The Metronome: to be or not to be?

A simple tweet by Erica Sipes last week, “Something I find myself saying a lot these days: Metronomes are not a substitute for counting out loud. It's that simple.” morphed into a full discussion of how to use the metronome (and how not to use it) that left everyone involved a little smarter and inspired to expand our tweets into a larger commentary.

I thought Erica’s tweet was interesting and responded by asking her about wind and brass players who can’t do this when they’re playing. In my studio, I emphasize the importance of the metronome to my students (especially my younger ones) in order to highlight its purpose as a practice tool in order to help you develop an internal and accurate sense of rhythmic pulse.

I have students that take right to the metronome and those who don’t (and even those who don't take to it still manage to have a decent sense of rhythmic pulse). I had consistent problems with rhythm as a student myself until my 10th grade year of high school. My private teacher made rhythm a math problem, and it all made sense. Students who are strong in math will understand this and will grasp the concept easily, but there are students who will not understand. Describing rhythms and time signatures like a math problem or equation that must be figured out will be as abstract as the abstract music notation system in front of them. So how do we help those students?

When rhythm is a specific issue the student is dealing with, I take away the instrument. Regardless of the issue a student is having with a particular skill or element of a piece, isolating the element and prioritizing and focusing on the issue at hand is essential to mindful practicing in order to fix the problem. For my young students, one of the first ways I teach them to practice is a series of steps for their one line exercises. They first count and clap the passage, then clap alone and then they try the line on their instrument. Another element that I add is to begin having the students extract measures they still have issues with. The more isolated we can make the problem, the easier it will be inserting back into the whole and the student will begin actively listening to themselves and will be able to identify areas that need improvement.

Given that practicing isn’t something that is really taught, it’s my goal as a teacher to change this. I make sure that when I offer suggestions to a student in their lesson that I make clear that I am making helpful practice method suggestions to them. No one is going to learn a piece well by playing it over and over until they have just the notes and rhythms down. What about tempo? What about phrasing? What about the structure? These are all skills students will learn over time if they stay with their instrument, but the metronome gets us back to the foundational building block of rhythm on which these other elements can then be added.

As a teacher, don’t be afraid to not use the metronome. Let the student develop their sense of rhythm naturally and when they’re ready (this was my favorite suggestion from @DLP_DSM (Discover Learn and Play), introduce the metronome back into lessons. If you feel like you can’t do this, read and research (neuroscience research about learning is my favorite reading related to figuring out how to help a student) until you feel you have enough strategies available to be able to help a student develop an internal pulse prior to aligning that natural pulse with a metronome.

Music on the page is a way of organizing various complex elements together in a way that makes sense. The metronome is simply a tool and should not be used as an absolute. Be mindful in your teaching and help your students discover for themselves the power of this tool and how it can help them. Most of all, be patient and give your students the freedom they need to explore and develop into fine musicians.

For those others who were involved in this discussion, please read their pieces below:

Erica Sipes/@ericasipes Bowing to the Mighty Metronome?

Janet Bordeaux/@janetbxyz Metronome: Monster or Friend?

Eugene Cantera/@DLP_DSM #musiced, twitter, and the metronome

Kim Hickey/@hickey_kim Metronome - Friend or Foe?

Part Two: "...but I practiced!" A technique practice strategy

In Part One, I discussed strategies for learning a new piece especially if you’re a very detail oriented person. The suggested strategies should help you maintain the overall feel of a piece while working.

In Part Two, I want to discuss a technique practice strategy that B and I devised for them to cover more material while regularly rotating through every major and minor key. This is particularly useful for adults, amateurs and professional alike, who may be squeezed for time to cover everything. I tend to practice technique largely in only the areas I feel need attention. I do try to get through a larger technique practice once a week (a la Practice Like you Train), but sometimes I just don’t have this time. This strategy is a four week cycle, allowing you to visit all your go-to technical exercises once a month while rotating through all keys once a week.

The books B is using are The Flute Scale Book by Patricia George and Phyllis Louke, Marquarre Daily Exercises for the Flute, and the classic Taffanel and Gaubert 17 Big Daily Finger Exercises for the Flute. Since the Flute Scale Book is founded on the Taffanel and Gaubert, most of the work can be done from the Flute Scale Book. In the plan below, I will notate both the Flute Scale Book exercise title and the corresponding Taffanel and Gaubert exercise.

First, decide what you want your material to consist of. You may have a goal of getting through the practice plans listed in the Flute Scale Book or you may want to devise a strategy for getting through all of the Marquerre exercises. The point of this strategy is to devise a plan that will help you achieve your goal. This works because it’s breaking a long term goal into smaller manageable bits. The key to this plan is consistency. You won’t get bored practicing the same things everyday while you’re building or maintaining a strong technical foundation.

