Many players are intimidated by the ubiquitous four-stroke ruff, especially by soft ones (Kije, Festive Overture). Of course, loud four-stroke ruffs can be a challenge as well (third movement of Shostakovich 10)! Where do you place them? How do you place them when the conductor is making a huge expressive gesture with a downbeat the ensemble seems to “slide” into (last four bars of Scheherazade III, for example)? (more…)
Guiding Principle #4: From Macro to Micro – Part II
By Thomas Burritt
Holy Macro – Part I discussed the idea that a single, large scale perspective, can direct and define a set of smaller instructions that aid in the achievement of a task. The defined task involved learning the marimba solo “Velocities” by Joseph Schwantner. The large scale perspective instructed us to begin the learning process with from the Macro (beginning with composer background and formal understanding) and work down to the Micro (learning of individual notes and phrases).
For today’s post we will begin with Macro Instruction #1: Composer Context. I can’t overestimate the importance of this step! It is clear, after hearing many performances of Velocities, (and not just by students) that performers often fail at communicating the contrast of 2 important qualities of Schwantner’s music:
1: Articulation/Timbre
2: Resonant Structures
A simple trip to the iTunes store allows the listening to a wide variety of Schwantner’s
work. It won’t take long to realize the importance of timbre and articulation. I particularly enjoy, for example, how Schwantner incorportates piano and harp with crotales, triangles, and glockenspiel. These orchestrational organizations help define his compositional qualities.
In Velocities, Schwantner is exceptionally clear in regards to articulation, using terms like: brutale, marcatissimo, legatissimo, etc. In fact, I often wish more composers would be so clear! What does this mean for us the performer? A multi-tonal mallet, with a synthetic core for example, would allow the performer to realize differing articulations. An important feature of my playing, for example, is relaxing the grip for legato articulations and squeezing the grip for marcato articulations. A rubber core mallet for example, while very articulate, basically only creates one kind of attack at all dynamic levels. A multi-tonal mallet can often provide a more legato attack at softer dynamic levels. In the very least, understanding Schwantner’s work can help us choose the right mallet.
As percusssive and articulate as Schwantner’s music can be it also features resonant and fluid qualities. The second movement, as a whole, of his Percussion Concerto is a great example of this style. I particularly like his treatment of the almglocken and the overall emotional qualities of this music. Given Velocities “moto perpetuo” qualities creating fluid and resonant sounds at appropriate times is critical in a successful interpretation. There are no rests in this piece! This is where many interpreters of this music fail, because they simply don’t know or are unable to create fluid, non percussive sounds when appropriate. 9 minutes of the same rhythm and articulation does not capture what is important in this music.
Schwantner’s general musical style, along with clear indications in the score, demand the performer come up with a plan on how to create less percussive and more resonant sounds. While this is a deep subject the performer can, as mentioned above, choose a multi-tonal mallet that can offer both “brighter” and “darker” sounds. In addition, in more lyrical sections, phrasing efforts must focus on shifting the attention away from single notes to groupings of notes. Achieving this successfully cannot be described in ANY blog post. Sorry! However, it begins with selecting a mallet that has a variety of tones to it (in this case as non articulate as possible) and concludes with a successful phrasing approach that connects larger groupings of notes together.
When considering this information it is easy to conclude that the marimba is a perfect solo instrument for Schwantner’s compositional style. The marimba, by nature, is highly articulate but also naturally resonant. In conclusion, an appropriate interpretation of Velocities should exaggerate and highlight the differences of these two spectres. Check back later for Part III which will deal with our next Macro Instruction: Formal Analysis.
Communicating and executing clear differences in articulation is actually quite difficult for percussionists. In your own playing and teaching, how do you deal with the issues brought up in this post? The development of our pedagogy may depend on your reply!
Want more information? Many of these ideas were a main focus in my DMA final document.
Originally posted on DrumChattr on January 9, 2011 by Thomas Burritt.
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The photo in this post is used under the Creative Commons License: Attribution – NonCommercial – No Derivs 2.0 by William Murphy on Flickr.com.
