Isn't it?

"It's a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get."

American Golfer, Arnold Palmer

Perfection & Music

"To excell in music, it is necessary to have an insatiable ambition, love and desire, to spare no pains and labour, and to have the courage to support all the discomforts which meet one in this kind of life . . . a noble obstinacy . . . which inspires us to perfect ourselves more and more."
—Joachim Quantz, Essay, Berlin, 1752

"Perfection in any skill cannot be attained unto without the waste of many yeares, much cost, and excessive labour and industrie."
—Robert Dowland (son of John Dowland), Varietie of Lute-lessons, London, 1610

"Perfection is death. I breath life into every note."
—attributed to Wanda Landowska by Albert Fuller

By Heart

In 2003, a favorite pair of actors, Marian Seldes and Brian Murray performed an evening of one-acts, titled "Beckett/Albee." There were three monologues by Samuel Beckett before intermission (Not I, A Piece of Monologue, and Footfalls) and a one-act play for both by Edward Albee after (Count the Ways). It was a thrilling and confounding evening, thrilling because of the virtuoso performances and confounding because of the obfuscating density of Samuel Beckett's texts. Seldes and Murray were interviewed by Leonard Lopate on his eponymous WNYC program (a favorite companion while I make reeds) and spoke about learning the difficult, non-narrative Beckett monologues. To speak their lines as personal utterances of their characters required intensive preparation, both physically and mentally. At times, they explained, the body was more dependable than the mind. Their preparation began with phonetic repetition until the inner structure revealed itself and gave them something to hold on to, and eventually, something to say.

That interview and their performances comes to mind while I'm learning the thorny music of Wolfgang Rihm for next week's Miller Theater concert. At first the notes on the page seem a snarl, quite outside the narrative vernacular of Western music. Learning this material requires repetition to just get the music into the body. Albert Fuller talked about confronting the organ works of Messiaen as a young man; none of the finger patterns were familiar to him. I find the same with Rihm. Yet as the body begins to accept the music, the mind does seem to catch up. Rihm's rhetoric is persuasive, and through repetition, the music moves from notation, through the body, and then into the mind. Finally, it comes out with inner motivation. This process is basically the same when learning a work of Bach or Mahler, however the extreme demands of Rihm's musical language make the inner workings of preparation more pronounced.

This morning while making coffee, I was a little surprised to find myself singing one of the most puzzling passages over and over to myself. My unconscious was learning the music by heart, even away from my instrument.

Wolfgang Rihm "Jagden und Formen"

I'm taking a practice break from several hours hard work on some particularly gnarly music: Jagden und Formen by Wolfgang Rihm. In three weeks we start rehearsals for the US premier of this hour-long chamber symphony. The concert is Thursday night, 18 October, as part of Miller Theater's dynamic, "Composer Portraits" series. I'm playing the solo English horn part and, well, it is very difficult. (My neighbors must think I've lost it . . . I began practicing this morning with the poised 1st oboe part to Don Giovanni which I'm playing tomorrow at the NYCO matinee. The post-lunch repertoire is of an entirely different stripe.) I love Rihm's music. His rhetoric is powerful, and utterly persuasive. His mastery of harmony, timbre, and counterpoint keep the ear riveted.

Repetitive practice of the sort I've been doing today, integrates the mind and body, dispersing the music throughout muscles first, and then brain. In fact, the body processes certain material faster than the mind can. Its athletic adeptness beckons the brain to catch up. (Jock to the nerd: "Come on, let's play ball!") Learning to let the mind trust the body is one of the great lessons of practicing.

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Below are the first two of an eight-page passage with
the English horn playing the principal line.
It begins one beat before bar 161 and
clips along at eighth note = 144.

PRACTICE • REHEARSAL

Among my civilian friends there is some confusion over how a musician uses the words, practice and rehearsal. For musicians, practice is always a verb (we don't say "I'm off to opera practice."), is always done alone, and makes up the raw materials on which we draw as professional performers. Rehearsals, on the other hand, are what we do to prepare concerts as an ensemble. Since it's the most consistent example, I'll site a symphony orchestra schedule. For a weekend's set of three performances, the orchestra will have four rehearsals each lasting 2, 2.5, or 3 hours. Individual musicians are expected to show up at the first rehearsal able to play and interpret the entire program. Depending on the music, this could take one hour or many. If one is preparing to play a concerto, a chamber concert, or an audition, weeks or months of dedicated practice is necessary.

For a musician, individual practice is much more than preparing for performances. It is the essential stuff that makes up our musical identity. As we mature, we learn to be better practicers, to focus our work and be efficient. However, efficiency alone cannot replace what we learn from spending hours alone with our instruments and in repetitive contact with musical phrases. Interpretations, individual style, poise, and artistry are all the result of hours in the practice room.

What does a musician practice? Everyone has fundamentals which require daily attention. Basic issues of technique, intonation, articulation, dynamics, and tone quality are addressed in daily repetitions of scales (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do) and exercises based on common scale patterns (do, mi, sol, mi, do or do, mi, re, fa, mi, sol, etc.). These repetitions are most profitable when done with a metronome, or as we call it, a "lie detector." Musicians who do not have to make their own reeds often have etudes that address other technical issues and receive regular visits. Oboists and bassoonists have etudes, too, however professional schedules require such a volume of reeds, that time at the reed desk gets significant priority. After the fundamental work, a musician's practice time will be led by the demands of future programs. Learning and interpreting a piece of music requires both the development of muscle memory and learning the music "by heart." You must know what's coming and what you're going to do with it, as well as how to execute a particularly gnarly technical passage. The most arresting performances happen when the music seems to flow directly from within the musicians. For it to come out that way, it first has go in. Practicing is how this is done.

A new piece of music, may reveal certain deficiencies in your fundamentals regime. A number of years ago Zéphyros was playing a piece by Lalo Schifrin that had a nasty passage of fast, short, articulated notes. The woodwind technique for executing such a passages has the rather indiscreet name, "tonguing." I had a pretty fast tongue (we talk like this all the time, believe me . . .) but I needed to spruce it up for this passage. So I added certain exercises to my daily practice that addressed my tonguing deficit. As bodies age, certain technical issues crop up. As I've gotten older, I find that the evenness between my middle finger and ring finger on my left hand isn't as dependable as it once was. So that has become another thing addressed with practice. In many ways, as a musician matures, the ears get more sophisticated and so the standard one holds as a goal can become quite rarefied. This sense of the unattainable in the art we love inspires musicians through the many solitary hours spent with their instrument and metronome.

Those of us with Sunday School backgrounds will remember Jesus' "Parable of the Talents." Gifts come with responsibilities. Shirking them shows ingratitude.

With that in mind, perhaps my next posting should be titled, "PRACTICE vs. BLOGGING."

Image: Rembrandt, 1652, "Parable of the Talents." Biblical Art on the WWW.

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From “Elegy for an Artist” Part 4.
“Still (A year)” by C. K. Williams

A year, summer again,
warm, my window open
on the courtyard where
for a good half hour
an oboe has been
practicing scales. Above

the tangle of voices,
clanging pans, a plumber’s
compressor heretically
intensifying,
it goes on and on,
single-minded, patient

and implacable,
its tempo never
faltering, always
resolutely focussed
on the turn above,
the turn below,

Goes on as the world
goes on, and beauty,
and the passion for it.
Much of knowing you
was knowing that, knowing
that our consolations,

if there are such things,
dwell in our conviction
that always somewhere
painters will concoct
their colors, poets sing,
and a single oboe

dutifully repeat
its lesson, then repeat
it again, serenely
mounting and descending
the stairway it itself
unfurls before itself.