Guided Imagery at the Olympics

The New York Times has a wonderful video series detailing the use of Guided Imagery by Olympic Athletes.

I use techniques like these for my self and recommend them for my students to help them perform  their best in auditions and other situations when they're under pressure.

Each time the Olympics are on, I try to catch any interviews or stories about the athletes' preparation and use them in my approach and in my teaching.

Check these out!

The Best Perspective

Last week at the International Double Reed Society Conference I had a memorable experience.

The Conference was held on the campus of Lawrence University. On the bottom level of its Warsh Center was a wonderful cafeteria where many of the attendees ate lunch.

One afternoon I bought lunch and sat down at a table of bassoonists. We were all discussing various technical matters related to the bassoon when an elderly woman came by and sat down next to me.

She started a familiar conversation with me. She is 81 years old and had never heard a bassoonist play a solo before. I had played on the concert the night before and she heard me. Her eyes lit up with excitement as she described the wonder she felt at hearing what a bassoon sounded like up close. She said she'd waited 81 years to hear the sound of a bassoon!

I noticed she was not wearing the lanyard we all wore as Conference participants. She must have been one of the very few people in the cafeteria not directly involved with the Conference.

Unlike the rest of us who were there to advance careers, perform new pieces, sell merchandise, etc., she was attending just to hear the instruments and our music.

After lunch, I walked across the campus to another venue. On my way, she passed me on her bike (!) and wished me a good day!  She was a local resident, just taking advantage of the unique opportunity to hear music for double reed instruments on a particular week in June in her town!

It occurs to me that it is really people like this woman for whom we perform. Many people have heard a violinist play a solo, but I'm sure many of you share the experience I've had when I say, that after 40 years of a career as a bassoonist, I still hear from audience members who have NEVER heard a bassoonist play a solo.

As we seek levels of ever rarefied perfection in our practicing, it's vital for us to rememberthat the audience member's perspective is often that of someone hearing our music and our instrument for the first time!

A Month of Extremes

The repertoire I'm performing this month dwells in the extremes of bassoon playing. 90% of what bassoonists do consists of starting and stopping notes predictably at the proper dynamic, etc. Very little of orchestral repertoire consists of solo work and most of it is part of something else -- a bass line to a melody, a note in a chord, etc.

For this month, very little of what I'm playing contains the everyday, mundane job of playing the bassoon in an ensemble!  Here's a short list of the pieces I'm playing:

Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande, Bsn3
Miguel del Aguila: Nostalgica and Malambo -- both pieces I commissioned for bassoon and string quartet
Ligeti Piano Concerto
Bernstein: West Side Story soundtrack with film

The Cleveland Orchestra began May with 3 staged performances of Debussy's opera, Pelleas et Melisande. There are 3 bassoon parts, so I was assigned to play the 3rd bassoon part. The opera starts like this:

The first measure is Bassoon 3 alone with lower strings. Much of the opera is written at "pp" and "p". This is particularly true of the 2nd and 3rd bassoon parts. Oddly enough there are many passages in which the two bassoonists double a single soft low note. Not sure what Debussy was thinking when he wrote this kind of thing!

Anyway, in order to play the D (and other passages later in the opera) in tune and soft enough with a predictable start, I made some modifications to reeds and my bassoon.

Bassoon mods:

1. Play D with low Bb key down. This stabilizes the pitch of the D and keeps it from rising up, all the while muting the tone somewhat.

2. Here's another modification to Low D that just may change your life for this note.

3. I used a mute in the bell to further dampen the sound. I played with this mute in for much of the opera! This is a stronger mute than the cone shaped ones with holes cut in. Warning: it cannot be used for playing low Bb!

It's made from packing material foam. I put a rubber band through the center to give me something to grab onto when removing. About an inch thick. A set of instructions for making one can be found here.

4.Other general modifications I made to my bassoon to achieve a soft, mellow timbre: Remove all lefreQues, change bocals, place a few layers of tape on the top band of the boot joint under the low E to whisper bridge key. This lowers the E pad and takes some of the brilliance out of the sound.

