Gtr. Discussion on Differences Between Solid Body and Hollow Body Guitars in Jazz
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
David Jost
1. Gtr. Discussion on differences between solid body and hollow body guitars in jazz
2. Turn treble way up
3. Don’t use overdrive at all
4. Strum at the base of the fretboard instead of over where the sound hole would be.
5. Ghosting and subtones conversation.
6. In improvising use the 7th 9th and 11th instead of root third fifth.
7. The extensions I just mentioned, don’t play them in the low octave of your instrument.
John Manning
1. Reaching out to the audience, Don’t give the story .
2. Music has to have a continuing energy from point A to point B. Maintain rhythm.
3. Don’t “rest” on the rest. Be there (engaged) like you’re playing. This will hold it together. Keep concentration on every note.
4. Play together, play music, trust.
5. It’s the same person, but comes out in a different costume.
6. Soliloquy
7. Elbows out when playing
8. Baroque horn, more compact sound.
9. Make things more instinctual.
10. Compacted sound.
11. Tape fingers to valves.
12. I want a perfect opening.
13. Spunkier 16th notes.
14. Feet! Ground yourself!
15. Let the ears be the police to control any unruly wrong notes.
16. Slam valves to remove gunk(audible sluggishness) in between notes. 17. In Baroque, pay attention to the week beat can be helpful.
18. Fingers a millisecond away, note placement a millisecond off.
19. Don’t rush or you’re dead in the water.
20. Solve the problem.
21. Once you get started you’re fine, but if you get started on the wrong foot, there’s no turning back.
22. MEMORISATION. If you practice to memorize, you’ll have practiced more than you would have if you’re learning to play it by sight.
23. DANGER SONE
24. Chocolate with chocolate sprinkles w/ chocolate whip crème. We need a change of mood— contrast. If you have too much, it will be off-kilter.
25. This practice will pay back great dividends.
26. Finger posture.
27. Beginning breath is a fore-shadowing of your entrance.
28. When in doubt, don’t muscle up, use more air.
29. When you’re trying so hard that nothing’s coming out, I can tell you that air is your friend. Have you accepted air into your life? I feel like a missionary for air. Use it, it’s free!
30. There must be buzz, the lips must flap in the breeze.
31. Now you’re taking it at a careful, learning tempo. Let’s take a sneak peak into the performance tempo. The NO SAFETY VERSION.
32. Not looking—not gonna work.
33. Lean towards understatement. Don’t honk away like you’re at the back of the band.
34. No matter how firm the embouchure, something has to be flapping.
Walter Chesnut
1. Make music be sensitive, listening…in-tune…attitude, respect…respect the intentions of the composer. Play with spirit, style, intent. 2. Get the best out of students that you can. Go DEEP. So locked up in themselves that they couldn’t get into the music. Get out more than they even knew they had.
3. Come on, let’s get at it.
4. Everything you do is in your mind. You gotta work. The harder it is, the harder you work.
5. Bigger mouthpiece, muscles get worked and conditioned, air becomes better.
6. Bends—don’t back away, blow through it.
7. A great way to pedals is through bending.
8. Path to the upper register is through the low. If you can’t play low, you’re DREAMING of playing high.
9. So many things get in the way of our sound.
10. The limits of our playing ability are mental limitations.
11. Be positive about difficulty..Cary a plus side with you. I can’t wait to do it.
12. Keep climbing by half steps.
13. High notes are across the room. Buzz centers in the middle. Work on the muscles in the middle. Push muscle inward.
14. All sorts of problems fix themselves automatically.
15. Less is more, and it will take less work.
16. Power is wonderful, but beauty is better.
17. Sing to me, rather than shout.
18. Don’t play a dead fish note Don’t play it dormant.
19. Anybody can play load, but only a musician can play softly and musically.
20. It’s awful to play first trumpet without support. Don’t leave her stranded. Support her. Without support, it’s like quicksand.
21. Believe in yourself! Believe you can do it.
22. All notes lead forward—no exceptions. Don’t swallow any notes back.
23. It sounds like you’re walking on eggshells. That was tenuous at best.
24. Don’t be timid. 25. Really nail the last note. Don’t find it..hit it right on!
26. Don’t let things get too short. That smidge of length makes a better chord.
27. No eggs, go for it.
28. Oh! You guys threw that on the floor, and stomped on it, and smushed it.
29. How good you could have gotten if you prepared better. We’ll never know.
30. Don’t blow at the 16th notes, blow through them.
31. Rehearsing slow, slow motion reveals and exposes problems. It’s like when a baseball player starts pitching badly, and they show it in slow motion and find a flaw.
32. Rest is built into the music.
33. It’s not good enough to approximate. Hear it and gibe the horn more info. Buzz
34. Wrong notes at this tempo lasted for days. You had a couple of weeks in there.
35. Clear, tight, poppy
36. Keeping up the tempo without slowing down is like continuing to walk past a candy store without giving into the temptation to stop.
37. I’m taking the training wheels off, and let’s see if you can ride on your own.
38. Repeated notes are like a pogo stick. Don’t just go up and down. Pogo in a direction.
39. Jump in whole-heartedly.
40. Borrow the precision from the slow tempo, and the energy from the fast tempo. The middle should have accuracy.
41. Like marching, lean forward, or else your backpack will pull you backward.
42. If you look like a team, you’ll sound like a team.
43. Dig into 16th notes.
44. When we mention something that’s different to work on, it’s just to add to the product, not changing the focus of the elements.
45. Seek out opportunities to show diversity.
46. You need to have a sense of drive with a laid back feeling.
47. Don’t walk on eggs. Don not walk on eggs. 48. Give yourself room dynamically. Don’t show them a true piano, because they’ll like it and expect it every time. Make your fulls fuller. Don’t go out on a limb and then cut it off.
49. That’ll separate the chaff from the wheat.
Nelson
1. Get a good focused sound right off the bat to start the day.
2. Buzz with lips to keep air moving. Very efficient.
3. Start on F, get it on the lips, it has to go to its most natural position.
4. Do re mi fa so (1,2,3) fa so fa so fa mi re do.
5. In high notes, don’t compromise the relaxed feeling. Whatever your limit, go higher. All in one breath, striving for uniformity in all ranges. Lips volume and tone the same. Higher, the face grabbing the instrument, not it grabbing you. Control the instrument, not it you. Play high in a gradual methodical way and you’ll improve your high notes. Make the air work for you…don’t play in pain.
6. Sit, have your body like a shirt on a hanger (shoulders)
7. At “h” you’re the motor of the car.
8. Keep your concentration on the rest…a split second and we’re done.
9. Don’t worry when you’re playing. You’re closing off the air.
10. From high to low, keep everything the same.
11. Missing is okay, as long as you miss the right way. PUT IT ON THE AWLL.
12. In slurring, all that stuff in the middle is good. That means that you’re blowing through. You can always clean it up later.
13. When you slur a big interval, there’s energy. If you don’t keep that while tonguing it’s just an arbitrary change with no energy.
14. You need a really focused idea of rhythm for air.
15. Short notes, but not puny.
16. Create an exercise to tailor to your ensemble needs. 17. Don’t disperse too much energy in movement. Put it in the tube. Don’t be like a wooden cigar store Indian. When the going gets tough to move (bob and weave). If you stop breathing, you’re sunk…forge ahead.
18. Memorize etudes.
19. Don’t be shy with air or tone.
20. Great at delivering the right news the right way.
21. Between a good artist and a great musician lies a bunch of little details.
22. Why am I not bored listening to this person?
23. You are responsible for every note that you play.
Give 100% in every ensemble.
24. Once you miss a note, you can’t take it back.
25. Leave your ego at the door.
26. VASALVA MANEUVRE- no lid on the air…keep the airway open…no tongue either
27. When you inhale, you’re just preparing for blowing out which is the most important part.
28. Always breathe before you need to, ‘cause when you need it, it’s too late.
29. Breathe a lot all the time 85-90%.
30. Get to the point where you never need air.
31. Don’t get to the end of the phrase and have a hernia.
32. A runner never gets thirsty ‘cause by that time, you’re dead. They make sure they’re not thirsty.
33. Chest—pulley, person pulling chest up.
34. Suck the air in, pull it in.
35. When you blow air out for 4 beats and breathe in on the 5th beat, breathe in just as much air as the 4 beats.
36. Look and evaluate yourself.
37. How many people in this room have ever messed up; let’s take a poll. 38. Since every action begets a reaction, if you take a breath at the last minute, your body won’t have enough time to react. You’re still playing your mouthpiece, it just has a trumpet at the end of it. The pitch and tone are more centered after buzzing.
39. TARGETS- This is just a piece of brass, the trumpet is up here.
40. Increasing the odds.
41. Every note is important. Do every one the best way you can.
42. To get the final successful results, buzz.
43. You’ll get there a lot earlier.
44. When you perform, pretend you’re buzzing.
45. Fine tune everything on the mouthpiece.
46. Unless you practice the buzz like the horn, and vice versa, you’ll be great buzzers, and not players.
47. Adjust the instrument to you.
48. Have same lip position when you play as buzz.
49. If you don’t carry over the success from the buzzing it’s pointless. Cross that bridge.
50. Keep lips firm but not tense. The corners keep the lips firm. With the corners firm you free up the flapping area.
51. Use more than the necessary muscle.
52. Buzz olay…back and forth.
53. It’s already unnatural. Don’t make it more so.
54. Because you did it here, that means you can do it again and again.
55. Learn the part well for confidence.
56. The performance has to be a statement not a question.
57. When a student plays, he’s the teacher, the teacher is the student.
58. Focus on the bad stuff when you get to the bad stuff.
59. He’d rather have somebody play something confidently than safe and sterile
60. Take a cowboy attitude. Let’s go. Put the fun in it. 61. Imagine the crowd in costumes or underwear. Say to yourself: what the heck do you think I am. You’re judging me? I’m up here. Not you. Where do you get off judging me?
62. If you sweat a lot during performance and feel out of breath, run up and down the stairs then practice. Bundle up in sweaters and overcoats.
63. Wake up at 3:00a.m. and play the audition piece 90% awake.
64. Mind over matter.
65. Playing unconfidently is like saying to the audience, “I want you to like me. I’m not sure about this piece, it’ll probably suck, but I want you to like it anyway.”
66. Why are you so consistent? I trust myself to do it anywhere under any conditions no matter what. I just do it.
67. A slur is a fast glissando. How do you do that gliss. fast if you don’t do it slow first.(or you don’t know how to”
68. Unless you know exactly what to ask for, really specific about what you want, you won’t get the ideal results.
69. Get things perfectly one note at a time.
70. In practice get FACE time…not dallying.
71. Practice performing. Give yourself one shot.
72. For performance shut down all that extraneous stuff. Just do it.
73. The greatest fear is the fear of the unknown. So know what’s gonna happen, how it’s gonna be. Like predictability. Get spontaneity in another way.
74. Practice efficiently…knowing what you practice.
75. Practice the hard stuff more than you practice the easy stuff.
Steven Bodner
1. Please don’t expect somebody else to play the sacle for you.
2. Committed to stability of eighth notes
3. You can’t play those chords w/ no oxygen. 4. We have a stask at hand
5. This stops now
6. We can’t do that well with 40% concentration
7. What information does this tell you (listening to a section rehearse) that you can put into your playing?
8. Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice
9. Notes have beginnings middles and ends
10. Forgive me, I might be very crotchety
11. I wanted to vomit
12. It’s better
13. Pretend you’ve done it a thousand times
14. If that wasn’t a loaded question, and I leading question, I don’t know what is.
15. Tongue—just up and down, back and forth (showed with index finger)
16. You can make any mistake you want, once.
17. Ensembles—eyes always
18. You might wanna play it louder so I stop harassing you
19. High—shoulders down
20. The most labored thing you’ve had to express in your life
21. Command the listener’s attention
22. There’s nothing I’ve said yet today that I haven’t said before at least twice.
23. I’ve yet to start with everyone ready
24. Don’t make me always wait for you
25. If that’s insecure, practice
26. I don’t wanna keep doling out assignments.
David Jost 1. Ligature question- an inverted ligature is a special design with a flat part (plate) where reed goes. It’s not just a normal ligature turned around. A normal ligature is called a ‘stock” ligature. (standard or inverted ligature).
2. For alto sax, the front teeth go ½ inch into the mouthpiece.
3. For sax embouchure most students will be too tight, and they’ll have to pull out the mouthpiece and have a lot of cork showing.
4. I have spent most of my life pulling my jaw down.
5. A pitch and embouchure exercise which will also turn into a vibrato exercise
------most students are here
C/P (center of pitch)______
_ _ _ _ _ - ______- - ______try to get them between here and center of pitch
Forms a sine wave- the wave will also get faster and faster until it turns into vibrato.
6. GTR Pythagorean tuning
7. Pno. Equal tempered tuning
8. Had guitarist tune E to the piano and then used “string-to-string” tuning with harmonics.
9. Drummer for “Limbo Jazz” used the shells. Not only did he use a cross stick, he also hit the rim on the front side closest to him, the high tom rime(shell) and the bass drum shell.
10. Jazz waltz left hand brush swishing clockwise and other hand with brush striking hear on beat 2. Right foot on beat 1. Hi-hat on beat 2. Sometimes did flam accents with both brushes striking snare head. Brass
1. When producing a note (as far as pitch), do it like singing. When you sing you don’t think about every little detail your vocal chords will undergo, you just do it.
