am saying is you have alot more leeway with volume than you think. The band is built from the bottom and a weakling will never be heard over an orchestra. It's a wonderful position to be in, to be at a seat where you can hear everything and support it at the same time. Honestly, I don't know how you can sit in the Flute section and not be able to drive the group. I'd get bored so quickly my little head would spin around. Besides, those instruments naturally carry. You could sneeze into a Flute and get a sound that will carry to the back of the hall. Put any kind of air into a Trumpet and someone will hear you. Sneeze into a Bass Clarinet and what do you get? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

That's why this is so important. You're going to be overcoming natural tendencies of the instrument. If you're playing Bass Clarinet and you find yourself not being heard. Not able to bring yourself, as Grainger would say "To The Fore", not able to really carry a group, being kept in the background, then you have a world of obstacles to overcome. How do I produce more sound? Am I using the right reeds? Am I using the right mouthpiece? Am I using the wrong embouchure? How do I get more air out of me and into my horn? Read on, this is not about produing a unique tone, this about making sure people hear your unique tone.

Let's start with air. This is always the easiest thing to fix. I'd say most people breathe too shallowly and allow for too little expansion of their lungs. When you sit to play, be sure that your back is straight, and this requires that you lean slightly forward in your chair and over the instrument. (This is also the point at which I recommend you use a floor peg AND a neck strap. No exceptions.) Placing the peg slightly under your chair allows you to lean slightly over the instrument and get your face up over the mouthpiece. This is a much more desirable angle for playing. Doing this also allows your neck to be straight which gives you a clean line from your lungs and through your mouth to blow air. If you're standing you can easily mimic this posture as long as you have a neckstrap that tightens well and doesn't slip (I prefer DeJacques, they can't be beat.)

As far as getting air into your lungs, well, you just have to suck all the air out of the room with every breath. Your lungs have an amazing capacity to expand and to learn to function better than they do now. Even if you have a respiratory disorder (personally, I have asthma) then controlled and methodical use of your lungs will increase your lung capacity and potentially lower your need for medication (it did in my case.) As you continually work your lungs you'll find yourself becoming stronger and stronger. Over time you'll find that you may not be able to hold your breath longer, but you'll be able to broaden your tone because there will be SOME improvement in the amount of air you can take in. I've seen Freddy Martin (a DCI Hall of Famer) do very cool exercises that involve breathing and simple stretching (as I could see, it was to stretch the ribcage.) It's, by far, the best exercise regimen I've seen for wind players. Try combining those things sometime. My wife does Pilates (really well) and there's "Pilates Breathing" involved. But what if, just what if, you could do hard core wind breathing while doing something like Pilates? Nice combo I think. I'm not a fitness professional, but I'll say...anything that stretches your ribcage would be mighty helpful(Heather says a good mermaid should do ya.) The expanse in your ribcage helps an awful lot. Doing this to simple patterns (breathe in 4 and out 4, in 4 out 8, in 4 out 12, etc.) will greatly improve your lung strength.

Forcing the air out of your lungs requires sheer force of will. There's no substitute for desire here. You either want to get the air out or you don't. If it were me and I were trying to come about this on my own I'd play leaning over and squatting (causing me to contract my abdomen.) I knew a girl who was a Flute Performance major as an undergrad and she came back from her first semester of school telling us how her teacher told her to practice like that. I tried it for a while....it works (actually, it forces you to work like a dog to get something out of your instrument. Plus, I probably didn't do it enough.) I've also heard from someone who studied at the same school I went to that her/our teacher had her practice laying on her back. The idea is that you MUST be "wasting your air", moving it as fast as possible. Just remember this, in all of these exercises you should be training your body to push air up from the base of each lung, from your diaphragm (as if you've never heard that before.) People say it all the time, but they leave out the part where you exhale with your diaphragm. Yep, those details will get you every time.

Only one more topic to cover before you go and apply this stuff. Your setup. It really doesn't matter what mouthpiece you're using, and reeds are only slightly more important. I played on a Yamaha 4C and 2.5's all the way through my Sophomore year of college (now, that's NOT a volume-friendly setup.) You can produce a very broad, quality sound as long as your reeds are not too hard for you. The only thing stopping you now is repetition. If you're in an ensemble on a regular basis then you have ample opportunity to learn how to move air into your instrument. You have ample opportunity to experiment with your tone without ruining it for the group. If you only have the outlet of individual practice then you must LIVE with long tones. Stay in the middle of the instrument for as long as possible until you feel you're getting somewhere. It's at this point that you might want to try moving progressively up and down the instrument, being very careful to play as full on the bottom and top of the horn as you do in the middle. You'll discover that it is (obviously) more difficult to maintain a CONSISTENT volume the higher and lower you get on the instrument.

