Getting from one note to the next

I can basically understand how well a person plays their instrument within the span of two or three notes. It is not any kind of super power, and I do believe that most people who listen to music do, on some level, have a similar experience.

As a musician making the journey from one note to the next can involve a world of experiences. Not all notes are created equally, and sometimes getting from one note to the next does not even involve a change of pitch: it involves a change in timbre, articulation, or dynamic level. String players use their bows and fingers, sometimes in steps with the fingers of the left hand (sometimes, as in the practice of going up stairs, taking two steps at a time), and sometimes in shifts up or down on the same string, or complicating the matter and using the bow to cross to a different string. Wind and brass players use their tongues and the mechanism involved in controlling the the airstream. Sometimes getting from one note to the next is a lovely journey, and sometimes it is a dangerous one. Sometimes it leads to a predictable place, sometimes to a nice safe resolution, and sometimes it leads to an obscure place with unpredictable resonance.

Lately I have been waxing poetic about this concept to my string-playing friends, who sort of humor me. I mean it seems so obvious . . .

Yesterday I was explaining it to a student, and was shocked to see and to hear that she actually understood what I was talking about. It felt good to be "heard."

I rememember back in the days of record players with speeds lower than 33 1/3 (I think I had one with a 17 r.p.m. speed). I probably ruined a few Rampal records when I listened to them at half speed. His slowed-down records were a minefield of clumsy maneuvers along the path from one note to the next. Julius Baker's slowed-down records were neat and orderly, with notes like little soldiers wearing hats, walking in lockstep.

So I have been enhancing my practice with as much awareness as I can to the way one note leads to the next, and the way one note leads to the next, and the way one note leads to the next, and the way one note leads to the next, and the way one note leads to the next, and the way one note leads to the next, and the way one note leads to the next, and the way one note leads to the next, and the way one note leads to the next.