Long Tones and Summer Band Camp

It is band camp season in my university town. Summer after summer we hear hours of long tones played in unison on the fields adjacent to our neighborhood. And the percussionists work with an ultra-loud metronome.

I wonder if the improvement that band camp students experience in their playing during the week of camp is because of sustained (ha! what a pun) long tone practice.

During the school year, when a band rehearsal might last for a fifty-minute-long class period, there is simply not enough time for an extensive and leisurely long tone warm-up. At camp it becomes a community meditation, where you can turn off your brain, open up your breathing mechanism, and open your ears.

I imagine that during the school year most middle school and high school band students don't spend a hour of their after-school time practicing long tones, particularly when they have scales and etudes to practice and pieces to learn.

"Scale Tales" Review in the ASTA Journal!

I hope that this review in the American String Teacher will lead a lot of people to "Scale Tales."

The Beaten Path

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem you face looks like a nail.

--Abraham Maslow

Go on the beaten path. You won't have as much company as you think.

--Stevens Hewitt

These two seemingly contradictory ideas have been dancing around in my head today, and have started resonating together after my second day of practicing scales on the piano. I have always been an iconoclast, and I have a tendency to imagine that I can get things done by following my own methods. Sometimes it works. I have never been the kind of person who applies a single fingering pattern to scales and scale passages on the violin or the viola, because I like to look for the "solution" to a particular problem that feels most practical and/or most natural.

I thought I could apply this natural approach to piano playing, but I have reached a point where the dirt and dust on the "window" between my brain and my fingers requires a serious cleaning with a tool that I haven't used in a long time. Yesterday I looked into my file cabinet, pulled out the Cramer scale book, and practiced ascending and descending two-handed scales (with their tried-and-true fingerings) for the major and minor keys with sharps. Today I did the keys with flats, which I find to be more difficult than the sharp keys.

What a difference a good tool makes! I am not an proficient scale player by any stretch of the imagination (that will take a few months of daily practice), but I am able to make it into the world of many sharps and many flats in major and minor keys without looking at my hands. It feels kind of like I have taken a bottle of windex and a scouring pad, and have removed a bunch of calcified grime from the inside of my head. I'm looking forward to the day when those pathways will be clean and clear, and will only need wiping.

If I play the piano by ear, I can find the pitches I want, but I can't do it with any kind of speed or physical confidence. If I play viola or violin by ear, I can find the pitches I want, but since I do not have absolute pitch, I often have no clue what pitches I am playing once I venture outside of first and third position and into keys that do not involve open strings.

Perhaps that's why I like reading music so much. Reading the music allows me to spend my energy on other things, like sound, expression, phrasing, and context. As much as I appreciate some aspects of the Suzuki method of musical learning, I feel that learning to play by ear and by memorizing physical motions may not be the best way of learning for everyone. It certainly isn't the best way for me. It might be a quick way to learn in the short run, but I tend to forget things that I learn quickly.

Michael and I have been listening to "Sold a Story," a new podcast from American Public Media that concerns the teaching of reading. Episodes air every Thursday, and we have listened to the first three episodes. Tomorrow we'll get to hear the fourth episode. I wonder if there is a correlation between learning to read by using phonics and learning to play music by learning to read the notes, and I wonder if there is a correlation between teaching reading without incorporating phonics and teaching kids to play without incorporating note reading.

Using Scale Tales with Students

It has been about half a year since Violin Scale Tales came into print, and I have not yet seen any kind of printed review. So in this post I will show how I use the material with students.

I currently have three students working in this book. One is advanced, and can make her way around the fingerboard in the first six positions. The other two have not yet learned to shift out of first position.

My more advanced student is working on the pieces in the book in order, beginning in A minor with "Atlas Moth." As you can see from the first two lines, the piece uses a mixture of sixteenth notes, eighth notes, triplets, and longer note values that require the student to count and change the speed of the bow in order to follow the dynamic contours of the piece. This piece includes a mixture of meters. These changes of meter are necessary for the musical line, and offer a good way to teach the "why" of meter in addition to the "what" of meter.

