The Commissioning Process…Where to Start??

The idea of bringing a new piece of music into the world, or having someone write you something specific, is a very exciting notion.  A notion, that up until a few years ago, I never thought would be a reality.  Commissioning or hiring a composer seemed to be a daunting task….who do you ask?  How do you find composers?  How to you pay for the piece?  As a quintet, Mirari does quite a bit of commissioning, which is decided on and paid for by the group.  As an individual it can seem a bit harder to pull off.  Through sharing my individual experiences commissioning new works, I  hope to shed some light on  what can seem like an intimidating process.

Why Commission?

Commissioning a new piece of music can seem like a daunting or confusing task, it definitely seemed that way to me.  On top of that, for many people, the idea of commissioning a new piece of music is expensive.  As musicians ourselves, and especially when early in our careers, we’re not exactly rolling in money…but I’ll get to that in a bit. One reason to commission is to simply bring new music into the world.  The tuba (the instrument I was commissioning for) has a relatively small body of music, especially when compared to  instruments like the violin or flute.  It was only in the past 50 years or so that the tuba has been taken seriously as a possible solo instrument, with composers writing for it in a solo setting.  As a result the compositional options seemed endless.

Another reason to commission, which didn’t occur to me at first, is composers (for the most part) WANT to work with performers, and the performer-composer relationship is a unique one in the music world.  Unlike performing musicians and conductors, composers don’t have the same opportunities to collaborate with other musicians.  In addition, commissions are one way that composers earn money for what they do…just like performers earn money by performing, composers earn money by composing.  As a musician I like to support fellow musicians in their craft.

Who to commission?

Unless you already have an idea of whom you’d like to commission, the first task is finding the composer.  This can also seem daunting at first, because unless you know a composer and his or her music well, you may be unsure as to whether you’ll enjoy working with them and be happy with the end product.

The internet is a super useful tool for this.  The first time I commissioned a piece I started my search by going to a number of different composer websites and listening to samples of their music, trying to get an idea of what each composer and their music was about.  Since this was going to be someone I was going to be collaborating with, I also wanted to make sure that the individual wasn’t going to be a pain in the behind to work with.  Once I started narrowing my list I spoke to people that knew the composers on a professional or personal level to get their take on the composers as people.

I considered a variety of composers from around the country, taking into account their location, their musical language, what instrumentation they had already composed for, and their current popularity and success.  I wanted to commission a composer that was clearly well thought of but not too big of a name for cost reasons number one, and also because I wanted to promote a composer that wasn’t well known in the tuba world.  I didn’t want another work written for tuba and piano, so specifically looked for composers that worked frequently outside that box.  In terms of location I hoped to find a composer within driving distance to have the ability to work with them in person.  Finally, I thought it would be great if the composer had already composed for tuba in a solo or chamber setting, as then they would be more familiar with the instrument.

What about the $$?

Just like there are a variety of ways of finding and working with composers, there are also a number of ways of funding a commission.  Commission fees vary based on a number of factors, including composer experience, your personal relationship with that composer, length of the piece, and complexity of the instrumentation (i.e. it’s cheaper to commission a piece for a solo instrument over a concerto with orchestra).  I found that most composers charge a certain fee per minute of composed music then adjust that based on the other factors mentioned.

Young and up and coming composers want to get their music out there, and as a result often have a much lower commissioning fee and are a great way to go if you are on a tight budget.  I commissioned a work for trombone, tuba, and recorded sound with fellow Mirari member, Sarah.  The composer (Inez McComas), Sarah, and I agreed on a unique commissioning arrangement.  Inez considered herself to be an up-and-coming composer.  As a result, she believed it was more important and more valuable for her works to be heard in performance than to receive a monetary fee.  With this idea in mind, Inez suggested that for each minute of music composed, Sarah and I would owe her one live performance.  The piece she composed, called “The Middle Pigeons”, ended up being 7:15, and as a result we owed Inez at least 7 live performances of the work. 

A quick side note about another way to find and fund a commission, and that is having the composer find you.  After performing a duo recital a student composer approached Sarah and I, asking if she composed a piece for the duo, would we be willing to program it in future recitals.  She has composed a few pieces for tuba before and plays horn herself.  We said yes, and since then have been in contact with her regarding the nature of the piece, typical audiences, and extended techniques that we or are not capable of, our personal ranges, etc.

