Mental Imagery and Rehearsal for Organists

Gavin Black is director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached at .

Practicing II
Last month I wrote that the “concept of ‘slowly enough’ is the key to the whole matter of practicing organ and harpsichord.” This month I want to explore that concept further. I will also discuss a couple of other aspects of the art of practicing.
In urging that students practice their pieces slowly, I want to avoid giving particular, specific practice-tempo suggestions, and I also want to advocate that teachers not expect, by and large, to give their students such specific suggestions. One of the keys to really efficient practicing is to develop a feeling for what the right practice tempo is. That is, literally, a feeling, since the right tempo at which to practice a given passage at a given moment is the tempo at which that passage feels a certain way. The way to guide a student towards being able to practice well—and to know how to go on practicing well for the rest of his or her playing career—is to help the student learn to recognize that feeling.
When a student (or anyone) plays through a passage, whether it is a few notes or an entire long piece, and whether it is the whole texture or separate hands or feet, one of a number of things can happen. If the playing is clearly wrong—wrong notes, missing notes, wrong rhythm—then that is easy to notice and easy to describe. A student who is very inexperienced indeed, or, more commonly, a student who is scared or self-conscious, or who has been trained to leave all matters of judgment to the teacher, might not notice such things at first. But he or she will not have any trouble noticing them if they are pointed out, and can be taught and reminded to notice them directly. They are there for the taking. If a passage being practiced shows such problems, beyond just a few, then it should be practiced more slowly. That is clear.
However, it is extremely common for a student—especially a student with good powers of analysis and of concentration—to be able to play a passage correctly, perhaps even many times in a row, but to have that correctness be a sort of high-wire act: that is, for there to be some or many “near misses” in which the student comes very close to getting a wrong note, but manages to remember and play the right note at the very last second. Playing a passage this way is emphatically not good practicing. (I will discuss this more below.) As I wrote last month, it takes honesty with one’s self to admit that a passage that sounded at least “OK” to the listening world was in fact not OK. We are all motivated not to admit this, first of all because it is always more friendly to our self-esteem to believe that something we just did was done well, not badly, and second because this admission seems to let us in for more work!
In addition to honesty or self-awareness, however, it is necessary for a student to know how to recognize, while playing, specific signs that a passage is in this “high-wire” state. This can be tricky both for beginning students and for anyone else who has never been in the habit of looking out for this problem. Some of the phenomena to watch out for include:
1) Very slight hesitations, especially—but not exclusively—before strong beats. This is an outward, audible sign, but a subtle one that a listener can easily miss. It can be confused with interpretive inflections that might even be musically effective. Only the player can know for sure.
2) Significant departures from worked-out fingering, especially lots of substitution that wasn’t part of the plan.
3) Tension: in the hands for manual parts, probably in the legs and back for pedal parts, but possibly also in the feet.
4) Playing certain notes with more physical force than others: banging. When a particular note takes the player by surprise and is only achieved by dint of great last-minute concentration, then that note will often be banged down hard.
5) Breathing problems or frequent catching of the breath.
(Some of the items on this list are hard for the student to notice unless he or she is otherwise playing in a relaxed manner, both physically and psychologically. This is one of the most compelling practical reasons both for cultivating a relaxed, friendly atmosphere in the teaching studio and for encouraging a light, tension-free physical approach to playing.)
To put the same thing the other way around—accentuating the positive—the playing should seem calm and serene, the hands and feet should be able to move from one spot in the music to the next at a fairly even pace, the player should be able to remain relaxed and keep a light touch. In fact, the whole thing should feel easy. Performing is not easy; having the patience to practice well is not easy; the act of practicing should be easy.
(It is also important to note that an occasional or rare wrong note that happens while practicing a passage is not necessarily a problem or a reason to slow down. A recurring wrong note usually is. Clusters of wrong notes are. But the scrambling, uncomfortable feeling described here is the most compelling reason to try a slower tempo.)
If a teacher guides a student towards recognizing that a passage or piece is being practiced at too fast a tempo—without specifically suggesting a practice tempo, but instead inviting the student to try it more slowly and to be on the lookout for all of the signs described above, negative and positive—then the teacher will be helping that student to develop a lifelong ability to guide his or her own practicing effectively.
It is important for students to know that when you play though a passage in a way that has an element of scrambling to it—the “high-wire” or emergency feeling—you are actually not practicing the passage at all. Practicing a physical gesture, or set of physical gestures, of the sort we are talking about here is a matter of repeating that gesture until it becomes second nature. (I believe—from conversations I’ve had with people who have studied the subject—that this is at least in part a matter of imprinting something on the cerebellum as opposed to the cerebrum. In any case, it is something quite real and specific neurologically.) When you play a passage wrongly you are actually making the wrong gestures second nature: you are imprinting (on your cerebellum?) the acts of scrambling, getting the wrong notes, hesitating, hitting keys too hard, using unnecessarily complicated fingerings, having trouble breathing, etc. In the end you will have learned to do those things.
On the other hand, if you start off at an appropriate tempo, then you can practice, as I put it last month, “a genuine slow-motion version of the final desired result.” Then, following the procedure that I outlined last month, you can work it up to any desired tempo.
There are two other issues about practicing that are important to discuss alongside the basic procedure proposed in these two columns: 1) keeping it going, and 2) (not) looking.
