The Shed/Education

Download Complete Exercise: 

Exercise_No_1.pdf

This exercise isolates the intervals of Major arpeggios, moving through the entire range of the saxophone and cycling through all twelve keys, repeating the exercise with the intervals inverted. It is easily extendable to support a greater range but is given here simply for the written range of the saxophone. As discussed in Practice Heuristics, the exercise works all ranges of the horn evenly, extending each arpeggio to its lowest constituent in the saxophone's range and up to its highest. It should be treated as a sound exercise, with emphasis given to intonation, evenness of tone and stability of embouchure.

In Practice Heuristics I outlined several guiding principles for structuring one's approach to instrumental practice. Here, I will elaborate on the principle of "Separation of Craft and Art." When I last wrote on this subject, I suggested, "the goal is to make technique transparent in the same way that, ideally, the instrument itself is transparent when not malfunctioning." Using this as a starting point, I believe that a discussion of classical piano pedagogy would serve as an exemplar of a methodical appraoch to achieve these ends.

A musician desirous of instrumental technique should devote some time each day to the treatment of the instrument outside of the context of musical performance. The precise level of separation however, is difficult to establish. In the previous essay, I described the danger of enmeshing the acts of playing music and developing technique, namely the failure to do justice to either. However, the two are still necessarily linked. Technique is developed specifically as a means by which to play music. If totally estranged from the ends, the acquisition of technique becomes an aimless task. What sort of instrumental technique ought one to develop?

Here, I think an apt metaphor lies with the principle of encapsulation and layered architectures in software development and object oriented programming. Without delving too deeply: layers in a layered architecture are built on top of each other, each layer required only to know how to interface with the layer below it. Java code needs only to conform to Java coding standards and know how to interact with lower level libraries. The Java interpreter needs to know how to run on its host operating system. Further down the stack, the operating system needs to know how to interface with the hardware on which it is being run, services which it abstracts so that higher level activities need not know about them. These layers are not entirely isolated. Maintainers of Java libraries are keenly aware of the general needs of the Java programmers who rely on them. Engineers of operating systems are keenly aware of what sort of software will rely upon system calls to the operating system. But, ideally, there is a clean separation between these layers, allowing layers higher on the stack to perform advanced acts of computing without having to worry too much about all the underlying complexity (although they still need to pay attention to unnecessary complexity within their own work).

Here, as a musician, the metaphor becomes obvious. On the lowest level, the hardware consists of a human anatomy and an instrument, unless these happen to be the same entity. Higher up on the stack is the fundamental technique on which all higher skills are built, generally sound production, the proper movement of the fingers, the correct embouchure. These skills are enmeshed in the act of making music just as the operating system is enmeshed in the execution of any computer program, but here they are removed, isolated, and mastered. Classical pianists ritually execute such an act of separation in the daily practicing of methods like Hanon, which, although musically vapid, serve marvelously as the layer in between the performance of music and the musical hardware. In Hanon Ex. 1, the entire point of the exercise is to develop the capacity to play the interval of a third between the 5th and 4th fingers. This is a skill required in many pieces of music, however here the skill is developed in a far more industrious way than could ever be achieved merely by practicing music that occasionally requires it.

The dialog between the development of music for performance and the development of raw technique should be a fluid one. Problems unearthed in the act of practicing a piece of music should be treated with appropriate exercises and where none exist, new exercises should be created. While layers lower on the stack, like hardware and technique, determine the possibility space for an instrumentalist in the act of creating and performing music, the goal in developing these lower layers should be to make them as transparent as possible. Technique should be developed with an eye to allowing artistic decisions to be built on top of them. The technical achievements themselves should not usurp the artistic ends, leading to the creation of music that offers little more artistically than a slam dunk competition.

Separation of Craft and Art

Classical musicians break up the acts of acquiring instrumental technique and preparing music for performance. The separation between means and ends is clear. Patterns are dealt with, but not with the idea that they are to be applied verbatim in concert. Hanon, Czerny, Klosé, are but a few of the celebrated methods devoted to the development of technique. The goal is to make technique transparent in the same way that, ideally, the instrument itself is transparent when not malfunctioning.