Besides the up and coming composer route there are many other ways to fund a commission, and my other personal way of funding a piece was through a consortium.

Funding my commission of Asha Srinivasan, Professor of Composition at Lawrence University, was a much different process.  During our initial meeting, she and I agreed on a commission rate of $3000 for a 10-minute work.  She based this on her per minute rate.  Keep in mind though, that many well known composers will charge upwards of $1000/minute.  Remember….just like we as performers have to make a living do what we do, so do the composers!  Think about high-level performers charging a high fee…composers are the same.  Our product is performance, while theirs is the music they produce for us to perform.

Back in the early stages of finding and selecting a composer I had an idea that whatever the commission fee ended up being would be too much for me to cover all on my own.  $3000 was indeed more than I personally had, so I decided to establish a consortium of tuba players.  I had heard of consortiums before, but had never participated in one.  Initially I had hoped to create a consortium with a minimum of eight other members.  From May through June of last year I contacted around 40 tubists, explaining the project and the consortium, trying to determine the level of interest in a project like this from each potential member.  I received a positive reply from seven individuals.

All of the administrative and emailing work was time consuming, and as you can see, in the end I received a positive reply from less than a quarter of the people I contacted. At first I thought, wow, what I waste of my time, contacting all of these people.  But even though I didn’t receive a monetary contribution from every person on my contact list, making those contacts did have value.  Many of those that I contacted I’ve never had any connection to before.  This consortium has allowed me to connect and network to musicians around the country, something that could prove invaluable in the long run.  And with the seven that did participate in the consortium, I’ve established and/or continued to build a stronger relationship.

Each member of the consortium contributed $250 and in return they received a copy of the work and participation in an exclusivity period of one year following the premiere.  I created a consortium agreement form for each member to sign and return with the $250 fee.

Besides paying through performance or establishing a consortium there are numerous other ways and options to fund a commission, I’ll go over a couple others.  First, grants.  When I began exploring options to fund Asha’s commission and my CD project I met with the grant librarian in the Memorial Union Library….and was completely overwhelmed.  Through my meeting with her I learned about the giant databases where you can search for grants for an endless variety of purposes.  After a day of sifting I decided that for searching for, and the even more rigorous process of applying for grants, was too much for the scope of that project.  That said, the grant library is a fantastic resource where I learned a great deal.  I hope to someday soon get my feet wet with grant writing, as it is an enormous resource.

Another funding option is using Kickstarter, an Internet and social media based source to fund creative projects.  I created a Kickstarter project to help fund my CD recording process, but it can also be used to fund a commission.

Connect, Collaborate, Build Relationships

One major difference between working on a piece you’re commissioning and most other works is the fact that the composer is alive.  I know, this seems very, very obvious, but it is a fact that is often overlooked. In the past I’ve played a great deal of pieces where the composer is still living (due to the young age of the instrument) but I’ve never made any effort to contact the composer.   The first time I made a real effort to contact a composer was for my first CD project, URSA.  For that project I made some sort of contact with every composer, and if possible, I strongly encourage other musicians to do the same.  Building a relationship with a composer beyond the notes on the page can add a new element of depth and understanding to the meaning of a piece. 

If you have the opportunity to work with a composer on one of their pieces, DO IT!  And keep an open mind.  The composer wrote the piece hearing it in a particular way, so they will most likely have suggestions for you, which will hopefully aid in your understanding and preparation of the work, but at the same time, if they also are keeping an open mind, they may adjust the music to reflect something they like that you’re doing.  A few months before recording the title track of my CD, I had the fabulous opportunity of working with Libby Larsen, when she came down to Madison from the Twin Cities to work with pianist Kirstin Ihde and me on her tuba concerto.  Throughout the coaching Ms. Larsen made a number of suggestions to Kirstin and me, but more than once, when she heard something that we did that wasn’t marked on the page, that she liked, she marked it in her score to later give it to her publisher for a future publication of the piece.  Once again, composers want to work with performers!

When commissioning music that relationship becomes even more personal.  Working with a composer through a commission becomes a true collaboration, one that can be incredibly rewarding for the composer and performer alike.