It is always a good idea to keep whatever bit of music you are playing going steadily, in tempo (plus or minus any purposeful interpretive rubato), without letting anything distract you or derail your playing. In the context of practicing a passage, however short or long, it is important to know where you plan to stop—in order to go back and play it again—and both to keep it going until that point and in fact to stop there and go back and repeat the passage as many times as you have planned. If you allow yourself to be distracted by anything—a noise outside, your teacher’s cell phone, a light flickering—then you are in part practicing letting yourself be distracted. This is the last thing that you want to prepare yourself to do in performance. However, if you allow yourself specifically to be distracted by hearing a wrong note, that is even worse. If you are planning to stop, or allow yourself the possibility of stopping, when you hear yourself make a wrong note, then as you play you will inevitably divert some of your concentration onto monitoring each note for “wrongness” and to deciding whether or not something that you have just heard justifies stopping. All of your focus, however—all of it—should be on what comes next. As soon as your fingers or feet are committed to playing a given note, your mind should be on to the next note.
I have known students to stop abruptly upon hearing themselves play a particular right note. Either they had already programmed themselves to stop, assuming that the note would be wrong, or, again expecting a wrong note, they were astonished into stopping by the unexpected sound of the correct note! In any case, it is just a distraction. Also, often a student will hear a wrong note, stop, and play the correct note and go on. This does not even constitute actually practicing that note effectively, since practicing a particular moment in a piece actually consists of practicing getting to that moment from whatever came before it.
If a student has trouble bringing him- or herself to keep playing through wrong notes in lessons, this often comes from a desire to signal to the teacher that he or she knew that the note was wrong. It can feel humiliating to make a wrong note without, in a sense, atoning for it right away. It is worth reminding students that there is plenty of time to discuss what was good or bad about a particular time through a passage when that passage has ended, and that the teacher will think more rather than less of a student for waiting!
It is, I believe, quite important not to look at the hands or feet while practicing, and it is worth trying to learn not to, or trying to get into the habit of not doing so. But it is also important not to become so preoccupied with not looking that that becomes a distraction in itself. It is, in the end, OK to glance down a little bit, while bearing in mind the reasons to try not to do so very much.
The problems with looking at the hands or feet during practicing are several:
1) If you find a note, or several notes, or a chord—or whatever—by looking for that note (those notes) and then putting the fingers or feet in the right place and pushing, you have essentially not practiced the act of finding and playing those notes at all. The physical gesture that you are trying to imprint has not happened, or, at least, your mind has not focused on it and followed it. The brain has used an alternate, visual, route to the ostensibly correct note. Practicing that involves a significant amount of looking is inefficient: it will probably get you there eventually, but it will take longer.
2) Whenever you take your eyes away from the page, you run the risk of not finding your place again.
3) If you are playing a passage and you are (even subconsciously) expecting to find a fair number of the notes by looking, then there will almost certainly be a large amount of hesitation in the playing. Even when your hands or feet have in fact traveled correctly, and on time, to the next note, you may well hesitate to play it until you have checked it out visually. There is often an overall jerkiness and lack of convincing pulse to playing that involves a lot of looking. This will usually go away immediately if the player quits looking so much.
4) The vast majority of wrong notes happen not because the player does not know where the notes are on the keyboard (and thus needs to look for them), but because the player does not honestly know what the next note is supposed to be.
This last point is one of the most important about the act of practicing and about learning to play. The keyboard is basically very simple, and it stays in place. Anyone who has played a little bit has, even if unknowingly, developed a strong instinct for where the keys are. Many players, including most students and almost all beginners, do not believe this. They assume that wrong notes and insecurity come about because they don’t know where the next note is. The wrong note count in a passage, if it is at all high, will almost always go down immediately upon the player’s starting to keep his or her eyes (by and large) on the music. In working on helping a student to practice effectively, this should be taken into account before choices are made about what practice tempos are appropriate.
Specifically, if there is a fairly persistent wrong note in a passage being practiced, but that passage feels generally secure enough that the tempo does not need be slowed down, a student will want to start correcting that wrong note by looking, or will assume that looking is the only technique for getting the note right. Instead of looking, however, the student should try this: first notice in which direction the note is wrong. A wrong note can only come about because of moving a finger, hand, or foot either too far or not far enough. Once it is clear which of these has happened, the student should, on the next time through the passage, simply think “all right, I’ve been moving too far, so I’ll move a little bit less,” or the opposite, as needed. This simple thought—mechanical rather than musical in nature—will almost always work. Coupled with this, the student should keep his or her eyes on the music and not lose the information that is found there.
One final thought. These two columns have been intended to outline a rigorous and efficient approach to practicing. It is certainly a good idea for students to follow this approach, or one that incorporates some of its ideas, a good deal of the time. Practicing every piece this way—in small increments, always starting slowly enough, speeding up only gradually, keeping the eyes on the music—will lead to the most efficient learning of pieces and the quickest and most secure development of a player’s ability. This kind of practicing is satisfying since it gives such prompt and evident results. It should also be just plain fun for people who love the repertoire and the instruments. However, it is important to remember that not every minute at the keyboard has to be spent doing the most disciplined work. It is a very good idea for any player, student or not, to have some out-and-out frivolous fun at the keyboard as well: play pieces you already know too fast and see how well you can keep them going; sight read pieces that are too hard, just slow enough that it’s plausible, and don’t worry too much about wrong notes; play easy pieces on all sorts of different registrations, including outlandish ones.
Every player—and every student, perhaps with input from a teacher—can decide how great a proportion of time spent at the keyboard should be spent on well-designed rigorous practicing and how much on other kinds of playing. An awareness that you are doing enough of the former should permit you to relax and enjoy the latter!