Jazz musicians, burdened by the necessity of dealing not only with technique and repertoire but also with harmony, improvisation, and composition often lose sight of this separation, combining the acts of practicing the instrument and practicing the music. This conflation of craft and art does neither justice, yielding half-formed technique and technical-sounding music. Generally, it is not possible to do everything at once. A pop singer selected for a combination of sex appeal, vocal talent, and dance skill will seldom be sexy enough to model, talented enough to impress a professional singer, or skilled enough to cut it as a dancer alone. I advocated choosing practice methods with specific priorities in mind.

Thanks to Branford Marsalis from whom I learned this concept.

Consistency, Evenness throughout Range

One problem that plagues jazz musicians is an inconsistency in range. Specifically, saxophone players have a tendency to develop one vocabulary that is employed through most of the range; another, less extensive vocabulary for the altissimo range; and a third, equally limited vocabulary, which is applied in the lower register.

It's easy to understand why this might happen. The middle register is worked substantially more than any other range of the instrument. If scales are practiced starting and ending on the tonic, all the middle notes are played substantially more than the lowest or highest notes. Imagine a saxophonist, whose range is from low B-flat to high F, practicing major scales. The high F is only played on one scale. The High E and E-flat are each played in only two scales, etc. The same logic applies to 'licks'. The highest and lowest notes are seldom reached.

Separating technique from the act of playing, this problem is easy to isolate. Modify all exercises to traverse the entire range of the instrument equally. This way the altissimo, middle range, and lower register are not practiced separately. Further, playing through all three ranges with the same air, a unification of the ranges is possible.

An Outline of the Method

• For all exercises, choose a highest note and lowest note in the range. This range can grow or shrink from day to day, the important thing is to choose a range, whether it be one octave or four. At first, if in doubt, start conservatively.
• For each pattern-oriented exercise, whether it be scalar, concerning arpeggios, etc., choose a starting note as you usually would.
• Next, play the exercise ascending until it reaches the highest note in the range (or the highest note in the range that is permissible in the exercise).
• Then play the exercise descending until it reaches the lowest note in the range (or the lowest note in the range that is permissible in the exercise).
• Lastly, ascend again, until the starting note is reached.

In this way, the entire range of the instrument is traversed twice. For example, given a G Major scale and a range from low B-Flat to high F, one would start the scale on either G, as usual. Then one would ascend to high E (F is not contained in the G Major scale), descend to low B (B-Flat is not contained in the G Major scale), and return to G. In a subsequent lesson I will post a more comprehensive exploration of this concept with many applications and accompanying sheet music.

Thanks to Jan Vinci, whose flute lessons inspired my development of this heuristic.

Everything is a Sound Exercise

The final, but perhaps most important heuristic that I will include in this article is the treatment of all practice as a sound exercise. This stems from two observations.

• Sound is the most important attribute of any musician's technique. Great players' sounds are instantly identifiable. There have been many noteworthy artists who lacked virtuosity in most other ways, but it's nearly impossible to find any who lacked sound.
• When sound is compromised in an exercise, it generally indicates not just the neglect but also the degradation of sound. If pinching the reed to play high notes, one is not merely failing to gain anything from the exercise. Bad habits are being developed.
• To rectify technique acquired at the expense of sound, one needs to unlearn the technique, relearn sound, and then relearn the technique, this time with proper sound

I personally played with awful technique for many years, dropping my jaw on low notes and pinching high notes. Subsequently, most of the technique that I acquired at the time is now useless as I seek to redevelop my entire sound concept. If ever anything doesn't sound controlled enough to be a sound exercise, I should probably be doing sound exercises instead.

The first thing that I have had to deal with in relearning the saxophone is sound. After playing only several times over the course of a year, my sound had deteriorated considerably. Air support and embouchure were both wanting.

Even before my hiatus from the instrument, I had some pronounced problems with sound. For one, my intonation, normally good, became a liability when I played faster music. Additionally, low notes were a problem. Playing a low Bb on straight on, with good attack and response, was a challenge I rarely met successfully. The response was slightly delayed, distorted.