-Stephanie

Nervous When you Perform? You're Probably Breathing Too Much!

Wait, what?  That goes against everything we've ever been taught as brass players!  Let me explain.   You know the feeling when you are performing and start to feel anxious?  Your heart rate quickens and so does your pulse.  Your breathing gets shallow and you start to take a lot of them.  But somehow, you constantly feel out of breath.  Here's what's happening:

Consider a normal breath under relaxed circumstances.  You fill your lungs completely full of air, which is made up of slightly less than one-quarter oxygen and the rest nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other gases.  We'll call all that stuff carbon dioxide for now because that's what most people understand.  While you are playing, your body uses most of the oxygen for, you know, staying alive.  The carbon dioxide is mostly blown into your horn.  Once you're out of air, you take another breath and the cycle repeats itself.  

But here's what happens when you're nervous.  Your heart rate quickens, causing all sorts of problems but most importantly, you take in extra breaths before you are fully out of air.  So here's what we end up with.  You take your first breath and your body uses the oxygen.  You blow some of the carbon dioxide into your instrument.   Then you take another breath, but this time you don't have your full lung capacity to work with because there's still some carbon dioxide left in there.  Again, your body uses the oxygen, you blow some of the carbon dioxide into your instrument, and then take anther breath too soon.  Now you have even less lung capacity to work with, and again, your body uses the oxygen.  At this point, you have a lot of carbon dioxide built up in your lungs and less and less oxygen to work with.  So you feel out of breath and continue taking too many breaths because your body is reporting that it's out of oxygen and panicking.  This is a dangerous cycle when you are already nervous!

You're taking more breaths but getting less oxygen!  So what are some solutions to this?  First of all, the easy solution to deal with this situation when it happens to you:

BLOW ALL THE AIR OUT OF YOUR LUNGS

Find a spot in the music when you can exhale completely and take a fresh breath to re-oxygenate.  Try this right now—blow all the air out of your lungs and take a nice big breath.  Do you feel how it instantly gives you extra energy?  This works pretty much all the time in performance.

Here's the way to avoid this problem in the first place:

PLAY WITH LOTS OF AIR SUPPORT AND LONG PHRASES

Most of us play with a weak and wimpy sound when we get nervous.  Make sure to keep putting lots of relaxed air into your instrument.  And even though your "fight or flight reflex" is telling you to take lots of extra breaths, save them for the ends of phrases, or when you're truly out of air.  This requires some mental discipline but it can be practiced.  Try running up and down the stairs a few times and then playing some long lyrical phrases when you're already out of breath.  The feeling is remarkably similar to what you feel when you're experiencing performance anxiety!  

These techniques won't completely cure nervous performing, but they will get you one step closer.  Good luck, and let me know how this works for you!

-Alex

Your Brave

Mirari just had our spring weeklong tour presenting master classes and performing concerts at several universities and colleges in Missouri.  We met, worked with, and got to perform for many smart, engaging, and fantastic performers and teachers!  Obviously, this is one of the amazing perks of this job, but I’m also realizing, the place I find myself most fearful – the horn in my hands performance arena.

Recently, I got a tattoo.  For those of you who know me, I’ve been thinking about this for several years now.  I finally did it a few weeks ago and it has been a decision that I have not second-guessed and/or regretted, ever (for those of your who know me, this is also a big deal!).

I have been on this Fearless path for about 9 years now (WOW!). I’ve had ups and downs, highs and lows, and have experienced a myriad of emotions on this Fearless ride.  Luckily, throughout this process I have made amazing friends and acquired an arsenal of Fearless resources all of which have helped me become a better performer/story teller when on stage.    

For each performance previous to this week, I had my inspiration sheet, notes of encouragement on my music, countless phone calls to and amazing advice from Jeff Nelsen (THANK YOU!) and many other friends to get my mind in the “right” place - to get me in the zone. During this past week, I felt the symptoms of nervousness start to invade my body (of course, stemming from my own thoughts) as we sat down to start our first concert.  My mind was filled with too many options.  What if I can’t get my lips to respond because they are chapped, and I’m dehydrated, and tired from a long day of rehearsal?  What if I can’t make it through this performance?  What if I can’t get notes to speak?  What if I freak out and am out of the zone?  I had 95 “What If” options. As I took my first breath of the performance, I looked down at my left wrist and saw FEARLESS emblazoned on my skin.  

