September Lessons

This year is different from any other but that doesn’t mean you have to be without music in your life. Music classes in school and community classes may be different from what we’re all used to and we’re adapting to face this new challenge. Whatever your situation, music can be part of your new routine.

This September I (Melissa) am continuing to offer online lessons as well as limited in person socially distanced lessons. With each option students will have on going support and access to many different methods of learning including recordings, articles, games, and other digital resources. In addition to one on one lessons I hope to offer some digital group lessons, if interested or just want some more information please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Let’s navigate this fall together!

Practice Tip: Skill Trees

I (Melissa), am constantly on the hunt for ideas to help my students as well as myself learn. Recently I’ve been using video games to help re-frame practice sessions for specific students who love video games. To be clear - the ideas I’m presenting in these practice tips are not new or revolutionary but I hope to present them in a way that is engaging and fun.

I often get asked why I encourage scale practice. My answer is usually something along the lines of: a lot of our music is based on scales so by learning them ahead of time your making pieces of music easier to learn. This is true of articulation exercises and a lot of studies too.

Some video games use a mechanic often referred to as a “Skill Tree”. As you play you are awarded points as you level up your character or beat a big monster. As a player you can then spend those points on new abilities. In a skill tree you can decide to spend those points in a certain category of skills to get better and better in that category. For example if you play a game where you are learning spells you might decide you like the fire spells. So you spend your points learning the basic fire spell so the next level you can get a better fire spell. You can then follow that path all the way up until you get the ultimate fire spell!

Now re-frame this idea to a piece of music you are working on. What are the elements of the piece? What about the technical passages? Are they based on a scale or pattern? What articulation patterns are there? Are there passages of tuning that might be difficult? Once you have identified the elements of your piece think about what exercises or skills can you practice to make them easier. You might find a study that focuses in on the scale that your piece is based on. You might take the articulation in a passage and incorporate it into your warm up. I often encourage students to take a rhythmic passage and clap it or say it without their instrument. In fact there are university classes that are a combination of rhythmic exercises, sight singing and ear training, also a fact, that wasn’t my favourite course. A former teacher of mine (Trevor Pittman) encouraged us to make a warm up sheet with some short passages that we would like to master. By doing it a little each day they became less intimidating and it was focused on our specific goals. Also by focusing on your specific goal it helps to keep you motivated.

What skills do you want to focus your points on?

Using Recording as a Practice Tool

Lately we have not been able to meet in large groups to play together. Lucky for us we have accesss to many different resources to help us stay engaged and sharp. Recordings can be useful tools in many ways during your practice. One of which is to help you when learning a large or chamber ensemble work, a good recording can help hear how your part fits into the larger context. It is important to be critical of the recordings when choosing one and recognize mistakes when you hear them. You can incorporate recording yourself into your practice routine as well, here are some ideas.

Detail Sleuthing
When practicing sometimes we don’t hear the details. It can be easy to miss little things such as the evenness of some running 16th notes or perhaps some articulation that isn’t quite working. Recording yourself can help you take a step back and hear details that you didn’t hear while in your practice mode. Here you can record short excerpts of what you are working on and listen as an observer. Is it important when doing this to not be too harsh on yourself. Often we are more critical of ourselves that we ever would be with another person. Make a recording, listen, just observe what you hear, make a few notes of what you would like to change. Choose just one or two things to work on for your next practice session.

Listen as Others Would
In my experience as a wind player I have for years listened to certain aspects of my playing in a certain way. I have found that going to other instrument groups or vocal workshops to be very useful. Even more is playing in chamber groups of unlike instruments. Every instrument group has idiosyncrasies that others don’t. Pianists don’t use air so they connect phrases in a different way than wind players and singers, strings have to think about how their bow direction changes the sound, and each has certain things that are hard to accomplish.

The third line treble clef Bb on the clarinet is probably the worst note on the instrument (Feel free to debate me on this point). It doesn’t typically blend well with the surrounding registers, often it can be out of tune, weak sounding and to move to the semitone above we have to put all our fingers down and transition to a whole new register. Non clarinet players often don’t know this. So listen to your recording like you don’t know what is hard on your instrument and work to make it sound easier. Be sneaky, make it sound to other musicians like there is nothing hard about playing your instrument, fool them!

Have Others Listen
It can be a very vulnerable feeling to share a work in progress. Often we don’t want to show our work until we feel it is ready or finished. I encourage you to find a practice buddy and share your process with them. You can approach this in a few different ways: Give them your recording with no information and have them give you their impression or ask them for specific feedback.

Having your practice buddy listen to your work “cold” can give you an idea if the expression/feeling/gesture you’re going for is successful. You could give them a vague prompt such as “What emotion do you feel when I play this?” but like an interrogator on a crime show, don’t ask leading questions if you want an accurate idea.

You can also ask for some very specific feedback. How is my articulation in bar 54? What dynamic do you think this phrase is? You can really pick apart the nitty gritty here and with a recording they can listen to it many times if they like.

