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...

Harnoncourt, Leonhardt, and Acrylics

Today has been quite the fabulous day.

Got to work on my painting almost immediately after waking up. Scrounged around in the garage and found the easel and set everything up outside next to the pool. It was unbelievably hot outside, loved every second of it. Hooked up Naxos on my computer into the patio speakers and blasted recordings of Bach and Rameau featuring Harnoncourt and Leonhardt. I worked until the heat was unbearable, then I jumped in the pool. Perfect temperature. Not too cold that I had to ease my way in, but not uncomfortably tepid either. Got out worked some more, went back in the pool, etc. My mom came home after a while, but predictably, as soon as she put her bathing suit on, the clouds came out and the daily afternoon thunderstorm started threatening.

Moved back inside, and I've spent most of the rest of the day listening to the recordings of reed class and oboe class from BPI and taking notes on them. I've only made it through the first two days, but listening back has been so beneficial. First of all, to objectively see the progress that was made in such a short amount of time is really astounding. When I was actually working on learning the instrument that first week, it felt like I wasn't making any progress, like nothing good was happening. But looking back, I can hear all of the good things that were happening, and happening very quickly. I can hear myself fixing tons of tiny little details I probably didn't even consciously think about when I was playing the second time around. Secondly, I was noticing listening back how immediately and comprehensively I notice what was going on, which notes were sharp or flat, what musical critiques Marc was about to give in the recording. So...if I can hear that quickly and correctly listening to a recording, why I am not hearing that quickly and correctly when I am practicing? I mean, I do hear a lot. But not as much as just now when I was listening to the recording. The answer, I think, is that when I am practicing, I think way too much. I also care way too much. I think both of those things, overthinking and overcaring, get in the way of allowing my self to trust my ear and do its thing as it has been trained (overtrained in fact) to do. Etcetera etcetera.

Practiced Baroque oboe for a little while in between listening to the recordings. Was a good thing to do, with a lot of the basic info fresh in my mind. I'm still hung up on scales and long tones, but I really don't want to play music with less than fabulous support/technique/articulation.

Crazy thunderstorm this afternoon. I think lightning actually hit our roof at one point, I definitely heard something creak or crack.

I edited a clip of Kill Bill last night to make a reed making spoof, but then Facebook wouldn't let me upload it because of copyright infringement. Sad. Oh well, I'm probably the only one who would find it amusing anyway...

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...

Home, Home On The Range

Back in Florida! Finally. After six weeks, it feels very good to be home. I slept 13 hours last night. Haven't done too much today, but have gotten a lot of little things done, like emails and such. I also added some glitz and glam to my metronome. It's pretty snazzy.

Was all excited to gouge a ton of cane today until I remembered I don't own a dial indicator. Hopefully I can find an affordable one in the next couple of days.

I don't have all too much to write about in terms of learning or oboe since last time. Mainly frustration at all the annoying little things one has to do, like writing emails and ordering cane.

Here's a list of things I have accomplished today:

finalizing order for Baroque cane

ordered Baroque staples

sent about 3,000 overdue emails

called my cousin about housing in Boston

opened up all my packages, including my gouger

showered

unpacked a little

uploaded the rest of my photos from the past two weeks

fixed my reed supply box that the airlines broke

bedazzled my metronome and cutting block

Ok, I guess I didn't accomplish that much...sigh. Practice?

Last Day

Tomorrow - going home! (insert Dvorak 9 mvmt 2 here)

Had a great lesson this morning with Mr. Sorton, played Barrett stuff. Practiced, hung out with Carlos in his shop and watched him do stuff to oboes. I really need to do some experimenting with my oboe, take it apart and put it back together and adjust it and whatnot. Some real hands-on stuff. Hopefully I'll have time for that next week when I am home! That'll definitely be a good experience to write about in here...