It was an instant reset.  I was immediately calm, focused, and ready to share music/stories not only with the rest of Mirari, but with the audience, as well!

Fearless training has been such an integral part of my life over these past 9 years, that I didn’t need a paragraph explaining what it was, what it entailed or have someone encourage me to do my best to know exactly what I needed to do.  Fearless is something I am; it’s in my being (as it is for everyone).  Fearlessness comes from within, not outside, myself.  Just like you learn from your teachers, process what they say, put it into your own words, share it with others, and find out later, it is then your information to share and own, this experience was the same.  Everything I need, I currently possess.  Being Fearless isn’t about not experiencing Fear (nerves, shaky hands, unsteady breath, etc.) it’s about letting your Brave be the loudest voice you hear at that moment.

What would happen if we all let our Brave be the loudest voice in our heads?  What would your world look like if you shared your Brave rather than hiding your Fear?

This week, I found my Brave.  Not only did I find it, but I found the key to it, too!  This key is now etched on my left wrist.  I’ll never lose it, never have to second guess it.  It is, and always has been, within me.  

I have one option now, to BE FEARLESS.  ☺

Jessie

Eternal Lessons

Today I was practicing a piece for an upcoming recital, and I decided to finally attack “that one little lick.” You know that lick, right? The one that just never goes exactly as you want it to go.

Before I share with you the [not so great] ways that I practiced that lick, let me tell you a little bit about the way I approach new material. When I learn a piece, I tend to have a process that I follow as I prepare for a performance. It’s kind of like peeling an onion; there are lots of layers!

My first broad brushstroke tends to cover learning notes and rhythms. I try to do this as quickly, correctly, and efficiently as possible. If I make a mistake, I stop and fix it before I move on. If I’m not sure if I played the right note, I check it against a piano. There is a lot of singing involved so that I internalize the new material.

Second, I find large phrase direction and shape. There’s more than one right answer in this step, so I tend to try out several ways to turn a phrase before I settle on my favorite. I make a lot of marks in my music so that I can pick up where I left off when I come back to the piece the next day. This step also involves determining where to breathe…and writing it in!

Third, I find smaller nuances that I want to make within each phrase. It’s around this time that I find little technical inconsistencies that I may have missed when I peeled off that first thick layer. And that’s where I found “the lick.”

[See my full list of steps for learning a new piece at the bottom of this article.]

You see, this particular lick is really difficult because the figure goes between eighth notes and triplets, and it has four notes in four different positions, but the positions are really close to each other, and in fact you have to play two different 3rd positions to adjust for tuning and, and, and…

Well, at least that’s what I told myself for the past week or so. That’s probably why I haven’t gotten very far with this lick.

So today, it was time to take care of “that one little lick.” (Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of other “little licks” throughout my recital program. But today was the day for that one.) What did I do first? The wrong thing: I didn’t make a plan. I just made a goal. My goal was to fix it. I had no idea how I was going to do it because it’s really difficulty lick because the figures goes between eighth notes and triplets, and it has four notes in four different positions, and….

All I had in my mind were the thoughts “this is hard, it doesn’t sound good, I need to fix it.” Somehow, I still fixed it, but only afterwards did I realize that I went about it backwards. My mental approach should have been more planned and more positive! I probably could have saved twenty minutes and some chop fatigue if I had taken a second to think about my approach.

That being said, this is what happened: I played it over and over. The same way. At least forty or fifty times. If I hadn’t made it clear yet, this is what NOT to do!

What was I doing? I was waiting for one of those repetitions to give me the answer. I was waiting for it to sound good so that I could capture that approach and sound, and then replicate that.  I was using the lowest level of problem solving: trial and error. Unfortunately, I was also practicing it incorrectly…over and over.

Nothing changed until something in my brain said “play it longer.” Aha! A style change! Imagine that!

I played it longer, and it definitely helped. Then something in my brain said “direct the phrase to the last note.” Aha! A musical change! Imagine that!