The Run Through
Sometimes we get to a point where we get stuck knowing what to work on. Often it’s not that we think the piece is perfect but that we don’t know how to make it better. Doing a run through and recording your piece can help give you a better idea of what your piece sounds like to the audience. As an added bonus it can simulate a little bit of nerves that can help prepare you for performance. When doing this try and make your recording as close to a performance as possible. Set up your recording space with everything in place for performance. you might leave the room or even do a few jumping jacks to get your heart rate up a little and then re enter and practice bringing yourself into the performance head space. Then perform your piece. If a mistake shows up, keep going and let it go.

After your performance take a break. You might even come back to the recording the next day. You can use the recording as a way to structure your next practice session. What worked? What could have been better? What would you do differently? If you are preparing for a recital you can use this with visualization techniques. One of my teachers told me to visualize as much detail as I can including when the performance space will smell and look like.

Track Your Progress
Often we forget how much progress we have made. It’s great to look back at a project or piece and say “I thought that passage was impossible a year ago (or 3 months ago etc)”. Feel free to keep recordings throughout your journey so that if you feel overwhelmed or frustrated you can look back at the progress you already made and celebrate the goals you achieved.

Things to Keep in Mind
Recording technology is good but not perfect. Sometimes your microphone won’t be an accurate representation of your tone and dynamics. If you feel that you are successfully playing that crescendo but you hear nothing on the recording, give yourself a break and some slack. Your ears will be the judge. Recording is just a tool in your toolbox.

Happy Practicing!

Practice Tip: Check Points

Again, Melissa here. I use a variety of approaches when teaching that I hope help students to make connections that have meaning for them. Several of those students enjoy video games and so I incorporate some ideas from their favourite games and apply them to the music they are working on. Today let’s talk check points.

For those unfamiliar with games a check point is a place in a game where you can save your progress so if you “die” you don’t have to start from the very beginning. Some games will place a check point right before you head into a difficult section where you are expected to try that section several times.

When practicing we often start at the beginning and play for as long as we can before making a mistake. The beginning of your piece often will be more comfortable than the end because not only are you working on that section more frequently but your focus will wane as you go. For some longer pieces it can be intimidating to tackle the entire piece and we have a hard time knowing where to start. A good strategy is to break up the work into smaller, manageable pieces. This can make it so your larger work is not so big and you’re able to maintain your focus.

This is where the idea of check points can be helpful. Look at your piece and decide on manageable sections depending on the piece that could be phrases, 8 bars, 4 bars, 1 bar or sometimes one beat (smaller is better). When you break down these sections think about how challenging the piece is. Whatever you decide your section is, work on that section mindfully. When you are happy with that section “save it”. Then start your work on the next section. Only work on small sections for as long as you feel engaged. Once you notice your attention wandering mix up your method of practice or move to another section, unlike actual video games you can move onto the next section and come back to beat that “Boss”.

Once you are happy with your smaller sections you can take away the more frequent “Check points” and work in larger sections. When you’re ready, identify where the phrases are and work in phrases.

This is one strategy of many that you can incorporate into your toolbox. Try this out and see if it works for you. Also check out other resources such as the latest from Christine Carter writing for the Bulletproof Musician. I’ll be posting for other strategies in coming weeks, let me know if they are helpful for you.

Yes Virginia, You are Making Progress!

Hello everyone, Melissa here.

Throughout this time of social distancing like many others I have been teaching online. Recently I have been revisiting and exploring new books and resources on music teaching, learning and practicing. As musicians we are lifelong learners automatically but sometimes it’s a good idea to remind ourselves of that.

One observation that I’ve made as a teacher is students will often tell me before they start playing “I didn’t get very far” or “You won’t hear much progress”. Actually as a teacher I can say with confidence yes, I will. I see progress with each lesson. Even if you as a student don’t see the progress, I can. Students act as their own teachers throughout the week and have their sessions (hopefully) daily and often their lessons with their teacher or coach often on a weekly basis. Progress can be slow and sometimes frustrating. As a teacher I see a bigger time frame and see the progress you are making on a weekly basis.

You are doing great, keep it up.

Media

Recently we’ve added a YouTube Channel! It’s still new so there are only a few recordings but we have plans to add more including some recordings of studies and arrangements. You can now check out a live recording of Cat Fight by Saskatchewan composer Kendra Harder from our recent concert “Message Exchange”.

Click the Media tab above to check it out.

Online Studio Class

Melissa here. I’d like to invite you to join my closed Facebook group “Studio Class”. I’m sending out warm ups, videos and online challenges to help you keep playing and stay motivated. This is for all levels and all instruments although most of the videos I post will most likely be clarinet centered. Since this is a closed group only people in the group will see it and there will be a low pressure environment to learn and experiment. Let me know if you would like to join and I will add you to the group.

Keep up the good work!

Keep on Playin'

These are tricky times of social distancing and shutdowns. It can be helpful to find a new routine of inspiration and learning. If you would like to continue your learning journey Melissa is offering some solutions.

Online lessons through Skype, FaceTime and other platforms are available. While not a replacement for in person lessons generally they are a great tool and can keep you motivated.

Daily warm ups through email. Some of my students are unable to make online lessons work so as an alternative I am emailing a daily warm up and sight reading challenge. These are to keep your longtone and scale game on par. If you would like to get in on these warm ups please leave a message and I’ll add your email.

Some may not want to add anything to their plate right now and that’s okay too. It’s time to take care of yourself and everyone is different, take that time if that’s what you need.

How are you keeping music in your routine?