2. It’s not music unless it comes to life.
3. There, have a conversation with her.
4. Steal the show a little bit—be selfish.
5. Give a good cue for the camera guy.
6. Don’t play the waiting game. Play it where it goes.
7. The 3 things game.
8. Snap on the back beat.
9. Little goals 1)hit notes, 2)make shapes, 3)something else
10. It’s not a fast tempo, it’s just steady.
11. Get it to come to life
12. Hook up
13. Tuba’s the time police. Walk us through it.
14. Keep it going…happy., happy.
15. We’re acting….we’re transferring what we’re feeling into the instrument.
16. You can’t lie about the time.
17. Hum all of the sixteenth notes like wire of fence between each fence post.
18. At some points the weasels stick up they’re heads. Shimmer spots.
19. If we put some character in it, they’ll know that it’s fun.
20. The goal is for it not to sound hard.
21. Playing in the right character will help to iron things out.
22. Catching the tail end of that run.
23. No. no .Your tongue is trying to play the notes. Get DUMB TONGUE. SO if you memorize it, you take care of eyes and maybe fingers, and tongue is a given. 24. If you have a moving line, try to play it on one note with one rhythm for direction and breath support.
25. Follow those who play the interesting part, even if you don’t have an interesting part.
26. Our problem is we don’t execute what we can and know how to do.
27. Generate energy.
28. The body is a tone chamber.
29. Now there’s one more hurdle to go over.
30. The bottom line is_.
31. No harshness in the cresc. Dim. Add volume without being harsh…..elegant.
32. Don’t pinch your articulation.
33. Just let it out.
34. Inner voices usually get buried.
35. On the whole it seems a little bass heavy.
36. Articulation is on the heavy side.
37. We need more note head.
38. Lay back.
39. More aggressive airflow.
40. Find the center of each pitch.
41. Put the fat part of the sound at the beginning.
42. For rhythm, place the 16th notes more deliberately.
43. Almost anticipate so not to drag.
44. Crank at the end.
45. If you do 16th notes even longer and blattier w/ more note head, they’ll sound more staccato.
46. Lips are banged up.
47. Yikes. 48. Record yourself. During rehearsal leave emotions aside, then criticize each other. Be hard on each other ‘cause you have no feelings, you left them aside. Then when you get out of rehearsal, you’re friends again.
49. Any comments from the peanut gallery?
50. Did we get sloppy with the 5/8? It felt a little loose.
51. Let’s do that little segment.
52. Wanna take it from 70? Is that a terrible place to start?
53. I’m not sure that we’re doing great either.
54. You and Me Both!
55. Can we take a few seconds at the end of this movement so I can give my lips a chance to feel themselves again?
56. Rhythm is math. You should enjoy it ‘cause it’s right, or it’s wrong, not opinion. Phrasing is an opinion. Tone color is an opinion, etc.. Rhythm is either correct or incorrect.
57. Think, don’t freeze up. Start thinking when you get on stage, in the performance. Play thoughtfully.
58. Every time you play, you should see it as an opportunity to get better.
59. Make your performance thoughtful. You guys went to the place you usually go. You forgot.
60. You gotta hear it. Feeling is not enough. The sound doesn’t lie.
61. Sense/style..flamboyance.
62. Practice just blowing while aiming for a target across the room.
63. Relaxed, not forced breath.
64. When a basketball player throws far, it’s not more force that makes the most difference, it’s momentum.
65. Breathe like archery. Momentum.
66. It’s no secret, just pure execution.
67. See! You can do it! Why would you ever choose not to?
68. In a scale, steady air…keep intensity.
69. You guys are like someone’s gonna hit you if you miss a note. 70. We don’t want to sound like a village band.
71. I can’t rack your line, it’s not coming out enough.
72. That’s where it’s falling short.
73. It’s too reserved…take a chance.
74. Energy, consistency, execution. There’s nothing I can do for you now, but pump you up. It’s all in your hands.
75. I’m going to monitor your activities.
76. Light tough, delicate, gentle notes will help everybody.
77. You had to be loud and heavy at first, but now, since you know your part, you don’t have to jump on it.
78. Relaxed, not force breath.
79. They’re laying down the mean now…going ape.
80. You guys are allowed to have fun. That’s really what doing this is all about. Guess the reason why we’re all here is ‘cause we don’t wanna get jobs; we anna play. That’s what this is; playing, not working. It’s like the unwritten rule in the subway. You gotta look straight ahead. Don’t talk. That’s what most of you are doing. Looking at your music. I’m not talking to everybody. We need to see your personality. We wanna see your smiling faces and who you are. You’re not just a brick sitting in the chair playing notes. Let us see some of that ‘cause for us that’s what’s interesting. Animation in face and body. We have a great time up there. If you’re not having a great time, you better take something else. This is a tough life….tough thing to make a living at, so it better be fun. So that’s the first thing I want to say.
81. The concentration issue is something I’d like to address quickly. This guy was away, and he didn’t hold the group back. That’s what I appreciate, when you pull off the things we were talking about, when you come out of your shell. So concentrate before you start the piece, when you get on the stage. Start turning on the engines of concentration. Sit down and concentrate all the way through the program. Then when you leave the stage you can then turn the brains back off. I notice a lot of moments happening but the whole concert should be one moment. Ok, so try to string some more of those moments together for next week, and please, have fun, that’s what this is all about.
82. How much music was made today, and what was in the way of your making music if music wasn’t being made, and what was it feeling like when you did do it the way you wanted to. And I’m not talking about being note-perfect or being completely in tune, or being exactly together and those are good, we shouldn’t ignore those even though you may be thinking Oh Boy! Don’t walk talk or act like Oh Boy! You can’t be that way when you walk out there. Sit down and look and think “I’m as prepared as I could possibly be to play this thing and I’m going to play 100%. Look at the problem spots and think to yourself, “What could I have done to get that where it should have been.” Check that out. Don’t let yourself get distracted.
83. I have a question for you. Who here walked onto the stage and did exactly what they planned? Good, that’s what I thought. Who walked on stage today and had what they thought was a good plan? Get a good plan for what you want to do. ACHIEVE YOUR PLAN! That plan has to be absolutely pristine, and that’ll help you to execute the plan. That means to get together with your buddies during the off-time.
84. I was greatly impressed with the work you did. The important thing is to be able to produce during a clutch situation, what you want. Sometimes there are performer-unfriendly circumstances. Those things always exist, we just have to find ways to deal with them. And to refocus. You guys were slow at refocusing during problem situations. You need to think of the simple process of singing. Forget about what you have to loose on stage, and just simply sing what you want to do. That really helps. Just do what you’re used to doing. Execute what you want EVERY SINGLE TIME.
85. When you’re hungry for more information it makes us want to hang around, and make it more fun for us. So, thank you for that. There was some brilliant playing. You might look at that part and have a cardiac arrest. The important thing is that you went for it. Sometimes it happened, sometimes it didn’t. It is all mental. We have to get beyond these barriers we put up for ourselves. Think of mind over matter. It’s only music. So all we have to do when we’re faced with a new challenge is all we have to do is address the thing, and think creatively about how to solve the problem. You’re letting your colleagues down when you don’t make it.
86. There’s nothing heartbreakingly difficult.
87. Back off—draw back.
88. Figure out where the climax is and how it shakes down from there.
89. Come up with a flavor that tells the audience that we’re telling a story.
90. How do you hold lots of long notes? Use less air and shift down after attacks. It will still resonate, but be out of the way.
Unknown
1. You’re making him work too hard, he’s snapping really hard and it looks like a sword fight.
2. The spotlight is on you.
3. You just stick to your guns.
4. Establish groove. 5. It’s ALL ON You! No pressure.
6. You gotta play IT, not IT you.
7. Do it like that, or else there’s no hope.
8. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and call it RUBATO.
9. You know how the big beats (downbeats) feel the stress naturally. The off beats just flip off of those. You guys are dragging to heavy into them. Be light. Keep a longer airstream when doing those rhythms. Breathing at every rest will slow them down.
10. It felt like the chain fell off the spokes and we kept on pedaling.
11. At 30 we’re a little too paranoid about slowing down.
12. You should be looking at him so closely that you can examine the sweat beads on his forehead.
13. There are places where the energy is missing. You have to over-animate things.
14. You need to know when you have a primary part or a secondary part, and what to do when you have either.
15. For rubato and creativity people have to know each other’s parts by heart. Because if I, at the moment decide to do something that you haven’t heard before, it’ll be disastrous. So, be aware of what’s going on.
16. For a difficult slur (esp. high notes) on the trumpet, put all three valves half-way down.
17. If you’re going to do it, really sell it. DON’T APOLOGIZE WHEN YOU PLAY THAT.
18. Do you brush your teeth every day? Do you use your metronome every day?
19. Now that we had talky, talky, talky………………….let’s play.
20. ALWAYS END A SENTENCE. I’d like a large order of______?
21. If you fall off of it, at least you went after it with the right foundation and technique.
22. That part was a little dicey.
23. Think of people pyramids. If the people at the bottom don’t concentrate, the people on top are messed up.
24. Slowing down is the kiss of death.
25. You probably bagged a couple of notes, but it was better because the rhythm was there.
26. It’s the only note that lands square with him. 27. Don’t make 2-bar phrases.
28. That low note is setting us up time-wise.
29. The low one gets muffled…..hit harder.
30. When in doubt play out.
Seth Orgell
1. Listen to Phil Myers, Dale Williams, Kevin Owen.
2. Shubert Auf fem Strom.
3. Turn on the water, redirect the opening of the hose.
4. For louder, focus (compact) sound, and relax.
5. For horn players, firm up chin and whole area (foundation) the whole “goatee” area.
6. Guy in New York City walking around looking for Carnegie Hall, sees a guy with a violin, and asks the violin guy, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” and the guy looks at him with a bewildered look at says, “Practice”.
7. Warm-up, emphasize good basics.
8. Adjusting the hole doesn’t work is the hose is not pumping water out.
9. Don’t let bad habits creep in. Understand what you’re doing, figure out why.
10. Hitting notes is like “free-throwing” in basketball.
11. Practice breathing first thing every day.
12. Fill up Every Time.
13. Don’t change your level of playing….play your best every time.
14. Breathe with a metronome.
15. Don’t do anything mindlessly.
16. Nasty obnoxious focused buzz.
17. Work from a range you’re comfortable in, to a range you’re not comfortable in.
18. Air attack long notes, “no pop”.
19. Slow buzz with no gaps. 20. Constant vibration.
21. For lower, drop jaw a little, but think inward.
22. No “twa twa”.
23. Give constant buzz constant air.
24. Don’t confuse my intensity with my thinking you “suck”.
25. Work hard on fast sing-tonguing.
26. Don’t practice by rote. Practice to fix things.
27. Be honest about what’s not good enough.
KLOCK
1. Phil Farkas- lay horn down on the table, try high notes with all buzz.
2. Find a way to accommodate the range without removing the mouthpiece, do it faster so air doesn’t break.
3. Piano dynamic, lips closer together.
4. Trading stories about problems in the low register.
5. The best way to extend to the outer reaches is to emphasize the normal. Start with the original techniques and move outward.
6. Looking for the spot where the lips buzz best without interfering with the rest of me.
7. With Caruso exercises, don’t start too low, or you’ll wear out before you get too high.
8. For high notes, if wherever you left off, you go up a half step, it won’t be that much further.
9. Clunky, noisy, leaky valves.
10. How many articulations do you own?
11. In an accent, there is DECAY.
12. In a marcato, there is no decay.
13. Produce one note to your satisfaction, and do it again (be consistent).
14. All of the skills have to be in service to the music.
15. How to control the parameters to make it sound best. 16. Get from technician to musician.
17. In double-tonguing, accent the K’s so that eventually you even them out with the T’s.
18. See how far I can go without getting garbled.
31. Play within the section.
32. Breathe faster, play in time. You know your first note, so now look at her.
33. Pay attention to this, it doesn’t sound like it from up here.
34. Don’t hurry into the next movement. It’s better to let it set.
Steven Massey
1. The best way to play pianissimo is to take a fortissimo breath.
2. Takes a while to establish contact.
3. When you feel it, hear it, experience it, you’ll say, “yes!”
4. Broader lean, less explosion of sforzando.
5. Dynamic and articulation marks are sometimes up to interpretation.
6. Klock-taste it before you hit the note.
7. Klock- breathing an effective breath, think “Home”.
8. Trumpets [o] instead of the vowel in “Cat”.
9. No slap tongues.
10. Play softest with the same approach as loudest.
11. When exhaling, push stomach in.
12. Breathe with me at down beat, and we’ll all be together.
13. Beauty of tone over volume for trumpets.
14. Get the tongue out of the way enough for the chord to ring when playing short notes. 15. The tongue messes up the tone.
16. Energize long notes.
17. “oom pah, oom pah” make the “oom” as loud as the “pah”, match lengths.
18. You don’t want to know my opinion on the musicality of that.
19. Don’t play not to lose, play to win.
20. Without rhythmic intensity, it’s annoying.
21. More important for percussion to watch than to be glued to the music.
22. That’s hard to play, you just proved it.
23. Percussion, lay back more. You’re just the heart beat.
24. Trumpets, softer and cleaner.
25. I want to challenge you, not frustrate you.
26. Whisper tongue.
27. Had all band members count subdivisions intensely while sections played trouble spots.
28. Be invested in the rehearsal.
29. DON’T BE CHICKEN.
30. That’s beyond the realm of good taste.
31. No spitting out of last gasps of air at releases; nice rounded releases.
Rowell
1. I’ll create a modest tempo for you.
2. You don’t feel guilt or instult for dumping all over that?
3. Make it rigid.
4. Not enough time to suck in a breath without disrupting the embouchure. Breathe early.
5. Allow the rhythm to take care of itself without eccenting each new note.
6. I don’t think I was conducting it that way. 7. In rubato, the rhythms get dense at some spots, and then separate after a while.
8. You’re not soloists, you’re a support system.
9. There’s nothing long about the last note.
10. Make it brilliant red there.
11. Push off like a boat from a dock. Have you ever been on a boat before?
12. Percussion, throw your shoulder into it.
13. A little edge to the first note.
14. You’re passing things, don’t make them clipped.
15. Make sure you feel. Feel, feel, feel!
16. Life goes on fast enough without speeding it up.
17. Don’t play that run like you’re throwing our hand across a piano.
18. Relax, don’t fight each other.
19. Now play the dynamic that’s on the page.
20. You need to have ownership of that part. I need to feel that you have ownership of that section.
21. Dovetailing.
22. Releases clean and on time.
23. Bass drum, nose-dive into the beat.
24. Don’t let that mexxopiano turn into mezzoforte because it’s comfortland.
25. In such a broad piece, the tongue should be laying on the bottom of the mouth.
26. The notes will take care of themselves. The rhythms will take care of themselves…It’s what you do with the notes, and what you do with the rhythms.
