Be Prepared

Preparation is a key to success in almost any venture. If you take a test and don't prepare, you aren't likely to pass. If an athlete competes without preparing, he'll hurt himself or lose the competition. What does this mean for a musician? I suppose the obvious would be if we don't practice, we don't perform well: nerves, mistakes, and an inability to adapt mars our performance. But practicing before a performance isn't the only way we can prepare. Before practicing begins we should always prepare. Planning out practice sessions before beginning them can help keep us focused, make sessions more effective, and increase our awareness of our progress. Taking a few minutes before you start practicing to pencil down a practice plan for the day is also a great way to focus your mind on the task at hand and not your half finished grocery list. I've found keeping a practice journal to be very helpful, and I would recommend it to everyone.

The Sport of Music?

So we don't have extreme physical activity and exciting violence like football, but musicians are athletes in more ways than one. We must develop mental focus, build endurance, and undergo years of devoted training, just like top athletes. The biggest difference: we sit in a chair all day. Despite the fact that the movements of horn playing in the embouchure and left forearm and hand muscles are very refined, it's still a heck of a lot of activity. Being an asymmetrical instrument, the horn also stresses shoulders, elbows, and wrists.

This level of activity, combined with the relative inactivity of sitting in a chair for six hours a day while you play can be really hard on your body. A simple proposition (besides varying your routine, e.g. stand and play, take breaks, etc.) is to stretch before you play. I never realized how much of a difference it could make until I actually began to do it everyday before I play. I have mostly alleviated the pain in my hands and shoulders by adding stretches to my warm up routine, and when I get lazy and skip it, I feel the burn later.

The routine I go through only takes about 5 minutes, and it preps me for the rest of the day. Most of these are the kinds of stretches you learned as a kid in PE class, so you're probably already familiar with most of them. Make sure to hold each stretch for at least 15 seconds, or it won't be effective. Never push too far when stretching or you may injure yourself. Huge disclaimer: I AM NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR! That said, stretches I like to do include:
1. Roll your neck clockwise. Repeat counterclockwise.
2. Circle your shoulders forward. Repeat circling backwards.
3. Draw one arm across the front, palm towards you and thumb up. Repeat other side.
4. Raise one arm above your head, bending at the elbow and placing your hand on your back. Gently apply pressure to the elbow with the other hand.
5. Roll your wrists clockwise. Repeat counterclockwise.
6. Stretch the muscles of your forearm by gently applying pressure with the opposite hand as you bend your wrist in towards your body, then away from your body.
7. Extend your arms above your head, keeping your hips centered and leaning to one side to stretch the side abdominal muscles. After stretching each side, pivot at the hips and extend downward to stretch the lower back.
I feel like stretching has really helped my energy level throughout days with many rehearsals. It reduces my overall level of fatigue and is a great way to get focused on what I'm about to be doing, i.e. practicing. Pausing during practice for a quick re-stretch is also a great way to refocus. You can take a break for your face AND recenter your brain all at the same time. We may not be athletes, but performing music can place great demands on our bodies, and preparing for those demands will make them easier to meet when they come along.

Honor Thy Band Director

It's not exactly one of the ten commandments, but if you're a musician it should be. We had a wonderful guest conductor in the symphony band this past week, and it made me reflect on how student ensembles tend to react to their conductors. In my years of college ensembles I've noticed two things that usually happen: 1. When student conductors take the podium they aren't taken seriously, and 2. when a well-known guest artist comes in, every nuance he/she could ask for is not only given the first time, but committed to memory as well. Oddly, this impressive level of response and musicianship isn't present nearly as often when the band's normal conductor is on the podium. This lack is not from an inability to perform, but from a choice made by the students in the ensemble. We don't have to impress anyone, it's just our band director, he hears us every day. The same choice is made when a student conductor stands before the group. It's only a student, he/she doesn't know what he's doing yet anyway. It's very easy to have a bad attitude when it comes to being in an ensemble. "It's only (fill in the blank), it's not like it's a big deal." Whether it's an ensemble, concert, or conductor, we should always give our best. Regardless of whether it's an ensemble you want to be in or not, we're in the business of making music, and we should always seek that goal with everything we have. So next time you're in a rehearsal with the same old band director, decide to pay attention fully and give him all you can. It's much too easy to take our directors for granted, and they really deserve better.