Reed mods:

1. Cut back collar. My reeds have a 1/8" collar normally. I reduced the collars on a couple of my reeds for this opera to 1/16". Cane can also be removed from the area of the blade just in front of the collar.

2. Carefully slide 1st wire with fingernails back towards 2nd wire one wire's width (about .025"). This has the affect of lengthening the vibrating surface of the reed. It eases the response and weakens the reed. Do not expect easy high notes or even an E2 that doesn't sag! I like this adjustment because you can always slide the wire up back into its original position if you like.

3. Thin the last millimeter of the tip. Putting a micro bevel on the tip of the reed improves response. The tips of the reeds modified for the opera measured about .005" at the very tip. Usual for me is .008-.010".

 All of these modifications helped lower my blood pressure when playing this exposed, low part over a 3 hour time span each night!

A Special Recital

Last Sunday I traveled to Pittsburgh with my pianist friend, Randy Fusco to play a recital at Canterbury Place, the assisted living center where David Van Hoesen and his wife, Carol now reside. The center has a large room with a baby grand piano that is suitable for a recital.

I played a 45 minute set of arrangements of Russian music by Tchaikovsky, Glazunov and others. It will also be the first half of a longer recital I'm presenting in Harkness Chapel on the Case Western Reserve University Campus on Saturday, January 30th at 7:00pm.

Here is a photo with The Man Himself!

And one with our wives!

Farewell, Mr. Boulez!

Farewell, Mr. Boulez!

Yesterday, the world lost one of the great figures of Classical music, Pierre Boulez. Here is his
obituary.

His relationship with the Cleveland Orchestra started when he guest conducted in 1965. At the time, Music Director, George Szell, desiring to focus on the canonical works of symphonic music with his orchestra, sought someone who could balance the programming by bringing a repertoire of new music to Cleveland audiences. Boulez was the perfect choice.

Few music directors at any time would have the humility or awareness that they could not provide everything an orchestra and audience needed in programming and, thus, would seek out an excellent person to complement the orchestra's offering!  I can think of many examples in which a mediocre conductor has been engaged so as not to upstage a music director!

My first encounter with Mr. Boulez (it was always Mr. Boulez with us here in Cleveland) came in the winter of 2002 during my first year with the orchestra. We played Messiaen's "L'Oiseaux Exotiques". I felt as though I was eavesdropping on an old relationship. The orchestra's sound changed the minute he started conducting! His baton-less technique seemed perfectly natural to me from the start. His every gesture was meaningful, helpful and economical. The orchestra could be playing a huge "ff", and with a flick of the wrist he could bring us back to "p". He accomplished this with a small part of one hand while some conductors require a karate chop to get a similar effect.

I'm sure there will be much discussion about his legacy in the coming days. It should make for interesting reading.

I'll close with one anecdote that sums up Boulez's approach to music perfectly. From Time Page in the Washington Post. Read it here

In later years, Mr. Boulez was by all accounts a gracious, soft-spoken and self-effacing gentleman, much beloved by the musicians he worked with. In his composition and his conducting — which he managed with the brisk efficiency of a bank teller giving change — he was the antithesis of the romanticized stereotype of egoistic, heaven-storming musician.
“Perhaps I can explain it best by an old Chinese story,” he said to his biographer, the late Joan Peyser. “A painter drew a landscape so beautifully that he entered the picture and disappeared. For me, that is the definition of a great work — a landscape painted so well that the artist disappears in it.”
- See more at: http://slippedisc.com/2016/01/an-exemplary-boulez-obituary/#sthash.DNmpzSSI.dpuf

n later years, Mr. Boulez was by all accounts a gracious, soft-spoken and self-effacing gentleman, much beloved by the musicians he worked with. In his composition and his conducting — which he managed with the brisk efficiency of a bank teller giving change — he was the antithesis of the romanticized stereotype of egoistic, heaven-storming musician.
“Perhaps I can explain it best by an old Chinese story,” he said to his biographer, the late Joan Peyser. “A painter drew a landscape so beautifully that he entered the picture and disappeared. For me, that is the definition of a great work — a landscape painted so well that the artist disappears in it.”
- See more at: http://slippedisc.com/2016/01/an-exemplary-boulez-obituary/#sthash.DNmpzSSI.dpuf

Extreme Measures -- Playing very softly

I've run into two instances recently in which my limits as a player were tested. I'm speaking in particular of the ability to play very softly.