Faythe Freese is professor of organ at the University of Alabama School of Music. She recorded Faythe Freese à l’Orgue de l’Eglise de la Sainte Trinité, on the landmark instrument where Guilmant, Messiaen, and Hakim were titular organists. As a Fulbright scholar and an Indiana University/Kiel Ausstausch Programme participant, she studied the works of Jean Langlais with the composer in France and the works of Max Reger with Heinz Wunderlich in Germany. Freese studied with Marilyn Keiser, Robert Rayfield, William Eifrig, and Phillip Gehring, and coached with Montserrat Torrent, Ton Koopman, Pieter van Dijk, Dame Gillian Weir, Simon Preston, and Daniel Roth. A DVD, Sure-Fire Practice Techniques, which includes demonstrations of practice techniques, is available from The American Organist: 212/870-2311, ext. 4318.

When Pablo Casals (at age 93) was asked why he continued to practice the cello three hours a day, he replied, “I’m beginning to notice some improvement.” Efficient, systematic practice is a necessity for learning music quickly. As a career educator, I am aware that organ students often lack the proper practice tools. This article offers suggestions on ways to improve and render practice sessions more efficient and productive. 

Good habits or bad habits?

Learning notes is hard work, which is why music is called a discipline. No short cuts exist for learning repertoire. The goals of complete musical understanding and technical perfection can be realized only by developing intelligent practice and study methods until they become habits.

The brain is hard-wired to operate on habit. We carry all habits, whether good or bad, for a lifetime, encoded in chemicals and stored in our brains. New, good habits never really replace bad habits but rather displace them and make the old habits less prominent. Pursued long enough, new habits become stronger than old habits; however, any backsliding of the new habits allows the old habits to resurface. We must strive to create good rather than bad habits, so let us begin with good practice habits—which are an example of self-regulated learning.

Components of self-regulated learning

According to educational research, four components of self-regulated learning are required to attain high-level performance. The student must be able to:

• plan, monitor, and regulate his or her learning activities through self-awareness (metacognitive strategies);

• persist at a difficult task and block out distractions (management and control); 

• organize material and cognitively engage in rehearsal; 

• assess progress and determine the next step required to accomplish a goal. This requires perseverance and tenacity—the drive and motivation to follow through, even in the face of failure. 

During my doctoral studies at Indiana University, my teacher Marilyn Keiser requested that I perform the solo organ version of the Requiem by Maurice Duruflé. The work was to be performed in one month; in two weeks, I was to be ready to play piano accompaniment for chorus rehearsals. This assignment took real perseverance, although fear alone served as a great motivator! Another recent experience of mine was learning, in one month, the orchestral reduction of Benedicite by Ralph Vaughan Williams, while simultaneously, within a week, learning both the solo and the organ/brass versions of Grand Choeur Dialogué by Eugene Gigout. Perseverance was imperative to becoming performance ready. Music that is exceedingly difficult accompanied by time restrictions requires the musician to be tenaciously persistent. 

Eternal Principles

Self-regulated practice is enhanced by observing the following “Eternal Principles:”

1. Keep practice fresh by avoiding mechanical and unthinking practice. Through body and mind awareness, try to determine what is required to elevate the music to the next level. Avoid hasty practice, keeping tempos slow until the mind, hands, and feet can negotiate the notes. Above all, vary the practice techniques.

2. Practice immediately after a lesson so that the points made by your teacher are easily recalled.

3. Avoid playing incorrect notes from the very start. If an incorrect note is played, complete the phrase, then repeat the passage correctly several times. Also, stop on the corrected note and say the name of the note aloud. A word of caution: do not stop and fix errors as they occur, since this stopping and backing up to “fix” can become a bad habit that is difficult to break. Remember, all of our experiences, whether good or bad, are encoded in chemicals and stored in our brains.

4. After phrases and sections of a composition have been mastered at a slow tempo, build tempo. Phrases that are not yet solid require repetitious, slow practice in subsequent practice sessions.

5. Always practice at a steady tempo. Refrain from playing easy passages fast and difficult passages slowly, rather, select a sustainable tempo at which notes can be played accurately.

6. Place brackets around difficult, trouble areas and devote the most time to these sections. The most inefficient practice is to repeatedly start at the beginning of a piece and play to the end. 

7. Practice in segments, stopping and resting at the first sign of tension. Short periods of mindful, brain-engaged practice are far more productive than four hours of mindless drilling. One should attempt practicing in shorter segments such as 30-minute to one-hour intervals, three to four times daily. Stop, move away from the console, and think about the music. Physical activity such as working out in the gym or mowing the lawn refreshes the mind and body so that practice may be resumed anew. 

8. Once the notes have been learned, register the piece and practice operating mechanical elements such as drawing stops, pressing pistons, opening and closing swell shades. Mechanical skills should be incorporated as early as possible and practiced regularly to achieve total mastery. 

9. Practice on consecutive days. Practice cannot be skipped for two days and made up on day three by tripling the practice time. Time lost equals notes lost.

10. Perform for others. Practicing alone, sequestered away in a practice room is a completely different experience than playing publicly. Public performances, which can prove stressful, benefit the musician by informing how to cope with performance anxiety. Organists may try “breaking in” their new repertoire for the church congregation, who in turn may offer fresh insights into the musical presentation. Be discerning, however: not all congregational comments are appropriate! 

11. Avoid distractions, a key offender being the cell phone. Turn it off. Other distractions can creep into your consciousness as focus deteriorates. Change your place of practice—for instance, move to the couch and study the score.

A practice management plan

 The following practice management habits promote self-regulated learning. First, determine a final tempo goal and mark it at the top of the music. Second, prepare a practice checklist (see the sample, above), practice diary, practice log, or weekly practice evaluation. Third, devote a specific amount of time for developing technique, learning new music, memorizing, and polishing music. Set daily practice goals such as, “Today, I will learn the notes of this piece at this new tempo,” or “Today, I will register this piece and learn the piston pushes at half tempo.” 