There are infinite possibilities when working with E.J. 4 (corresponding Tone Color Scales in the Flute Scale Book) so I keep these scales as a constant every week while rotating through the keys. This sample plan is good for an amateur flutist who only has 10-15 minutes a day to work on technique. This is based on a 6 day practice schedule, practicing 2 major/minor key pairings a day with varied articulations.

If you're more advanced, please adapt to fit your time constraints technical areas of weakness. Please feel free to share other plans based on your material. I’d love to see them!

Week 1:
Flute Scale Book Tone Color Scales (T&G E.J. 4)
FSB Ascending and descending arpeggios (T&G E.J. 8 and 9)
Marquarre Exercises 1 and 2

Week 2:
Tone color scales
Scales in thirds (T&G E.J. 6)
Marquarre Exercises 3 and 4

Week 3:
Tone color scales
Broken arpeggios (T&G E.J. 11)
Marquarre Exercises 5 and 6

Week 4:
Tone color scales
Modal scales in 3rds and 6ths, flats on MWF, sharps on TRS (T&G E.J. 6, played in 6 note chunks)
Marquarre Exercise 7

*For more suggestions on technique books, read Flute Warm Ups

How I warmed up with a phrasing study and a coffee stirrer

I took some time to read the February 2012 issue of Flute Talk over the weekend. I was overjoyed to see Phyllis Louke recap a class (“A Fresh Look at Breathing, Tone, Articulation and Dynamics”) that Keith Underwood gave in Oregon recently. After reading this article and Patricia George’s Phrasing Study on Barret Melody No. 1, I was ready to play with a hefty dose of motivation.

The Barret melody looked vaguely familiar. I pulled one of my old copies of Mrs. George’s Flute Spa handouts (I have handouts from 2002 and 2003 when I studied with her) and there she had included first four of Barret’s Forty Progressive Melodies. I credit Mrs. George for teaching me so many of the phrasing ideas that now have become second nature to me. I felt inspired to explore these melodies again so the phrasing study and a coffee stirrer became my warm-up.

The week I spent with Keith at Ghost Ranch became a week with the coffee stirrer. This is a great way to figure out where you are placing articulations inside the mouth. It also encourages you to open up behind the embouchure rather than moving your jaw and lips with every note. Using the coffee stirrer to practice tricky rhythms and articulations maintains the most efficient embouchure so that you do not overshoot the notes. It’s a great, inexpensive tool to improve your tone, breath control and articulations.

In order to practice on the coffee stirrer, place the stirrer inside the mouth (with the tip above the top teeth) at a 45 degree angle. Blow into the stirrer, take the air back and play. The challenge is to take in your air through the coffee stirrer when you need a breath. Since the stirrer doesn’t change size, practicing on the coffee stirrer addresses embouchure size changes between registers and makes the breath more efficient. A three step process to practicing with the coffee stirrer is to play a passage on the coffee stirrer, then without and finally with the flute.

As I practiced, I stayed inclusively aware to recognize tension as I played. I practiced the phrasing study within the context of contour and stayed aware of the places where I felt less efficient and began trying harder to achieve the sound and shape I wanted. I practiced those specific phrases on my coffee stirrer in order to feel how I could open up behind the embouchure while breathing with less effort and movement. By the end, I felt like I was beautifully contouring this first melody with efficient, organized movement.

With this smart, efficient practice, I felt an ease that usually doesn’t happen until after a good warm-up. With a little creativity and inspiration to try new things, I feel that I’m arriving into a new level of practice. Quite simply, it was nice.

Part One:"...but I practiced!" A practice strategy for learning a new piece

I have a student (we’ll call them “B”) who has dysgraphia, a learning disability. We have been working together for a year and it has been a very fascinating journey. B’s background is in special education, so I have benefitted from their expertise as I rise to the challenge in order to grow as a teacher and find new ways to teach music to those that process information differently.

Most private music teachers have a few strategies for helping dyslexic students since that "LD" is more common; however, unless the parent and student are up front, it can be difficult to realize you cannot teach in your usual manner with students who seem "lazy" or "don't try hard enough." Unfortunately, sometimes it isn't until the student gives up out of frustration and you feel like you’ve failed as a teacher that we realize missed opportunities. Since private music teachers are in no way trained or ethically able to diagnose a student, we must be patient, armed and ready with a variety of strategies and solutions for each problem that arises in order to customize a student's instruction.

I appreciate B for hanging in there with me. It has been a mutually beneficial path of discovery. Lately, we’ve had a series of lessons where we’ve been discussing practice strategies to help them systematically work on achieving a faster technique and ways to help them learn new repertoire faster. Thanks to a great conversation on twitter*, my own research and input from wonderful collaborative pianist and practice coach Erica Sipes, here is a strategic stepwise plan that I created for B in order to learn a new piece. I wanted to post this online for others that may have trouble seeing the trees for the forest.