Reed class was pretty epic today. I finished ten reeds. Of course, I'll have to readjust them all tomorrow, but heck, that is a lot of reeds. I've never made so many reeds in one day (of course, they were all the blanks I had tied yesterday, so I wasn't exactly starting from scratch). And they were all pretty darn good. I don't know what happened. All through this school year, I needed Prof Hauser to be finishing my reeds - I could hardly ever play on a reed he hadn't worked on, even if it was only a little bit. Then, after being home about a week and a half, I literally woke up one day in the middle of May and discovered I could make reeds really well. Apparently this is what happens. And I am thankful it did. I think it has something to do with my gouge being a little funny this last semester, so when I finally had a good gouge, the improvement in my scraping suddenly became drastically evident. Not complaining at all.

So no one really wanted that much detail about my reeds. Haha, sorry.

I can't wait to go home, sleep in my own bed, make reeds out by the pool, practice all day! Hooray! It's really been a fantastic six weeks of travel, festivals, and institutes though. I'm so happy that this summer turned out the way it did. :)

Georgia On My Mind

Hi guys! I finished BPI (Baroque Performance Institute) last Sunday, so I haven't been updating. I had originally intended to just blog for those two weeks, but I think I will keep it up. I've actually heard from some people that they were reading this blog for real, which is really cool! I had no idea anyone would actually check it out, much less follow it! How exciting!

I'll definitely have a lot of interesting things to write about - right now I am at an oboe camp in Georgia for a week, and in a couple of weeks, I'll be attending the International Baroque Institute at Longy. This Baroque thing is kind of addictive. Next year I'll definitely be keeping up with the Baroque oboe, so I'll keep everybody updated on that. And I'll have grad school lessons and auditions, so it might be kind of cool for those a year or more younger than me to see what that process is like. I'm also hoping to put on a big Baroque historical performance recital at Blair next year, so I'll write about what those struggles as well.

So let me go back a little and wrap up BPI! The final concert went really well - I performed in a trio sonata, a piece (supposedly) by Handel. And we opened the concert with our dance class performing the minuet that we had learned. Kanad (my lovely dance partner) and I rocked that minuet. My second lesson also went very well - Gonzalo is really a fantastic teacher.

After that final (again four hour) concert, there was a small get together in this crazy house with crazy cats. Pictures on facebook eventually. Crazy gamba collection.

I've been at Oxford Oboes since Sunday. It's an oboe camp for middle and high schoolers, and each day there are masterclasses, reed class, and chamber music. During the masterclasses, some students split off into smaller assigned groups for different classes (like English horn class) or have individual lessons. I've had so much fun here so far. Most mornings I've been in the masterclasses. When younger kids are playing in the masterclasses, I I only hear a little that I haven't heard before about oboe playing, but it has been such a great educational experience in pedagogy. I find myself really paying attention to how the professors approach different aspects in the music, what kinds of explanations work best for different ages, that sort of thing. Really important stuff for when I'm teaching later. When I was playing in the masterclass, the professors often brought up something I did well and explained/demonstrated it for the kids, a really good tactic, I think.

Love that the professors play the accompaniment (on oboe, often a bass line) along with the kids playing the solos. I can really hear in their sounds a huge increase in confidence, and they take more risks. In my lesson with Dr. O, we ended by playing through an entire Barrett sonata movement together, and I found myself gaining a lot of confidence and taking more risks as well. And just having so much fun! Wish I had recorded that.

Today I coached a sextet of beginning middle school oboists.

Yeah, you try that sometime. You can't even imagine.

But what an interesting experience, trying to figure out what they can relate to, trying to figure out what ideas are most important for them to be exposed to, not wanting to talk way above or below their level, but slightly above it, or at least at the ceiling, to challenge them but to keep them interested...teaching is hard. I've also been working with the students often at reed class, and it's really crazy having to dissect something you've been doing so long that it's permanent muscle memory in order to explain it to an ADHD middle schooler. ie tying reeds. And I didn't really realize how far I have come in reed making until seeing the beginners and intermediates. Reed making is one of those things that is so frustrating because it feels like I'm never making any progress (oboe playing too, for that matter). But to see how awkward it is for the beginners to hold a reed in one hand and a knife in the other reminds me of how natural it is for me to hold a knife or scrape a reed.