Getting ready: 

Score preparation

A blank score without fingering and pedaling markings is a possible indicator that the fingers and feet are learning different “jobs” with each repetition. The remedy is to mark the fingering and pedaling sufficiently so that the practice techniques discussed later can be successfully executed. Fingering and pedaling should be marked according to the economy of motion principle. Substitutions should be saved as a last resort since they require extra motion. Time and effort is expended to mark fingering and pedaling, therefore be sure to follow the indicated markings always. If, after a week of diligent practice, the markings still feel awkward, then and only then, alter them. Marking the score is important for both early and modern fingering.

When a piece is relearned years from now, a new fingering may be discovered that accommodates the maturation of knowledge such as the learning of historical performance practice or a change in hand musculature or technique. By all means, change your markings as needed.

Warm up your hands and feet—Daily!

A strong, healthy technique enables the musician to play any music, no matter the difficulty. The following items are a partial list for a daily warm-up routine: manual scales on piano and organ; pedal scales; arpeggios on piano and organ; and use of technique books such as: Method of Organ Playing by Harold Gleason; The Virtuoso Pianist by Charles-Louis Hanon; 101 Exercises, op. 261 by Carl Czerny; 51 Übungen by Johannes Brahms; and Études, opp. 10 and 25 by Frédéric Chopin.

A baker’s dozen: Techniques for learning notes

The following practice techniques may be employed alone and in combination:

1. Hands alone.

2. Feet alone.

3. Hands together.

4. Right hand and pedal together.

5. Left hand and pedal together.

6. All parts together.

7. Select odd registrations in each hand to bring out the lines and toy with your concentration.

8. Register with a 4′ flute for clarity.

9. Practice even notes in uneven rhythms with a metronome at slow tempo; L=Long, S=Short. Slow rhythmic practice increases control and speed of learning the notes because muscle memory is created as the long, accented notes get “into” the fingers. By switching to a S-L rhythm in subsequent repetitions, the long notes are played by alternative fingers, thereby enhancing the muscle memory and getting notes “into” the alternate fingers quickly. Another reason that rhythms work so well when there is a string of short notes followed by a long note, there is a momentary “let up,” or a chance to collect one’s wits while paused on the long note. After every permutation of the long-short rhythms has been played, the organist will note that when playing the music as written great control and clarity has been achieved. Care should be taken to play legato with arm weight, even if staccato is indicated, thus furthering the speed of note learning. Altering rhythms with each repetition also lends itself to mindful, productive rehearsing. Additional rhythms are:

• Triplets: L-S-S; S-L-S; S-S-L.

• Four sixteenths: L-S-S-S; S-L-S-S; S-S-L-S; S-S-S-L; L-S-S-L; S-S-L-L; S-L-L-S; L-L-S-S; L-L-L-S; L-L-S-L; L-S-L-L; S-L-L-L.

• Any additional patterns one can devise.

The “mirror” technique to rhythm practice is “no-rhythm” practice, which removes the “momentary let-ups” naturally occurring in the music, forcing you to keep thinking ahead in the score.

10. Backwards practice with and without metronome. This practice system keeps you out of the “I just want to hear what it sounds like” mode and is also a memorization technique. It is imperative that the score has been fingered and pedaled before embarking on backwards practice. Example 1, from the Prelude in E Minor, BWV 548, begins with hands and feet together in m. 16 on the last eighth note. Play a dotted rhythm to the bar line employing the metronome at about 40 to the eighth note. Should this tempo be too quick, start with a tempo that is manageable. Begin the next repetition on beat three, in rhythms, and play to the bar line. Next, start on the second half of beat two and play to the bar line in a different rhythm. With each repetition, the metronome is moved up by one click. Change the rhythms from L-S to S-L and also play as written, thereby keeping practice fresh and the brain engaged. If a note is missed, do not stop to fix it as the note will be fixed on subsequent repetitions. It is entirely possible to learn a page of music, up to tempo or fairly close to the goal tempo within a 45–60 minute practice session. 

11. Inside Out Practice with or without metronome. Again, it is important that the score be marked with fingerings and pedaling. Bracket a difficult section on the score and begin in the center of that section. In Example 2, from the Sonata in D Minor, BWV 527, let us hypothetically identify the downbeat of m. 117 as the center of a difficult segment. Begin at m. 116, beat 3, and progress to m. 117, beat 2. Play in one of the following rhythms: L-S-S, S-L-S, or S-S-L, or play as written. The next repetition begins at m. 116, beat 2, and finishes at m. 117, beat 3. Alter the rhythm as desired and move the metronome up by one click with each repetition. 

12. Slow to Fast Practice with metronome. Prepare the score extensively with fingerings and pedaling (see Example 3). Set the metronome at a tempo that promotes note accuracy with hands and feet together. In Example 3, with hands and feet together, begin in m. 119 and play to m. 125 in rhythms. On the next repetition, move the metronome up one click and change the rhythm. Use the metronome to “push” the tempo; however, if the playing becomes erratic and inaccurate, decrease the metronome tempo and rebuild the tempo again. 

Caveat! The notes that were learned up to performance tempo on the first day will perhaps seem foreign on the second day. Have no fear! On day two, begin the process anew, increasing the tempo from very slow to the performance tempo. You will note that the beginning tempo on the second day and subsequent days will not be quite as slow as the first day. Your recall of the notes from day to day will be quicker as well. Soon you will be playing the notes with ease and facility.

13. Piano practice: for every 15 minutes of organ practice, practice one hour on the piano, employing rhythms and slow practice. Remember: practice scales! Practice arpeggios! This practice can also be done on harpsichord and/or clavichord, so long as you play with sufficient weight into the keys, so as to achieve the results described in No. 9 (Rhythm Practice) of the Baker’s Dozen Techniques listed above.