I played it more musically and it was instantly 100% better. You might even say it was fixed. Looking back, I realize that it only took me one creative thought and one repetition carrying out that thought to “fix” my technical problem. I wondered why I had just mindlessly practiced the lick fifty times. Why didn’t I just stop to think for a few seconds?!

And then the echoes of one of my teachers, Carl Lenthe, rattled in my mind. A musical solution to a technical problem. Of course. It makes so much sense. Why didn’t I listen to him more often? No, why didn’t I just do what he said more often?

I practiced the piece for about 45 minutes today, but I took away much more than that. I learned a very valuable lesson, one that I have learned before and forgotten, many times: making music and learning how to play your instrument is not a technical pursuit. Rather, it is a mental pursuit. You have to learn how to learn. You must learn strategies that guide yourself to improve efficiently and mindfully. That is the answer! Yes, we all have technical shortcomings that we would like to improve, but the first step is not finding out which exercise to play. The first step is knowing yourself, making a plan, and teaching yourself how to learn.

If you are an artist and you are trying to really improve, I strongly encourage you to take this approach. Really take a look inside yourself and figure out how you learn. Teach yourself to learn well. Listen to your teacher, because they are giving you the answers all the time. You can only benefit from them if you are ready to learn.

The other lesson that I learned (again) is to just try something different. If a lick isn’t working, you’ve got to attack it from all angles. If you’re not sure what else to do with it musically, start with technical approach variations. Play it slower, faster, lower, higher, louder, softer, change the articulation--anything that will pull you away from playing it the same, boring way that you always play it. There is virtually no benefit of playing something over and over again unless you’re doing it well every time (correct rhythm, notes, intentional musical direction, etc.).

I hope my practicing woes and triumphs will help you bring a new angle to your practice, even if it is to simply incorporate more intentional thought into your precious practice time. We are all busy people, and we owe it to ourselves to get the most out of our practice by planning, learning from our mistakes, and making conscious musical choices every time we pick up the instrument.

How to Learn a New Piece

Sarah

The Only Resolution You Need to Make in 2015

Happy New Year!

Hopefully you had an enjoyable ringing in of the new year with friends and/or family. Maybe you went to dinner or maybe out for drinks, maybe you played games with your family, or watched the ball drop in Times Square. Maybe you just watched a movie and went to bed before midnight. It was your choice and I am sure you chose wisely. Now we’re on to one of the least successful times of the year. Yup, New Year’s resolution season. We all decide to do something that we’re going to do for the next two weeks and if it doesn’t stick, oh well. There’s always next year.

Building New Habits

I was having a conversation the other day with some friends about building new habits. Though the conversation was completely unrelated to music, I found myself (as I often do) applying some of our conversation to music. We talked about what was required to build a new habit and how long it takes. Different numbers were thrown around, so I decided to do some research. For many years, exercise gurus, dieticians, doctors, and educators sold the notion that you could create a new habit in 21 days. There have been plenty of articles about that, so I’ll just say that the origin of this magic number actually claims it takes a minimum of 21 days depending on the person and the habit. Here's some interesting and much more recent information on developing habits which claims it takes anywhere from 18-254 days to change a behavior.

So, let’s apply this to breathing while playing a wind instrument. Back in 6th grade, my band director told me to take a big breath and blow. Not realizing that I was basically tensing up my entire body on both the inhalation and the exhalation, that’s how I played for three years until I started taking private lessons, then went to college, etc. The point is that I breathe differently now than I did as a sixth grader and it was not a magical 21-day fix.

I use the words “free, easy, relaxed” when I describe the breath I want to take and I am fairly successful breathing that way in my practice. However, I struggle some days when my body or my mind is tired and I find myself taking less than ideal breaths. So, I must always choose to breathe the way that I know will help me sound best, no matter how difficult or easy the decision is that day.

Test Your Product

So far, I’ve only been talking about my practice sessions, so now let’s take into account the times that I am in various settings with different levels of stress or pressure. Should I breathe differently? No. Do I? Sometimes. I know that I did for a long time and there are still situations where I have to remind myself to be free, easy, and relaxed. When I was in orchestra or brass band or playing as a soloist, I’d be more nervous, and the first thing to go was my breathing. When your breathing goes, you use more muscle. When you actively use too much muscle, fatigue sets in much faster. When fatigue sets in, your brain starts to focus on how tired you are instead of on the music. I needed more opportunities to be in a pressure situation and be able to teach myself how to breathe, think, and relax in that setting. Thank you, Mirari! I perform way more now than I have in the past few years and I plan on keeping it that way.