Imagine your sound as a box.  

(Go ahead, I'll wait...........)

Now imagine that box in various sizes depending on the volume you're playing. If you're playing, as my Assistant Director in H.S. would say "Prit-ty Darn Loud" then that box is "Prit-ty Darn Big." Now, as you move up and down the horn you have to keep the box the same size, no matter what note you're playing. As an individual this is considered "uniformity of tone." I know, it sounds fancy, but it means just what we talked about.... you tone doesn't make this drastic change with every change in pitch.

This is something that LOTS of people have problems with, but never really know it (Kind of like in Romans 7:7 when Paul says '...For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire.') If I had never heard of Tony Kniffen from my buddy and his whole thing about uniformity of tone I would have no idea I had a HUGE problem with that. This is a two way street people. If you figure something out, share it because you never know who may NOT know what's up unless you tell them. The moral of this story is simple. You don't have to play a volume friendly setup to produce volume. The setup doesn't produce volume, you do. Your instrument doesn't produce volume, you do. Go forth, be merry, and produce......sound that is.

Superior Performances 2.13.09

This is the finest orchestra in world, in my opinion. The Chicago Symphony is the mack-daddy/big cheese of professional orchestras. They have always had the finest brass section in the world (which I am treating you with in this video) and have a marvelous Clarinet Section to boot. Everybody else is, you know, unreal! Basically, the last chair, inside, 2nd violinist would be playing high 1st part in some other orchestra.

This is a 1993 performance and profile of the CSO playing Strauss' "Ein Heldenleben" with Daniel Barenboim conducting. This is, by far, my favorite work of Strauss (which sucks because I've been called to play it twice down here and haven't been able to.) Even more fascinating is Barenboim's marriage to Jacqueline DuPre and his care for her until her untimely death from MS in 1987. She is also a subject of the movie "Hilary and Jackie." Oh, and she was one of the finest instrumentalists of her generation. Enjoy Barenboim, the CSO and Ein Heldenleben.

So, why did I pick that show anyways?

So, Cadets 2000 was my music of choice for my birthday trip.  If you know me, then you know why I picked it.  It's, by far, the best show on the topic, and one of the best shows to ever hit any field.  The score is useless, everyone knows Cavies had no business tying Cadets that night (the shame of that is that I really liked Cavies 2000 show), but something really irks me about that tie.  It's the beginning of the end.

It's the beginning of the end of demand being judged.  Watch the two shows back to back and tell me that the Cavies show has 1/10th the demand that the Cadets show has.  Now, tell me the execution on the easier show was so good that it warranted the same score as a show that was nearly as well executed, yet 1000% harder.  Come on, I'm waiting.  You can't do it.  Nor can anybody else.  Wait, maybe Cadets so under-performed their show that it drug them down to Cavies level.  Ummm, nope.

This was the beginning of the end.  The beginning of the Cavies taking advantage of judges who teach middle school chorus, or have no affiliation with musical pursuits at all, except during the summer, and getting them to score them at the top of Box 5 when it's clean, but not hard.  And by not hard, I mean NOT hard.  Like, Cadets, or BD, or SCV could hold an emergency camp and learn the entire Cavies 2000 show in a couple days.  Yes, I'm serious.

Now this trend has hit Bands of America.  Demand isn't being judged.  All shows are on an equal playing field.  Hear that flushing noise?  That's demand going down the toilet.  If I do "Rite of Spring" and you do "Come to Jesus" (in whole notes) those shows are judged the same.  How is that?  

People are playing to win.  People are trying to win and underserving their students.  Directors are trying to make a name for themselves at the expense of their students.  If you know about American Marching Bands you know who I'm talking about.  The sad part, they haven't won a title yet, and probably never will, especially since their window is closing.  

Correct me if I'm wrong, but..............

If you but a good product on the field and you happen to win, then more power to you.  If you don't, oh well.  I've been there, I know.  I'm not scarred by it.  I don't think any other kid would be either (even if you came up .025 short.)