What happens when you hit the wall and take longer than everyone else to achieve the same goal? What happens if you cannot use what we typically refer to as chunking (playing groups of notes with pauses in between to allow the brain to process short term information into its long term memory)? Use this practice plan to strategize and increase your chances of success in the practice room if you've tried other ways and they haven't worked so well.

I myself have been inspired to work in this new way especially with music that is out of my comfort zone. Going from larger to smaller details and back again creates a process that encourages confidence in the music.


Start with the big picture:

1) When learning a piece of music, outline the piece to get the big picture before moving on to details. Analyze the piece in order to determine its overall shape, phrase structure, range, key and key changes, and scalar and arpeggiated patterns. If you are able, analyze the piece's chord structure. Listen to the piece at this point to keep the big picture.

2) Play the piece through. Mark places immediately that you know will need attention, but don't get stuck on small mistakes. Stay focused on the big picture in this initial playing.

Begin learning and exploring the finer details of the piece:

3) Learn one musical idea at a time. Too often we get stuck on playing through the material until we feel somewhat comfortable. This way can be time consuming and inefficient. One idea suggested by Erica is to start from the end of the piece and work backwards on one musical idea at a time.

Working within the context of musical ideas versus chunks is one issue that I've encountered in my work with B. Because of the amount of time needed to learn a new piece, a chunk determined by number of notes and not musically becomes ingrained with the break that you take between each chunk. Practicing musical ideas keeps the phrases intact without arbitrary breaks in your final performance.

4) Practice by ear. Work with a recording to learn parts of music that is giving you trouble. I recommend this step especially if you're not a particularly aural person. B is visually dominant, and I suggested this step as a challenge. Practicing this way will help develop your ear and help you tune in to wrong notes and mistakes faster.

5) When you’ve worked through this process, play the piece through to find where you are. Mark any places that are still troublesome and work through the process again until you feel confident of the piece.

Ultimately, I think this process helps those who have trouble processing smaller details. Backwards chunking and practicing by ear for the smaller details help integrate these into the larger picture that you need in order to have a successful performance.

I encourage you to try this for yourself and see what happens. Instead of getting by on innate talent, sometimes a little more focus or discipline is needed in the practice room for the results you want. Stay open to experimenting and adapting the suggested steps in a way that works for you. If you had to adapt any of this to fit your personal needs, I would love to know. Please e-mail me at adelpalazzo (at) gmail.com.

Part Two will be about devising a technique practice strategy. Stay tuned!

*Thank you to my colleagues on twitter for a useful and practical discussion of practice techniques when I asked for advice. Be sure to follow @quartertonality, @TammyEvansYonce, @ericasipes, @AnythingPiano and @hickey_kim!

*Photo credits: Psychologies and Arctangent

Skype Flute Lessons

Does your schedule prevent you from driving to a studio once a week for regular flute lessons? Why not take lessons via Skype? Skype lessons are a flexible and convenient option that works well for all ages and levels of students. 

I am offering a FREE 30 minute trial lesson for you to try out Skype lessons with me to see if it suits you. There is no obligation and no strings attached. If you would like to continue lessons after your trial lesson, I offer pre-paid lesson packages of 4 or 8 lessons that are payable via Paypal. You may e-mail me at adelpalazzo (at) gmail.com to schedule your trial lesson.

Prices:

Single lesson - $20/half hour, $40/hour

4 Lesson Packs:
Package of 4 half hour lessons - $80
Package of 4 hourly lessons - $160

8 Lesson Packs:
Package of 8 half hour lessons - $160
Package of 8 hourly lessons - $320

If the idea of Skype Lessons has you scratching your head, here are answers to some questions you may have:

Why study with me when there are so many other flute teachers offering virtual lessons?

I am a professional teaching artist with experience teaching all ages and levels. As a teaching artist, I perform regularly and take auditions and as a result, I’m able to coach my students through various performance situations and performance anxiety issues. 

Another exciting development to happen this year is that I am now an Andover Educator trainee studying towards becoming licensed to teach “What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body.” The benefit to you in private lessons is that I can share my Body Mapping knowledge with you to improve your flute playing. 

Taking a sensible and whole body approach to flute playing (hence the name of this blog), I believe that the body is an extension of our instrument and we must move well in order to maximize our musical potential. Every student that studies with me is exposed to comprehensive and customized flute study with elements of Body Mapping and performance coaching included.

Who is The Sensible Flutist?

You can find information about me at my website and you can read more articles here on my blog to gain further insight into who I am. Here is a short bio:

Alexis Del Palazzo is an Andover Educator trainee, active performer and devoted teacher residing in the Central Pennsylvania region. She has performed widely across the United States including Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas and New York.