In both cases, I had soft reeds that I thought would get the job done, but in rehearsal, found out the conductor wanted the passages in question softer than I was comfortable managing without taking extreme measures.

During the rehearsals, I got "The Hand" or "The Heisman". If you follow American college football, you'll know what I mean!

Here is the first solo:

The bassoon solo in the 3rd movement of Mahler's 1st Symphony. We played it at the Blossom Music Center this summer. In the first rehearsal, I played it as softly as I could comfortably, thinking that since this is an outdoor concert, I need not go to extremes with the dynamic.

Unfortunately, I was wrong!  The conductor wanted it softer, so I had to come up with a solution. I wanted to avoid muting the instrument because it is a solo and I think it should have a characteristic bassoon sound, not one that is completely altered.

Instead I found some fingerings that make this solo soft and in my comfort zone to play.

1. Use the lock for the whole solo. This necessitates venting the upper  A's  and  Bb's  so they speak in the correct octave. Vent for the whole duration of the note, so you don't lose the octave part-way through.

2. To start, alter the first  D by anchoring your right thumb on the F# post right next to the Low E key. Be careful not to contact the F# key!! Partially close the E key with the side of your thumb until you achieve a softer D that is also nicely down to pitch. There is quite often a pitch discrepancy between the Bass solo that precedes the bassoon entrance and this first note, with the Bass being on pitch or flat and you being sharp on the  D , so this little aid is helpful. Fortunately, Max Dimoff, our Principal Bass plays this solo with impeccable intonation, so he set me up beautifully!

3. Use the low Eb key on open F for a more trouble-free slur to G.

4. Your choice as to whether or not to shade the low E key for every D in the solo -- probably too much trouble, right?

5. Be sure to vent the first A!

6. Now for the most important solution -- making the A - Low A slur at the end of the phrase successful! 

• Vent the upper A
• for the low A, remove the vent while adding the low C# key and the thumb F# in the right hand for a comfortable, smooth slur that is very soft. Careful coordination is essential for this to work.
• A variation on this would be to add just the F#, but the low A may be too flat on your bassoon. If so, include the low C#.
• As this method involves lots of changes to normal fingerings in a pressure situation, you'll need to practice this quite a lot to get comfortable with it before trying it in rehearsal.

 The other passage is found at the beginning of the 3rd bassoon part in Mahler's 3rd Symphony

The slur from A to low B in the little passage at Number 1 was giving me fits when I first played it several years ago. The contrabassoon plays this passage with you, so our contrabassoonist, Jonathan Sherwin kindly showed me his solution.

Simply play the A with the low B key on (and the lock) and you'll have a better chance of landing safely on low B.

However, this past week, that wasn't good enough in rehearsal, for a very soft "ppp" was desired!  Even armed with this fingering, a soft reed and a bocal I use mainly for 3rd bassoon parts, it wasn't quiet enough.

My solution for a homemade mute! 

• Find some flexible sponge-like packing material. 
• Cut out a cylinder approximately 2" in diameter and 1" thick.
• Poke a whole in the middle and tie a rubber band in a knot. 
• Push the rubber band through the hole with the knot on one side of the packing cylinder. 
• Leave some length of rubber band on the other end to use as a handle for pulling out of the bell
• Insert in bell

With all of these extreme measures in place, I have so far avoided the "Heisman" gesture from the podium!

We'll see if my luck continues, for we are taking Mahler 3rd to Europe for 3 weeks this month!

The Universal Mind of Bill Evans

Bill Evans was one of the great jazz pianists.

I never heard him play live, but fondly remember an impromptu concert given by Bill Dobbins, who was my Jazz History teacher at Eastman, in his honor shortly after he died in 1980. Dobbins, dressed in black, gave us an evening of Evans' tunes on solo piano.

Here is an interview done by his brother, Harry. In it he discusses many things; improvising, creativity, teaching, etc. Lots of great playing, too! The audio is in English, with Spanish subtitles.