This video features a 2003 performance of Kevin O’Sullivan, a Fulbright Scholar, performing “Atsiã” that he orchestrated on drum set. According to Kevin, “Atsiã” was created by the Ewe-speaking people of Ghana. It is considered by many to be one of the oldest styles of music and dance among the Ewes. “Atsiã” is a social dance. In the Ewe language atsiã means “style” or “to display.” “Atsiã” as a piece is comprised of drumming, dance and songs collectively. (more…)
As 2010 comes to a close, I think it is time to look back and evaluate your goals for 2010 and set new goals for 2011. Did you take the time to write down specific goals? Did you accomplish everything you wanted to in 2010? If not, what got in your way of accomplishing your goals? How did you measure your success or failure? These are all important questions to ask as you set goals for the coming year. It is my hope that after you read this post, you will take some time to sit down and jot down your goals for 2011. I would encourage everyone to post your goals in the comment section. I think it is important to be accountable for the goals. We will periodically check in and see how you are doing throughout the year.
At the beginning of each semester, I ask my students to write down their goals for the semester. I think it is important to write down your goals so you can look back on them throughout the semester and re-evaluate your progress. Once their goals are written down, we talk about the three levels of goal setting and assign their goals into one of the following categories:
Short-Term Goals – These goals can be accomplished in 1 to 2 weeks. These goals could include learning a portion of a solo (Letter A to B of your marimba solo) or an etude from a method book. If it takes longer than a week or two to accomplish this goal, then next time, you should assign it as a mid-term goal.
Mid-Term Goals – These goals can be accomplished in 4 to 6 weeks. These goals could include learning all of the notes of a solo or preparing all of your ensemble music for the upcoming concert.
Long-Term Goals – These goals will take a significant amount of time to complete. This time period could be a semester or longer. These goals could include preparing your music for your recital or your repertoire for an upcoming audition.
As you set your goals for 2011, remember that you may not always be able to complete your goals in the “assigned time.” It is important to reevaluate your goals periodically. I prefer to reevaluate my goals on a weekly basis, generally at the beginning of the week. It takes time and practice to set-up goals and if this is the first time you have written down your goals, don’t be frustrated if you don’t accomplish everything you set out to do. You must evaluate your goals and determine why you succeed and why you failed. If you were able to complete a short term goal in a couple of days, it was probably too easy of a task and conversely, if it took a month, it was probably too ambitious. Learning how to set-up your goals is just as important as writing down your goals. It will take some time and practice, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. Trust me, the accomplishment you feel from reaching your goals will be infectious!!
The second thing to remember when setting up goals is to make sure you can measure your success (or failure). Try and set-up specific goals. For example, when learning a new marimba solo, I generally look through the music for a couple of days to determine the difficulty of the piece. At that point, I write in dates at specific points in the music so my goals are visible as I learn the piece. Instead of setting a goal that you want to be a better marimba player, set a specific goal of learning a new repertoire piece each month.
To learn more about measuring your goals, check out the Goal Setting Guide. Author Arina Nikitina introduces the SMART Goal Setting system. The acronym SMART stands for:
S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Attainable
R = Realistic
T = Timely
As we continue to grow as performers and teachers, we need to learn how to set-up effective goals. Take some time and write down your goals for 2011. Once you have these goals, talk to your teacher or post them in the Chattr Section and determine if these are realistic goals. Be accountable to your goals. If you were not able to reach your goal in a specific time period, try to determine what you could do differently next time. Do not get frustrated. It takes time and practice to learn how to set obtainable goals and I am confident that over time anyone can do it. Make it your “goal” to set-up goals for 2011.
We always love your comments and feedback. Leave your thoughts (and hopefully a list of your goals) in the comments.
Have a safe and productive New Year!
Originally posted on DrumChattr on December 31, 2010 by Dave Gerhart.
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The photo in this post is used under the Creative Commons License: Attribution – NonCommercial – No Derivs 2.0 by Aleksandr Osipov on Flickr.com.
