Student-teacher relationship

This is me venting for the day!

The student teacher relationship is a very interesting relationship. Especially now, as a teacher, I can see how students dictate the direction of the relationship. Now I don't want it to seem like teacher's personalities and teaching style do not affect the relationship; the important thing to remember is that TEACHERS ARE NOT PAID TO BE YOUR FRIEND! I know it sounds harsh, but its completely true. Yea, I'll be the first one to agree that some teachers suck, but it is the students responsibility to get everything out of that teacher. Weather you personally like the teacher or not, he will have some type of valuable information for you!

Having this mindset will dramatically alter your attiude towards lessons and ensemble work. I constantly hear friends and students complain about teacher's personalities, teaching styles, and the teacher's ability to play. Well everybody I have news for you, STOP COMPLAINING AND GET A NEW TEACHER!

From my experience teaching, students bring certain expectations and attitude to teaching situations which really drive the experience. As a student, you must realize that there are many things that you do not know because of your lack of experience. Teachers have overcome all or most of the problems you may be facing. Experience is a huge difference between students and teachers. There is such a big difference between a student and professional musician. Students and professional musicians have two completely different outlooks and approaches to music.

At the end of the day the student is the one who loses from a negative relationship. Most teachers already have established careers. In a sense, students must trust that teachers will lead them in the right direction.

Sight reading

Hi Gregory,

I play clarinet and I need a little bit of help. I've seen the lessons on your website and they've helped me a lot, but I still have one huge problem. I can't read fluently...I play everything by ear (well almost everything). I've been playing since high school (idk how I made it thru by ear)...I can read to an extent but unfortunately that extent isn't taking me as far as I would like to go in music. I know the notes and I know note value. But for some reason (sight) reading is a different ball game for me. I can figure music out if I can hear it. Is there any advice you can give me or any tools that you could suggest to help me reach my goal of reading and some day directing my own band?

Thanks A Lot!!!

Clarinet

Well, first of all, thanks so much for watching the youtube videos. It's kind of funny that you ask because I used to have the same exact problem. Honestly, I've probably encountered every clarinet/music issue possible! I have fixed a lot of things however I am still trying to improve on a lot of things. Reading is actually pretty simple. My biggest problem was that I was so behind, reading wise, that when I would work on reading I would try to play thing that were way too hard!

Fist of all, get an etude book, that is very simple. You might even want to start from the beginning. Buy five or six books, elementary band music to more advanced things. If you are serious about reading you MUST do it every night! You have to force yourself to read! Read things that you don't know. If it takes you 3 hours to read 8 bars... thats what you have to do. The only way you are going to get better is by reading. I know it sounds stupid, but its the truth.

You have to understand sub-divisions of the beat. For example.... If you put a metronome on 60 and play quarter notes...well thats the same thing as playing half notes at 120. If you play eight notes at 60, its the same as quarters at 120. Understanding the similarities and relationships between rhythms is very important. A dotted quarter followed by an eighth is the same as a dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth just at a different tempo.

It is also important to know what each rhythm sounds like. You want to make things as simple as possible. If you can look at a rhythm and play it with no thought... well then you only have to worry about playing the right notes. You want to make things as simple as possible for yourself.

College was a great experience because I had a chance to read so much music. Jazz band charts on tenor sax, wind ensemble music, and orchestra. I went from very little reading in high school to reading all day in college. That was a great experience.

Hopefully this was somewhat helpful. Let me know how it goes.

Greg

Questions 1/19/10

Hi there!

First off, I think your videos and "lessons" are awesome. (:
Anyways, I play clarinet too, and I was wondering if you could give any advice on register jumps. I'm having a bit of embouchure control issues; when I go into the altissimo range from the lower range, it's squeaky. Heck, even jumping from the altissimo G to D is difficult. If you've ever heard/played Copland's clarinet concerto (adagio), you'll know what I'm talking about. =/
Any tips or advice would be very appreciated.

Best,

Clarinet

Thanks for checking out the videos. I played the Copland last year.....(havent looked at it since) thats a tough one.
This might sound kind of crazy but your goal is to trick your mind into not thinking in registers. You essentially want to be like a keyboard in the sense that every note is equally easy to play.... anyone can walk up to a piano and play any note with ease. However as a clarinet player each note presents its own problems. Playing a low E is much different than playing a high G.

You achieve this ease by practicing everything in 12ths(E to a B, F to a C... just using the register key, I will be sure to make a lesson on this). Your embouchure should not change through different registers. Practice long tone and tonguing exercises using 12ths. This should help a lot with the large jumps.

Also another piece of great advice i was given is that your mouthpiece rests on the top teeth....not your bottom lip. When playing high or big jumps be aware of where pressure is applied on your mouthpiece. If you apply pressure from your bottom lip on to your reed, it will muffle and do other things to your sound. If you apply pressure on your teeth and try to make the reed as free as possible to vibrate that should help open up your sound.

Hope some of this helps
Let me know how it goes

Wow! Your advice really helped.
I never thought of the reed that way before, and didn't know that the pressure should be on top rather than the bottom. That helped so much, my tone pretty much improved instantly.
And the whole relaxed mindset got rid of the extra tension I had in my throat and jaw area when I played. I never thought that would go away, haha.
I really appreciate you taking the time for those bits of advice. (:

getting serious

Well, this is my first blog post in about 9 months. I know its really sad, but I am going to make a HUGE effort to get this thing going. I finally have some type of vision as to what exactly I want to do with this blog. First and foremost, this is going to be a place for me to discuss whats on my mind, music and non music. I also want this to be a forum for question. If any one has any questions relating to music, practice, or any interesting topics, please feel free to ask. I will post the discussion on my blog so we can all learn something. Don't worry I'll hide identities.