There are also places in the piece that proceed as normal scales would, with regular rhythm:

Phrasing is built into the music, and dynamics and textures keep things interesting. Thinking about the appearance and behavior of the animals stimulates the musical imagination.  It is fun, for example, to imagine how this very large moth might act during its short life.

The other eleven moth pieces (Elephant Hawk Moth, Io Moth, Rosy Maple Moth, Luna Moth, Garden Tiger Moth, Dysphania Militaris Moth, Cecropia Giant Silk Moth, Twin-Spotted Sphynx Moth, Comet Moth, Cinnabar Moth, and Giant Leopard Moth) bear a family resemblence to the Atlas Moth piece, but each has its own character. "Waltz of the Moths," which comes at the end of the book, an elaboration on "Twin-Spotted Sphinx Moth," makes its way through all of the minor keys beginning in F minor, and going through the circle of fifths.

I started one of my less-experienced students with "Ostrich" in the key of G major. This one is totally in the three-quarter time, and incorporates a chipper tune as well as left-hand pizzicato:

It ends with a scale that uses the whole first-position range of the violin:

"Komodo Dragon," in D major, also uses left-hand pizzicato. It has a lot of drama, because the Komodo Dragon is a dramatic creature. This piece incorporates a more extended scale passage than the other portraits of lizards in the collection ("Armadillo Girdled Lizard," in B major, and "Eastern Collared Lizard," in F-sharp major).

"Emu" is an E-major waltz that is similar to the G-major "Ostrich" above (those large running birds are somewhat similar). And at the end of the book, right before the "Waltz of the Moths,"  a "Waltz of the Emus" runs its way through all the major keys.

All the animals in the collection, including the Green Sea Turtle, Galápagos Tortoise, Royal Python, Barred Owl, Scaly-Breasted Woodpecker, Dwarf Scaly-Tailed Squirrel, and the Screaming Hairy Armadillo are animals that have scales.

I'm having as much fun practicing and teaching these pieces as I did writing them.

There are twenty-eight more musical portraits of animals with scales in the second volume, Advanced Violin Scale Studies, a book that uses the whole range of the violin and twenty-four keys (alternating minor and major, like the first volume). The first-position book can also be used to great advantage on the viola, particularly for violists eager to practice in the second, third, fourth, and fifth positions. They are great for practicing intonation because each piece remains in a single key (though the mode of the major pieces sometimes shifts to the natural minor). Pitches move stepwise up and down, repeat at the unison, or jump the octave. Even in keys with many sharps or many flats it is still easy to hear where the next pitch is going to be.

My hope with this book is that it will help students find that scale playing can be enjoyable, imaginative, and even entertaining. I also hope that it can help "normalize" keys that have many sharps or many flats, and that it can help introduce elements of very basic music theory into lessons.

Ida Mae Crombie

I just happened upon the manuscript of Ida Mae Crombie's manuscript of "Scale Stories" in the Library of Congress archives. The published book appeared in 1925:

Crombie's "Scale Stories" are student-teacher duets (not scale-based solo pieces like my "Scale Tales). She gives her pieces titles that begin with the letter of each scale, so we get a nocturne called "The Desolate Desert," "Dance of the Dwarfs," and a waltz called "Dance of the Daffodils" for D minor; and "The Bobbing Brooklet," and a Ballad called "The Bonnie Blue Bells."

Navigation is a bit difficult because of the small LOC viewer window, and this manuscript doesn't go into keys that have more than four sharps or four flats (it abruptly ends with reference to the key of D-flat major).

I learned only a little about Ida Mae Crombie from the internets.

She was born in 1882 and lived on 31 Derry Street in Manchester, New Hampshire, where she taught violin and ran a chamber music program at the YMCA. Her father was named True Worthy Crombie, and Ida Mae had an older brother who died in infancy. It looks like she never married. She published four books for A.P. Schmidt, including a calendar piece.

Here's an notice in a 1921 issue of Musical America about a performance of one of her violin and piano pieces:

I would be interested in seeing what from the manuscript made it into the book, and hope that anyone who might have a copy could scan it, save it as a PDF, and share it in the IMSLP (or send it to me, and I will).

Violin Scale Tales and Advanced Violin Scale Studies

I'm so excited to finally be able to share these collections of scale pieces to my friends in the musical blogosphere!

