Coming in on time and being supportive

Orchestra practice last night gave me the opportunity to think about a couple of points that came up at the Masterclass on Sunday.

The first was around maintaining pitch with support rather than embouchure. This is something that I know in theory but in practice, when my support muscles tire my embouchure takes over and either sends me sharp or strangles the tone or usually both.  Support is a difficult thing to teach and to learn because you can't look inside someone else and see exactly which muscles are being used, and support really comes from what my Pilates teacher called the "deeper abdominals".  Like Pilates, it takes time to work out which muscles to use and what it feels like when they are engaged, and also, like Pilates, it is very easy for the "wrong muscles" to take over when the right muscles are tired.  Last night I realised that when I tire, or try too hard, my big abdominals kick in to take over.  They do very little except constrict my breathing.  This is probably why I end up having problems taking quick breaths and expelling air efficiently towards the end of a piece or when I am feeling nervous.  I don't do Pilates now as the class clashes with orchestra but I think I need to start doing some of the exercises again to build stamina into the right muscles.

The second point was on making good entries.   The tutor picked up a couple of us in the class for making our entries late because we weren't ready in time.  In the practice room, playing unaccompanied, this is something that I am usually completely oblivious too.  It doesn't matter when the first note starts.  But when playing with a pianist or orchestra it really does.  I decided to just notice how I did last night and was pretty horrified to find that the majority of the time I was either still taking a breath when my note started or trying to get the reed to start speaking.  A nice clean entry was the exception rather than the rule.  This is something I really need to work on .  I need to get into the habit of getting ready and taking my breath a beat or two earlier so that all I need to do is release the sound.  I think I sometimes get so fixated on counting the bars and worrying about when to come in that I almost forget to actually come in! I also need to do some work on knowing my reed so I can judge exactly how much air is required to start that sound in a controlled way.  I think maybe some work with the metronome - focussing on starting the sound exactly on the beat will help.  Next week will hopefully be better.