What a weird thing to be good at. Life is weird.

Oh yeah, and the other thing. Chamber music. Thirteen oboes in my chamber group, and I am the appointed leader. Why does this keep happening to me? Haha. Not complaining though, I guess somebody has to do it. I was so worried that we weren't even going to be able to stay together for the first rehearsals, but somehow miraculously around Wednesday, things started to really shape up. These rehearsals have been so much work. A very different kind of work than I am used to in rehearsals. First off, keeping everyone focused. Come on guys, every time we stop playing is not an opportunity for you to practice your part on your own or tell your neighbor a story...and I don't wanna be the bad guy or the band director. It's a very difficult balance to find!

But everyone has simmered down a lot since the first day, and there's a lot less chatter and a lot more focus. It's weird to go from group discussion of purely musical elements and subtleties like in college to directing people on how to play rhythms and things like that. There were a lot of transitions and things that we had to work through together, and a lot of spot work that took up a lot of time. The first two rehearsals, we had a professor come in for part of it, which was really helpful. I was particularly thankful not to have to be the bad guy for the entire rehearsal and to have someone with authority backing up what I was saying. I mean, I technically have authority officially, but it is an odd thing to only be a few years older than the oldest of the group. Particularly since I how I look could still pass for 17 or 18 if one didn't know I was actually old.

Gosh I feel really old here. There's an incoming college freshman here who was born in 1994. What's up with that? Sooo old.

But anyway, I suppose I'm doing an all right job organizing and waving my arms around a lot. The piece is coming together nicely, and we are even playing dynamics now! And sometimes we look at each other! Little steps.

So that seems like enough for now. Kind of a long post, but I haven't updated in a while. But I will continue to update from now on, expect a new blog every 1-3 days! Good to hear a few of you out there are reading it! :)

Keep Going

Hooray! Just came back from a beautiful performance of the St. Matthew. Three hours long. I'd really like to get to know this Passion better - so much music all at once for the first time is difficult to digest.

Why did they remove the non-functional microwave in the kitchen and replace it with a different non-functional microwave? I want popcorn.

Had a lesson with Marc today. It was so helpful to work on my ensemble piece with him. The piece is really coming together I think, but it is a little rough that I haven't really practiced it outside of ensembles. But with a little TLC before the concert tomorrow...it should be fine. It's really just those dang trills and ornaments. (You know, only like one of the most important aspects of Baroque music, so annoying :P)

I also need to practice my choreography for tomorrow's show. Yes, that's right, I am dancing the minuet in front of people. Haha! This week of dance class has really been a lot of fun. Somehow everything is a lot easier when we have choreography to learn, instead of just learning steps. Then, learning the different steps in context reinforces them a lot. New teacher this week - she pushed us a lot harder.

Baroque reeds! I have made three of them! Two of which were pieces of cane that I hand shaped! At lunch yesterday, I shaped three pieces, but only two of them came out okay. Which is fine really, because I don't have very many staples...anyway, I made them into reeds this morning, and one of them turned out really well! The other one that I made that turned out really well was from a piece that Gonzalo shaped. I'm not sure about the third one, I think it was too short (my shaping caused me to have to tie it on a lot shorter than is desirable), and perhaps I scraped too much out of it. But I'm getting better at getting a thinner tip - that goes for modern and Baroque reeds. Hope the Arkansas stone waiting at home for me will help.

Oh, home. I can't wait to go home. I really need some time for my brain to recuperate. I can't quite comprehend that I still have another week in Georgia to go.

Uh, I feel like I had a lot more to say, but I am kind of brain dead right now.

What do I have tomorrow?

dress rehearsal 10:45

lesson 10:45

Yeah, I have to figure that one out.

dance rehearsal 1:00

concert 2:00 (but I probably won't be playing until around 5:00...)

So before 10:30 am, I need to practice new stuff for my lesson.

Need to practice dance before 1.

Other things to remember:

turn in your dang lesson cards

transfer the recordings/change recorder batteries