Here's a description of Scale Tales:

The etudes in this book offer students a musically and intellectually satisfying means of practicing scales in all major and minor keys, even while remaining in first position. Although presented in the traditional order of the circle of fifths, this is where similarities to other violin scale-oriented books end.

Of course, the etudes can be played using a mixture of positions by more advanced students. The studies also resonate very well on the viola if played at pitch. These are instructive etudes and can be played as appealing solo pieces. The stepwise motion in the etudes makes intervals between pitches easy to hear, even in keys with many flats or sharps.

Both the book and etude titles refer to names of animals that have scales, so you will see natural and harmonic minor scales named after various moths, and major scales named for unusual reptiles, birds, and mammals throughout. The author hopes that in addition to experiencing more enjoyable scale practice, students will be inspired to learn more about these amazing animals or even write scale studies of their own.

Here's a description of Advanced Violin Scale Studies:

Although the practice of scales is essential to building and maintaining strength, technique, tone, and agility—it is very easy to slip into the habit of playing them automatically, without paying attention to how they sound or even being aware of what scale we are playing. The 29 single-page studies in this book are designed to combat that tendency as they are musically, intellectually, and rhythmically challenging.

The first 24 studies proceeded through the circle of fifths and address all minor and relative major keys; the last 5 pieces were individually conceived, i.e., apart from the circle of fifths. Occasional fingerings or position guides are suggested but these are largely left to the student or their teachers. No metronome indications are given so that the etudes can be played at individually comfortable tempos—with or without a metronome, or freely as concert etudes. It is the stepwise motion and octave leaps of the etudes that makes the intervals between pitches easy to hear, even in keys with numerous flats or sharps.

Just as in Elaine Fine’s more basic scale etude book, Violin Scale Tales, the names of the etudes herein refer to various animals that have scales, including insects, fish, birds, reptiles, a few species of squirrels with scales on their tails, and the solitary pangolin, the only known mammal whose entire body is covered with scales. Again, the author hopes that in addition to experiencing more enjoyable scale practice, students will be inspired to learn more about these amazing creatures, or even write scale studies of their own.

You can find both books on this page of the Mel Bay website. They are available as e-books and as physical books.

I made video recordings of the first ten pieces in Scale Tales which you can hear on this playlist.

My (semi) private menagerie

This April Mel Bay will be publishing the first of two books of scale pieces for solo violin that I wrote around the time I was writing "Weights and Measures." The first book, which can be played entirely in first position (or in the first through the fifth positions on the viola) is called "Scale Tales," because each of the pieces is a musical "portrait" of an animal that has scales. The second book, which will come out later in 2022 is tentatively called "Advanced Scale Studies" (though I wish it could be called "Upscale Tales"), has portraits of twenty-four more animals with scales, and uses the whole range of the violin.

I have made a set of ten musical videos that show the life cycle (sometimes) of the various animals to accompany the music.

You can see videos of the first ten pieces here.

Atlas Moth

This is the first piece in a forthcoming book of scale pieces in first position that will be published by Mel Bay later this year or in 2022. Like "Weights and Measures," this set goes through all the major and minor keys, moving stepwise with repeated pitches that happen only at the unison or the octave. Working this way gave me a some sense of structure during the first wave of the pandemic, and now making videos is giving me some structure during this Delta wave, where it is more like a sunami here in the lower parts of Illinois.

I call this collection "Scale Tales," because each scale corresponds to an animal that has scales like moths and butterflies, birds, fish, lizards, turtles, and flying squirrels (!!!).

The second volume (again with scales in all the major and minor keys, but using the full range of the violin) will probably carry the title "Advanced Scale Studies," but it is structured the same way.

Marked-up "Mole Unit" from "Weights and Measures" for Violin

One of my violin students suggested that I should make some tutorial videos for "Weights and Measures." I thought I could accomplish more (in less time) by marking up the first scale piece of the set. The beauty of keeping these pieces in the IMSLP on PDF is that teachers can print up multiple copies and apply bowings, fingerings, and dynamics of their choice. I find practicing this group of scale pieces a great way to warm up (on any instrument), and for students they provide a great way of actually hearing tonality (and its modal sisters) while they are playing. There is one one-page piece in each key-- first minor, then major.

