Epic Eartraining Post, Part 1

So here's something new and interesting. I'm going to blog - as I practice - eartraining.

I haven't gone through my new practice sheets yet, so I'm going to do that now, but as I go, I am going to write about some of my experiences in more detail. On my record sheets I have an area set aside for "observations" but since this is an initial trial run and I won't be using the sheets today (and it will be a comprehensive run, going over every skill), it will be a good opportunity to reflect in detail on my strengths and weaknesses.

So I started off with some Alexander, about 20 minutes of constructive rest and some shoulder moves (both of these are on my daily warm up for oboe routine, I'm hoping to get them in every day).

If you aren't familiar with it, constructive rest is an exercise from the Alexander Technique in which you are lying on your back, knees bent, and with your head resting on a large book or something equivalent. While this position in itself is highly beneficial for the body, a very conscious, directed constructive rest can be extraordinarily rejuvenating. Two things are key for this, I think - focus and nonjudgemental observation. First of all, the mind needs to be kept in check - focused on being present in the body and not wandering off. However, if the mind does wander, it is essential to merely observe this wandering thought and let it pass by. No point in berating yourself for lack of focus - that's just bad vibes with the inner coach (inner coach being a Plogerism). The other facet is observation. The first part of constructive rest I learned was to observe the body, beginning with the toes and working up and then when I finish, starting over again. Which foot has more weight on it? Where is the most weight? How does the foot make contact with the ground? Etcetera. And after making progress in that, one begins to add several types of subtle moves or exercises to the repertoire.

So that has been very refreshing. I am targeting a couple of areas right now, including my lower back (giving it permission to release from an arched position), releasing my knees away, and my neck/shoulders. Already, in only three days of focused Alexander, I can detect a huge difference.

I began my eartraining Odyssey with rhythm, and the difference that the preceding Alexander work made was already strikingly evident. Normally when performing rhythm exercises, my desire for precision and accuracy becomes physically manifested as extreme tension in my upper back, arms, and particularly the tops of my thighs (are those quads? I think?). I'm going to keep reminding myself to release the knees away, and to put any tension in my hands (the metronomes).

Longy 5s (mm50) and 7s (mm40). All the work I put in last semester really payed off. Coming back to a skill, it will take a little time (but less time than before, each time!) to get the Nerf ball back up the hill (um, another Plogerism, I'm still not sure of that metaphor, why a Nerf ball?). But I am evidently in a very good place here. I absolutely nailed the 5s first try (both 2-3 and 3-2), and the 7s with only a few mistakes, but no hesitations. Excellent.

Nothing too interesting to report in performing Starer. From now on, for the sake of the brevity of the blog (too late), I am only going to write about things that I think are really worthy of mention.

Now, in performing Starer sightreading then immediately taking dictation (a few bars at a time for now), the interesting bit is that the longer held values are where I make mistakes. The busy parts are easier to remember, because I'm more conscious of them, probably because they look more intimidating. Brain tends to dismiss quarter notes and half notes. Which is exactly where I should be paying attention as a performer, since those are places where the audience's brains will also dismiss quarter and half notes if I'm not careful enough to make them interesting! Hmph.

O look it's raining outside. Might I say pouring? Might I say the old man is snoring? Nah, my dad is at work.

Anyway, just did some scale degree improv. Something that is a huge weakness for me. I always sort of hide in group improv in class, and if I have a solo turn, I can get away with a few very uninteresting bars. I'm always ashamed of how uninteresting my improv is, but I know it is partly because I'm not comfortable enough with pulling the scale degrees out of the air. And every time I go out on a limb and start sounding interesting, I am naming some other degree than I'm singing (I mean, at least it's always a degree in the correct chord...). I'm sure Prof Ploger would tell me this is happening because I am not visualizing the keyboard with the names of the notes on it. I'm sure she would be correct. Well, this time, using the handy technology of my electronic mini baby grand in the house, I recorded a chord progression and then played it back while singing improv to it. This was kind of neat, because little lights go on above the keys that are being played, so I could see the outlines of the chords as I was improving. Of course, if this were only happening in my head. One step at a time. I'll keep at this skill, it's definitely in need of improvement.

Ok, mayhaps that is enough for now. My brain hurts, and besides, my mom just came home. Part 2 coming soon. And probably parts 3 and 4. This might take a while to get through the entire practice sheet I made...