Polishing the music 

Polishing music is a necessary and sometimes arduous task. In addition to the aforementioned techniques, try the following methods:

1. Practice with both eyes closed. Not only does this test the memory, but one is able to visualize the hands and feet as they move across the keys. 

2. Practice with the dominant eye closed. In learning particularly difficult musical passages, one eye may be blind folded, preferably the dominant eye (see Notes). The success of this technique is possibly due to the addition of a new element that interrupts the performer’s focus, thereby causing the musician to heighten his or her awareness.

3. Score visualization or mental practice. Visualization is the imaginary rehearsal of a skill minus muscular movement or sound, executed away from the organ. In the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, the United States diver, Greg Louganis, was consistently awarded 10s for his dives. When asked how he performed at such a consistently high level, he referenced visualization. That is, he sat on the bench away from the diving platform and visualized every motion of his dive, which included walking to and climbing the ladder, approaching the edge of the platform and standing, poised, readying himself for departure from the platform, the take-off, his position in the air, and entry into the water—without moving a muscle. He visualized perfection every time and then set out to accomplish that vision.

Within a musical context, the performer sits away from the organ console with a score and visualizes playing the work from beginning to the end. The performer “hears” the music and “sees” the hands and feet moving across the keys, visualizing a perfect performance. An added benefit of visualization is the quieting effect on the racing heart and the centering of the mind, a positive counter for performance anxiety.

4. Slow practice at half or ¾ tempo. Play only once a day at performance tempo. Playing repeatedly at performance tempo tends to break down the work, rendering it sloppy.

5. Dead manual practice while hearing the music internally.

6. Record yourself and listen critically with a score. Mark the score where necessary.

Maintaining performance-ready music and bringing old music back

Many of the above techniques can be employed, but slow practice on piano and organ, playing at ½ to ¾ tempo, isolating challenging segments, and practicing in rhythms are particularly beneficial.

Conclusion

Students seeking to perfect their musical art must utilize every available tool in terms of practice techniques. Employing “Sure-fire” practice techniques regularly will develop time-saving and energy efficient habits that involve the necessary components of self-regulated learning: metacognitive strategies, management and control, cognitive engagement and strategies, and self-efficacy. The diligent student engaged in systematic and efficient practice sessions will be rewarded with a fast and continuous upward trajectory resulting in the attainment of the highest level of musical art. ν

Notes 

Several methods for determining ocular dominance exist. Here are two: 

a. Miles Test: Extend your arms out in front of you at eye level with palms facing away. Bring your hands together, overlapping the thumbs and fingers, forming a small “V” shaped” hole or window. Select a small object at least ten feet in front of you and view it with both eyes through the window in your hands. While remaining focused on the object, slowly draw your hands closer to you. When you have drawn your hands to your face, the window will be placed over one eye or the other. This is your dominant eye. 

b. Porta Test: Extend your arm out in front of you and align your index finger on a distant object. Close the left eye and observe the location of the object. Now open the left eye and close the right eye and observe the location of the object. When one eye is closed, it is likely that the object disappeared or appeared to shift to one side or the other. When the opposite eye is closed the object probably remained stationary. The eye that kept the object stationary in the view window is your dominant eye. If the object did not appear to move when either eye was closed, this is an indication that you are among the rare individuals who have central vision.

Bibliography

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Maynard, Lisa. “The Role of Repetition in the Practice Sessions of Artist Teachers and Their Students.” Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education 167 (2006): 61–72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40319290 (accessed June 9, 2014).

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http://www.human-memory.net/processes_encoding.html (accessed May 30, 2016).

Ann Marie Rigler is Interim Assistant Professor of Music at Wayne State College in Wayne, NE, where she teaches music appreciation, applied and class piano, and organ. She holds the B.Mus. in Organ Performance from Southern Methodist University, the M.S. in Library and Information Science and the M.M. in Musicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the D.M.A. in Organ Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Iowa.

Organists from throughout the United States have come to appreciate the consistently informative and thought-provoking annual organ conferences sponsored each fall by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The 20th conference, held September 18-20, 1997, brought together over forty organists to explore the topic of organ pedagogy. The sessions were led by two distinguished master teachers of organ: Dr. Roberta Gary, Professor of Organ and Head of the Division of Keyboard Studies at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music; and Warren Hutton, Professor Emeritus of organ at the University of Alabama.  Discussions of the Alexander Technique (Gary) and "Inside-out teaching" (Hutton), masterclasses, reviews of pertinent literature, a recital, and a concluding panel discussion allowed conference participants to consider the physical and psychological dimensions of organ performance and pedagogy, and to gain insights into the methodologies that have successfully served Professors Gary and Hutton and their students.

Professor Gary contributed to the conference as both recitalist and clinician. Vivacity and clarity characterized her recital of works by Buxtehude, Byrd, Bruhns, Scheidemann, and J. S. Bach, all of which handsomely complemented the resources of the Bedient organ at Cornerstone Church. The secrets of her spirited and engaging performance were revealed the next morning during her sessions on the application of the Alexander Technique to organ study. Assisted by "Fred," a small plastic skeleton whose antics delighted the crowd, Gary explained the relationship between physiology and ease of movement at the organ. She remarked that misuse, not overuse, of muscles is responsible for many of the physical maladies that plague keyboard players. Neck tension, in particular, results in a predictable tightening of muscles throughout the body; tension in the jaw reduces the flow of oxygen to the brain and thus impedes clear thinking. Noting that "the keyboard is flat; you are not," Gary encouraged her audience not to choke the keyboard, but rather to embrace it by using fluid rotational and spiraling movements suggested by the music itself. She cautioned, however, that excessive physical motion can actually compromise rather than enhance the desired effect of a phrase. Gary also stressed centering the body on the "rockers" of the pelvis in order to gain maximum support and mobility on the bench. Because she had been hidden from view by the gallery installation during her recital, she played again several passages from the recital program to demonstrate the correlation between her physical gestures and their musical results.

