Re: Re: Re: Range


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Posted by Rick Denney on September 23, 2003 at 13:11:08:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Range posted by Luke on September 18, 2003 at 20:46:47:

For me, swimming is an excellent analogy. It requires the ability to control air movement at least on a par with the physical aspects of playing the tuba (NOT the musical aspects). But it is still 90% technique--the ability to use your hands and arms to capture as much water as possible, and, more importantly, the ability to move all other parts of your body to minimize drag. Many gifted swimmers have a natural feel for the water and can't explain why they are good at it. But coaches will analyze the prodigies to figure out what they are doing without thinking about it, and teach that technique to the rest of us who don't have those gifts.

The same is true for tuba players. Mr. Jacobs also needed a breakthrough for his upper range. He asked his teacher at Curtis (Donatelli) how he played the very high notes in, say, Pictures, and Donatelli demonstrated. The young Arnold noted that Donatelli altered his embouchure approach. It wasn't so much of a position change or shift, but rather a different way of using it (the record does not show if it was curling in the lip as Roger and Mary Ann have discussed). But once the student had observed the master, he was able to do it himself. For Mr. Jacobs to have attained this breakthrough in this way, he had to engage in analysis of the physical processes. Then, he drilled to reinforce that physical behavior to the point where he could do it without thinking about it during performance.

The confusion about Jacobs's teaching, it seems to me, is that we attain new skills by drilling rather than by analysis. In every case I've seen, however, we start with analysis (even if it is just mimicry) and then lock it in with drilling. The analysis might be pure trial and error, such that we can't explain why it worked, but it is analysis just the same. Jacobs might insist that we think of the result and let the sub-conscious brain do the arithmetic of tissue manipulation, but his teaching is chock full of examples of training the sub-conscious brain to do the right things in non-musical contexts before depending on it for music-making. Anybody listening to his lectures and hearing about, say, "primary shape change rather than primary air movement" could not believe that he didn't perform this analysis. In his lectures, he seemed not to think we needed special training for the sorts of things our bodies already know how to do, like breathing, but that ain't the same thing as learning how to play in the upper register.

For those of us who are not gifted, we hope to achieve through meticulous application of a little analysis and lots of drilling a state where we don't have to think about skills. It is a long road for many of us, and few fully reach that goal. I'm not even sure I'm on the right road. But it seems to me our best hope is in carefully and precisely observing what gifted players do (both physically and musically), and then doing that ourselves. If we do it enough, maybe we will get to the point where we can see the same things and share the same insights that they did.

Rick "who learned how to swim by analytically mimicking people who already knew how to swim" Denney


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