The Ultimate Warm-Up

My main project since getting home (and after that post yesterday) has been to compose an extensive, rigorous, and comprehensive warm up routine for oboe. I've had various versions of warm ups that I've made in the past three years, composites of various teachers' recommendations and my own special formulas.

But yesterday, I was inspired to create an even more in depth warm up for three reasons - first, I wanted to incorporate some of the ideas and concepts that I have acquired from my studies this summer, second, I wanted to reorient the focus of my warm up to really target those areas in which I need to improve before grad school auditions, and third, I wanted to see how much I could make a daily warm up truly integrated, to not just get my oboe playing warmed up, but my mental processes, my listening, and my entire body.

So I started by expanding the sheet I had already, adding in some of the great warm up exercises I've gotten from teachers over the summer. Just glancing over the list, I count a total of 14 different teachers that have influenced the list or given me one or more of the exercises. It's amazing that I've been privileged enough to have worked with all of these top teachers.

In terms of targeting specific areas, I am really focusing on my breathing and being relaxed and open. These go pretty much hand in hand. So far, all of the teachers I have worked with in the past couple of months have all given me the same basic critique - tension. And most of the time, even just mentioning it gets me playing ten times better because I've done a lot of work in Alexander, enough to really help once I am conscious of the tension. But the issue is staying conscious of my body and of tension. So I am going to be focusing heavily on incorporating more Alexander into my practicing, as well as being a little more dogmatic about doing Alexander before I start practicing. It's much easier to ignore that part of consciousness in practice, because believe it or not, to do it right does take an enormous amount of mental energy. It's easy to be lazy in that respect. I plan on doing yoga as well, when the school year starts.

This morning, the difference constructive rest made before I started practice was phenomenal. I had really gotten a little twisted up, particularly in the past couple of days (traveling, tired, everything finally catching up to me was finally taking its toll). But after some seaweed arms and shoulder moves and such, I was feeling a lot better.

One major change in how I'm making these warm up routines - I'm adding a record sheet. Often it is difficult to keep track of things - which scale haven't I focused on lately? What exercise have I been avoiding? So I've made a series of questions for each day that I will fill out as the warm up progresses, to keep track both of what keys I'm covering and such, but also to keep me accountable. It's so easy, particularly in the middle of a busy semester, to say "I'm feeling so tired this morning. I really don't want to work on F# two octaves today..." and then keep putting it off and putting it off because surprise, I'm tired every day. The record sheets will force me to be honest with myself about covering weak areas in my practicing and not constantly revisiting things I'm good at.

Each day, I have a questions asking "Items Skipped?" So if I have limited time and decide to skip my minor scales, for instance, I will look back the next day and not allow myself to skip them again - in fact, I will spend extra time on them, if possible. The record sheet also has room to record which number exercises I've done in Barrett (or Ferling) and what keys I transposed them to that day. I also have room to record areas I had trouble with - what scales I wasn't as adept at, for example.

Using the first oboe warm up/record sheet pair as a model, I created a Baroque oboe warm up and record sheet as well.

Then, I did the same for eartraining. The eartraining practice sheet is a lot more complicated than either of the warm ups, since I have incorporated all of the material I have covered ever into it. Obviously I won't be able to practice every single thing on the list every day in eartraining, so the record sheet has been composed with a little bit of a different strategy. For a new skill to really solidify in the brain, one must practice it three times in three days. So for each skill area (eg interval training, heptachord shift, score reading, sightsinging) I have created a series of questions, which occurs three times, under the headings of day 1, day 2, and day 3. I can print out as many of these as I'd like, so once I fill out a page, I'll just print another (note to self: it would be good to make these double sided). For the eartraining record sheets, the most important part of each series of questions is "Observations." I also frequently include "Primary Causes of Error" as a question as well as "Weaknesses."

So are these sheets actually practical? Well, so far today I have tested the oboe warm up, and it seems to be very excellent. I only made one or two adjustments as I was going through it. I hope today also to be able to test out both the Baroque oboe warm up system and my eartraining practice system, and make enough adjustments that I will be ready to print out all three and start using them tomorrow. At any rate, it was very helpful to go through all of my eartraining material and review while considering what areas I need to focus on.

I'll also be finishing filling out Prof Ploger's Musicianship Self-Evaluation today, and maybe revamp the eartraining practice sheet to better reflect the areas I need to work on.

http://marianneploger.com/testyourself.html

So anyway. I'm very excited about all of this. Other than that, I am hoping to get out to buy some canvases today, because I have several paintings in my head that are prodding at me, wanting to be actualized. And I am in a very painty mood. Here's a picture of the last painting I was working on last summer, it's not quite finished yet...