While Professor Gary focused on physical aspects of organ playing, Professor Hutton probed the psychology of organ teaching and performance. His sessions, entitled "Inside-out Teaching" and "Helping the student to 'own' their own performance," posed numerous questions concerning "Inner Game" concepts drawn from the writings of W. Timothy Gallwey, linear/non-linear and left-brain/right-brain thought processes, performance anxiety, and techniques for invigorating practice and keeping pieces fresh. Citing the teaching of Fenner Douglass and Arthur Poister along with the study of eurhythmics as the greatest influences on his own musicianship, Hutton proposed that integrating elements of both right- and left-brain thinking, understood symbolically rather than physiologically, might well prove to be more effective and liberating for the student than the strongly left-brain approach that tends to dominate organ teaching. He noted, for example, that the very concept of trying implies doubt and a self-conscious effort to compensate for imagined deficiencies, while allowing something to happen stems from the trust and conviction in one's own body and musical ideas that can bring the player to a transcendent state of "total awareness." Teaching techniques involving non-judgemental activities; relaxed concentration with focused action, as opposed to effort; exploring the student's creative capacities through symbols, physical motions, and imagination; and frequently asking questions can all facilitate students' ownership of their performances and expand their critical faculties to develop their own musical ideas. In addition, Hutton challenged us to reflect on how our own actions as teachers might inadvertently stifle the curiosity that a new student brings to their first organ lesson, and he reminded us of how easily we can inflict permanent damage upon a student's psyche.

In discussing creative and innovative practice techniques, Hutton proved to be a wellspring of ideas. Using the Bach B minor prelude, for example, he experimented with playing the opening gesture while envisioning toy soldiers marching, a shepherd in the fields at dusk, a gaseous emanation, and an excited child in a candy store, each of which produced a distinctive musical interpretation. He noted how tinkering with tempos and exploring the various sounds possible on any given instrument can also inspire ideas, while still more insights can arise from awareness of the temperature of the keyboard, the texture of the keys, and other kinesthetic elements of organ playing.  Most importantly, he urged focusing not on mistakes but on the reasons for mistakes; not on correctness and habit but on personal conviction; not on judgement of a performance but on the sheer joy of music-making. When practice occurs in an atmostphere of "confident vulnerability," Hutton observed, then it becomes the arena in which we as players come closest both to the music and to ourselves.

The panel discussion that typically closes the UNL Organ Conference often generates some of the liveliest and most controversial exchanges of the event. Perhaps the most problematic issue for conference attendees involved reconsidering the relationship of knees and heels to the measurement of intervals on the pedalboard. Hutton suggested that organists might visualize intervals rather than slavishly follow the common wisdom of what he called "the things together school." Gary's suggestion to support one's weight on the bench by spreading the legs apart with the thigh muscles rotated inward precludes keeping the knees and heels together. She acknowledged, however, that the great diversity of human body types suggests a vast range of options for physical positions at the organ and encourages a flexible, adaptive approach to teaching body position rather than strict adherence to a prescriptive model. Reminding the audience that organists are, in effect, "athletes of the keyboard," both clinicians advocated the use of isometric exercises to warm up before practicing, and Hutton demonstrated several examples. Finally, both Gary and Hutton stressed the value of gentle humor as an invaluable teaching tool, one that they used in abundance throughout the conference.

Professors George Ritchie and Quentin Faulkner of the UNL School of Music are to be warmly commended for organizing yet another stimulating, well-paced, and smoothly-run conference. Thanks and congratulations are also due to the masterclass participants, primarily UNL students, whose careful preparation and ready responsiveness to new ideas ensured the success of the event. For more information about the upcoming 1998 conference, contact Dr. George Ritchie at the School of Music, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0100.

Gavin Black is the director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. Gavin Black’s website is www.gavinblack-baroque.com and he can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

Velocity IV

My approach to helping someone to play fast has been rooted in ways of discovering that the fingers of each hand separately can move very fast when playing one line or voice—one note at a time. There are two parts to this. One is discovering that our fingers can move as fast as the music requires—and thus the limitations on velocity are mental rather than physical. Another is exploring ways of knowing what’s coming up in a passage so that we don’t stumble or hesitate because of uncertainty. This permits us to turn the potential to move our fingers fast enough, or faster, into a reality in performance. 

There are several parallel next steps. One is achieving reliable velocity in one hand when that hand is playing more than one voice. There are two meaningfully different subcategories of this: a hand playing two or more contrapuntal lines, and a hand playing chords. (These can shade over into each other.) Another is achieving appropriate velocity with the two hands together. This can also be subdivided: each hand playing one voice, one hand playing a line and the other hand chords, each hand playing multiple-note texture, and so on. 

Fingering and relaxation

It is easier to achieve the physical and mental relaxation and focus that are necessary for velocity when you are only doing one thing. If a hand is only playing one note at a time, it is trivially easy for the hand to relax—playing one note at a time can’t require the hand to be in an awkward position, it can’t force tension-prone fingerings, and, in principle, it permits any finger that is not actually depressing a note to relax fully. (Psychologically that can be more easily said than done.) Playing more than one note at a time in a hand doesn’t satisfy any of the above, and it gives us more to think about. So fingering planning is both more constrained (the more notes you must play at once, the fewer different ways there are to deploy the fingers over those notes) and trickier in its relation to the comfort necessary to move quickly. And the need for preparation is even greater. 

The Gigue from Bach’s D minor English Suite is almost legendarily difficult. It is meant to be at least fairly fast in performance. It has a number of moments in which one hand keeps up a sustained trill while also playing other notes. Thus it is an interesting test case here. Example 1 shows this sort of writing.

