Think of yourself as a musician for a moment – would you say you’re a meerkat or a lion?
What do you mean, you’re neither?!
OK, this might not be a musical classification you’ve come across before, but let me explain what I mean…
Take a moment to compare these two animal species. If you imagine a meerkat I’m willing to bet you’ll picture them perched on a branch or rock, standing tall, alertly looking out for anything that might be a danger to the family group, ready to sound an alarm call at a moment’s notice.
In contrast, a lion sits at the top of the food chain. They have few natural predators so they spend a lot of their lives relaxing, snoozing on the savanna, as the world around them goes on. Yes, they’ll leap into action when necessary, to hunt down their next meal, but in general they have no need to be alert at all times.
Now think again about the time you spend playing and listening to music. Are you a meerkat; always alert, ready for anything the music could throw at you? Or are you a lion – chilled out and not paying too much attention to what’s going on?
Of course, there’s space for both approaches in music, and neither attitude suits every musician or situation. But I’d like to encourage you to find your inner meerkat more often and notice how that helps your own music making.
Let’s take a look at three areas where I think this is particularly important…
Awareness of oneself
Self awareness in music making is something I’ve focused on much more over the last year or two, largely as a result of teaching my students on Zoom during the pandemic. In a face to face lesson you can show pupils the errors of their ways more easily, often by playing a few bars with them. When playing together it’s much easier to hear when you’re rushing, or if you’re ignoring the composer’s articulation markings. Over Zoom, playing together in real time is all but impossible so as a teacher you have to rely on a student using their own self awareness to recognise the errors as you explain them. Let’s take a look at some of the areas where we all might need to increase our self awareness…
It’s not uncommon if you choose to study music seriously at music college or university to be taken back to basics during your first year. With the best will in the world, we all inadvertently develop bad habits over time. If you’re seeking to become a professional musician it pays to have a really good foundation to one’s technique and sometimes the best way to acquire this is to spend time going back to the fundamentals. For instance, when I began taking lessons with my recorder teacher at Trinity College of Music we spent a whole term working on my tone production and articulation. That meant three months mostly spent on breathing exercises, long notes, slow scales and exercises by Hans Ulrich Staeps. Maybe not the most inspiring mix, but it gave me a solid base on which to build the rest of my technique and musicianship, for which I’m really grateful.
Now I realise most of my readers won’t want to become professionals, but musicians of any level can benefit from being more aware of their playing technique. For instance, do you sit well when you play? Or do you slouch nonchalantly in your seat? Something as simple as posture can have a huge impact on your tone and general wellbeing. Many years ago, I spent time working on posture with the students in my summer school class. At the end of the week one of them came and told me that she always got backache when playing the recorder for long periods. Using the techniques I’d shared, her backache had gone away and she felt rejuvenated. Knowing my words had made such an impact on her musical and physical wellbeing made me so happy!
Now think of the other physical aspects of technique you might not pay enough attention to. Do you breath in a relaxed, open way? Are you using your diaphragm and core muscles to support your air column to produce a beautiful, rounded tone? Are your throat and face muscles free of tension, or are they tense, leading to a constricted sound?
What about your fingers? Are you a master of economy, minimising their movement, or do you flap them around with abandon? If you’re not sure, try playing in front of a mirror and look at your technique as an outsider would. This can be a very revealing experience!
OK, so I’ve got you thinking about your external technique – now turn your attention to the goings on inside your body.
Grab a recorder right now to play this simple melody and really listen.
Are you blowing right through the phrase, or do you puff in short bursts, creating a choppy line? Does your tonguing cut the melody up into small chunks. Or are you able to articulate really gently, so your tongue strokes interrupt the flow of breath as little as possible, creating a beautiful, connected melodic line? If you find it hard to answer these questions, try recording yourself. You’ll notice different things listening to your playing as a detached third party, rather than hearing the sound filtered through your own head. If you have a smartphone, try using the voice recording app for this and you can keep these short clips to compare your progress.
Just with that one aspect of awareness I’ve given you lots to think about. I would warn against trying to improve all aspects of your playing at once. If you try to develop your posture, breathing, tone production, fingering and tonguing all at once you’ll drive yourself to distraction! Instead, pick one aspect of your playing to focus on and then move on when you feel you’ve made progress.
Awareness of other musicians
I imagine you probably play with other musicians, perhaps regularly, maybe occasionally.
When making music with others, how aware are you of them? Do you listen carefully to the way they are playing and how you blend in? Or maybe you go into what I call ‘bingo mode’ – eyes down, totally focused on your own actions?
When we first begin making music with other people it’s easy to be overwhelmed. Depending on the difficulty of the music, you may be completely focused on just getting the notes and rhythms right, with no spare mental capacity to listen to others. That’s entirely understandable, but it’s important to develop a wider awareness while playing as soon as you can.
Initially, try to listen in a general way without getting distracted by the finer details. Ask yourself if what you’re playing fits with everything else that’s going on. In a lot of music, especially renaissance and baroque repertoire, you’ll be able to tell easily if you’re completely out of sync with others. I once encountered a student on a course who was a nimble player, but lacked awareness of others as she played. While she could get around the notes, if she got out of sync with others she steadfastly remained at odds with the rest of the ensemble until her error was pointed out. While she could play pretty much anything I threw at her, she was quite a destructive influence in an ensemble.