27. Put it in your ear, and set this (pointing to face) where it needs to be.
28. It’s not being heard. Don’t force it, just clarify it.
29. Keep time for everyone in the room. You, you, you, you and you.
30. Put weight on entrances.
31. Come in with “Dah’, not “tah”. 32. Listen to what precedes you.
33. Let’s create a reality of our own, instead of this filthy, stuffy room.
34. Get that note to speak without heavy articulation.
35. Embrace the whole phrase, not just the beginning.
36. If a white note leads to a syncopation, make use of a crescendo.
37. There was a section where the clarinets were playing a moving melody while other sections sustained notes. Be mentioned that during such a section, whoever is sustaining needs to sing with the same peaks and valleys, twists and turns, and dynamics the clarinets are playing. He said, “Make them sing, clarinets.”
38. If you wait too long to breathe, you won’t get enough air 9and you’ll be late).
39. Define the staccato.
40. Sacrifice volume for accuracy.
41. Stay on the hot spots longer.
42. Where articulation gets sloppy, so does rhythm.
43. Triplets to duple tends to be too fast.
44. During grace notes, you can speed up the beat(because of trying to focus too hard) JUST AN ORNAMENT.
45. THINK THE TIME, NOT THE RHYTHM.
46. Be more expressive on the long notes. Right now it’s like you’re hugging me with your finger. I don’t want just your finger, I want the whole damn arm.! I want both of them.
47. Kick the chord.
48. Emulate the previous entrance.
49. Quick breath, don’t loose time.
50. Add some weight, with slippers on.
51. You’re busy playing all your whole notes, which is all well and good, but those eighth notes have to line up with my eighth notes, their 8th and ours.
52. Never repeat the same thing the same dynamic.
53. Breathe to serve what you want. 54. Where’s that note going?
55. The room should be burning with tone.
56. Match each other, don’t force the sound.
57. After time goes by, you get sharper (in pitch).
58. Kick that hard!
59. React-adjust, be sensitive.
60. More muscle memory.
61. After a great musical moment, don’t be eager to leave it. Let it have time to sit with you and affect you. Carry that power to the next thing you play. Also, what’s so wrong with the audience remaining SILENT TOO? Instead of going clap clap clap.
62. Put the air through the instrument. I didn’t ask you to put it through your shoe.
63. Playing music is like an egg hunt. The egg hunt is over. Then someone says,” Ooh! Look there! There’s another! “ Then I say, ,” Ooh! Look there! There’s another! “ Then I say, “look under there. Ooh! There’s another! “ look in my pocket, there’s another. We keep our eyes open and keep searching.
64. If the first note is out of character, we’re done.
65. Percussion, play like you’re sitting in the clarinet section.
66. Define tone, define texture.
67. In 16th notes, keep the tongue less far away from the roof of the mouth. Less distance.
68. In staccato, less. Minimal distance.
69. When you play an active part, then you have a whole rest, don’t re-enter like you left the room.
70. Communicate intent, not dynamic.
71. Play into it.
72. Join them in every sense of the word. What we don’t want is, “here’s the flutes”. Do it like they did it. They’ll tell you everything you need to know.
73. Don’t let the white notes sag. They need to be the most expressive.
74. Don’t fuss with the plumbing. Put the note in your ear.
75. You’re not excused from playing impeccable rhythm on the white notes. 76. Come in clearly and confidently in a solo. Pretend you’re playing in church after a long sermon.
77. In the end, you won’t remember what you heard, but what you felt like.
78. A syncopated rhythm must be emphasized more dynamically. Push it up to the next dynamic.
79. You need to be engaged musically before you expel the air.
80. Music-sound-silence-feeling-contour.
81. Students don’t know what they don’t know.
82. Webster’s got the definition of “rest” all wrong.
83. The more energy you put out, the more energized you are.
84. Do something with this. Take that line and give it away (offers hand) to the next section.
85. You make that bass line hop like a jack rabbit.
86. The lower a voice in a section, the greater the depth of crescendo needs to be.
87. Respect the rests.
88. Favor that section. Don’t shy away from it.
89. Line, contour, and phrase.
90. You need to set up the silence, or accent the silence.
91. Bass lines need to be pointed more.
92. Make the rest a part of stimulating the phrase.
93. Now just get that where it needs to be and we’re in business.
94. As the line ascends, it intensifies.
95. the rest leaves space to rearticulate.
96. Keep the sound moving. Keep every note the same texture, no matter where it falls on the instrument.
97. That part has all kinds of slack in it.
98. Make it sound like you’re having fun.
99. Sensitivity. 100. Don’t over-blow so much that you don’t have enough air left to emphasize what needs to be emphasized.
101. Don’t let the rhythm get ragged.
102. Less tongue motion, small distance.
103. Go wherever you think the tension of the piece takes you.
104. Join them with this gesture. They’ve told you everything you need to do.
105. I need as much as you can muster here. Build!
106. Even though you may find notes in that unforgiving register.
107. Relate where you’re going, to where you are.
108. Strike upon the mood of the piece.
Rowell again
1. You know me, I’m never satisfied.
2. Tone vibrating on grace notes.
3. Release clearly, but no slap. End up (in pitch) not down.
4. Too much, too soon.
5. Play in the context.
6. Don’t answer that for me, answer that for you.
7. Rivot the audience.
8. I feel like I should be putting boxing gloves on you.
9. It’s vanilla. Make it double berry delight.
10. You’re dropping things where your technique wants too. Get beyond the technical difficulties.
11. Don’t play louder than you can with your best sound.
12. We all know that in order to derive anything meaningful out of life, it’s not comfortable. Often times, it’s painful. This is not about comfort.
13. Sustained—mutes go flat.
14. Faster trill, or slower trill? 15. Be insistent on rhythm.
16. It’s underplayed dynamically.
17. Light tongue and hard fingers.
18. Knowing your part well gives you freedom to be listening.
19. Trumpets, the group cannot have better volume than you.
20. Don’t you dare make those notes long.
21. Build up to an upward slur…don’t jump.
22. Music has to go somewhere and tell a story, not a boring one either. Even a happy story is no good if it’s not told in an intense way.
23. Open a window shade to the world.
24. You need to drive into the rests.
25. Make it go forward into the beat.
26. Make the tempo be infectious.
27. In order to decrescendo effectively, you need to decrescendo ahead of it.
28. Start the note off like you’re starting a race. Don’t start wimpy and build into it. Strong from the beginning. When you’re infringing on someone else’s feature, it’s like you’re so busy concentrating on your part that you’re infringing. You’re so busy looking down mowing your lawn, that you don’t even know it’s not your lawn.
29. Through these notes, add some destination to the next measure through speedy spinning air and vibrato.
30. Clean release.
31. Get hotter.
32. Your release is their attack.
33. Make it go forward into the beat.
34. Piano has to touch silence, not have there be a gap between the current volume and the volume it should be. That’s like kissing someone and bumping into them.
35. When you come in on that re-entrance, take the same dynamic you left off on. 36. When you have dotted eight sixteenths, in a fast passage, take off the dot and crowd the 16 th note into the macrobeat.
Palmer Marching Band
1. Pick times to do horns up
2. Go to the next form
3. Do spread tilt and whale
4. Huge importance of counting steps
5. Measured steps (you reach the mark precisely on the 16th count)
6. Have section leaders get people into the next frame.
7. On the drill chart, regardless of page #’s, label each frame, 1-2-3-4.
8. Everyone keeps the same foot movement. If a section stays in place while others move, the stationary ones must mark time (even lift feet and knees.)
9. Two ways to face while playing 1)facing the direction you’re moving (follow the leader) 2) facing forward. Even if you march sideways, face forward. Face the stands anyway. Your feet will move in the direction you need to go, and you twist your upper half. (twist torso).
10. Maintain the shape of the form.
11. When you end up in place after a move, make sure that your feet end up together.
12. Don’t march to a disjunct beat.
13. It made my heart deflate.
14. A remarkable percentage did it right.
15. At the end, “Detail Fall Out!”
16. Form a warm-up arch, and mark time while you perform it.
17. If the band doesn’t begin in a commanding way, the crowd will head for the hotdog stand.
18. Test your endurance/ physical and mental. 19. Detail bells up—and they just go up. Or by the numbers 1,2 straight. (decide which one you like and what position each # is.
20. Flutes in a row, open end foot joint aligned with next person’s head joint (adjust for height).
21. Aim it right for the press box.
22. Count off verbal or silent when you’re marching out onto the field.
23. Start tune in a block formation.
24. Mark time in a block formation.
25. Mark time harch, 1,2,3,4
26. Bring it back
27. Bring it in.
28. Hash.
29. Mace-military signal baton. They range from 42”-49”. British maces are large and ornate. You string the mace. There’s the spike and the dome. With a dome, it protrudes more and is easier to hit yourself while spinning and throwing. Throw (release with left hand, catch with right, or with both. In spinning, the left hand chops, while the bar pivots around right hand and comes back to original position. (it’s pivoted on the sides of the hands. Spin, throw, catch with both hands, or spin, throw, catch, and keep spinning.
30. Be prompt.
31. Beginning-immediate focus, loudness.
32. You need to be intimidating, energetic, fast, slightly furious, and a little humorous.
33. Exhibit and promote enthusiasm.
34. If you don’t have enthusiasm, fake it! Create your own homemade enthusiasm.
35. True, unforced enthusiasm is rare. We need to work hard to generate our own. TRY to enjoy it (whatever it is you’re doing).
36. Group uniformity exercises—1) get into a symmetrical block, or lines, and do arm circles saying (woosh) with each rotation. 2)Do the “Can Can” while bending your weight on a knee and tapping the foot of that leg up and down. 3)ESTABLISH AN INSTRUMENTAL WARM-UP. This warm up should focus on tone and technique. It also must have marching in it while you play.
37. Move quickly, especially when you know exactly what it is you want. If you’re forming a block and you’re adjusting the spacing and ranks, be quick and direct. 38. The ACTING involved for a band director.
39. Teach and ingrain the importance of Attenhut, not just physically, but mentally.
40. Although section leaders and drum major leadership is important, have them be a strong example but never totally in charge.
41. DETAIL TO THE READY (explain).
42. When at DETAIL TO THE READY, have them make a hiss 9pressure cooker). This creates pent-up energy for a strong atten-hut.
43. Atten-hut is important because this is the position that people see us in most of the time.
44. Talk quickly and yell.
45. At atten-hut, don’t move eyes or squint.
46. Regular rehearsal pace will take 2 to 5 times longer than the DRILL SERGEANT method.
47. Go over the measured step, and 8 to 5.
48. All about faces, snap your head in that direction (to the right).
49. Whistle attention long______short__ short__ HUT!
50. Be positive but don’t over praise.
51. The director should never ask anyone’s opinion during rehearsal. Plan meetings to get opinions, but already pre-plan exactly what you want to do.
52. AGAIN! When they do it wrong. When I say again, they will cheer.
53. Detail halt (one! Two!). they reply.
54. Wrong steps or sloppiness blow the image of the whole band.
55. Preliminary list of commands 1)attn: 2) to the ready 3)left face 4)right face 5)about face
56. You should take time with them to explain everything (like the whole concept of a field show)
57. Analogy-music to penmanship practice.
58. To the ready, legs apart, right hand fist left over right knuckle.
59. Atten-hut keeps eyes positively forward, not looking or focusing on anything. No flinching or squinting. 60. Medusa game. Keep eyes forward not looking at anything else, even when someone tempts you.
61. Use P.S.P. Positive greeting, suggestion, positive closure.
62. Hiss-make it escalate. Feel it rise through your body.
63. Silence may be the best sound we hear.
64. Negative attitudes many times come from the top down. Example—senioritus. Why do I have to do that? Why do I have to wait for everybody else? Why do I have to attend rehearsals when I know my stuff?
65. Section leaders must be role models.
66. A big hype.
Steve Bodner
1. I’d rather have a bunch of leaders making confident mistakes, players in the wrong place, than have a bunch of followers meandering with everyone else.
Ted Levine (sax tech.)
1. Bb- A plus the bottom side key. 2. Chromatic scale- side Bb diatonic, up to and including 2 flats side Bb 3. intervals of more than a step before or after a Bb usually use the Biz. 4. Diatonic passages, key of 3 or 4 flats us bis. 5. wide interval before Bb and C after bis. Juptier like yamaha, durability, horrible 6. LA sax, kids love, different colors 7. Borgani- lower price, gaining popularity, redone better now. good sopranos 8. Yanagasawa, like Kielworth, making great instruments lately. bad colors, pro horns, excellent, durability best all around. 9. used saxes, old Cleveland 10. King, Zephar (student nice horn) 11. old Busher’s and Conns 12. old Conn-best American horns 13. students prefer cosmetically good 14. rebuffer loose metal change density and sound, won't hold adjustments, cut half value Yamaha model 23 very good 15. veto same as Yamaha 16. GOOD METAL MOUTHPIECE-DUKOFF D-7 Abercrombie 1. emotions intellect and technique 2. once you set your goals, do the exercises accordingly 3. trying to draw them into this world and out of that one 4. Goal is to make music as one person. 5. draw them into where you want them to be. 6. by the time the rehearsal started, he knew everyone's mood. 7. he got to talk to everyone before the warm-up get them energized and engaged 8. when you assign a vowel, you diagnose what problems they're having 9. literally trying to warm up the body and the mind where they are in the day with their voices 10. devise exercises that bring them from where they are to where you want them to be. 11. you need to convince them that YES this is the place they want to be. 12. to make beautiful music. 13. make them simple, go from the simple to the complex 14. isolate things 15. simple exercises, midrange exercises 16. the pitch at which people are speaking all day is good. 17. the place where the sound comes out with the simplest effort. 18. that's something you have to explore. 19. 5 vowels. 20. start with one, and use it until everyone agreed on it. 21. i don't want them to jerry rig their voices so that they sound like everyone else. 22. do crescendos on "S" until you get to fortissimo to get good breath support. 23. Singers don't sing words, but sounds. 24. Majority of emotional expression comes from consonants. 25. Man sang before there was talking. Vowels come on the beat, not consonants. Consonants must come after. 26. Great learning opportunity. 27. Human beings are learning machines. The concept is not your goal; learning is your goal.