‘Tis the season…for audition preparation. That’s right, at a time when most “normal” people are looking forward to a relaxing Christmas break, countless percussionists are gearing up for grad school auditions in the early spring. For that group of people, the break from classes means a perfect chance for getting extra practice time in. With that in mind, I decided to write a couple blog posts about getting ready for auditions. This is the first of those posts…
One of the most challenging aspects of getting ready for an audition is managing all the repertoire that you have to prepare. There is no other musician who has to juggle as much material, on as many instruments, as we do. A normal graduate school audition can include solo repertoire on marimba, snare drum, and timpani, as well as orchestral excerpts on a variety of instruments, plus the possibility of things like drum set styles, multi-percussion solos, etc. There are a couple strategies that have worked for me in the past when trying to manage all of the material that I have to prepare, and I’m hopeful that they can work for others.
The first step is to get yourself organized on paper. Hopefully your prospective schools are flexible with their repertoire requirements which allows you to use the same material at multiple auditions. Begin by making a master list of all the material that you have to prepare for all of your auditions. Group it by instrument, keeping the solos separate from the excerpts. This will show you exactly how much you need to get ready over the next couple of months.
After you’ve got your master list, do some diagnosis. Figure out what things you’re going to need to do the most work on. For example, if you’re putting three xylophone excerpts together, but you have played two in the past, you’ll probably want to spend the majority of your time on the one excerpt that you have no experience with. In short, decide what the best use of your time will be, and weight each item against the others. This method corresponds with Don Greene’s ideas in Audition Success about “red, yellow, and green” labels for things. If you don’t know the book, it’s worth checking out.
At this point you know what you need to do and what you need to emphasize. Now it’s time for the real organization… Scheduling. I always plan out my practice schedule way in advance of an important audition. Not to add to the stress, but graduate school auditions can be an important and life-altering time. It’s not a time to just wing it and hope that it all works out for the best. I get pretty crazy about scheduling. I figure out when my first audition is, and work backwards. I write down days on the calendar for mock auditions, usually putting my first one about two weeks in front of the first audition. At that point I want to have all of my material playable. That gives me a chance to record a full run, take inventory, and budget my practice time as best as I can in the home stretch. I’ll schedule mock auditions with increasing frequency over the last two weeks to get used to playing everything through. You can check out my previous post about that part of the process.
However, prior to that last two weeks I have a very strict schedule. I like to divide my week into two groups… Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. I never plan out Sunday so that I can use it for whatever things I feel the least comfortable about from the preceding week’s practice sessions. Then I divide up my material so that it’s evenly split between the two groups of days. You may notice that by doing this I am not practicing anything every day of the week. That might seem crazy, but it works. The human brain is constantly searching for order and logic and patterns. You can actually practice things less frequently (but more consistently) and have better results than if you were just trying to figure out what to do each time you walked in the practice room.
There are two ways to divide up your material. Basically, you can choose to either do each instrument on a particular day, or you can spread it out so that you play all of your instruments on each day, but alternate the material. For example, you could organize by instruments as such…
MWF – Marimba solo(s), Xylophone excerpts, Timpani excerpts and solo
TThS – Snare drum solo and excerpts, Glock excerpts, Accessory instrument excerpts
In that set up you confine each instrument to a specific set of days. You could also set up your schedule so that you touch each instrument every day, like so…
There are good elements to both arrangements, and I’ve had success with both. Some of this may depend on your individual situation and practice facilities. If you know that you’ll be able to get access to all the instruments every single day then you could do the second arrangement. If you think it will be harder to get into all the practice rooms then you may choose the first option so that you don’t need to rely on room availability. You may even choose to plan out what time you’ll practice each item on its designated day, but don’t get yourself scheduled so tight that you can’t adjust if necessary. If someone is in the marimba room at 10am on Monday when you planned to practice, it shouldn’t ruin your entire day of practice. Be flexible and move things around so that you can still get to the marimba later on without missing a beat. (No pun intended)
The most important thing with all of this is to make sure that you are giving each item from the master list that you made its fair share of time. That time should also be consistently scheduled so that you can get in a routine and maximize efficiency. As time progresses you can alter your schedule to make up for things that need more or less work. If your snare drum etude is doing great, but your 4-mallet marimba solo needs some more work, instead of sticking with one hour for each, do 30 minutes on the snare drum etude and an hour and a half for marimba.