To avoid being a destructive ensemble player there are some steps you can take to improve your awareness. At its simplest, ask yourself if your pitch and rhythm matches that of people who are sharing the same part as you. Beyond that, listen to your intonation. Are your notes blending with others at the same pitch? Maybe you need to use a more positive airflow to avoid being flat, or perhaps you’re blowing too enthusiastically and are a little sharp. If you’re not sure which way to adjust, try one and then the other and see which is better.
Now you’re more comfortable adjusting your pitch and breath to blend with others, how is your articulation? Are your slurs hurrying a little? Fingers often take on a life of their own without the tongue to keep them in check. Where you have staccato and accent markings, listen to whether everyone in the ensemble is interpreting these in the same way. Of course, it may be that you are right and others are wrong, but everyone needs to be willing to compromise for the greater good sometimes! Maybe you’re rehearsing a fugue and other voices play the main theme before you do? In that case, observe the way they shape the melody line and try to emulate that, so the musical style is consistent.
As you gain technical fluency and experience you’ll find you’re better able to listen in detail to the musicians around you, analysing whether you are united in your musical approach. There will be times, especially when sight reading a new, challenging piece, when your external awareness slips, but aim to regain that awareness as soon as possible.
Awareness of the music you listen to
Through chatting to students and fellow professionals I’ve come to realise we all listen in different ways. Non-musicians will often listen to music just for sheer pleasure, letting it wash over them while not focusing on details. Teenagers frequently have an intimate knowledge of the lyrics in their favourite pop songs, but may not give a second thought to the type of harmony the composer has used.
In contrast I find myself perpetually analysing music I listen to. Sometimes it’ll be the harmony which catches my ear - on other occasions I’ll be distracted by the rhythms. You may consider this to be an affliction which takes away the simple pleasure of enjoying to music, but I’m just as capable of listening mindlessly and letting the sound wash over me!
As an example, if you’ve ever seen the film Dunkirk, did you notice the way composer Hans Zimmer sneaked Edward Elgar’s Nimrod into the soundtrack from time to time? It jumped out at me immediately but I wonder how many of my fellow cinemagoers simply enjoyed the lush orchestral score at face value? The following clip is a good example of this:
Of course, listening to music can be a wonderful tool to help improve your own playing. On a course several years ago I discussed baroque style with my students, noting the way the composer’s manuscript is just a starting point. We listened to a recording of the Scarlatti we were studying and I encouraged everyone to focus on the articulation, noting where the performers made the notes detached and where they were played smoothly. The looks of wonderment on my students’ faces made me realise that listening in this way was not habitual for them – they were used to listening much more passively.
Contemporary composers are generally quite prescriptive in their notation, spelling out exactly how they would like you to play the music. For instance, this extract by Steve Marshall, from his Sleazy Blues, clearly indicates which notes should be staccato or accented. Of course, you can still apply your own personal interpretation to the music, but Steve’s notation helps you understand where to begin.
Now compare this extract from Handel’s Sonata in F for two recorders and continuo – you can download the complete score by clicking here if you’d like to see the whole piece. Handel gives little information beyond the notes – no performance indications aside from the tempo and a couple of trills. Indeed, the original manuscript would have included even less – just a bassline with a little figured bass for the harpsichordist to work from. With early music, it’s up to the performer to make creative decisions about phrasing, articulation, dynamics, ornamentation and more.
So how do we make appropriate choices? A lot of the techniques professional performers use today have been gleaned from treatises of the period – such as On Playing the Flute, which I mentioned in my last blog post.
Of course, you can learn a lot by listening to by the performances of others. For example, take a moment to listen to the following recording of the Handel by The Parnassian Ensemble (including yours truly). Focus on the way we chose to shape the music, making some notes legato, while others are staccato. As you begin to listening more critically, you may notice the way we create dynamic contrasts and the effect the density of the harpsichord chords has in terms of highlighting important moments in the music.
I plan to talk more about the decisions you need to consider when thinking about articulation in a future blog post. But for now just listening critically will help you come up with creative ideas.
Next time you listen to any music, take a moment to listen with greater awareness. Ask yourself what you notice about the music. Is it in a major or minor key? How does the music make you feel – is it sonorous and calming, or energetic and uplifting. Listening in greater detail, note what creative choices the performers have made about the articulation they use or the dynamic shapes they make.
Naturally, there are times when you just need to let the music wash over you, but try and get into the habit of listening in a more critical way on a regular basis. You can then begin to experiment with some of these techniques in the music you play. You’ll soon find it helps bring your performances to life.
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So have you decided if you’re a meerkat or a lion yet? I freely admit I’m more of a meerkat, but that’s largely as a result of my musical training. For example, I recently discovered the TV series Travel Man and became obsessed with analysing the time signature of the closing credits (16/8 if you know the series and are intrigued). I’m willing to bet most fans of the show simply enjoy the rousing tune!
I’d love to hear what conclusions you come to about your own awareness, both physically and musically. Have you had any of those eureka moments, with flashes of recognition or inspiration? Maybe you realised an errant finger was slowing you down in a fast passage, or perhaps listening to others in an ensemble helped you to become a better musician. Or maybe, like me, you smiled at the unexpected recognition something interesting hidden away in a piece of music. Please do comment below and share your thoughts.