[click for a larger view]

You can find the whole set, in the original for solo recorder, and set up as duets for any instrument to play with violin or viola, on this page of the IMSLP. The soprano recorder/violin set is particularly fun to play down the octave on the viola.

Improvising and practicing scales

After having written (and finished) more than sixty scale pieces since the beginning of 2021, I'm taking a break and spending time practicing "normal" scales and other music. For a while there I couldn't play a scale without stopping to write down a scale melody (there are so many possibilities) I had just discovered (or uncovered).

Yesterday I gave myself the luxury of playing through the Hrimaly series of three-octave scales that lives on my music stand. Today I found the process kind of mindless (though physically useful), so I decided to try something different. I started by improvising using scale fragements and arpeggio fragments in the key of C major. Then I thought about the F sharp that would happen in G major, the next key in the circle of fifths, and made my way, via that "new" F sharp, to the key of G. When ready I added the C sharp for the key of D, and so on all they way through C-sharp major/D-flat major, and down the circle by removing flats. This took a lot of "head space," in the keys with large numbers of sharps and flats, but I gave myself ample time to think.

Then I did the same with the minor keys, sticking with harmonic minor. Tomorrow I think I might go backwards, adding flats.

What I find most interesting about doing this is the way my awarness of modulations when playing solo music is heightened. The solo Bach pieces that have been etched in deep grooves in my brain for more than half a century become new vehicles for exploring the way scale passages work as well as an elevated vantage point for observing the possibilities of how well music can travel along the circle of fifths from one key to the next.

Perhaps I am "late to the party" with all of this, but I grew up and came of musical age during a time when (at least in Western European-oriented music) tonality was considered obsolete by composers of new music. It was a time when "improvisation" seemed to be connected almost exclusively with jazz, and if it wasn't connected with jazz it seemed to be concerned with sound (including extended techniques) not connected to a harmonic structure or framework.

Twenty-four of the sixty scale pieces are part of a collection that I put in the IMSLP, and the rest, two books of violin scale studies (one in the first position and the other that uses the whole range of the instrument) that are all named for animals that have scales, will be available from Mel Bay sometime later this year (I submitted the final books yesterday).

Just for fun I'm including one of the "Weights and Measures" pieces here. That is the name of the collection in the IMSLP.

Needless to say, I had a lot of punny fun working on this collection.

Scales, Scales, and More Scales

Twenty-four one-page scale studies in all of the major and minor keys, in versions for soprano recorder (c fingerings) and alto recorder (f fingerings). They can also be played on just about any melody instrument.

The titles of these recorder scale pieces relate to the weighing and measuring applications of the word "scale." This set of scale pieces will be available soon on this page of the IMSLP. And in forthcoming news, I am working on two scale books for violin that will be published later in 2021 by Mel Bay. One concentrates on the first position, and the other goes into the higher positions. The titles and characteristics of these violin pieces (more than fifty!) relate to animals with scales: fish, birds, reptiles, and even a handful of mammals.

For the recorder scale pieces and the forthcoming violin scale pieces I followed this basic guideline: everything moves stepwise, with pitches that repeat at the unison and at the octave (the only interval larger than a second is a perfect octave). I allowed myself freedom to float between the natural, harmonic, and melodic minor scales. Just for added sport, each piece fits on (or fills) a single page.

UPDATE: Because I can't leave well enough alone, I made versions for bass clef instruments and viola. You can find both on the "transcriptions" tab of the above link.

The Gamut, Reconsidered

For as long as I can remember, I have begun my scales with C major. When I practice Sevcik, I typically begin in C and add sharps and flats. I have a feeling that lots of people have been doing this for a long time.

The word Gamut, as defined by Merriam-Webster, comes from the Greek letter Gamma plus Ut, and seems to be the span between G and C. Perhaps if Merriam and Webster were musicians they would have considered other possibilities.

Their etymology doesn't make sense to me, considering the French word for scale is Gamme, and the use of "Ut" as the tonic pitch of a scale goes back at least to Guido D'Arezzo (11th century).