Bach in a Minuet

Just got back from my first ever Baroque dance class. So hilarious, so much fun. It's amazing how difficult the simplest small, graceful movements prove so difficult. It just goes to show for me how unaware we really are in general. I mean, as adults, we have full motor coordination, and we do things every day that are totally amazing feats of balance and coordination, but we aren't aware of our own capacities, in such a way that prevents us from trusting our own bodies. The dance teacher is also an Alexander teacher! We did some fancy ballet type warm up things, then learned the basic minuet step. So helpful for playing minuets - I feel like I have a much better idea now of the phrase motion and groupings. The step occurs over the course of six beats, not three: two bar phrases. The heel goes down on three and the plié is on six. Three four five six one two three... Etc. I mean you do learn these things in lessons or in music history class, but the kinesthetic comprehension is so enormously valuable. Can't wait to go practice my minuet movement later tonight with this new understanding!

Had a great masterclass/lesson/reed time thing today. There's only two of us oboists, and the other student has had more experience than me, but not a lot, and she hasn't worked with a professional before. So in many ways, we are on a similar plane, which is great. I was a little concerned I might be holding someone back, but I think we will both have a lot to learn from each other.

My room has no air conditioning. Eurgh.

Finally got a reed designed for my type of instrument (or rather, Hauser's type of instrument, I'm borrowing it). That is, Saxon Baroque oboe. It's so much easier to play in tune now, I have to do much less manipulation, and the cross fingerings are about a thousand times easier. My teacher seems impressed about some things I seem to be able to do right away but sometimes people can't do after years, for example, play notes a half step down without changing the fingering. (Thank you Caldwell Ab-Bb-C-Db exercise.) It's encouraging to know I have a somewhat natural affinity for the instrument and that I really can hear intonation. Really, really well, actually. As long as I listen and don't try to control, it's there, and it's correct. Somehow Baroque oboe allows me to let go and trust myself in that way. I think it is partly because there is such a wild range of possible intonations that the only solution is to observe - because I don't know the instrument at all, I can't predict whether I will need to lip up or down like I can on my modern oboe, whose tendencies I know so well. And surprise surprise, when I simply allow myself to observe the pitch rather than try to guess at where it is, I place it correctly, right on target.

We started playing music today, some Boismortier duets. Talked about some basic performance practice concepts - breathing and phrasing, rhetoric, and inégalité. For those of you who aren't familiar with inégalité, I'll include here a short paragraph from an essay I wrote in Smith's class on it.

In French Baroque tradition, a group of two notes that is notated equally may be played in a number of different unequal rhythms, a custom known as inégalité. The performance practice was understated enough so that composers did not indicate it with standard notation, and one contemporary authority recommends the notes “should be dotted with such restraint that it is not obvious.” The degree of inequality varied from “mild and lilting to sharp and vigorous,” but by no means the ratio of long to short a strictly geometric relationship; the proportion was left to the discretion of the performer and was a means for expressive, musical effect. Primarily, the principles of inequality or equality were determined by the style of the piece, styles with which contemporary performers were quite familiar and comfortable.

So basically, a slight dotting of notes that appear equal on the page. It's tricky to get just right in performance, but when it's right, it's SO right. It sounds as if that is what it should sound like. Natural, like speech.

All right, maybe getting a little too technical here.

Gamba class this morning was excellent. I simply could not believe the amount of improvement that happened overnight. I practiced for about twenty minutes last night, and this morning, I wasn't hitting extra strings (every once in a while, of course). Holding the viol and holding the bow felt natural. I would have predicted that it would have taken me at least a month to feel natural holding a bow. And today when the teacher came around the room to check in on us individually while everyone was scratching away at the fourth string, practicing continuous bow strokes, she had no corrections to make for me! She said, "Excellent! And you're not a string player?" GO ME!

One more general thing I'd like to mention about my time here - recording. I've decided to record all of the lessons, masterclasses, and lectures that I attend instead of taking notes. That way, I'll have everything. But even more importantly, I am really going for an implicit sense of trusting in myself and my brain's capacity to remember and record. Taking notes takes energy away from the present moment and the experience of learning in the now. As long as we are truly dedicating our full awareness to a teacher, I believe we have the ability to remember what he or she is saying. So I am concentrating on attaining a very full, intense focus during these critical days of learning new skills (and of course, ideally, all the time).

I think I am getting much better at not using vibrato and not driving through notes. Ahhh.