Getting from one note to the next

It has taken me decades to figure out how to make it from one note to the next expressively, effectively, and efficiently. I now find that paying attention to how one pitch follows another, how one group of pitches follows another, and how one phrase follows another is the most difficult, creative, and satisfying part of practicing violin and viola. It is rather difficult to write about, but I'll give it a try.

Julius Baker, my flute teacher at Juilliard, had a warm-up routine that he required all of his students to do. It mainly involved double-tonguing. Actually, come to think of it, it was totally about double-tonguing. The way he phrased the Allegro of the C major Bach Sonata, BWV 1033 (here transposed to F major) created a long and virtuosic phrase, particularly because he played it very fast:

After my time at Juilliard I went off to Austria, and I studied recorder in Vienna at the Hochschule with Hans Maria Kneihs. Though 21st-century recorder players incorporate double-tonguing, 20th-century recorder players who were attempting to sound like early-18th-century recorder players used a single tongue, and they (we) used it in approximation of the way we imagined string players used their bows. Here is what my (uninformed by actually being a string player) recorder phrasing would look like:

Hans Kneihs talked about keeping harmonies together, and actually making psychological spacings between beats, allowing one group of four sixteenth notes to lead to the next without creating false accents. Hans had been a cellist, so he saw recorder playing as a way of freeing himself from the difficulties and complexities of bowing.

And the complexities of bowing involve making false accents because the "cocktail" of speed, pressure, where you are in the bow, if you have a string crossing, and your dynamic level all have to be factored into getting from one note to the next in a satisfying way. This illustration reveals the dangers of trying to move from the last sixteenth note of a measure using only the last note (and an up-bow note to boot) to do the heavy lifting (the "red" version).

It is so much easier to have the last group of four sixteenth notes, piloted by a down-bow (the purple), deliver the phrase into the next measure. For me it's a little like using a plastic cup to move sand rather than using a cup made of less-reliable fingers.

And by doing this you begin to see possibilities of phrasing that involve features of the phrases--ways of hearing that you may not have thought about. The red example below is a rather straightforward way of thinking about directions that the phrases could go effectively.

The purple example below is a little bit more creative, and technically and intellectually more difficult:

I find it to be stimulating to think like this while I am practicing, particularly when I am practicing Bach, because his phrases are so durable and so interesting. Sometimes I aim for consistency, but more often I look and listen to see the patterns that can be revealed though observation.

Often I use this kind of mindset to tackle the questions of how much bow and where in the bow a useful up-bow might function well. Sometimes I incorporate slurs, and sometimes I reverse bowings, giving a chance to my bow arm to figure out how to do "heavy lifting" without making false accents.

I do it with etudes, and I even use this mindset to organize lyrical phrases and phrases in music from all periods. I strive to write durable phrases that can be interpreted in many ways, because this mindset has (finally) become hard-wired and permeates everything I do.

I used to tell my flute students that they needed to pay attention to where every note is, where it has been, and where it is going, but I didn't know how to teach them "how" to do it. I also could not figure out how to eliminate false accents aside from using the "baroque" method I learned from studying recorder.

Flutists have to use their imaginations for such things because they do not have a physical way to move their notes around aside from using their tongues, and there is no real resistance to play "against," unless it is music written specifically to employ the newer techniques that have expanded flute possibilities in the 21st century. Flute teaching and playing has also improved greatly since I left the fold. I have never heard Emmanuel Pahud play with false accents or unimaginative phrasing.

Brass players and reed players have the advantage of resistance, and singers have diction.

We all have rhythm, though.

I believe that all musicians who play music that is written have the obligation to make getting from one note to the next as pleasurable an experience as possible for themselves, they musical partners, and for whoever might be listening.