Roughly one year before I stopped playing, I decided to employ the double-lip embouchure, effectively starting from scratch. While I have since realized that this embouchure is uncomfortable for my particular anatomy, its unforgiving nature had a therapeutic effect, forcing me to abandon bad habits that had accumulated over a decade.

The Problem

There is a sound that we generally associate with people first learning how to play the saxophone. The dimensionless, uncentered sound that flows from simply forcing air through the mouthpiece without much more consideration. Generally, as players develop, listening to masters with instantly recognizable sounds (Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Johnny Hodges, Joe Lovano come to mind), they try to shed the “high school” sound, altering their embouchures in ways that seem intuitive.

The foundational difference between a robust sound and the “high school” embouchure is the presence of a chamber for the air. Sound production requires the presence of a large pocket to contain and shape the air as it passes through the embouchure. Players seeking dimension in their sound have two choices:

• Create the chamber in the front of the mouth. This chamber is insufficient for most notes, requiring one to manipulate the jaw to adjust to different notes. (This is the incorrect approach)
• Create the chamber in the back of the throat. Keep the jaw exactly where it is, relaxed, and lower the tongue, thereby flattening the floor of the mouth, opening the entire throat as a chamber to shape the sound.

In the rush to have a less juvenile sound, many players, including myself, develop bad habits, forming the sound in the mouth and not the throat. This manipulation of the jaw to create the chamber presents several problems:

• The jaw can only move so fast. The faster the music, the more labored the adjustments to the jaw. This creates intonation and response problems that grow worst as the music grows faster
• Manipulation of the jaw leads one to drop the jaw on low notes and pinch on high notes. The result is low notes that lack response and high notes that sound choked.
• The embouchure is inherently unstable. The throat, while not used, is not sealed off from the mouth. Air leaks, and the embouchure degrades easily, resulting in inconsistent sound.

The alternative, fixing the jaw and dropping the tongue, while far less intuitive, suffers from none of these problems. I do not suggest that the jaw plays no role in the formation of sound on any level. For particular effects, sounds, inflections, manipulation of the jaw is still useful. Joe Lovano is one of many saxophonists who drops his jaw to produce a particular effect regularly, particularly when creating huge swells in the lower register. However, here I am addressing only fundamental technique. While a novelist might employ slang in dialog, that is an issue apart from his command of the English language. In the following section, I outline a strategy for mastering this embouchure.

The Test

Look in a mirror and pretend to have a tennis ball in your mouth. You might notice your chin wrinkling, appearing 'bunched up'. For some reason to be left to biomechanics, the attempt to create the chamber in the front of the mouth results in this very unattractive presentation of the chin.

Now, saxophone in hand, reproach the mirror. Careful not to pinch the read or drop the jaw, play a G with full air support and pay attention to the chin. Make absolutely sure that the chin doesn't contract in any way. If done properly, you should feel a huge pocket of air forcing its way into the back of your throat.

If this is nothing new, and your chin never moves, I have offered nothing of note and apologize. However, if like myself, you have been playing for years without employing the throat, this is the hard part.

The Solution

For a short time, to make the radical change in sound formation, you have to be ready to make peace with giving up all of your technique. Having never been used in this way, the throat is unprepared to accommodate virtuosity right away.

To begin, give up the entire range of the horn, starting only with G. Replace all exercises with long tones in the mirror. Focus on the jaw, the throat, and the sound. Pay attention that the sound is full, the attack strong, and that the chamber is in the throat. Continue to pay attention to the chin. If it bunches when you play or flinches when you attack, something is probably awry. It is ok if this feels uncomfortable at first. Slowly, as G begins to feel stable, add Ab. Alternate playing G, then Ab. Each note sustained for at least 10 seconds. Make sure that the interval being played is really a half step.

Slowly, expand the range both downwards and upwards. If unsure as to whether you are compromising form for range, cut back on range. Because you might not have used all the muscles in the embouchure this way, they might become fatigued easily. This is ok. Think of it as going to the gym. All the progress is made when your muscles are tired. Just be cautious not to ever compromise form. If you feel form deteriorating, just take a break and try again in half an hour.