The three-language scale books I used to enjoy reading while I played through my scales during my teenage years prompted me to think that the obvious meaning of "Gamut" was a scale that went from Ut to Ut, whatever that "Ut" might be, since "Ut" is the tonic pitch in a "movable Do" system. When the fixed "Do" came about (sometime before the days of Machaut), "Do" became equal to "Ut."

Why am I thinking about this? Because I decided today to break the cycle (or circle) and begin my journey through the tonal musical spectrum with G, adding sharps, and then subtracting flats. In other words, I played my scales backwards. The beauty of this is that if you go up and down you don't have to read the music backwards (though you certainly can).

What can be gained from this? It forces me to pay more attention to intonation, and it adds variety to my days.

Microtonal Ramble

Lisa Hirsch's "help wanted" query for help with listening to microtonal music has been scratching the insides of my intervals for a few days. In a comment on her post, I suggested that she listen to Easely Blackwood's microtonal keyboard music, which, being played by the composer on a dedicated microtonal keyboard, gives a reliable and consistent picture of what is possible to do when you divide an octave into more than 12 parts.

I believe that a person doesn't need to "learn" to listen to microtonal music, but it is a good idea to understand that all microtonal music is not equal (though, of course, some is). It has been my experience that playing microtonal music on an instrument other than a keyboard instrument can be a hit or miss proposition. Much of the time you can get away with "almost" in microtonal music without anyone in the audience really knowing (unless someone with ears like Blackwood is in the audience, with a score).

The problem that I find with the world of microtonal music is that it really only makes sense when it is played on an instrument built to allow the intervals to have points of reference. Two like wind instruments instructed to play microtones (whether they are exact or not) can cause a pretty "loud" difference tones, generating all kinds of interesting sounds not otherwise found in nature (one desirable product of microtonal writing), but it is difficult to duplicate exactly the same noise or the same microtonal difference tone pitch that a composer wants to be sounded every time you play a particular piece.

Microtonal double stops on a stringed instrument (or even single microtones themselves) do not resonate well on acoustic string instruments. It has everything to do with the way stringed instruments are built. I have found that the effect of playing microtones on an acoustic string instrument is the opposite of the wind effect: the product is a kind of overtoneless dullness, unless it happens to be two fiddles playing in the high register (but it is the non-microtonal intervals that generate the most sympathetic sound).

When string players playing tonal music play out of tune in the normal ranges of the instruments, we recognize out-of-tune pitches as being out of tune partially because of their un-resonant color. An out of tune pitch simply does not excite the harmonic series that stringed instrument (tuned in the standard manner) is built to excite. (I haven't tried intervals smaller than a half step on an electric violin, or on a violin with an amplifier. Once you add electronics, there are certainly other elements at play.)

Microtonal music systems have nothing to do with the constant adjustments that string players have to make when playing tonal music: we always have to adjust our thirds, our leading tones, and our perfect intervals, and then, when we play with other instruments with fixed tempered tuning (like the piano), we need to adjust to those instruments. Just intonation can be discussed mathematically, and people can claim to use systems of just and mean tone tuning, but it is the ear and the color of the intervals at play (and not mathematical adjustments by the players) that allow us to have some point of reference. You can mess with an electronic tuner in rehearsal, but in a performance you are on your own (unless the use of an electronic tuner is written into the piece)!

All wind instruments are built to a particular schema. Instruments without keys, like recorders, can have their holes voiced to favor a particular tuning. Boehm used one to make the modern flute, and I imagine he used one to make the Boehm system clarinet. Boehm's schema has been improved upon by several 21st-century flute makers, and new-flute players like Robert Dick have figured out foolproof fingerings to play pitches that lie in between Boehm's 19th-century sense of the half step. Loads of 20th- and 21st-century composers have written flute music using these "new" pitches and non-pitches (extended techniques involving percussive effects), and they have become staples of a modern flute player's paintbox.

Instruments from cultures that use different scale systems from the diatonic scale systems used in the west, are probably built to resonate optimally with their specific scale systems. Unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to hear an un-amplified western string instrument play non-western music (It seems that everybody uses microphones to perform these days, and everyone must use a microphone to record).