LaVoie 1. Really take advantage of the room 2. With huim that’s a big big thing 3. Start warm-up on middle G or C (these are standard). G’s the most relaxed without being too loose (like low C) 4. Start with straight tone (no vibrato) 5. Warming up without vibrato is hard to do. It’s like a vocalist who uses vibrato to hide pitch. Start and make tone and pitch absolutely dead on. 6. Alright, enough of that. 7. Paris Conservatory exercise (George Stamp). 8. That’s pretty hefty. 9. When you first start, you don’t want to play loudly, for obvious reasons, cause it’s bad for the face. 10. If you want to work on that upper register, part of it is also learning how to play out. 11. That’s what long tones do; it’s not just playing a long tone 12. On this instrument, you really have to expand the dynamic. 13. Now did you feel like you were really blowing? Not really, O.K. 14. An aim spot, bull’s eye. 15. Now, same thing. 16. I don’t want yo9u to feel like you’re blasting, but I want you to aim the air right at that spot. You don’t have to go like this, this is not marching band, but I want you to feel like you’re blowing at that. We’re gonna break our plexi glass. 17. See, you were looking up to the sky for divine intervention (inspiration). Really honestly think that there’s a direction you’re literally throwing the air right through this horn. Really focus on that spot. Focus right here, ‘cause that’s where the air is going, right? 18. You’re really blowing right out to the audience. 19. Now, did that feel like a lot of work? Did you feel any different here? 20. You have a pretty good support. 21. That note died. It’s long tones right? L.T. means you go through that note, drive through that note. That’s why you can do long tones; so you play through the whole note. You’re worried about the first part of the note; I want you to think about the last part of the note. 22. Hear the difference in your sound? Less fuzz huh? That was pretty cool….NICE… 23. If a note cracks, Oh well….life is rough. 24. Save some for the second half, that’s the idea (George Stamp exercise) 25. Lip slurs, phrase whole phrase instead of individual notes. You’ll find it makes it easier. If you splat one, it’s okay. I’m interested in the whole line. 26. That’s the idea, keep relaxed. 27. Open, loose, free sound as opposed to worrying about stopping on every little dot. 28. Hoo/ whoo 29. That’s the idea, feels different doesn’t it? 30. You’re taking in a lot of air, but it’s getting stopped about half way. 31. Kinda sorta maybe? 32. Let’s do it again; get the idea. 33. Make a distinct difference. 34. Do these jobbies. 35. Trills, at first it’s ah---ah..throaty. 36. Then it gets really fun. 37. Trills—range. 38. Then when those are comfy do these. But that’s for a little while later. 39. Just continuing that same kinda thing. 40. Once this one’s comfortable you’d be surprised how fast the other ones start coming. 41. Boredom, sanity 42. After a while…you have to do a warm-up with a purpose in mind which is why I stopped you…because you were worrying about getting the notes out. That’s the last thing that you should be worrying about. You know what the notes are at this point. It’s there for a purpose, it’s there to work on air, it’s there to work on connection, it’s also there to work on tone. 43. Exercises are there to develop something. Really listen to what’s on the other end. I stand in front of a lot ‘cause the tone will tell you really fast what’s going on. 44. It’ll really screw up your face real fast. 45. To cure fuzz, involve bottom lip more. 46. Flip registers without resetting. 47. Armando Ghitalla —BSO and Michigan (air and tonguing exercise) Start on an “A”. 8 sixteenth notes followed by a dotted quarter and eighth rest Next change every other note to a Bb and slut it with good breath support. Then do the same notes tongued Then on same 2 notes do a full measure of 16th notes 8-slurred, 8-tongued(for 2 measures) Cap it off with a whole note “A” Do the whole thing again on a higher pitch. 48. It was a little bumpy at first, then I fixed it, then it was really consistent. Let air and tongue do all of the work, not the face. 49. Tongued is same as slurred, just tongue happens to get in the way. 50. Close! Close! Close! 51. Ring, pop, stay open. 52. Middle ground 53. Face kind of leathery 54. Gorgeous sound 55. You can really zip through it. 56. DON’T GRIP IT AND RIP IT. 57. It’s much better to aim out. 58. If the first note isn’t solid, who cares about the top note. 59. Yeah! I’ll be damned! You used air and it works. 60. Go after the other notes too. 61. Go after it. Trust yourself. 62. And, do one more thing for me. Though Shalt not lift thy pinky. 63. “the wandering pinky” 64. That’s a lot of connect between the ranges. 65. Dimes on valves, teach keeps dimes if they drop. 66. I wish I could take credit for it, but alas, Max (Schlossberg) thought of it first. 67. Schlossberg-connect the octaves. 68. Most important thing is to keep the top note relaxed. 69. Don’t worry so much about hitting it, thinking more about the process of getting to it. Bodner 1. Forte, emphasize dark 2. Note releases give it rhythmic presence. 3. Replicate perfection every time. Don’t just do it once. 4. As stagnant, stale, and still as you can. 5. Don’t be afraid. I’s not a trembling note here. 6. Don’t waste breath, sing it. 7. Have the want and will to play loud. 8. Doing some of your practicing for you, aren’t I? 9. Come to the floor! No cowards! 10. Force me to tell you to play less! 11. A wave of cool water. 12. Colorize time, don’t battle him. 13. Keep the momentum going. 14. Stand up for a minute, collect your mental energy. 15. Bar 90 was still early for the vast majority of you. 16. Please play what’s on the page. 17. Tbns (posture) all of your maestoso went into the poor Miss Ashley, I’d like some of it please. 18. Piano does not mean timid. Sing it with all your heart. 19. We don’t get 2 tries. 20. It’s fraught with imagination 21. Oh come on! You’re preaching to the wrong guy. 22. I have minimal interest in teaching you rhythms you already know. 23. Think of the personal you love and give them a big hug at bar 10. 24. I’m picking and guessing just twist my arm to do it with you. 25. Don’t pinch or force. 26. Have emotional intercourse with this piece, don’t be uninvolved. 27. You should be getting writer’s cramp taking notes after this session. Williams 1. If you’re in a chatty mood or moisy, I might decide to give you a playing test, and I won’t accept any excuses. 2. Puts hands on hips and rattles off a bunch of whiney excuses a mile a minute. I don’t care what the excuse is….no excuses. 3. Dynamic is an adjective. Expression, volume, dynamics for expression. 4. Pp, ff, it’s all a matter of degree, if you can even play that loud, or quite. 5. Your best bet, or plan of action is to go more extremely in whatever direction. 6. Even more so with quiet dynamics. Usually the louds are loud enough. 7. The sign of a great percussion section is not overlooking dynamics and see everything on the page. 8. What’s syncopation? (more emphasis on the weak part of the beat). 9. Had them play a B-flat scale in eighth notes and asked where the emphasis was (on 1 and 2) 10. Now try it emphasizing the +’s. 11. This note will grab more attention because it’s longer. 12. She keeps the kids who didn’t bring their instruments in a separate group to prevent disruption.
Bodner 1. Volume, that was mf at best 2. Length an volume are totally unrelated 3. An issue of playing everything that’s on the page 4. Set the air, mini-explosions 5. Where you are now at 7:05 is where we should be at 6:30, ‘cause that was quite nice. 6. You need to breathe life into this right away. 7. I still feel like I’m doing our practicing. 8. I can understand miscounting, but 3 bars late? If you get lost, put your horns up early and I’ll cue you in. I can’t do it if your instrument is in your lap. 9. The crescendo is already in full bloom by 79. 10. Non-accented does not quite equate with mf. 11. Don’t just play it averagely. 12. Nothing but you best tone at all times. 13. If there had been a camera man, the shot would have shown______. 14. I’m not as concerned with ______. 15. The articulation is infinitely small, but there, and beautiful right away. 16. It’s close, but close is not good enough! This is not band grenades. 17. We spent lots of good time on this last rehearsal, so it should be sparking now. 18. Feel the pulse….in your gut. 19. I’ll take that. 20. We’ll go back to our reading tempo. 21. I’m not asking you to play clarinet, I’m asking you to make a sound that you’re not used to making come out of your instrument. 22. I’m stopping because I don’t want you to get bad habbits ingrained in your heads. 23. Be invested in a stream of eighth notes. 24. Now’s a great time to do those on the long notes, so add those in. Rather, you’re adding nothing. Play what’s written. 25. Don’t shy away from it. 26. Go for style. 27. You have the melody through-out first trombone, you’re the screamer of our group. I need more. I look at you pleadingly with my arms open. 28. Don’t play with a sound only your mother would like. Trombone Studio 1. You might want to temper it a little 2. I’m always the prince of darkness here. 3. Really hone in 4. Sacrifice a 6-pack and a pizza for a good recording 5. Exploit that little mark 6. Line up tongue air and slide 7. It felt timid for the way you play.a bulk eraser to erase 1 bad thing about each of you. With you, it’s breathing. Your breathe where you want (where you feel like) more than where you should take one. Longer phrases build endurance. If I could pick that one problem and go “boom” erase, it’d be ARBITRARY BREATHING. 8. See how you pooped out there? You’re not used to carrying you breath that far. 9. Low notes out of control, back off, don’t let it rattle. 10. There’s.all these…interruptions.and.I can’t tell.where it’s..going.and suddenly.we stop. 11. Some core and intensity in the low register. 12. Drawing in. 13. When it got quiet, you seemed to tense up. 14. Let end of phrase quarter note ring out. 15. Solo, artistic license within reason, within taste, within style John Clarke 1. When I get down to that lowI go softer and slower, and try to force it to come out, for some reasons, I don’t know, it’s just an obsessive thing I guess if I know a note is available on the horn, I like to be able to play it, and have it come out. 2. Don’t bother going up any higher than that. Like you came in late at night and your wife’s asleep and you don’t want to wake her up; ‘cause you don’t want her to know where you’ve been. 3. Wouldn’t let my fingers fly off the keys. He didn’t hit me with a ruler, but might as well have. 4. You’re not doing anything blazing fast. 5. No angled fingers. 6. Spread the lips out a little bit an wide intervals. 7. Let me now talk about embouchure. 8. You have a pretty nice, correct embouchure, but when you go up, you spread which is bad. You don’t wanna smile, you don’t want to flatten out anything, what you really want to do is the opposite of that. You want to push more lip behind the mouthpiece as possible, but also while you’re doing that, you can be putting too much pressure, ‘cause it’ll prevent that. 9. My teacher drew a picture of my face with arrows. 10. It’s when you’re high that it really comes into play. 11. Does it freak you out to have someone watching you in the mirror? 12. Drop your chin when you go lower, but don’t protrude lips as much. 13. Work on that aspect of your face. 14. Any better? 15. You’re doing an incorrect thing that you can get away with. 16. If we can figure out how to make this happen, it’ll make playing a little easier for you. 17. It’s not that extreme of a thing, it’s more of thinking of it. 18. I like playing standing up, on reason I do, is it makes me breathe correctly. 19. My whole thing about breathing is, it’s not just enough to be tense here, and to provide support. You can’t push this way, you can’t push up, you need to push down and out, and squeeze your butt together when you have extreme high. Standing up helps that. 20. It’s not for show, not an act when high note trumpet players lean back. 21. That’s 98% of the physical part. 22. I have a couple of thoughts on this stuff. TAKE MORE LIBERTIES. 23. If you try to play the whole thing up to tempo, it’s torture. 24. You can speed up and slow down here and there, as you wish. It’s a solo piece, and that’s what you can do in a solo piece, that’s the beautiful thing about it, and you don’t have to worry about staying with someone else. 25. Sometimes playing piano is harder ‘cause you’re controlling, it’s like you have a really fast race horse, and you have to hold him back all the time. 26. But at the end of the day, you’re less tired. 27. When you get to an easy part, you can speed up, there’s nothing wrong with that. 28. Maybe if I played it for you, it would illustrate some of these ideas. 29. If you just take it literally, what is that, it’s not saying anything. 30. Use this as an opportunity to really express some passion/feelings that you feel about something, like what a drag school is. 31. It’ll jump out and bite you in the _ _ _. 32. Release pressure and it allows everything to move easier. 33. Making a statement, and just leave an instant to stick. 34. It’s important to be able to be light and loud. 35. Ah…….. let me think, no! 36. Many times, don’t try to pull off a crescendo diminuendo if the notes create that anyway. 37. It’s mind-numbing. 38. Be prepared for both eventualities.