There is a reason we stress to our students that everyone has to perform for people. You aren’t just getting another performance under your belt, you are teaching yourself how to behave when you are performing. It gives you a chance to get worked up but still breathe and play in the same way you do in your practice. How many times have you heard someone sound amazing in their warm-up and then like a completely different player when they perform? It’s because they are not testing their product. Can you imagine if your job was to build a boat for someone and you never tested to see if it would float before you gave it to the customer? You’ve got to see if it can withstand heat, cold, crashing waves, etc. Can you say “lawsuit”?  

I was fortunate to have Krista Jobson (flute, UT-PA) as a friend while earning my doctorate in Kansas City. I remember having a dress rehearsal for my lecture recital and Krista came to watch because she couldn’t make it to the actual recital (what a kind choice she made to support me, right?). My lecture recital was on unaccompanied trumpet pieces and I was playing some of the most technically challenging music I had ever attempted in my life. Having just one person whose opinion I valued made me ridiculously nervous. I had a pretty big breakdown on the first movement of Henze’s Sonatina. I asked if I could just have some time to work a few things out and she said, “sure, should I leave?” I said, “no, I need to do this while you are here.” She patiently waited as I refocused my brain and got back to playing the trumpet the way that I can. I played again and it was exponentially better than the first time, though it made me wish I had done that months prior. Live and learn. And I have not forgotten that lesson. I play for people as much as I possibly can.

Choose to Choose

One of the important words in the aforementioned study is the word “daily.” Someone in the study decided they wanted to drink a bottle of water with lunch. That means every time they ate lunch they drank a bottle of water. There was no lunch without a bottle of water. Do we really breathe the way we need to every single time we play our instrument? If we don’t, how can we expect that it will ever be a default behavior? That is not to say that if we forget once or twice, we’re screwed, and we’ll never be able to do it, but if we spend more time breathing the way we did in high school than the way we know we should, how will we ever get there?

My thought is that we won’t ever get there. We have a choice to make every time we pick up our instruments. We are choosing to breathe well, choosing to create the best possible tone, and choosing exactly how we want every note and phrase to sound. If we focus on consistently choosing what is best, a very strange thing happens after a while (yes, my ambiguity is intentional)--you get to the point where you can’t play something incorrectly unless you really try.

This new year, I have a new outlook. I believe that we would be more successful affecting change by focusing on the process of creating the habit than on the end result. You know, “oh, I changed my life in three weeks! I am a new person.” That rarely works. Instead, commit yourself everyday to making a choice, and then choosing what is best for you will become your habit.

Cheers and here’s to good choices in 2015!

Matt

Beyond the Notes and Rhythms

I remember way back in my early days of the tuba, when I had to sit on two phone books to simply reach the mouthpiece.  I had recently joined a youth orchestra and was completely out of my element, in awe of the other young musicians around me.  They could play such fast notes and with such confidence.  At that point those fast notes seemed to equal greater skill, and man did I wish I could do the same.  As the next few years passed I grew….physically I could now reach the mouthpiece with one phonebook.  And now those fast notes didn’t seem to hold the same intrigue or interest.  I wanted more, but I didn’t know what it was.  In high school my teachers and mentors encouraged me to listen.   Listen to as many great musicians as possible.  I listened to tuba players of course, but also other brass players, string players, and most importantly, vocalists.  Singers like Luciano Pavarotti, Bobby McFerrin, Renee Fleming, and later groups like the Wailin’ Jennys, were and are captivating.  But why?  It wasn’t fast notes or stunning technique.  It was something else, something called musicality. 

I desperately wanted my own playing to have this mysterious element, I wanted to captivate people in the same way these amazing musicians were captivating me.  Initially I wondered if it was possible on the tuba, an instrument not generally recognized as emotionally moving, but after hearing other tubists like Pat Sheridan and Roland Szentpali (check them out if you haven’t) I knew this was more than possible.

