For quite a while now I’ve wrestled with the idea of what it means to be a great musician, a great performer, and fundamentally a great clarinetist wanting to overcome my feelings of artistic ennui and musical stagnancy. I’ve discussed this topic with friends and colleagues, consulted performers I trust and respect, and attempted various routes to answer my questions and hopefully solve my problem -- I don't feel good enough. Am I an imposter? In doing so, like many of my colleagues, I’ve spent many hours dissecting my playing, identifying areas of potential growth, and formulating a plan to address those areas all in a quest to be a better musician and artist. My acutely focused navel gazing allowed me to pinpoint in my own playing three areas of artistic mastery that I think could be improved upon through conscientious, meticulous practice. I had to ask myself questions like: What kind of musician do I want to be? What do I want out of my playing? What am I currently not getting from myself that I believe I can get? The answers were clear. Ultimately, I want to play flawlessly, fearlessly, and phenomenally -- in a way that speaks to the intentions of the composer, reaches the audience, and brings me musical joy and fulfillment. This then led me to Carl Baermann’s Complete Method Op. 63 Third Division -- the Scales and Daily Studies book.
All throughout my training I’ve had a healthy respect and appreciation for the fundamentals of clarinet playing. My teacher Dr. Bish, whom you can read about in one of my earlier blogs here, instilled in me a love of mastering the basics through daily practice of long tones, major and minor scales, arpeggios, thirds, dominant and diminished 7ths, whole tone and octatonic scales, and articulation. It became and continues to be a sort of meditation for clarinet playing and throughout my undergrad it was how I started my day. During my master’s my focus shifted from the mechanical, tedious, and perfunctory building of technique to the refinement and extension of technique such that my pre-established warm-up routine changed and the focus shifted from daily scale exercises to the detail and minutiae of executing seamless, beautiful legato technique. With this shift in attention came a surrendering to another way of thought in relation to clarinet playing which I relished and still to this day appreciate. It is only now that I’m consciously working to align the two in a way that supports, reinforces, and informs the other, though ostensibly there’s been some synthesis of this journey at the subconscious level. It’s akin to bridging the two halves of one’s brain through dynamic integration to form a completely whole, fully functioning corpus. In my attempts at unifying the seemingly disparate styles and schools of thought related to beautiful clarinet playing and due to the time I spent away from the clarinet in pursuit of other career options, a voice or impetus within me grew that second guessed my ability to do what it is I had organized my mind and body to do. Doubt crept in -- and fear.
It’s ironic how the fear of failure often acts as the greatest roadblock to success. How out of a desire to play correctly we play safely; and how the disbelief we have in ourselves and our fear of not being good enough, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, leads us to fail and not be good enough; and how in failing we prove to ourselves, because of fear and doubt, that we’re not good enough and then never take the necessary risks or let go of the constraints, the tension, the old, unhelpful habits to realize excellence and be excellent -- flawless, fearless, and phenomenal. I want to be excellent. I want to live up to the expectations I have for myself. I want the music I make to be of a standard and with my new horns, I feel more compelled than ever to reach for that. Because of this and the acquisition of new horns, I decided to take on the C. Baermann Complete Method Op. 63 Third Division in 2020 and challenge myself to do the kind of work needed to go beyond the plateau and stagnancy to which I feel I have succumbed.
Currently, I’m playing the scale passages in exercise No. 1 at quarter note (crotchet) mm ♩= 130; the broken chord passages in exercise No. 2 are at mm ♩= 100; the diminished 7th Chords in exercise No. 3 are at mm ♩= 100; and the interrupted scale passages in Exercise No. 4 are at mm ♩ = 120. I’m also keeping a journal of my daily practice sessions taking notes on any progress, setbacks, and/or discoveries such as more mouthpiece is useful in stabilizing a flexible embouchure and I’m video recording practice sessions and listening back objectively to receive immediate feedback, take notes and address any areas of concern right then and there. My goal is to have all of the exercises at mm ♩=130 or higher and group my Baermann practice around keys (i.e. practice all of the D minor exercises). At present I’m going through the method book section by section, revisiting previously practiced sections, gauging progression and regression, what’s stuck and what hasn’t quite sunk in yet and formulating a plan. My hope is that this practice regimen will allow me to address my doubt in executing technical passages fearlessly, improve my technical accuracy and mastery aiming for flawlessly executed performances, and identify the components needed to do these things phenomenally, managing air stream, lip pressure, throat, fingers, tongue placement, etc. I expect it will be challenging and frustrating and maybe even torturous at times, but so far I’m enjoying the structure and accountability.
UPDATE (14/06/2020): Since the pandemic hit and lockdown became de rigueur my practice has become a bit more extended but focused and at times sporadic and less consistent day-to-day; I’ll have bursts of inspiration for a few days and then nothing for another couple of days. I still begin my practice sessions with my long tones and general chromatic scale, diatonic scales, and arpeggio exercises along with articulation practice and have begun work on double tonguing but, in general I’ve allowed myself more time to slowly navigate the technical demands of the exercises and take more time to build them up to my desired tempo. A good example being exercise No. 6 that, with its descending octave leaps, requires carefully and thoughtful consideration. I’ve completed all of my earlier exercises and often revisit them to keep them fresh, relevant, and in my fingers -- and have moved on to No. 4 ½ “Broken Chords” at mm ♩= 110; No. 5 “Diminished Chords of the Seventh” at mm ♩= 100; No. 5 ½ “Returning Scales” at mm ♩= 130; No. 6 “Chords of the Seventh” at mm ♩= 130; and No. 7 “Diverse Chords” at mm ♩= 110. This process has been and continues to be most revelational, offering many opportunities for metacognitive reflection -- thinking about how I practice; what works; what doesn’t work; the time at which something becomes rudimentary and second nature; pinpointing the exact moment/area of an exercise that elicits a fear response and asking myself why; addressing the concept of visual tracking and its very important role in reading music; etc. Needless to say I’m learning so many things about myself which I believe to be a bigger, and indeed more important outcome of this challenge, far more than the added and intentional benefit of further developing my technical fluency.