There is a lot more like this in the movement, but this particular bit is best as a velocity exercise, since there is absolutely no way to isolate the trill in one hand. It is possible to play it in either hand (though significantly harder in the right). This can work as an exercise for the right hand, the left, and then for both together.

Let’s start with the trill into the left hand. Most people would play it that way, since the other material in the left hand is less complex than that in the right hand. (It is certainly how I would play it, but we are again using this passage as an exercise, and thus sort of exploiting it. We will also consider how it works with the trill in the right hand. Just as with the passage from the Toccata in C Major, BWV 564, which we looked at earlier in this series, our shameless exploitation of the passage as an example of unbridled velocity does not imply anything about a good tempo for performance of the piece.)

As Example 2 shows, the notes of the trill can be thought of for this purpose as thirty-second notes, and the trill fingering will almost certainly have to be 1/2. The other (bass) notes can be played with a selection of 3, 4, 5 based on the player’s particular hands, habits, and preferences. (Watch out for a fingering that cocks the wrist outward more than necessary. Avoiding this will probably be easier the more you use 4 and 5 rather than 3.) Once you have decided on fingering, this is the practice protocol for the present purpose:

1) Play middle C and the first seven notes of the trill. That is, get to the moment when you would play the G#, but don’t play that note. 

2) Repeat this, getting it ever faster. Try to feel the trill notes the same way that you did the single-voice velocity exercises from earlier—that is, keep them light, with the hand not bearing into the keys, but rather feeling like it is floating upward a bit. Try not to let playing and releasing the middle C affect you. Notice it just enough to make sure that when you release the note (more or less as you release the fourth note or play the fifth note of the trill) you don’t let that release gesture put any tension into the hand. 

3) After you have done this enough that it feels natural and is at a tempo that sounds and feels very fast, add the G#. Again, the point is not to let the addition of this note change the feeling of anything. Play it, but try not to notice that you are playing it. Keeping the release of the C light is the prerequisite for being able to play the G# lightly. 

4) When this is comfortable, add the next few trill notes, without playing the A, regardless of whether you are adding enough trill notes that you have in theory reached the moment for that note. 

The next step is to do the same thing starting elsewhere: on the second beat, where the prevailing notes are G# and F—going through the moment where the A is played, to the moment where the bass note is a B-natural—or beginning at the A and F, and going just over the barline. After you have done this with each segment, the next step is to string it together. First, remind yourself of the feeling of just the initial segment, then starting at the beginning and going through, say, a half-measure, then starting at the beginning and going through the whole measure. The point is to be doing this at a very fast tempo. As you cross each of the spots where you began drilling new segments, make sure to keep the feeling of relaxation going: use your memory of starting at that point to renew that feeling. 

Learning, practicing, 

and lightness

This process is really three things at once: a way of learning this passage; a template for practicing other fast passages with more than one thing going on in a hand; and a way to focus on the feeling of lightness, preparation, and keeping going. In time—that is, after practicing a number of passages this way—the third of these will come to predominate. It will become possible to recapture that feeling without going through a process of this sort or in this amount of detail. 

This is all akin to regular, everyday practicing, in which we break things into small units and add complexity as simpler things become solid. The main difference is that in regular practicing, we start very slowly and increase tempo gradually. It is important never to get ahead of a tempo that feels comfortable. Here, while we don’t want to use a practice tempo that makes things fall apart, we are eager to live in the region of high velocity as promptly and as much as possible. We learn to move our fingers very fast over the notes by—initially and for as long as necessary—keeping the segments that we are playing very short. This is an important difference in emphasis in the structure of practicing.

To use this Bach passage as an exercise for playing two voices together in the right hand at high speed, the procedure would be the same: use the trill notes as an anchor and add notes from the upper voice gradually. The trill will again probably be best played with fingers 1 and 2, and the upper notes probably mostly with 4 and 5: perhaps 5-4-5-5-4-5, etc. It might be a more useful exercise to double the number of trill notes in relation to the sixteenth notes of the upper voice (i.e., make them sixty-fourth notes). The first step is to play the A and the F together and keep the trill notes going without adding any more of the notes from the upper voice. The next step is to start this way, but add the second note of the upper voice—the G#—and so on, following the template that we used above for the left hand. Progress through this passage will be slower than it was for the left-hand version, because there are more notes.

It is equally interesting to use the passage as an exercise in working both hands together up to as fast a speed as you can. Start by going through the process described above for the lower two voices in the left hand. Then go over the upper voice by itself as a right-hand part. Then go back to the beginning and play the passage in extremely short bursts: as short as it takes to enable you to do it fast. This might be a dotted-eighth-note’s worth at a time, or less. The technique of holding a note as if there is a fermata while you remind yourself of the feeling of playing the next note or two, and then playing only that next little bit extremely fast, can work very well in this case.

Example 3 is a contrapuntal passage from Brahms’s Prelude and Fugue in A Minor. The student can combine various techniques. In the first quoted measure in the right hand, after working out fingering, one could play the second voice (B-A-G#-rest-F#) a few times, progressively faster, then add the upper voice one note at a time. Or play the two voices on the downbeat (E and B) holding those notes indefinitely long. Then, only when ready, play the second and third beats—both voices together—as fast as possible, not going past the third beat. Then start on the second beat, stopping on the D# in the upper voice. In something like the third quoted measure—with its more consistently active voices—the player can practice each voice separately, in the normal manner, but as a short enough sample that it can get quite fast quite efficiently. Practice each voice—with the intended fingering, in the ways that I outlined for individual voices in the last few columns—until it can go very fast. Then put the two voices together in chunks of perhaps three eight-notes-worth at a time. The principles are always the same: use an amount of planning that makes everything utterly predictable, focus on short bits (which makes the predictability easier to achieve in the first place and to maintain), and keep everything light and relaxed.

