Bassooning

Age makes us slow down, which is not so good for the technique, but is the perfect state of mind for making beautiful music. Hot young players that can whip through the fastest Beethoven 4th are impressive for sure, but are they making music? Are they listening or just playing at the lick? Do they even know how the excerpt really weaves into the piece, even if they have listened to the work 100 times? Some do maybe, but the majority don’t. As I come up on the “Big 5-0” I look back on what I thought made a good player over the years…in my teens it was the competition of All-State and getting through the trills in the first movement of the Mozart Bassoon Concerto. In my 20’s it was about nailing those excerpts 10 out of 10 times so I could play a perfect audition (yeah, right!). In my 30’s I didn’t play the bassoon. Something I deeply regret, but upon my return to my instrument in my 39th year, I started to put it all together. My teachers’ wisdom finally sunk in…I had lot of “AH HA! That’s what he/she meant!” moments. The smoothness and maturity I used to wonder at in my teacher hands was now present in my hands. In this decade I have grown more as a musician and listened with more awe than I ever have. I don’t compete anymore, not even with myself. I just play for the sheer joy of it and I‘m a better bassoonist because of it. I have found the grace of music.

So for those of you who fear aging as a player, I say it only gets better. Sure you have to practice a lot to keep those fingers moving, but I say the “slowing down” makes you listen, really listen. And I promise that you’ll hear your favorite pieces for the first time – all over again.

You know, brass players are obsessed with air…everything is about air with them…And I think they have something important to say.

When I was at school (Eastman School of Music) I minored in French Horn and studied with Milan Yancich. What an inspiring teacher!!! I often brought in my bassoon to my lessons – after all, when you play an audition, you don’t play in front of a room full of bassoonists, do you? He would say to me, why is there that glitch in the sound between your F and G? I would explain that this was over the break and that’s just the way bassoons sound…he didn’t accept that and showed me how to use my air to make that break smooth and continuous. He also taught me the importance of matching one note to the next note in timbre, dynamic and intensity of sound.

This is a great exercise that he taught me…I’m sure every brass player knows it, but not every woodwind player!

Start on low F…hold it out as long as it takes you to figure out how you are going to move smoothly to G – matching the timbre, dynamic and intensity of the F. This could be 2 beats or 8 beats….move only when you are sure you have it in your ear. This isn’t a long tone exercise and it isn’t easy stuff, but wow! – if you can do it, it will open your sound like nothing else. Continue up the scale…just see if you can match the low A to the B-flat. You may have to hold back on the A to melt into the B-flat and to make them sound like they are related. Do this from Low F (1) to High C (3). If you do it right, you’ll feel like you are going to pass out!

You will be listening in a new way and my bet is that your intonation will improve and your notes will center…it can really be amazing. The more slowly you can do this, the better. Make sure that all your fingers move at the same time!

I’ll write more about this later…Please give it a try

This year’s concert schedule includes Pulcinella. I have performed this 3 times and each time I have spent many hours on the opening trills, the too-fast C# scale lick and of course, the dastardly accompaniment section Variazione 2a …that goes on forever. So the trills are no big deal, you just have to make sure that each one is equal to the others, and the C# scale is just fast – really fast…so of course, the only approach is to practice it slowly – and with a metronome. I slur from the High B to the High C#…don’t tell anyone! It prevents cracking.

Now about that awful accompaniment section…make sure to remember to breathe and to space your breaths carefully…decide which fingerings you use and stick to them. The goal is to make it all sound light and easy… after all, it is not all about the bassoon! I’m a big proponent of full fingerings, but sometimes – just sometimes alternate fingerings are necessary…and for me, this is one of those times!

For one of the best overviews of this piece go to…http://bassoonblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/pulcinella.htm

Last evening was terrific. My student Mark Lehmer gave a wonderful recital and I’m so very proud of his accomplishment. But, why do we require our students to give recitals? Well, there’s always the goal to play better….recitals require intense practice over a long period of time, but I think there is more to it….or at least there should be.

Recitals teach young people about themselves. They learn about doing something big…about taking risks, about putting themselves out in front. This doesn’t come easily for most bassoonists. We are great at hiding. We sit in the middle of the orchestra surrounded by brass and high woodwinds. We can often sneak in and out of passages. Basically, bassoonists take the Hippocratic Oath of “do no harm” when they sign up for the instrument. But putting on a full recital requires guts…and my hat is off to any student that takes it on.

I usually require my students be responsible for the whole thing….getting the venue, selecting the other players and scheduling the rehearsals, putting together the program notes…lucky me, all I have to do is coach and help select the music. I usually ask parents to “step away” from the recital and let their child figure it out on their own. It’s a tremendous life lesson about self-esteem, friendships, professionalism, risk, planning, time management and the joy of accomplishment. So why do it? Because a recital is an amazing vehicle for personal growth. It usually isn’t until after the evening has come and gone that the student learns that lesson.

Well done, Mark!

Nothing better than spending a Saturday making reeds – Hardly! But it’s a necessary evil of bassooning and one I rather enjoy. Last Saturday my student, Mark Lehmer and I spent a couple of hours whittling away at reeds for his Freshman recital. He’s got a great program lined up…Vivaldi Concerto in d minor with strings, Glliere Impromptu, Mozart Sonata for Cello and Bassoon and the Burrell Phillips Concert Piece. It’s a tall order, but he’s a wonderful young player and will do it beautifully I’m sure. Look for my posting the day after on June 29th!

Hello and thank you for visiting my teaching site.

I think the best way to begin is to talk about my teaching philosophy. It is quite simple, really – I don’t teach every student the same way because everyone learns differently.
In the first lesson I study the student – I have a set of exercises that help me diagnose where the student is on all areas, including tone production, intonation, tonguing and technique. From there I will know which etudes and solo pieces to concentrate on to help the student improve in their weaker areas. However, it can’t all be work, playing the bassoon must be fun. There is a lot going on with the bassoon – from its size to its reeds – so it is crucial that playing be a balance of hard work and sheer enjoyment. I pick repertoire for my students with that in mind.

For younger students, I find it very helpful to teach them how to practice. It’s not enough to say to the student, “go practice”…that’s like trying to look up a word in the dictionary that you can’t spell. There is a skill set that is necessary to possess in order to reap the benefits of practice sessions. I give students tools for their practicing so that the rewards will be plentiful and frustrations few.

With more advanced students, most of the lesson time is spent fine tuning their technique and musicality. We will analyze together the shape of the phrase, determine the function of each note within the phrase and decide how to execute the phrase. After this careful examination, I encourage the student to bring their interpretation to the phrase…to make it their own. I don’t want them to play exactly as I do, I want them to find their own voice.

I love playing the bassoon. I love teaching the bassoon. It has enriched my life in more ways than I can say. Playing the bassoon is not for everyone, but for those of us who find it fascinating, eccentric, challenging and humorous, being a bassoonist is an absolute joy.