Music Performance

By John Gardner

Part I: If the notes are on the paper, it is your job to play ALL of them: 5 Steps for Cleaning Technical Passages

Part II: Play EVERYTHING on the paper

Senior year in high school, I played a technical solo for contest and was using that same piece to audition for a college scholarship.

The clarinet professor traveled 70 miles to hear me play at my high school. After nailing the piece that got me a standing ovation in the solo contest room, I was ready for heaps of praise. Instead, I finished and watched a guy in agony before finally commenting,

You know….NASA can teach monkeys how to wiggle their fingers.

So you can play the notes? Good for you. There is no festival rating system I am aware of that will award the top rating (Superior, Gold, I) to someone who plays ONLY the notes.

Think of driving a car.

Playing the notes is like staying on the road. Staying on the road is a good strategy and you won’t get far if you are unsuccessful, but if the only thing you’re watching are the edges of the road, you might miss the other signs along the way; stop, yield, speed limit, deer crossing, If you drive like that, you’re going to get a ticket (at best) or have an accident (at worst).

When playing an instrument, you must be able to multi-task.

I was able to reinforce this common analogy I use when my car was struck recently by a high school student not multi-tasking, i.e. watching out for other vehicles and yielding appropriately in the school parking lot…while texting.

While playing all the notes, the good performer also watches for dynamics, articulation, rhythmic accuracy, and stylistic instructions.

Musicians must multi-task as he/she plays the notes. How do you play those notes; slurred, articulated, what kind of articulation, at what dynamic, in what rhythm, and in what style? Let’s address some of the major common errors.

Dynamics. The two more common mistakes related to dynamics are; 1) no dynamic contrast (everything is the at the same volume level) or 2) not enough dynamic contrast (softs softer and/or louds louder).

For most people, if you are playing without thinking about dynamic level, you are at a mezzo forte (mf). You have to work at playing both softer and louder. That is one way to find a starting point, but there are others.

Look at the piece you’re playing and find both the softest and loudest dynamic marks. Those are your most extreme….emphasize those and gauge the rest accordingly.

If a phrase of music is repeated, unless markings specifically indicate otherwise, make a distinction between the two.  Historically, one technique often used was that of the echo; a phrase played at a louder volume and then immediately repeated at a softer level, similar to the effect of using multiple keyboards on the pipe organ to repeat a phrase at different dynamic levels. If you play a repeated phrase with no distinction, you risk a judge making a comment like,

I already heard that.

You speak at different dynamic levels; the cell phone call answer in the restaurant should not be the same as your second attempt at getting a parent’s attention. Dynamics is an important judging category. Get it right.

Articulation. Two main concerns; following the markings on the music …. And the method or technique used.

Few things are more obvious to a trained musician than to hear the errors of sloppy articulation; slurring everything, tonguing everything or a random combination of the two.

Music performance can include articulation interpretations, but if you are changing what is marked on the paper, you need to mark your changes on the judge’s copy. Make sure the judge knows that what you played was what you intended.

If you have an extended 16th note run that is marked staccato, you struggle with that, and you don’t want to reduce the tempo, then you might want to slur two, tongue two in a grouping of 4 sixteenth notes, for example. Mark the judge’s copy. He/she could still ding you a little for your articulation interpretation, but less than if you made the change without marking the original.

The other main weakness in articulation is the technique, i.e. HOW you articulate. Have you ever heard someone with a speech impediment? The challenge in fixing those is that most of what is happening is going on inside the mouth. Speech therapists are trained to do that. Do you need a specialist?

For a reed player, are you touching the reed, the roof of the mouth, or are you making some sort of ‘k’ or other throat sound to stop the air?  Not all articulations are created equal. If you make the judge spend time trying to figure out what is going on inside your mouth (articulation technique), you are hindering your success.

Rhythmic Accuracy. (Accuracy of Note Values, Rest Values, Duration, Pulse, Steadiness, Correctness of Meter). Note values covers a lot. When a quarter note is followed by a rest, do you go all the way to the rest? When you have a dotted eighth-sixteenth pattern, do you sub-divide to ensure the dotted 8th gets 3/4 of the beat….and not 2/3? A common rest mistake is similar; not giving it enough value or rushing to the next note, which gets into Pulse. If it were possible to hook up a heart monitor to the way you play, you don’t want the screen to look spastic, or as if you are having a heart attack. You should have a clear, easy to read (hear) ‘beat’.

Is your tempo Steady, i.e., you don’t slow down during the faster parts and increase tempo in the easy sections?

Your heart rate increases when you run, but your tempo should not change when you play runs.

Practice with a metronome. If it feels like the metronome is pushing you, you’re dragging. If it seems like it is slowing you down, you’re rushing. If possible for 8th note meters (5/8, 6/8, etc), set the metronome so the 8th note gets the click. Obviously that becomes more difficult the faster the tempo.

Stylistic Instructions. Once you get past the basics of notes, dynamics and articulation, there are the finer stylistic instructions. Terms like “dolce” and “furioso” mis-interpreted or ignored could result in a total misrepresentation of what the composer intended. You wouldn’t play a “march” at a funeral or a “love song” at a basketball game. The composer uses terms and markings to tell you how to play what you play. It is important that you see, understand and observe them.