KLESCH 1. Flute head joint- A 2. Clarinet with barrel- F# 3. Clarinet without barrel- high C 4. Bass clarinet G 5. Bari 4th space Eb 6. Tenor G top of the staff. 7. 28 times in a row, it’ll feel natural, like clapping hands. 8. He runs down a list of reminders before we play. 9. They should play more than you talk. 10. Have them sing with a dropped jaw. 11. This works great with instrumentalists because instrumentalists don’t play in tune. 12. Tuba, more clouds than lazer beams. 13. Give clues to everyone as they play. 14. Steady pitch, not wabbly. 15. Think about creating silence, rather than ending a note. 16. Set, breathe, play. 17. I set, I breathe, I play. 18. Lay down and breathe. You can’t breathe incorrectly when you’re laying down, sleeping. Your diaphragmatic breathing keeps you alive at night. Replicate it as you sit up. 19. Bend over and grab your hands together at the back of your knees. 20. Trumpet player, think “M” 21. That needs to be a bench mark for speed—transpose 22. That’s the number one stumbling block 23. Make it part of your daily vocabulary Dale Clevenger 1. How you play on that particular day may or may not be entirely indicative of your abilities, it will determine whether you get that job. 2. Very few withstand the test of time, energy, dedication and love of instrument in order to play professionally. 3. You’ll have to pass through the eye of the needle, so to speak, during that traumatic ordeal of the audition. 4. Critical self-analysis. 5. Do research into the orchestra you’re auditioning for, and find out if you’re compatible. 6. Be familiar with the orchestra’s conductor. 7. Lesser to more distinguished. 8. Help you avoid unnecessary expenditures. 9. The moment of truth (the moment you actually play). 10. INTERNATIONAL MUSICIAN, DAS ORCHESTER 11. Paper audition/ know beforehand what amount of warm-up is proper for you. 12. Do practice auditions. 13. In an audition, there will not be much rest time. 14. Don’t serenade each other back stage. 15. Warm up with steady quality tones, melodic scales, and smooth arpeggios, not pyrotechnics. 16. Your general deportment 17. You will be scrutinized to the 11th power. 18. Steadiness of tone, sound reliable, dependable. 19. Very consistent, and very convincing. 20. Pieces are chosen for a specific reason. Find out what that reason is. Why each excerpt has been chosen, and play them accordingly. 21. Listening very closely to your tone. 22. A smooth line, and lovely beautiful, singing sound. 23. First horn Brahms 3, and 3rd movement. 24. That is simply not acceptable on any instrument. 25. When we hear someone play like that, we don’t have to hear any more, we’re just not interested. We just don’t want to hear that effect. 26. Notice that the_ was too flat, that either shows that the player really doesn’t know they’re playing out of time. 27. It’ll be assumed that you don’t know where it belongs. 28. Twa, Twa woofing. 29. You cannot let your instrument speak whatever comes out tuned at the factory we say. 30. Beethoven 6, scherzo 3/. 31. Rhythmic integrity 32. Phrasing is dull, interesting, too straight. 33. Don’t Let physicalities distort the music. 34. Tchaik. % Andante Cantabile. 35. Poetic and dramatic expression. 36. Gentle and magic. 37. The phrase lacks maturity. 38. Technical most players toss it off as though it were nothing. 39. Extreme registers, extreme dynamics. 40. Wagner’s Das Reingold 41. Very authoritative quality of playing. 42. Shostakovich 5 43. Power and virility in high register 44. Be able to exaggerate everything. 45. Premature self-congratulation. 46. Change tone color to fit the demands of the music. 47. It’s very impressive to hear a person play, and sound like a different player from one piece to the next as the music dictates. 48. Be prepared to approach each composer with a different tonal approach. 49. Ravel Pavane (sweet, innocent vibrato) 50. Minuet Mozart 40, clear simple sound, with no vibrato 51. Finale of Brahms first big rich, thick. 52. This kind of discernment. Misc. 1. And I’m walking into a discussion here. 2. I’m on a tangeant now, let me go. 3. It’s confident, not arrogant or overbearing. 4. Do some soul searching. 5. That really reached out to me. 6. It’s very conceivable. 7. To garner points on something you’re not experienced in. 8. East armpit high school. 9. It can be very phony. 10. Your consciousness has been raised. 11. They resolved themselves to that. 12. That’s just so out of bounds. 13. When you tell them what volume, dynamic, articulation etc., you remove variables and help them play in an ensemble. 14. The measure of a good conductor is how together the ensemble plays. 15. Get yourself acclimated. 16. Wishing we were somehow there again. Chesnut 1. Couldn’t play a flute worth a pickle nickel. 2. Really tear the room apart on the high G. 3. They played it wonderfully, every note in place, but it said absolutely nothing. 4. Wrote on adjudication sheets, “Where’s the music”. 5. If you can do but 2 of them, that’s okay. 6. Long tones alone can extend your endurance. Chesnut said that w/ shorter-ones he did 3-4 hours. With long-ones he could do 5-6. 7. Note bends are to discover what the center of the note is how it feels. 8. Clifford Lillya; Walter, I’m not interested in how fast you can’t play. 9. Not after a lesson my friend. 10. UNREAL. 11. Annihilate the room with the last note. 12. There are so many hidden agendas in these exercises. 13. Clap-crap pieces. 14. Really make it liquid. 15. All-in-one-breath exercises. You could blow it all in the low register.
Monette breathing 1. Losse hips. 2. Stand up, lean forward-feel the body’s weight shift to toes. 3. Lean back, feel weight at heels 4. Then, stand leaning slightly forward, relax hips, and you should feel equal weight on the feet. 5. Play a note (sustained) looking at 1st valve. 6. Play the same note looking at the far wall. Notice difference. 7. Breath (standing as normal), close eyes, with hand, indicate where you feel the air tension limit. (breathe from the bottom, to mid, to top. Exhale top middle bottom). 8. Then do the weight-feet thing, hip thing, and head even, and even against a wall straight back. 9. Take breath and that point should be higher. 10. Chiropractic lumbar support for sitters. 11. Sitting-keep legs more together than you’re used to sit to the back of the chair with your back off of it. Rowell 1. My point is, you’re joining something, not bashing up against it. 2. I’m of the mind that__ 3. Every issue will be taken into counsel. 4. Let’s not wish this semester away with the unknowns. 5. I’m might like to have a little time with that. 6. There’s no reservation about______. 7. Don’t freely interpret what I say. 8. More melodic energy in the air stream. 9. I hope your work/ prep will glisten. 10. Now through the eighth notes…less emphasis. 11. Find out what it is you want to express on the first beat. 12. A different urgency in the 2nd statement. 13. If you choke off the release, it sounds like a forced phrase. 14. Lest just do a series of them. 15. Bugs worked out. 16. Scoot the tempo. 17. Sometimes you have to change the sheets, not just jump right back in. 18. If it’s too noty, it sounds like we’re stuck in the muc. 19. The well runs dry quickly. 20. For every 1 sparkling time, there are several problematic spots. 21. Correctness is a prerequisite to music-making. 22. My explanation is not getting through. It’s getting us further away. 23. We need more finger time. 24. A bit more splash. 25. It’s too aggressive to be dainty now. 26. The tail is still wagging the dog. 27. Delayed reaction. 28. Daintier. Don’t make it sound athletic. 29. Be a little more naughty with it. 30. More urgency, so it’s not overpowering. 31. More of an operatic quality. It sounds too contained. 32. It’ll help us turn another corner with the piece. 33. Be sensitive to the pitch. 34. There’s a whole system of HIGH’s When you really concentrate and play well, you get a high. But, if you play just as well, the next time, it’s no longer a high. You need to increase the variables to make a new high. 35. Abound with creativity. 36. More melodic energy in the airstream. 37. Mouth cavity. 38. Cement the last Bb Major Chord so that you know when you step up to the plate that it’s gonna be a hit. 39. Make sure the breath doesn’t joggle the embouchure. 40. Scoop up a little more grit. 41. Not a big enough pipe-line in the public schools. 42. Be sensitive to the pitch. 43. Straight ahead articulation. 44. That could be stronger if you have it to give. 45. Live in the world of subdivision.
Misc.
1. Now would be a real good time for you to be quiet. 2. Some wiggle room. 3. I have every reason to believe that you’ll enjoy this. 4. Deliriously happy. 5. That was grisly 6. He’s missing in action 7. It can cost a hefty sum 8. Dutifully complete your assignments 9. Plan purposely and sequentially 10. Waiting for them to come around 11. Fireworks should go off in your head 12. It fails primarily because 13. You very well know 14. Fingers not bent or gnarled 15. A snap shot of your life 16. I alluded to before. 17. In all likelihood, that’s probably true. 18. This is one of those fence questions 19. Divergent question, convergent question 20. That got deep-sixed 21. He is a self-starter 22. Mull it over 23. It’s confident, not arrogant or overbearing 24. Do some soul-searching 25. That really reached out to me 26. It’s very conceivable 27. Not much is going my way 28. Not casting aspersions over you 29. Shed a little light into that learning by doing a little measurable improvement 30. I’ll get into that; I’ll set that up 31. Be overly concerned about details 32. Children don’t care what you know, until they know that you care. 33. Be true to your discipline. You care about the kids more than the professionals 34. Answer the question, not what you wished they asked. 35. Let me just go off on a tangent here 36. Validation of all their beliefs 37. A level playing field 38. He’s over the top 39. What society figures to be good 40. I’m stuttering all of a sudden 41. Lump that under this category 42. The most salient point 43. Very cursory overview 44. Experience before explanation 45. The heart of your proposals 46. It was defensive without being instructive 47. Instinctively wired to walk 48. Be proactive on your own behalf 49. Follow up with a phone call 50. Some things have to be ironed out. 51. Time to collect yourself 52. You get half a bravo 53. Didn’t impose anything on us 54. Not the old DRILL KILL 55. So do you wanna be the guy on the side, or the sage on the stage? 56. EDUCARE means to lead out, not to stuff in. 57. Don’t walk on eggs. Don’t walk on eggs. 58. Give yourself room dynamically. 59. Don’t show them a true piano, ‘cause they’ll like it and expect it each and every time. 60. Make your fulls fuller 61. Don’t go out on a limb, and then cut it off 62. To separate the chaff from the wheat. 63. Separate the pros from the amateurs 64. Meet him on his ground 65. I didn’t mean to sound so violent 66. I ascribe to that 67. Create a need to know. 68. Talk to me, don’t sit and fester 69. Many interim steps 70. Patterning themselves on the Ancient Greeks. 71. For that matter 72. Everyday people, everyday emotions. 73. I hear people talking and I don’t know why. 74. Good tongue placement. Articulation not distorted as it is quite easy to do. 75. HUGELY IMPORTANT 76. Strings light and brittle
Trombone coaching 1. Take groupings of notes and bounce them like a basketball. The first bounce has to be strongest in order for the others to bounce (keep bouncing) 2. In here, don’t speed through each note, love each note more, making it longer but in tempo. 3. Do you have more trouble warming up physically, or mentally? 4. Whenever you can use yor tongue, it relieves your chops for a moment. 5. Rig it so that you feel comfortable. 6. It’s just so unsettling for us. 7. Lackadaisical. 8. Playing/listening to a recording is like conducting in front of a mirror w/ a recording you get in front of the band etc. 9. That’s a real staple of_ 10. This is a real touch-tone of the style. 11. Outrageous 12. If you can’t do this in three minutes, I’m a failure 13. They always run away from those issues 14. Pitch is the one that everyone runs away from 15. You play 4 chords in tune, they say it sounds good. If it’s four chords out of tune, they say, “those are cute kids”. 16. Give the air that you are intelligent. 17. Write neatly 18. I’m on a tangent, let me go. 19. Let me back up just a moment. 20. Learn to write music neatly by starting slow, not fast and messy. 21. A little more spark at the front 22. More body! 23. If the first bars aren’t good, I don’t want to go on. 24. Hammeringly 25. It rides towards the back side of the beat. 26. I’ll have a greater sense of trust if we’re in contact visibly 27. I haven’t always been known for saying what I’m thinking 28. There’s no great reason that I can think of 29. Erase any doubt there, whatsoever 30. Anticipate 31. Beautiful things have curves 32. Brains oozing out of your ears 33. White heat 34. The clunker (instrument) 35. A little befuddled 36. Don’t mentally let down 37. Every once in a grand while 38. Stick out like a throbbing ear ache 39. You’re the rhythm glue 40. It takes on greater implication.
Sporny 1. Make sure that you lean across that 2. This rehearsal should be just a touch up 3. You owe it to yourself 4. I know you were practicing, and I appreciate that, but I wasted my breath 5. That’s one of those pain notes. I want it loud 6. You gotta play this like you played it a thousand times, even though you only played it once. 7. You won’t have 2 tries tomorrow. 8. Let’s routine this.
Swanson 1. Let’s do it in tempo 2. That was just a Mark breakdown 3. And really just get into the feel of this 4. My mistake! I really don’t know if I can get over this. 5. Stay in the gage 6. Have the discipline to come back down to piano 7. Vigorous forte waltz 8. Keep the lid on it….don’t rush. 9. Breathe ahead of time 10. A manhunt crescendo 11. Dance guys! 12. I know it’s within you! 13. Pull back to a thread. 14. SH! Just a thread. 15. The air will save you every time.
Kate Boucher 1. Think of 2 things that you can do better this year than last year. 2. Think of 2 things that you should work on lettering. Resp. not sure…Keep that question in the back of your hear, and I’ll ask you again as we go. 3. Speaking of sound, and scales, pick a scale…surprise. Resp. squeaky…..laughing..I don’t wanna play.Kate laughing; your parents don’t pay me just to talk to you, come on! (laughing) 4. Do it slower or slurred. Okay, that was about 800 times better. Now, imagine that you’re in a big auditorium on the stage, and you want to fill the room and get the sound to me in the back. 5. Is that reed a little too hard? Too soft? Or just right? 6. Is it doing everything you want it to do? 7. Is it too stuffy, or is the air shooting all over the place? 8. It turned out that the reed is a little high on the mouthpiece. 9. You want to see a sliver of the back. 10. Chromatic scale in wuarter notes. Stron sound, strong chops. 11. Give choices, which one would you like to tplay? 12. I know I’m asking a lot of questions. You probably thought you were gonna come to the lesson and not have to answer any questions. I’m all about questions. 13. Dust those cob webs away. Dust them away. 14. If something goes wrong, keep going. I’m going to be a stickler about that. 15. Just fine! 16. Do you need more or less air on that ‘C’. 17. That’s gorgeous. 18. Isolate things, and work on them individually. 19. When it squeaks, freeze, and look at which holes aren’t being covered. 20. Squeaks will work themselves out once the reed gets settled in. 21. Just wonderful. 22. Can I have this for a second? (takes clarinet). Can you just clap this out for me? 23. I didn’t hear the word “can’t” did I? 24. Play the rhythm of that all on one note. 25. Nothing to worry about. All settled. 26. You’re being a good sport. 27. I’m having you do some things you’ve never had to do before. 28. After a few times of not getting it, Katy played while the girl counted. 29. That was brilliant. 30. Matching sound 31. You might not be aware of it, but you’re adjusting. 32. Tell me 2 things you want to fix about that part. 33. You’re doing fine. Do you believe me? It’s true. 34. Name one thing you’re doing well in. 35. Yeah! You’re like me. When someone asks me what I’m doing well, I don’t speak up. 36. Some things are beautiful. 37. Don’t end the lesson on something you’re unsure on. 38. You can’t just say I don’t know in order to get out of answering the question. 39. That’s a great piano sound. Now I’d like you to try a nice mezzoforte sound. 40. Now think about one thing I might mention to do better. 41. Tell me if there’s anything bizarre about that. 42. Now did you hear any “bedum bums” there in that fingering? 43. Well heck, it’s even a bad reed and you’re doing well. 44. It gives you an added opportunity to miss. 45. It’s not too hard, it’s hard only because yu’re not used to it. 46. They threw us a little curve ball. 47. Now erase that from your brain. 48. Your hands did the right thing, now your mouth is a little confused. 49. NOT ONE MORE TIME. Just say again. 50. There was just that little hesitation. Where was it? 51. Transitioning is hard. 52. Explain this concept 53. ISOLATE< SEPARATE. 54. Silently establish the tempo before you actually start playing. 55. Sound ….tone… even______ripples, or waves. Little waves in the sound. 56. Remember on clarinet, quiet blow sharp, and loud blows flat.