If you can get yourself organized you will greatly increase your chances of having a successful audition. More often than not, I find that the people who struggle with auditions have not prepared in a way that sets them up for success. Be meticulous with your preparation and organization and it will show in your playing!
How do you organize your time when preparing for auditions? What techniques have led to success, especially while balancing so much material? Discuss it in the comments.
Originally posted on DrumChattr on December 29, 2010 by Adam Groh.
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The photo in this post is used under the Creative Commons License: Attribution – NonCommercial – No Derivs 2.0 by William Murphy on Flickr.com.
Guiding Principle #4: From Macro to Micro
By Thomas Burritt
Holy Macro… Part I
Having a passion for pedagogy has taught me a lot over the years. One important idea that I’ve developed along the way has to do with perspective. I’ve found that a student can learn more quickly by focusing on general perspectives or guiding principles. These general ideas work to enable the student to apply and connect specific techniques to the aesthetics of musicality (phrasing/interpretation). Each post in this series will focus on a different “guiding principle”, a general concept or idea that can point artists in the right direction.
Guiding Principle #1 focused on identifying and acknowledging the war going on inside of you between your “true self” and your “ego”. Spending time only with your “ego” results ultimately in misery while spending time with your “true self” produces personal fulfillment and artistic inspiration. Guiding Principle #2 outlined the importance of connecting daily to our “true self”, selfishly spending regular creative time that encourages inspiration to pervade our musical expressiveness on a regular basis.
With the big picture laid out, we can now re-think how and why we practice and perform our crafts. Today we look at the process of learning. More specifically, how we do we tackle learning a piece of music?
Guiding Principle #4: From Macro to Micro.
If you look up the word “Macro” in a dictionary you will find something along these lines: (also called macro instruction) a single instruction that expands automatically into a set of instructions to perform a particular task. This definition implies that a single, large scale perspective, can direct and define a set of smaller instructions that aid in the achievement of a task.
So, lets take the next step and apply this idea to a specific task.
Task: Learn the marimba solo “Velocities” by Joseph Schwantner.
(please note that this process can be applied to a variety of tasks…)
Large Scale Perspective (or single instruction): Start from the Macro (large) and work down to the Micro (small).
Macro Instruction #1: Composer Context (broad, nothing to do with the piece)
Who is Joseph Schwanter? And, what are the 3-4 single most important features/qualities of his music?
Subsequent smaller instructions:
Research composer background.
Increases appreciation of composers work as a whole
Listen and learn about the important features and qualities the the music.
Important features of a composer’s music can direct specific stroke types, stickings, mallet choice, and other technical considerations.
Macro Instruction #2: Formal Analysis (broad, but generally related to the piece)
Subsequent smaller instructions:
Directs the order of learning sections.
Why learn a piece only from the beginning to the end?
Learning like sections solidifies formal understanding.
Macro Instruction #3: Intertwine the academics of analysis with the aesthetics of performance. (less broad but specific to the piece, more micro)
Subsequent smaller instructions:
Application is the name of the game here. This step is all about applying the macro to help us learn the micro.
Looking ahead to part II:
As you can see, the model above progresses from the very broad (#1) to the specific (#3). Part II will discuss the specifics of each step above, hopefully clearing up some of these ideas. As you process some of these ideas think about the following questions:
What kinds of information related to a composer can be helpful to a performer?
Why is it important to always understand the musical form of a work you are performing?
When learning a work, what processes direct your phrasing/interpretation decisions?
Part II will come later this week, and will answer the above questions. In the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts to the questions above. Leave your comments below.
Originally posted on DrumChattr on December 19, 2010 by Thomas Burritt.
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The photo in this post is used under the Creative Commons License: Attribution – NonCommercial – No Derivs 2.0 by William Murphy on Flickr.com.