Tell me that this difference is the difference between kids being underserved by Directors who want to be famous and kids being pushed to the limit for the sake of learning.  Please.  Tell me this is the new Alpha.

Tell me Phantom ended this madness once and for all and we can get back to putting on a show, not a scoring machine.

So........

I need to make an addendum to my birthday post.  I actually went somewhere alot better than Savannah and I've got music that's even better than "Savannah River Holiday."  Can you guess where I was?  We'll call it, where's the Music Man?

What is Transformative Learning?

So, someone e-mailed Heather a while ago with this insane question (from a professor to a Graduate Studies Class) about Transformative Learning. Heather turned to me immediately and said "Can you think of an example of Transformative Learning?" I totally thought of my best musical one right off the bat......

I'm in a lesson in college and we're working on the Rose 32 (I can't remember which one, but that's unimportant.) Anyways, we're talking about how to inflect the melodic line and how to make it sound interesting and how to play it your way without sounding stupid. We go on further and then this example totally rocked my little 19 year old, musical brain 'Are you saying "I'M going to Chicago" or "I'm GOing to Chicago" or "I'm going TO Chicago" or "I'm going to CHICAgo"?' Wow, it IS that simple! There's not a magical, pixie dust formula for all music? Sweet! I still teach and play that way to this day. Not only does it inform me greatly, but it makes every performance of something I'm doing different than the one before. I'm no longer just trying to play, I'm trying to speak elegantly through my instrument. (Dissertation on this to come at a later date :op)

So, after I threw that one out there and felt all good about it I forgot about it; until the other day when I was thinking (and this is probably what the original questionee said) Transformative Learning is the process of walking out faith in Christ. Duh! Why didn't I think of that the other day? So, I found all these transformation verses. I like finding stuff like this since there's so much of the Bible to discover.

2 Corinthians 3:3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.(NIV)

That feels nice doesn't it? To me that's a total assurance of my salvation in Christ, having already accepted Christ into my life. Not only that, it's like we're his little kids and He's writing to his friends about how great all His kids are ("You see the depths of my heart and you love me the same", (I did that one from memory too!) If, as it says, each one of us is a letter (and I wish we were a letter-writing generation) then we, like a letter, develop from start to finish. A letter today (a couple paragraphs) isn't like the letters of old. Back in the day that's all people had, heck, we have whole books of certain peoples letters (Beethoven, Mozart, whomever.) Those letters went at length about all sorts of things: good, bad, happy, sad, hot, cold, everything. The letter's transforming from one topic to another, one idea to another, just as we change from one season to another.

I love that word season. The Christians I hang around say it ALL THE TIME. A season is a time when God puts you in places you need to be to place love "on tablets of human hearts." If we weren't assured in our salvation there would be no seasons in our lives, no development, a 21st Century-one-paragraph-letter. At that point God would be casting us aside as He so chose. That is not the heart of God...He wants to develop us, as a letter, to His people and to those who have not yet cast their eyes upon Him and opened their hearts to Him.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (NIV)

The part I like most about this is "...by the renewing of your mind." To me, everyday goes right after that. As God's writing your life, as a letter, He's constantly challenging you, convicting you on things that you'd never had a conviction about before(or changing convictions you already had), showing things you never noticed before, giving you new compassion for those around you, doing all sorts of things that help prevent you from conforming to the world. Our Senior Pastor likes to say He's "depopulating hell". That doesn't mean you're having this major epiphany everyday. (That might be too much to handle.) But, you are seeing things a little bit differently everyday as you become more and more like Him, like what He wants you to be. Not only do I believe you'll be able "...to test and approve what God's will is...", but you'll also be able to accept that His will is higher than yours, that He is sovereign, and that you don't REALLY have control.

Philippians 3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body. (NIV)

Here is hope. Hope that when we're done here that there is a place that is so glorious, so incredible, that words do not describe it. Not, cannot...do not. That there is no pain, no suffering, nothing. A place that God made for His people that He's showing us glimpses of daily. Our Senior Pastor at Church once proposed that this is "...our daily bread." Man, that's pretty smart. He's going to transform us, one day *like this....since He's trying to show us daily* into something that is so Awesome (there's that word again) that we cannot even fathom it. Alright! Now that's Transformative Learning! Can I get an Amen!