Alexis teaches many private flute students and has taught at Corning Community College. As a private studio teacher, Alexis’s students have consistently received superior ratings at solo festivals and have won competitions. Her passion for teaching and outreach has led to her work being published in Flute Talk magazine. She has presented workshops on teaching and practicing with extended techniques for the Rochester Flute Association and the Central Pennsylvania Flute Fest. She will be presenting “Holistic Practice: Practicing for the Whole Musician” for the National Flute Association’s Annual Convention in August 2012 in Las Vegas.

She holds a Bachelor’s of Music degree in flute performance with special distinction from the University of Oklahoma-Norman where she studied with Dr. Valerie Watts. Other teachers include Christina Jennings, Helen Blackburn, Patricia George, and Christine Moulton. She has performed in masterclasses for Carol Wincenc, George Pope, Jill Felber, Alexa Still, Keith Underwood and Liisa Ruoho. 


Why Skype lessons?

You don’t have to travel and they’re a great option for those who live in an area where there is no local teacher. Rather than try to accommodate lessons during my studio hours, Skype lessons are a flexible option since I am able to teach lessons at a mutually agreeable time.

Because I live in central Pennsylvania, you can take advantage of the cheaper lesson rate I am able to charge here versus a larger city. This increases your savings if you live in a more expensive urban area.

If you have any additional questions, please e-mail me. I look forward to working with you!

Musical Risk Taking: a Commentary on a Musician's Life

Last week, I was sitting in a coffee shop pondering the topic of musical intention. In a recent interview I read, flutist Molly Barth stated that she strives to play every note with intention.

I posed the question of intention and musical risk taking on twitter, and a great conversation ensued with Michael Gilliland (@mcgilliland) and Shoshana Fanizza (@musicshosh). We talked about how many musicians simply have no clue of what the "real world" actually entails, and how we often lose our competitive drive when we leave school.

With the advent of the internet, classical music has been thrown into a transition period. Music schools are still providing its students the education that better fits what was relevant prior to the internet revolution. Although schools have began offering additional programs such as music business, arts administration, and music therapy that have expanded career options with more secure positions, students that pursue degrees in performance are getting the short end of the stick. It's becoming increasingly difficult to obtain employment whether it be building a private teaching studio, freelancing (with more work drying up everyday), or winning an orchestral job.

So what can schools begin doing to address this time of transition and help increase their students' chances of success?

A few things come to mind as a result of this conversation:

1) Offer more seminars that cover a wide range of subjects addressing the musician as a whole, including what to expect after school. Although it's difficult to translate into a tangible topic, a seminar on life issues after school that affect a musician's perspective would be very useful to students. A degree in music involves taking many 1 and 2 credit courses, which are designed for the sake of teaching music majors time mangement skills and that musicians often have to work very hard to obtain and keep their work. Without a framework of life experience, the lessons older musicians have learned would be hard to impart to their younger counterparts; however, addressing these topics would give students perspective in an environment that is often very sheltered with very little "bubble bursting." Seminar guests could include professional musicians from the community that have built successful careers for themselves. These seminars could also be used to explore day job options beyond the typical choices of working in retail or the restaurant business. Encouraging students to learn a separate vocational skill (i.e. vet tech, paralegal, etc.) would give them additional skills that would make them more attractive to employers.

Most music students today take no time off between degrees. Many spend their 20s in school, and have no real world work experience to speak of. If a few more would work a day job to make ends meet while making it as a musician, their perspective would be radically changed. I speak from personal experience having worked the past three years in a full time corporate management position. Having a consistent connection to the real world via faculty members would help students even more.

2) On the topic of inviting community professionals into music schools, music faculties are often comprised largely of professors that have had no real world experience. This is a university wide problem that affects all departments, but changing the landscape of music school faculties to include musicians that have lived and worked outside the protection of schools would allow students to gain additional perspective on how to keep their competitive drive and not "settle." There has always been a schism between society and academia, but this is such an institutionalized problem that it will never be resolved.

Instead of fixing an institutionalized issue, curriculum must be examined regularly to ensure that students have essential tools for success. Social media courses, marketing courses, and business courses would provide a practical foundation that musicians could build on rather than starting from scratch.

3) Mandatory volunteer activities with a non-profit arts organization. This new base of volunteers would provide non-profits with fresh young blood who are educated and passionate, and allow students to begin networking. Whether students stay in the area where they attend school, those network contacts often extend well beyond the local area. Students gain the benefit and perspective of learning how to share their love of the arts with a non-profit's audience, while also learning how to interact with agencies that may provide financial support later on.

Everyone will take a different route. For some, the heartache and instability will be too much and they will use their energy to pursue a less stressful path. For others, they will continue to face failure and seemingly insurmountable chances to pursue their passion. It's a passion we often can't express in words, but that kind of fire and creative instinct can't be extinguished. Aided by knowledge and education, that fire can be better utilized to bring the arts to a broadening audience. Please comment - I would love to continue this conversation.