Mark turcotte 1. Nice precise releases 2. Good eyes guys. 3. Let’s all be friends and go at the same tempo. 4. I’m sorry I can’t hear you unless your hand is raised. 5. When you rush, you get that galloping horse feeling. 6. Music is hard. It takes all your concentration every second.I’ll ask your opinion. Was there any change in dynamic between _and ___? 7. Yes you can.yes you will. 8. Nearly, nearly, it nearly happened. 9. Trumpets chin (head0 up. He indicated this by raising his own chin with his hand. 10. Full Full concentration on this time through. 11.
Bodner 1. We’re gonna shelve that for ten minutes. 2. If you need to breathe do it discretely. 3. Linger on every note. 4. Support ends of phrases. 5. I’m gonna make an amendment. 6. Plaintive cry coming out of the depths. 7. Seek to be heard. 8. Back to a cat and mouse game. 9. It’s never just note, note, note, note. 10. That’s so in the box, that’s so cozy blanket. 11. Round off the decrescendo, not fall off a cliff. 12. Listen to who has the same part as you. 13. You need to be able to pick forte out of your bag and throw it to me. 14. Come out like a bull fighter. Williams, 1. I would prefer that you not do that. 2. Counts off for attention, 5,4,3,2,1 with and up. 3. Do not clean your instrument here, that’s what home is for. 4. Eyes up here, eyes on me. 5. If you look, you listen, if you listen , you learn. 6. I hate to repeat clear instructions for people who are talking. 7. Sometimes we don’t sound good on our instruments. It’s usually us. We all have bad days. 8. You look like a complete idiot if you’re sitting back. 9. Sit as if there was no back to the chair. 10. But it’s comfortable, this is not comfort land. 11. Embouchure is the shape your mouth takes when you play. 12. Pull those cheeks in, tighten them up. 13. How do you approach the mouthpiece. 14. Puffing cheeks gives you inconsistent sound, and a good chance you’ll squeak. 15. Well that was less than good. 16. If we don’t do it right, I don’t want to do it again incorrectly. 17. I hope you got my point. 18. Identifying symbols and notes. 19. If you’re feeling noisy today, now’s a good time to put yourself in check. 20. You really need to put that away so I can start. 21. Nothing’s worse than a big old dirty case from your feet resting on it. 22. Your grade will suffer. 23. I’ll forgive you this first time you forget it, then I’ll start taking off. 24. I don’t want to heart the swish swish of our case and the click click of your valves. 25. Any more clicks, I take the sticks away and you don’t play the rest of the rehearsal. 26. You guys spaced out on me. (whistles and waves hand in front of her face for attention). 27. Did you have smart pills for lunch? 28. I have not had the good fortune to see that one. 29. It’s considerably different. 30. Yoo hoo! Over here. 31. If I make a mistake. I’m human. You guys make mistakes every day too. 32. I’m happy, you’re happy. You’re happy, I’m happy. 33. Reel it in. 34. You need to always maintain that focus of yours. 35. Don’t jump the gun when you come in. 36. Home, that’s the place where you take your instrument, take it out of the case, and play it. 37. I’m pleased with that. Scherpa 1. This is a water bottle; they come in purple, blue, green, yellow, black, and clear. I suggest you get one. This one is Rubbermaid. They also come in any brand. Get one and bring it to rehearsal so you don’t have to leave rehearsal to go to the water fountain. Misc. 1. Blow straight 2. \turn the heat on 3. For the sake of not running out of air 4. Start here, and let’s see how far we get. 5. Afterward we’ll map out where we sho9uld breathe 6. How will you improve the tone. It’s one thing to say I need to play with a better tone, and another thing to actually do it. 7. Pretend there’s no time (end of lessons). 8. Play with good energy. 9. Now that you know where your sound is, why go back to the old one? 10. Chop Chop. 11. How’s it going? 12. How’s clarinet? 13. Fill the whole room up. 14. Louder does not mean faster. 15. Index finger is a very strong finger (“A’s”) 16. A to b (over break) crescendo the A, and you won’t even hear a difference between the two. 17. Get the air pressed behind the tongue. 18. Not sneaking into each note. 19. What do you think? Any suggestions for yourself? 20. Clear sound, not like a scratchy record. 21. For sound, start with the air first. 22. That’s a lovely, full piano. 23. For piano, that’s not a thin tone. 24. Piano is like forte from a distance. 25. One of the colored pin wheels that you blow and it spins. For this passage, keep the air spinning. 26. No garbage in the tone. Get all the garbage out of the tone. 27. Clear all the moisture out of the reed. 28. Air on tip of tongue doesn’t mean that the tongue works any harder, it’s that the air is pressing stronger. 29. Sweet sound. 30. The volume and sound of the last note is the model you should use for the whole thing. 31. See, you are a painter, and last year you used black and white, now you’re starting to use colors, a little red, a little blue, etc. 32. Air over all the notes and tongue underneath each note. 33. Clarinet players, don’t rest your elbows/arms on your legs, and to help with that, sit up straight. 34. Do your best to keep your cheeks focused in, not dimpling in though. 35. Training for a marathon, you build to it. Same here. 36. Experiment with more and less mouthpiece. 37. Any questions so far? 38. You’re a natural! 39. Get the tongue out of the way right after the attack. 40. When bottom lip is not tucked under, it causes squeaks. 41. That triggered a thought. 42. Spectacularly different 43. Who would like to offer something up? 44. Who’d like to throw something out there? 45. Clarinet- don’t be afraid of the squeaks; because when you heard the squeak, you automatically shut down. 46. Let’s try working with you just a few seconds. 47. Clarinet- the groaning sound before switching octaves. 48. Melodic motion 49. Let’s do a series of them. 50. EDUCARE- lead out, not stuff in. Bodner 1. Score study colors 2. Blue for dynamics and articulation 3. Red for cues 4. Long black line for structure 5. Good old-fashioned hard work. 6. Batiste-goal-rewrite the score. 7. Similar parts highlight the same way. 8. Cresc.and dim. Trade colors 9. Makes a “bracketed slur” for phrases. 10. Arrows-phrase push, pull. 11. Note Grouping Thurmond Bodner 1. If not, so be it. 2. Tone coloris very mezzo (very gray). 3. One fundamental concern 4. Treat this with care. 5. Make sure all the little insidious details are in order. 6. That’s three minutes of time not well spent. 7. The end of the note has to be just as loud as the beginning. 8. Bar lines are not breath marks, ends of notes aren’t breaths. 9. A plethora of different colors 10. Don’t wander aimlessly. Those 8th don’t have a home. 11. Partake in whatever you wish to partake in after. 12. Anguishing. 13. My preference. 14. The common denominator is synchronization 15. Taxing 16. Chort 17. By all accounts 18. What was even more egregious than that was……….. 19. I know it’s pianissimo, but you still need to play with a leading quality. 20. Beginning.I’m not gonna stop. 21. It sounds a little too heavy metal for my money/liking 22. You had a mental lapse 23. That passage is a stinker 24. A word of warning 25. Don’t make it sound like an etude. 26. If you can play it that well, why not go that extra ways? 27. No 2 notes are the same dynamic back to back. 28. That’s your solemn obligation, to come to rehearsal prepared. 29. It sounds very square. 30. It’s your time to shine. 31. It’s up to you, it’s gotta be something. 32. Melodic motion. 33. That needs to be hushed. 34. Notes before rests are always to the full value. 35. I should have the guts to put my money where my mouth is. 36. We don’t have a luxurious amount of time. 37. Don’t want to damage the music. 38. Accent, you’re knocking at the door with a gloved hand. 39. One final observation. 40. There are no answers, only choices. 41. I’m gonna skip ahead for now. We’ll cover this later. 42. To whatever extent you can. 43. I can see that unwinding a fair amount. 44. An ounce of time. 45. I’ll restrain from saying. 46. That hasn’t been a systematic problem. 47. Our focus is certainly not on pitch right now. 48. We can’t have 15 interpretations of where the peak of the mountain is. 49. Your entrance needs to entice them to come in with a certain quality of sound. 50. That note wasn’t rounded off (pillowy). 51. Whenever something different happens, you want to bring it to the fore. 52. I don’t want to have to stop ‘cause the first trumpet passed out due to lack of oxygen. 53. They were turning purple over there. 54. That was forte, I’m not gonna quibble about that. 55. A picture is worth a thousand words. 56. Keen understanding. Bartley 1. Alright Matthew, I’m gonna do some serious yelling at you today, because this is probably the only time we’ll have to meet. So don’t take it personally. 2. Same rhythm.the exact same rhythm 3. It doesn’t work yet does it? 4. That’s how you have to practice, sometimes one note at a time. 5. Your fingers still don’t know where they’re going yet. 6. Your fingers did the right thing that time, but the lips didn’t. 7. If you learn things by playing slowly, that’s ok. But, you still have to do the rhythm correctly, slowly. 8. Even when you play slowly, keep the rhythm steady. 9. What’s happening there? 10. Are you recognizing what’s happening here? We’re practicing and you’re getting it. Huh huh huh. 11. You played one perfectly, and ripped off the next two. 12. I’m gonna sing what you did, and tell me what’s wrong with it. 13. Stop, perfect. Do it again. 14. Matt, you’re tired. You know that I am too. Pat Smith 1. Be willing to make mistakes. 2. What’s the story here? 3. Beginning please, let’s see what we’ve learned. 4. Read the fine print. 5. This is the thematic material. 6. Play those 3 notes as if you have something invested in it. 7. Those three notes are dramatic material. 8. Excuse me? You’re not responding to the fine print. 9. Don’t trust your memory. 10. We should come to rehearsal with the other dimension in mind. 11. I don’t want to talk about notes. 12. Once we get it one time, life is good for the rest of the passage. 13. Yeah, excuse me, excuse me, you’re asked to slur. 14. Expressive accents. 15. Aggressive 16ths. 16. I always come here thinking I have more energy than you guys, why is that? 17. Glorious sound. 18. Not the glamour show. 19. Got the idea? Here we go. 20. You give us something interesting. 21. I got something to say about that. 22. You got the idea right.. 23. Use the God-given gift of peripheral vision. 24. Do you understand what I just said to you? 25. You gotta sense each other. 26. 3rd and 4th beat go to the downbeat. 27. We’re getting there. 28. Something like that. 29. Interjection of thought. 30. Sorry, you’re not there yet. 31. No, no, practice at home. 32. How many people have ever received an A in mathematics at some point in your career, raise your hands, raise your hands high. The concept is 1,2,3,4. That’s it. 33. Excuse me, don’t be dense, figure out what your bowing is. 34. Don’t be wishy washy. Give me a facial expression that says, “I just heard what you said, and my brain computed what you said.” 35. Do not argue with a lady.You young men, don’t argue with a lady. 36. There’s a conference going on. A round table discussion. There’s no clapping in orchestra. you do the feet thing. 37. We’re getting closer 38. Intimidation time 39. Dig in 40. See if you can blend this.
Music educators 1. Zoltan Kodaly 2. Carl Orff 3. Shinichi Suzuki 4. Howard Gardner 5. Jean Piaget 6. Edwin Gordon 7. Maria Montessori 8. John Dewey 9. Jacques Dalcroze 10. Heinrich Pestalozzi 11. Tanglewood symposium 12. Lowell Mason 13. Michael mark 14. Loom’s taxonomy 15. Axion?
Cello 1. Saddle to sternum 2. For flexibility, put the right hand on bridge and left hand on scroll. 3. Move hand and take arm with you. 4. Not shoulder 5. Keep C peg above your ear. 6. Keep left notch of rib on the side of knees. 7. Adjust end pin 8. Sit so that you could stand up at any moment. 9. Cello turned in, not out. Turned to the right. 10. No, tight wrists. 11. Electrical tape cut in half, used as a landmark. Don’t live by the tape.arm and wrist in straight plain. 12. Thumb behind second finger. (behind fingerboard) 13. Square off fingers by turning knob. 14. Elbow not too high. 15. Open the hand. 16. No lazy elbows. 17. Raise bow arm but keep shoulder down. 18. Keep pressure off the frog on down. 19. Keep left arm up. 20. Don’t rest head on the neck. 21. On higher strings, think down bows going out (forward), otherwise it’ll come inward. 22. Fingers draping over the bow. 23. When loosening up the bow strings, hold the bow upward with left hand and loosen with the right hand (pull towards you). 24. In the fourth position, rest thumb on the saddle. 25. From the A-string D, to E (first finger) LET THUMB GO, AND SLIDE IT ALL THE WAY TO SADDLE. 26. Thumb underneath the first finger in fourth position. 27. Still remember position of legs. 28. Still rest the cello on knee.