It is important to remember that all non-western scale systems are not alike. I remember trying to wrap my head around a set of 10 Karnatic Etudes by Bozza (for the flute) that used Indian scales (the divisions of the octave were indicated in a set of scales in the beginning of the book). I could not, for the life of me, figure out how I was supposed to "hear" them. Gee, when I listen to this woman teaching a group of kids to sing a Carnatic minor scale, it just sounds like a minor scale to me, with a bit of vocal inflection and strikingly non-western sound production. This first lesson shows how difficult it is for the kids this woman is teaching to match her pitches--or even come close.

The Most Efficient Scale System I Know

I have been spending a good deal of quality time with the scales that live in the back of the Sevcik Opus 8 book of shifting exercises, and I thought I would share them with other people who take pleasure in building technique. These two pages, I believe, contain everything any string player (or any player of any other instrument able to make its way through three octaves) might need in order to be comfortable playing passagework in any key, in any meter, and at any tempo.

If you practice these scales with a metronome, they work wonders. I think that they are beautifully set up and extremely economical: you get hours upon hours of really worthwhile practice out of just two pages. But, most of all, you have to think while you are practicing these scales. It is so easy to let your mind drift off when practicing "normal" scales. These modal scales keep you on task, particularly the minor scales in keys with a lot of sharps and flats.

I set my metronome at the quarter note in a conservative tempo (96-104), and practice the scales with sharps on one day and with flats on the next day (the Julius Baker approach). I vary the articulation (the bowings to string players), and I try to do it mindfully and deliberately.

The images will appear full size when you click on them.




Happy practicing.

Multum in Parvo

Sometimes before teaching, while I am waiting for a student to come, I play the piano. I do it because I really enjoy the music, and I do it to remind myself that I often ask my students to do things that are difficult for them to do. I never had piano lessons as a child, so playing the piano is difficult for me.

I remember at Juilliard we had to take class piano. I faked away horribly, relying on my ear and basic musicianship rather than on disciplined practice (not unlike many of my students), and the limited time I put into practicing scales only involved memorizing finger patterns--nobody took the time to explain the reason for the finger patterns, or maybe I was just not interested. I spent the rest of my playing-piano life having frustrated (and slow) fun at the piano, looking at my hands, most of the time.

Following the fingerings printed in piano music usually makes sense for me in musical context (though I usually just make up my own), but when I try to play scales in octaves, my fiddle player's brain takes over, and I confuse the numbers of my fingers. 3 on the fiddle is 4 on the piano. 1 on the fiddle is 2 on the piano. And I have to think three times when I see a 5.

Anyway, after playing through a movement or two of Mozart (slowly) while waiting for my 4:00 student to come, I got the sudden urge to try my hand (or hands) at some scales. I reached for my Cramer Pupil's Daily Exercises for Pianoforte and tried to play an F major scale in octaves. I kept getting myself twisted and flustered, assuming that I would be interrupted by the sound of not-so-little feet at the door. Frustrated, I opened to another page. A series of scales that began in C major and went through all the keys. The title of the two-page exercise was "Multum in Parvo" or "Much in Little." Two measures per scale seemed fine with me. Perhaps I could get through the whole thing before my next student came (it was clear to me that my 4:00 student was not coming).

I decided that I was simply not going to let myself get defeated by the fingerings, fingerings that six-year-old children can wrap their little fingers around without question. They are fingerings that make sense when you consider the way a pianist navigates around the keyboard. They have been used by countless generations of pianists. So I began. By the time I reached E major I started actually enjoying the physicality of playing scales on the piano. I started to relax my neck muscles, and listen to the sound. Two measures per scale is really much in little. Perhaps I'll do it again tomorrow, or maybe even tackle the minor scales this evening.

Scalemate

We all need to practice our scales, but there are just so many to choose from. Like the clothes in our wardrobe, most of us tend to go back to the same scales day after day, ignoring the ones that are problematic. We also tend to begin our scales on the tonic, a practice that sends some of us into "automatic" mode: playing scales by ear. I can do this kind of scale playing in my sleep, which means that I get little out of it besides a bit of finger exercise.