It wasn’t until my graduate school, working with and listening to outstanding teachers and fellow students that I really began to discover and understand how to achieve this seemingly transcendent goal.  So how does one captivate their listener?  What does it mean to play musically?  And how do we as musicians go about that? 

Musicality Defined

Musicality is communication.  Communicating to the listener, whether it is other performers, a paying audience, or a family member listening to your practice session, what you are saying through your instrument.  This idea is analogous to language.  We take the fundamental basics of words, and string them together into sentences to express something we are thinking or feeling.  In music we take the fundamentals of musical language and express something we are thinking or feeling through our instruments.  Musicality is the connection; how we communicate our music to the listener.

Connecting & Communicating

Intent.  Okay, so we have to communicate and connect with audiences.  How?  To start, consider what the music means to the composer, and then more importantly, to you.  There are two layers, the composers’ intention and connecting those intentions to what’s meaningful to you.  What is the background of the composer?  Of the particular piece?  It’s important to have knowledge of different styles and understand where the composer is coming from, but then be brave enough to put it forth in an exaggerated manner that means something to you.

Imagine.  Finding what a piece means to you can require imagination.  When reading a book, we imagine and give life to the words on the page.  Similarly with music, take what’s on the page as a starting point and give life to the notes and rhythms.  Like a teacher reading a story to a kindergarten class, be the exaggerated story teller of the printed music.  In addition, use your intuition.  How do you intuitively or automatically want to respond to the music?  Compare this to the score and intertwine your intuition and the composers’ ideas together.

Paint a picture, tell a story.  Connect the music with something extra-musical, whether it’s descriptive words, moods, colors, emotions, a painting, or a story.  Better yet, try drawing/painting an actual picture of what the music looks like to you.  Or write a story to go along with the music, create characters, a plot, and action.  Reflecting the music in a personal painting or story will make the music come to life for you, and as a result your audience.

Sing.  All lines must sing on the instrument, so first sing them with your voice.  And really sing!  Notice how you approach phrases, where you breathe, how you emphasize certain moments.  And as you sing, conduct and move.  Feel the musical line, dance to the music and involve your entire body.  Internalize the music in your body and voice and then project that through your instrument. 

Listen.  Listen to other artists you admire, and really listen!  Include those that play your instrument as well as anyone else you admire.  Don’t limit your listening, explore a variety of genres.  Figure out what captivates you about the artist and use that as a platform or starting point.

Always be musical!

No matter what you’re playing, whether a Bach Cello Suite or a jazz ballade, or whom you’re playing with, from an unaccompanied solo to a chamber group, musicality should always be part of our musical message.  From the first reading of a new piece, keep in mind the story you’re telling. 

Get in the habit of having every note you play be a musical one.  Pay attention to the details on the page, see and respond to what the composer wants, exaggerate, give direction to the musical line, and tell a story.  Musicality allows us as performers to communicate and connect with the listener and other musicians.  And for me, this connection is the primary reason I became an artist in the first place.

-Stephanie

The Athletic Brass Player

To play a brass instrument well involves learning a variety of skills.  Of course, one must be an artist, as well as an engineer (how do I make my instrument function most efficiently?) and entrepreneur (how do I develop a market for my music?).  But in addition, we also need to be athletes.  Brass instruments tend to create all kinds of physical challenges, from the necessity to move enormous amounts of air to the fine motor control in the face and fingers.  As such, there are some lessons that we can learn from how athletes approach some of the same challenges.  Below are three of the ones that I have found most valuable in my career:

Product Over Process

You're standing at the free throw line holding a basketball.  Are you looking at your hands or the basket?  You're waiting to bat at home plate.  Are you watching the ball or your bat?  In the bowling alley, are you looking at the ball or the pins?  All of these situations have one thing in common: your focus and concentration is on the end result, not the process by which you are going to achieve it.  

So as a musician, what is your product?  How about your sound and your musicianship?  These should always be the ultimate goal of any performance.  Nobody has ever come up to me at the end of a concert and said "I loved how your triplets were perfectly in time" or "My favorite part was that your low D's weren't sharp."  At the end of the day, what matters most is how you sounded and the musical/emotional message you conveyed to your audience.  