Misc. 29. Dutifully complete your assignments 30. Think pair share 31. Arsenal of skills 32. An absolute shambles 33. Hands down, eyes forward 34. Instrument thing, lift fingers pitch up. Take off, pitch up. 35. SEPARATE, SIMPLIFY, FACILITATE 36. Don’t show and tell at the same time.
Karen Lavoie 1. Nice start at the first strain 2. Little messy, little suspect 3. Low brass and reeds and percussion, nice and light and crisp, let it bounce 4. Watch out for the Bb, pitch pitch pitch 5. Trumpets it’s only mezzoforte you don’t have to do so much 6. Trumpets, forte with a good sound, don’t blast 7. Tighten up the roll 8. Flutes, can you blow through that entire measure 9. Robert W. Smith is THE hot composer 10. Rolls at the beginning softer because it’s easy to bury people there. 11. The chime tempo is not even close 12. It’s a 4-bar phrase, you have to carry it through all the way 13. Only do forte to the point that you maintain good control 14. It’s good to hear some clarinet work there. 15. Dynamic-wise I don’t think we’ve done a lot of contrast here. 16. Don’t breathe there, trade off (staggered breathing) 17. It has to be clean and precise, or else it doesn’t mean anything. 18. Trumpets I think you’re overplaying that needlessly, not so much. 19. Dynamic contrast, even more so. 20. I would sure like to see this group, which I know you can, play longer phrases, I feel like you play maybe two bars at the most, and there’s enough talent here that we can do even more than that.
Alex Pershounin 1. Saxes lead here a little more 2. Perc. Definitely be a little more assertive dynamicly so that the band may be lead a little more comfortably. 3. The tempo is sliding back a bit. 4. Maybe a little more projection overall in the back line, adjusting to the acoustics of this hall. 5. Since it’s a march you need to be a little brighter in the timbre throughout. 6. Fortepiano could be more dramatic. 7. The crescendo could be a little more emphasized as well getting into 19. 8. Taper off the end of those phrases, and shape it according to the direction of the phrase as well. Louder at the top of the phrase. 9. My compliments to the brass section, trumpets, very nice. 10. This fortissimo, a little bigger I would think. 11. Project a little more pulse throughout the group.
Daniel D’Addio 1. Nice change to the subito dynamic 2. Let the dotted half note sing right into measure 15 3. Transition from compound double, to simple double watch the subdivisions 4. A piece like this needs to be lighter, 42 and 43 respectively, and highlighting the accents 5. I’d like the woodwind section to play with more warmth in the sound 6. For my taste it needs to have more of a melodic design; it needs to connect more 7. Con moto, with motion, it’s just a bit heavy 8. Be certain that there’s no accent there 9. I here the weight on the accents, but the staccatos could be lighter 10. Bass drum, think about drawing the sound out of the instrument, instead of striking it 11. Making the differences between the horizontal and vertical aspects of the sound. Horizontal, more legato and connected. 12. Making sure to the intonation is addressed in the second movement, it’s most evident there. Walter Pavasaris (Lexington-Boston Conservatory) 1. It’s my sincere hope that my comments reflecting on your performance will be of help as you strive to reach your set of musical goals. I will be speaking as you perform; I mean no disrespect by doing so, but that’s the format of the festival; therefore the score sheet will have just numbers with virtually no writing on it, no commentary on it at all. All the commentary will be on the tape. I want to thank you for being here to share your music-making with us this morning, and it’s such a wonderful gift you have to share with us. I’m looking forward to your performance, and our brief time together in the clinic. Again, good luck on your performance, and thanks for being here. 2. As I’m speaking the band is now assembling on stage, as your making preparations to perform think of the harmonic line, the rhythmic line, the melody line, the pulse, the heartbeat of music, your phrasing, breath support, setting your embouchure as to how you want it to sound, or how you want whatever you’re speaking through your instrument to sound like when you perform; it’s really very, very important. 3. I don’t have an instrumentation sheet, I should say. It seems like we have a very eclectic group here; we have at least one violin which is great; the violin can play the upper part. We have woodwinds, and I see brass, and the percussion line. Again, percussion, I’m not sure how this is going to be, but you want to be very much aware that you don’t overbalance or underbalance your peers, your colleagues in the wind brass and also the string value, so be very, very careful as you perform. Good posture; posture is so important, keeping the bells, the belled instruments at the same height; that’s very, very important also. 4. Percussion don’t overbalance, watch and listen. 5. Start the crescendo softer in m. 6. 6. Percussion you have to be much softer, you have that cinderblock wall behind you, it’s going to bang your sound right out, so you want to play even softer so you don’t overbalance the people in front of you. 7. Again percussion watch your conductor so that you’re exactly with him. It’s a matter of time between the podium and where you are. 8. Don’t push your sound. Get a nice full sound, don’t overblow. 9. A little more from the bass voices in the obligato parts. 10. Keep the pulse, when it gets softer don’t get slower. 11. If you’re not singing your parts vocally before you play them, you might want to consider doing that so that you learn to internalize the phrase. 12. Everyone needs to know if you’re primary or secondary parts; whether you’re in the foreground or the background. 13. Everyone has to support the sound. 14. Little disagreements in the intonation in some of the mid and lower voices. 15. Think of the phrasing over a period of time. 16. The mid and lower voices tend to get shrouded a bit. 17. Into the largo, good breath control into this please. 18. Sustain to the very end. Keep the air pressure consistent so you support the pitch and the amount of air can diminish to make the tapering of the phrase. 19. Who’s got the melody here, the accompaniment, the harmonic line, has to move exactly together. 20. That’s nice, think of the line. 21. Think that linear line, that horizontal line. Connect it, it’s too much of a vertical motion, it’s got to be more connected. 22. Be very careful that we agree on the pitch. 23. Again, knowing what you want your embouchure to feel like before you play. 24. SITTING ON YOUR FEET NOT ON YOUR SEAT. 25. The bottom has to be impeccably in tune so you build from the bottom up. 26. Practice singing the theme together. 27. This is so challenging. 28. Think of moving together at the same time so that there isn’t this break in between. 29. Start a crescendo softer. 30. Your energy is commendable, but don’t come in too harshly. 31. At letter D, we need to hear the lower forces. 32. We have a melody fortissimo, and an accompanying fortissimo at the same time. 33. There’s some nice individual playing as well as ensemble playing. 34. Sometimes the clarinet gets a little strident. 35. Thank you again for sharing your music with us this morning.
Claudia Hopewell 1. Looking forward to seeing and hearing you perform this morning. 2. This auditorium is very live, so your piano is coming out louder than you’d probably like. 3. The half steps are out of tune against each other. Sal Cicciarella 1. I need to report what great discipline you have. 2. Don’t rush the conductor. 3. I didn’t understand what the break was all about, but we figured it out. 4. Try to pay a little more attention to the intonation over here. I know that when you’re warming up and you’re doing the Bb scale that you take a little more time to tune. I know you were rushed this morning and that doesn’t help certainly. But listen, listen to each other and tune up to the ensemble. It would’ve take another minute or two and that would’ve been alright. 5. Tempo is creeping up. 6. Do play over the rest there at 12. 7. Separate the sound a little more on the staccatos. 8. If you do the section in slow motion and analyzed all those chords to make sure that each note is where it needed to be. 9. There are a lot of parts doubled. Try to find those similar parts, and try to work those parts out first. 10. Good rhythmic drive there, nice energy. Careful for the entrances. 11. We have to find out where the melody is here and that’s what we need to bring out. 12. With this one there there’s some things about articulation I want you to think about. And the precision on all the rhythmic notes. There’s a lot of nice colors here, we just want to balance. 13. Maybe some kids could convert (alto to bari). 14. Try not to break up those nice little phrases there kids. Take a nice big breath. 15. In this piece there’s a lot of homophonic playing where everyone plays the same rhythm at the same time. 16. Those quarter note triplets are not together as an ensemble. 17. Lots of things you need to revisit there. 18. We need to work on the colors of the band, the quality of the blend, the control. We have to understand that if everybody plays loud it’s not going to work. You have to be in harmony with everybody else. Find the balance and find the intonation. 19. Overall nice performance and I applaud you for coming. Thank your director for working as hard with you as he does. 20. It’s all about ensemble—keeping it together. 21. Don’t rush a lot saw, keep an eye on him. 22. Rhythm section try and keep your eye on him please. 23. On the improvisation, the more you do it, the better you get. Study improvisation techniques so you get better and better. 24. Nice work, good for you. 25. Nice dynamic change, good for you. 26. Some very strong possibilities for solos here, good job gentlemen. 27. Your director is trying to be everything up there; God bless’em. 28. So far, I think really you’re communicating with the audience good as for as communicating what you want. I think the program is very suitable. 29. Work on the music content just a little bit more. 30. Nice repertoire, actually very well chosen. 31. Some of the big issues that we’re dealing with here now are something you could be cleaning up in a rehearsal. Like the togetherness of the ensemble—try to make it just a little tighter. And that’s called technique. 32. I’d be kind of curious to know how often you do meet. 33. I’d like to make just a small suggestion if I may, try to choose the soloists, I know you try to give opportunities to everybody. 34. All the solos can be a bit distraction. 35. Just got to work on formulating the big picture over here. 36. Intonation is hurting over here.
Paul Calcari 1. Just looking at your music really excited that you’re doing a really great program. Just really looking forward to hearing you, and with you the best of luck. 2. With a group this size it’s really, really fun to play loud. But what’s going to make you sound your best is when you play softer. That enhances the louds. 3. I’d like to hear more of the low brass, and now I’m talking about balancing the band. 4. That little surge of triplets has to be going through your body constantly. 5. I want to see all the trombones facing straight out. 6. We have to work really hard on balancing out the band. 7. We want to make sure every section of the band is well-represented, and everything is heard. 8. This hall is very live, so we have somewhat of a chaotic sense of sound that’ s coming from all different directions. I’d like to build the band’s sound from the bottom up. 9. Pitch, pitch, pitch; tone quality and pitch. Keith Berry 1. Drum set player work on that groove so it gets real comfortable. Always simplify for steadiness and time, then add the elements. Consider simplifying to drive the rest of the band; then slowing add some extra elements. 2. Nice big clear open sound on the trumpet, drive the air through so we’re really in tune; supporting it. Nice clear soloistic sound. 3. I spent years in a salsa band, and those are hard-hitting, popping rhythms that are danceable. 4. I’d just like to add some more spicy elements that really give it more fire and flair. 5. How do you learn how to play this music? It’s not just you’re director. I like to ask my students when I talk to them about getting better at jazz, I say, “ Well, what’s on you’re I-pod?” And if they say, “lot’s of jazz’ that’s how you’re gonna get better at jazz—listen, listen, listen 6. I like what you’re doing with the cross-stick and cymbal work. 7. Now that I’ve said it enough maybe you get my point. 8. I like that you’re director is getting contrasting styles. 9. Duke Ellington- what a wonderful contributor to our musical treasure, America’s music—“jazz”. 10. I like the fact that your director is taking the basic material of the tunes and adding some stuff to personalize it. The fact that we got some jazz solo happening is really important, because, maybe you know it already know already, but one of the best things about playing jazz is improvising and soloing, so bravo. You have a director who’s pushing you to explore those things. 11. Be careful with the fills of the drum that you’re not overshadowing. Play along if you need to, but play under that line…just give them a little extra encouragement. 12. Remember this is a sax soli, so brass don’t overshadow it. 13. o.k. good recovery rhythm section. 14. The quality of your output is directly related to your input. The more quality jazz solos you listen to, the better you’ll play. 15. Trumpet soloist really play out to me, communicate with me, play with “reckless abandon”. Karen Lavoie 1. Good afternoon Westfield Middle School South Sixth Grade Band, my goodness that’s a mouthful. 2. Good appropriate pieces, good appropriate composers all the way through. 3. Yeah, pretty good ensemble at the beginning. It was nice and clear, I like that it’s an ensemble forte, but not too strong. 4. We’d like to have a little more of the lower line, like trombones. 5. I’m watching you guys, you’re playing down to the floor, you gotta play out. 6. You’ve gotta back off a little bit for the balance. 7. Good, I heard contrast; can you make it even more. 8. Careful, starting to push tempo a little bit. 9. Be careful; pushing time just a little bit. 10. Clarinets, you’ve got the line; we need much more from you through this little section. 11. Horns, yay! 12. Tonguing, articulate, articulate, articulate. Not “fla, fla, fla, fla fla”. 13. If you make sure to use lots of tongue on those lines, it’s gonna help it balance all the way through. 14. Be careful, any time you have more than one snare, it’s gonna get too loud, so you gotta keep it really really light, for balance purposes, especially when it’s just the woodwinds playing. 15. I’d like to hear more of that line; I lost it just a little bit. 16. Air, air, air, air, air. 17. Right, so 21 is your big moment, you have to crescendo into that. 18. Trombones, and so forth, we need you, lots and lots and lots. 19. How do you do it, you gotta play up above the stands. 20. Nice key change, love it. 21. You have this nice line, I’m not hearing that so much all the way through there. 22. At 38, balance-wise, it doesn’t say so, but just the nature of the way it is, I think you could all back off just a little bit. 23. Percussion, keep an eye out. 24. A little rough in the opening. 25. Oooh, too stong guys. 26. Way too strong in the snare, big time. 27. At 15 I can tell that there’s some really good lines going on, but boy I really couldn’t hear it at all. 28. Some tough woodwind stuff, happening through this section, it was great. 29. We’re really bearing and cutting. 30. There’s a lot of stuff happening, a lot of rhythmical things, it was very difficult to hear in some places. 31. You’ve got some busy lines in between. 32. Horns and trombones and so forth, you’ve got to make more responsibility and bring that out. 33. Clarinets bring your line out a little more if you can.