Change Isn't Easy

I finally figured out how to be a good student, and I'm graduating. When faced with my impending graduation (barring something going terribly wrong) I find it makes me quite flustered. I've never known life without school ensembles and lessons. It occurred to me last night during the orchestra concert that I'm not ready to graduate. It's like I'm finally getting somewhere, and now out I go. There's a real sense of finality this time, one that I didn't get when I left undergrad. There is no more school this time. I keep looking into other degrees that I don't have a substantial interest in, just so I can keep going to school. It's hard to get turned out into the real world, especially when you've gotten a music degree. Change isn't easy, but it is necessary sometimes. I know that I've learned all I need, even though I don't feel ready to leave school behind me.

I think the saddest thing for me at this point is that I will no longer get to play with a symphony orchestra. My time will be spent in one-on-one lessons with students or individual practice time. Maybe I'll sucker someone into some duets on occasion, but the regular rehearsals and performances of a large ensemble will be gone. Because my husband is still in school for another three years, I'll likely be in the Iowa City area until he finishes. Does anyone know of any community orchestras in the area where I could continue to play?

Alexander Technique

There's a class in the music department that some students don't know about and others aren't interested in, but everyone should take. It's called "Movement for Performers" and it teaches about the Alexander Technique. For a long time I didn't really know what the Alexander Technique was all about. I guess I had heard of it before, but it was something for string players with shoulder problems, not people like me. I was incredibly wrong in that assessment.

Alexander Technique is for everyone, and almost anyone can benefit from applying its principles, though many of the people who study it are dancers, musicians, or athletes whose careers rely on proper bodily functioning. It cultivates an awareness of the way we move our bodies in our daily lives, which in turn allows us more freedom of movement and a more natural state of existence. In Alexander Technique you begin to learn how all of the parts of your body are connected, what your habits of creating tension are, and the means to say "no thank-you" when unnecessary tension begins to creep in.

Already in just two classes (it meets once a week) I have discovered something of which I was unaware that impacts my performance on horn. By learning to allow my head to balance, instead of holding it where I think it belongs, I've freed the muscles in my neck and shoulders, allowing me to breathe deeper and more fully than I ever have before. It's done amazing things for my lower register and tone. I'm very excited about the possibilities which this discovery opens, and I can't wait to see what else I will learn over the course of the semester. It almost makes me wish I wasn't graduating so I could take it again. If this has sparked your interest, you're in luck. You'll all learn much more about the history and main concepts of the Alexander Technique at the end of March when I give my seminar presentation. If you're here next semester, you should consider taking the class if you've got the time because it's a good one.

In the Beginning

Lately, I've been working on an article for the horn call about working with beginning hornists. My first experiences of the horn were anything but average. I was a flute player, part time bass clarinetist, and wanting to be well rounded I decided to take up a brass instrument. Low brass, for whatever reason, didn't cross my mind, and I was dead-set against the trumpet. My dad says, "Well you could play the french horn. I have your aunt's old one in the attic." I had no idea what it was, but it wasn't a trumpet. He brought down an incredibly old, green single F, and I actually tried playing that gross thing. I knew it was the one for me though, and my parents said OK with one stipulation: I was having private lessons. I had a wonderful teacher from day one on the horn, which most students don't get until college. I also had the very good fortune that an affordable double horn went up for sale after I'd been playing only 3 months. With the admonition "You'd better stick with this" my parents bought it, and needless to say, I've stuck with it.

Practically speaking, then, I began on a double horn and with a private instructor, which are luxuries few students have. In working on this article, I'm beginning to notice that I don't really know what it's like for the average person to begin on the horn in a normal band setting. It takes a lot of imagination for me. If anyone has things they feel they wish they'd learned earlier, they thought were frustrating about how they learned horn, or they thought were helpful in how they learned horn, please let me know. I'd love to hear other people's stories so I can get a better idea of what starting on the horn is like for others.