Several years ago I came up with a game that I hoped would make practicing scales both fun and intellectually challenging. I just found the board part of it, and thought I'd share it here. The green spinner comes from some kind of board game, and the spinner on the right is a old-fashioned paper fastener. The round spinning wheels are either old CDs or pieces of cardboard shaped exactly like CDs.

The directions call for companion articulation cards. They can be made from index cards. Mine had rhythmic patterns with different configurations of slurs and separate notes, and were written in various meters.

There are, of course, many possible variations on this theme. You could add more spinners for dynamics, double-stop intervals, or type of articulation (detache, martele, etc. for string players). You could also have something to generate a metronome marking, or you could go beyond the physical and write a computer program that would do the same kind of thing. It could even be digital stand-alone device that could be adjusted to meet the needs of any instrument. It could even generate a nice loud tonic (or dominant) pitch to give the person playing with it a consistent frame of tonal reference.

Since I have no plans (and obviously very few skills) to make a commercial version of this game, I encourage anyone who does to give it a try. You can even use the name if you want.

Old School Practice Technology

When I was in a hurry to gather together as much technique as possible on the flute, my favorite way to do it as quickly as possible was by using Marcel Moyse's Scales and arpeggios: 480 exercises for flute. It begins with the numerical grid pictured here. The numbers on this grid refer to 480 of the most difficult combinations of notes possible. Each combination lasts for about 4 measures or so.

Since I imagine that Moyse, who was a very cosmopolitan musician and teacher, could have gotten the idea for this from the violin technique books of Sevcik, I numbered the exercises in three of my Sevcik books (Shifting the position, Double Stops, and Exercises in the First position) so that covering all three books comes to 480. I pasted the above grid in one of my books, and I do a line every day. It takes about an hour, and I digest all the most difficult aspects of violin technique in four measure "bites."

You can find a PDF of this grid here.

Starting Late

I have always been a late starter. I played the violin when I was a child and stopped within a few years for various reasons. When I needed to play an instrument as a teenager (needed meant that I needed to find a way to express myself), I started playing the flute. I was 13. Most of the flutists around me had been playing for several years, so I had to make up for lost time. I practiced every day for at least three hours. I listened to flute recordings, and I copied the attributes of the flutists I liked (there were only a handful in the 1970s). I practiced until midnight and woke up at 5:00 a.m. to practice so that I never had more than five hours between practice sessions. I practiced during school whenever I had free periods. I practiced scales and etudes all the time. I auditioned for Juilliard when I was 16, and I got accepted. I still felt like I was years behind everyone else--that I got in by a fluke, and that somehow I had fooled everyone.

When I started playing the recorder at the age of 22, it was easy to do. I just followed the pattern I used to learn to play the flute. When I started to play baroque flute at the age of 24, it came pretty quickly because I was used to starting things late. When I started playing violin for real at 32, it was a bit different. Things didn't go as quickly. It takes about five years to understand the left hand of the violin, and about ten to understand the right hand. It is a life-long process, but I'm happy that now, at 46 I have the same struggles with the violin and the viola that most string players have. I am beginning to understand the left hand and the right hand. Now that I have played violin and viola for thirteen years, I no longer feel like I am fooling anyone. I can play with confidence among my peers. I still practice every day.

I started writing music seriously at the age of 40. I had written music before I turned 40, but at 40 I decided to study composition, which meant that I had a person who I could show my pieces to. I wrote piece after piece. It was almost as if I had a backlog of pieces "under construction" floating around in the back of my mind that just needed to be written down.

I think that for me the pattern of starting late and making up for lost time has wonderful advantages. It helps you to understand the value of time spent building something. Starting late has made me a better teacher. When an adult beginner comes to me for lessons, I can distinctly remember how difficult it was to learn certain physical aspects of learning to play, and can also distinctly remember the process of transcending those difficulties.

Fourteen years ago I didn't play the violin, and I couldn't have imagined myself either playing the violin or daring to call myself a composer. Those fourteen years have passed at the same rate they would have if I didn't feel compelled to learn to play the instrument or compose; but since I have filled those years with doing what I love best, they have been the best years of my life.

Other late-starter-related posts here, here, and here (this one is about a string quartet project with adult quartet novices).