Paul Calcari 1. I want to wish you all the luck in the world. 2. Nice change up in the conga solo. 3. Nice—enjoyable. 4. Stick that, trumpet. An explosion in your mouth. 5. Pull back here. 6. Nice, feels good. 7. I’d like to see a lot more inflection on those. 8. Nicely done, getting around the horn. 9. This is a good idiom for this group. 10. I’d like to hear a little more punch from the brass. 11. Getting around that kit, nice job. 12. Bring it down and out of the way for the soloists. 13. You worked really hard on this piece and it shows. 14. Getting in balance, making sure everything’s where it needs to be. 15. Try to keep that rest clean coming into 5. 16. Stay with them percussion, don’t fall behind. 17. Come on trumpets, take the lead—melody. 18. Nice clean ending. 19. Phrasing, phrasing is everything in these marches. Keeping everything crisp, clean. Sometimes the space is more important than the note. Having a sense of movement to the bass line, a slight sense of anticipation. 20. Working with tone quality. This is obviously a very good group. We want to work on the upper parts of what a middle school band should be working on. 21. Keep the pressure behind the tone. 22. Working for those upper level things that a normal middle school band might not be working on. We want to reach that pinnacle of not just being able to play all the notes right, but making sure that everything that we’re playing is very, very musical, in-tune, tone quality. 23. Working on dynamics will help this group out a lot. 24. Again, knowing who has the melody is the real important thing, Just tearing apart on dynamically and being able to control the repetitive sounds to either keep them in the background and the foreground. 25. Thank you, I enjoyed your performance immensely. Pat Stout 1. Almost 3 different senses of time
2. Keyboard, you can’t get busy. Keep it very simple.
3. I don’t mean to rag on everything you do, but there are some real issues here.
IAJE Clinicians’ notes
Pat Stout
1. Drums work on smoothing out your swing.
2. Rhythm section make sure your groove is still there, and don’t let the hits take precedence over the time flow.
3. Bass sifter and smoother
4. Keyboard- really ned to be a little more gentle about your attacks on the chords so it flows a little better.tune with a nasty set of changes.
5. Drums- time got better once you got out of the ensemble sections; don’t alter the time with the hits.
6. With soloist don’t want to play the same voicings as you would behind an ensemble section.
7. You get into trouble when you’re doing the fills.
8. That’s a very trecherous tune.
9. It’s hard for your technical skills level to play it that fast, artivuled right. So that’s something you were probably struggling with a little bit both as a solo and soli.a little more precision, shall I say.
10. Keyboard, too much bite on the attack. It’s distracting, really.
11. Drummer, good time. You need to vary what you’re doing a little bit. 12. The band director can’t make you have good time or play it tune, or have good tone quality or solo good. Those are individual skills.
13. There’s these mini tugs-of-war.our style of comping are not a happy combination.
14. I don’t even see people tapping their feet and time.
15. The sound of the keyboard and the style of your comping are not a happy combination.
16. A lot of the good stuff you’re doing is being undone by the lack of consistent time.
17. Everybody is responsible for their own counting in any band,
18. That’s something that’s a major detriment.
19. Really start beating your foot.
20. Rhythm section needs to streamline what you’re doing.
21. You got to hold down the fort.
22. Bass, lay down the foundation, don’t play above it.
23. Develop your skills beyond this.
24. You settled into the groove, finally.
25. You got to play in the right key, you’r eplaying some notes you don’’t mean, there.
26. You’ve been playing some really out-of-key notes.
27. Soloist, 3 things, first and foremost. 1)play in tune, 2)play in right key, 3)play like you mean it.
28. Listen to the kind of music you’re trying to play so you speak the language.
29. You really got to get your time together. It was a real liability.
30. Zone in on the time.
31. Rhythm section, so sectionals for cohesiveness.
32. Comping’s been way too busy.
33. Understand the conceptual nature of what you’re trying to play.
34. Time was an obviously glaring problem.
35. You almost had a dozen train wrecks in there, as we put it when things fall apart.
36. Your director did yeoman’s work to keep things together. 37. In a big band, the drummer, the lead trumpet, and the lead alto in that order are most responsible for the time, but everyone else is too.
38. I’m not sure they were quite up to playing what you just played.
39. There were flashes of brilliance—some stretches were very good.
40. You were maybe a tad too ambitious for this age group perhaps—but again, that’s a judgment call.
41. With better time, everything will fall into place a lot better.
42. Mini tugs of war going on with the time.
43. Get the guitar down about 50% quieter.
44. Learn to play bass lines.
45. You’re making it sound like a 60’s rock tune.
46. Drummer, you really had a problem right
47. You’ll sound a lot better if you keep practicing and developing.
48. Trumpet- intonation was really ragged.
49. Try to center your sound more.
50. That’s something that’s up to the individual.
51. You really ought to start if you haven’t been counting. Otherwise you’re guessing, and guessing doesn’t work.
52. There were an awful lot of things that weren’t right, and they add up. Really detracted from your performance.
53. Some definite articulation-challenged spot.
54. Sounded like you knew your parts, but not the style.
55. Soloist, try to figure out what you’re trying to do, because that’s an art onto itself.
56. Then you should be on the right track.
57. You didn’t have the concept by, and large.
58. You could have played it better in a variety of ways. But again, that’s part of the growing process.
59. Drummer, smooth out what you’re trying to do.
60. Guitar, you sound very out-of-tune, by the way. 61. Guitar, probably want to comp a bit quieter. It’s a different function than a rock and roll situation.
62. In piano and guitar since you’re both compng you need to be very selective about what you’re doing, and not just comp as if the other person doesn’t exist, because you’re cluttering things up and making it sound wrong Vary your comping as well. I don’t mean to get stuck on that.
63. You sound like you’re playing in different keys than you should have been to some degree, on the second solo there.
64. The longs and the shorts and the accents.
65. Drums are very choppy A lot of sloppiness. If the guitar and bass are out of tune, it makes everyone sound out of tune.
66. Very famous tunes you’re playing there, If you play them wrong, it;’s kind of obvious.
67. Real ambiguity.
68. Learn to style better.
69. If you’re trying to play jazz, and you’ve never listened to it, you’re trying to speak a language you don’t speak.
TED LEVINE
1. Work more on the idea of a line, on melody, and the blues is a good place to start.
2. But I want to talk to the rhythm section here. First of all the set up of the rhythm section, bass, you should be near his hi-hat, ‘cause that’s who you hook up with. And the fact that you’re so far away, and your amp is so far away is not helping.
3. So, there’s number one. Number 2, guitar, you got to change the sound; the sound that you’re using is appropriate for the last tune (watermelon man), a rock-oriented chart; not for this. You need to deaden it; much too much treble, much too much reverb…..and you can’t let chords ring into each other. And there were times certainly when it sounded like you were really making an attempt to comp, but, you know, you and the piano player can’t trip over each other either.
4. You see now guitar, the sound is sort of in between a rock sound and a country sound on this; and it’s just not right.
5. Here, basically when you’re playing one chord per beat, Freddie Greene kind of thing, you want to dampen the sound in between.
6. Alto, you don’t have to bite it; relax that embouchure.
7. Guitar again, you can’t crank it and let it ring like that, it becomes guitar accompanied by band. 8. Drummer, you cannot play anything that’s going to get in the way of what the band is doing, and you can’t play anything that you don’t know you can execute on the button.
9. And that fill came out right, but it still turned the time around a little bit in the middle, and this one here as well.
10. See, the thing is, we shouldn’t need a conductor to make those entrances, and I bet if we didn’t have one, the band wouldn’t know where to come in on some of those fills.
11. I think the issue, first of all, is there’s not much in the way of connection between the horns and rhythm section., and connection between the various sections among the horn players.
12. That is certainly part of it.
13. The same would hold true if a strictly jazz player were to play in a rock band. They’d have to listen to that music. Inappropriate techniques; that’s just how it works.
14. Horns, get your parts together.
15. Fills, keep it nice and simple.
16. The time is getting very loose.
17. The rhythm section is obviously working under a considerable disadvantage.
18. You really got to control that.
19. Drummer, your fills need to come out right on the money, and you can’t do anything that’s any kind of technical question, and right now a lot of stuff is. Because the entrances are really ragged, and you’re responsible for part of that.
20. Play time, just play time, just straight time, because ordinarily we hear a bass line that holds everything together. Bass is the anchor of the rhythm section. That’s what gives other members of the rhythm section freedom to kick, to make hits behind soloists, fills and those sorts of things.
District Jazz- Tom Boates 1. It’s that simple. 2. You gotta know what you’re working for 3. You’re off to the races 4. Old man eyes again 5. A harmon mute kills a lot of the sound; you have to blast 6. Practice your brains out 7. Military-marines-marching- nothing out of place 8. For slow down, write a backwards squiggly arrow 9. What is a fanfare? 10. “pop”- everyone pops together 11. “disco” “peas soup, pea soup” 12. You can’t run out of gas at bar three 13. Spit in my eye (two sixteenths) 14. Jazz musician, your instrument is an extension of voice. Don’t make your instrument control you, you control it. 15. The secret of a successful crescendo is to wait. 16. * Close to a performance ask if there’s something, anything that’s bothering them (that we can work on) 17. Jazzers are classy dressers. We’re not the geek patrol, roll out of the hey loft. 18. The logistical nightmare of jazz is that since the trumpets are in back, we always have to tune to them. 19. Sometimes inner parts are a little funky- they don’t make a lot of melodic sense. 20. Write in “lead” 21. Soup of chords 22. Jazzers like tension “tension the chord” 23. I don’t want this to fall into a muddy moment. 24. Convince me that that’s solid in your brain. 25. Asing your part, chant it, csing it, say it. 26. Trombonists? Carl Fontana, Wycliffe Gordon (he’s Wynton’s favorite) 27. Hit me with the silence 28. Not quite there, but we’re working on it 29. The day of a concert, if you rehearse, brass players have to “save”. To save, you push just enough air through to get the horn to vibrate—nothing more (save) 30. I know you can play the time in general- but I want to sculpt it. 31. Dies a long, slow, ugly death. 32. Are you having a good time? Then enjoy it, and don’t play it through too fast. 33. You should practice microphone technique. Microphone awareness. ALSO BE AWARE OF THE ANGLE OF YOUR MUSIC. 34. Can you dial it down? 35. Basie Band- guitar strum lead-in beginning of a ballad after rhythm section intros. 36. GAME- play so that you hear your neighbor’s sound more than your own. 37. BRASS- think blowing more than pressing. Less compression. 38. Stop the sound hard and tight, like a bug on the windshield. 39. That was a very successful moment- hit the note successfully then do the fall—don’t ruin the successful moment. 40. In the figure: half rest, eighth rest, eighth note, staccato quarter note, barline, half note, between the staccato quarter note and the half note, there’s a little man that’s gonna leap from this building to the next. There’s wait time in between. 41. When a drummer plays a kick correctly, the band can’t help but come in well. 42. Moon gels, muffles drums. 43. Come on come on come on (in a positive voice) 44. For funk, don’t slow down. Drive drive drive. 45. I just felt like our batteries were running down. 46. There was no discrepancy. 47. I just want you to be on it. 48. A fall off with a descending slur mark is quicker than one marked as a glissando. 49. Reverse of a fall is a DOIT. 50. Drums funk/rock, hi-hat hit hard with left hand on and of two or four. 51. Little buzzes on and of four. 52. Trombone—knuckle F. 53. Two sixteenth notes are like a strange forg that instead of “ribbet” goes “da dat” 54. “So formal of you”, Down and dirty. 55. It’s funk, not English class. 56. I promise I’ll give you the conductor fist. 57. Jump right in—don’t put your toe in and say “Oh, this is cold”. 58. If this were a dance, we’d want them gliding across the floor, not thumping. 59. Please make loud mistakes. 60. If you’re gonna make a mistake, make it bright and shiny for all the world to see. 61. Thank you for making a loud mistake. 62. There’s a lot of disconnect to it. 63. “Shiny Stockings” the hardest easy tune. 64. You gotta communicate all the jazz conventions that are in this tune. 65. Like actors reading the lines, but not being in character. 66. If I were a referee I’d be throwing a flag. 67. The control to play slow and deliberate. 68. Grind out the parts 69. I want you to shine for the concert. 70. For tuning, don’t hold it forever 71. BUBS- call a plumber. 72. Support it—tell the world I’m a trombone player. 73. A word of suggestion to you. 74. For tuning we can generally tell flat, but sharp is harder. If you’re not sure, pull out. 75. Don’t be afraid to mark your music.
76. Let me offer my sage advice 77. We’ll split that solo up. 78. We might open things up a bit. 79. Unison- (not full volume)- drop back let all the pions below you play 80. Build a little trumpet arrogance, trumpet swagger 81. Low winds have the mattress that everyone sits on. 82. Bury the lead. 83. See what happens: one person comes in early and it creates doubt for everyone 84. Interesting; when it’s hard, you go faster 85. Let’s see what you remember 86. Trumpets, when you put the mute in, play louder not softer. 87. You need to know your part. 88. Let’s straighten this stuff out. 89. Let me have your utmost attention. 90. We are in, no way, ready for a concert tonight, so here’s the game plan. 91. If I’m talking to the saxes, listen too, it could apply to you too. 92. Nice and easy. 93. You can’t just sit there and hold it, you have to adjust the pitch. 94. Not much, just a fingernail. 95. I’m gonna stop a lot, be ready. 96. If I want to get 7x’s louder, you gotta start 7x’s softer. 97. I said the downbeat; you just wasted three notes. 98. We’re headed for disaster 99. Place the dynamics according to range (crescendo for higher, decrescendo for softer.) 100. In an effort to be correct, you’re playing too loud. 101. This’ll only be as good as the 1 person who doesn’t know it; and they’ll mess it up. 102. Trumpets you should be the best because you had 2 chances to valve it and hear comments. 103. The engine is starting to steam/heat up. Don’t do that again. 104. That to me, is something to be proud of. 105. Good cymbal crash will also have a snare hit. 106. Pyramid of sound. 107.