In order to do this, of course, you need to understand what a great sound and great artistry are.  The best way to do this is by spending regular time listening to world class musicians.  I always ask students who their favorite players are--if they don't have any, it's clear to me that they don't spend nearly enough time listening (it's okay to have many favorite players and they can change all the time!)  Once you have a great idea of what you want to sound like, then start recording yourself and listening back.  Do you sound like your goal?  If not, focus your practice on what needs to happen to get there.

Obviously, I'm not suggesting here that you ignore the mechanics of how to play the instrument.  Imagine a quarterback working on his passing.  He might make subtle changes to hand position, throwing motion, or footwork.  But then, (and this is the crucial step), he practices those new techniques hundreds or thousands of times so that they become completely automatic, controlled by the unconscious part of the brain.  That way, when he actually gets in the game, his attention can be solely on his targeted receiver downfield.  We can do the same things as brass players.  Nobody should be thinking during a performance: "Keep your finger out of the ring!"

Achieving Balance in Practice

Those people that have been on a well-coached sports team already understand this process.  How many times has a soccer coach said, "Today we'll work only on penalty kicks.  Tomorrow, we'll do just headers."  Good coaches intuitively understand that to develop complete players, you have to practice all facets of the game, repeatedly and continuously.  In fact, many elite teams use a practice model where players engage in a short drill working on one particular skill set, then run to the next drill for 10-15 minutes, then on to the next one.  By keeping them constantly moving and on their toes, the coaches avoid mental fatigue and much more closely simulate the actual game situations that their players are working towards.

I think most brass players understand this concept of balance.  But how many times have you found yourself playing the same Arban exercise over and over (and over and over)?  How many times have you worked for an hour on the same 4 lines of an etude only to realize that you used up your entire time and never got to the rest of your practicing?  I highly recommend that every brass player come up with a great fundamental routine that addresses all of the skills that you need in order to be successful (air, sound, technique, articulation, flexibilty, sight-reading, etc.)  This should be the very first thing that you practice every day--and becomes even more important as you prepare for a recital, audition, or major performance. I also thing it's critical to recognize when you are mentally or physically tired and learn to take a break, or move on to something else.  Continuing to practice when you are working against yourself won't really help you get better!

I've found a couple other great tricks for helping to organize and find balance in your practicing.  First, keep a practice journal.  Write down what you worked on, for how long, and possibly even what you achieved or learned from that practice session.  By going back and looking at your journals for the past week or month, you can learn where you being efficient vs. where you might be wasting a lot of time and what you are working on a lot vs. what you are ignoring.  A second trick that seems to work will is to set a timer.  This works well both for people like me who often had give myself time goals in order to get all of my practicing done ("20 more minutes on my Charlier etude and I then I can watch one episode of Colbert") or for people that obsessively practice they same thing until it's perfect (once the timer goes off, you must move on).  

Fundamentals Over Repertoire

This seems like a simple concept, but it's critical to brass players in every stage of their career.  Think about your favorite team--how much time in their practice do they spend working on skills and drill compared to the amount of time playing scrimmages and actual game simulations.  At most, it's probably 50-50.  At other times in the season, practices are devoted almost exclusively to fundamentals.  

The same goes for brass playing.  Which do you think will lead to developing better multiple tonguing more quickly: working out of the Arban book on a variety of exercises designed to teach you to multiple tongue repeated notes, scalar passages, and arpeggios in a variety of keys, or just compulsively practicing Carnival of Venice over and over again?  Learn the fundamentals first, and then apply them to repertoire.  

The trap that many people fall into is, "But I have to learn my band music, so I spend most of my practice time working on that!"  If you spend more of your time learning to be great on your instrument, the director/conductor will thank you later because the next piece will be so much easier to learn.  Don't forget about the importance of sight-reading every day!  Think about it: if you practice your fundamentals until you are a great player and learn how to sight-read anything in front of you, what piece of repertoire will present a serious challenge?  

Besides the actual content, there is very little difference in the preparation and process of great athletes from great musicians.  We have as much to learn from Peyton Manning and John Wooden as we do from Joe Alessi and Maurice Andre!  Now go practice!