In a chordal passage, the notion of practicing voices separately doesn’t apply. In keeping with the principle of simplifying, if we aren’t going to practice separately notes that end up being played together, then it is even more important to practice in small increments. Example 4 is an excerpt from near the end of Scherzo, Sortie in D Major by Lefébure-Wely.

The right-hand part provides a good opportunity to practice chords. The fingering will probably fall into place quite naturally: a lot of 5-3-1, 5-2-1, 4-2-1, and so on, depending on one’s hand shape. Once fingering has been worked out, playing and holding a chord, then playing the next two chords as quickly as possible, will probably be the most fruitful technique. The left-hand part is a typical opportunity to practice playing octaves fast, using this same technique. 

What, in the end, is the point of this discussion of velocity? In using a passage from the repertoire as an exercise here, I have said that in doing so I am misrepresenting that passage—that we are exploiting it or latching onto it as parasites. This happens because no one can say whether a given (fast) passage is or isn’t meant to be played at the outer limits of a player’s ability to play fast. In order to practice playing as fast as we possibly can, we subject passages of music to being played (perhaps) faster than we really think they should go. (Even if a passage will be a candidate for actually being played that fast, we don’t know that until we have worked on getting it that fast.) The overriding purpose of doing this—and especially in its application to our teaching, and therefore to the learning process of our students—is to drive home through example the basic message: command of velocity is about preparation. With rare exceptions, limits on velocity are not inherent or physical. I actually think it is better to practice, as exercises for this purpose, pieces or passages that you know are not going to go that fast. That separates the work on velocity from a host of other normal, musical considerations. Then when you want to work on a passage that does indeed visit the outer reaches of how fast you ever want to play, you will know the techniques for getting it to be solid and comfortable at that sort of speed.

The old-fashioned and very sound idea that you must prepare your pieces beyond 100% (I first heard it in connection with Jascha Heifetz, a quintessential virtuoso performer) for them to be 100% in performance applies here. Certainly correct preparation is not just about speed—it is perhaps more importantly about the inner understanding of everything that you hope to bring to the music interpretively, rhetorically, expressively. But since it is harder to execute a piece faster than slower, it is always prudent to know that you could indeed play your pieces faster than you intend to. This should ideally lead to relaxation in performance—a relaxation born out of lack of fear.

Spring break

This month’s column is, in a way, a lark or a diversion. It is a winter visit from next spring or from last summer. I am writing about, of all things, my golf game. I am doing this not really—or not entirely—as a break from writing about organ teaching, but because I believe that I have learned a lot about teaching, as well as about my own playing and performing, from my involvement with golf—an involvement that means a lot to me: nearly as much as my involvement with music. My forty-year golf project has served as one of my best teachers, alongside my “official” music teachers, my students, and my colleagues. These are a few brief thoughts—a column’s worth, among many more—about some of the ways in which it has done that.

I should start by describing a little bit what I am like as a golfer—how “good” or “bad” I am. I do this in part so that it will be clear that when I talk about working on my golf game I am not in any danger of bragging: I am by no means very accomplished at golf. Even though I have been playing pretty seriously for decades, my best nine-hole score ever is 43, and I’ve only done that once or twice. During my best seasons, I have had scores right around 50—again for nine holes, which is half the full-length golf round of eighteen holes. (My best ever eighteen-hole score is 92.) Scoring in the upper thirties for nine holes or less than 80 for eighteen would usually be considered quite good, and someone who can do that fairly regularly is probably considered quite a good golfer. I have never accomplished either of those things. However, I have hit a lot of really good golf shots. In fact, some of them have been, for those who care about such things, quite beautiful. I have also hit a lot of really bad shots: more of those than of the good ones, in fact. 

I have a caveat: nothing that I write about my golf game, or any conclusions or lessons that I seem to be trying to draw from meditating on my golf game, is meant in the slightest to imply that anyone else should do anything in particular. I certainly don’t think that a person must play golf in order to develop as a teacher or as a musician. Not everyone likes golf, or would like it. And there are an infinite number of other activities that can be rewarding and challenging and that can inform aspects of a person’s life and work in way similar to what I am writing about here. However, I wouldn’t even assert that everyone—or anyone—should do anything analogous—that “everyone should have a hobby,” or anything like that. I am simply writing about an ongoing and complex experience of my own, and I am doing so because it occurred to me one day recently while on the golf course that it would be interesting to do so. 

Mental vs. physical

The first analogy between golf and music-making is that both are physical skills that are fundamentally mental. In music this is most true for keyboard playing, since with keyboard instruments the task is laid out for you in a concrete and specific way by the presence of the keys. (As Bach said, “There is nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right notes at the right time and the instrument plays itself.” That is, there is no need to create intonation or sonority with one’s own body.) The task of playing is, like the task of executing a golf shot, a set of physical gestures. In both cases, those gestures can be intricate, and the timing of them has to be right. In both cases this whole package can seem difficult. However, the difficulty is one of focus and concentration—once you basically know what to do—rather than this being physically difficult. (As, for example, the skills involved in gymnastics or figure skating or opera singing or violin playing might be—or, in another way, lifting weights or wrestling.) 

A short paragraph is not enough to discuss this thoroughly, as it applies to organ playing or other keyboard playing, or as it applies to golf. The point for now is that there is a balance between the need for physical skill or ability and the need to be in an appropriate mental state to execute that skill. This balance feels remarkably similar as it applies to playing a passage on organ or harpsichord and as it applies to executing a golf swing. 

This includes the basic question of how much it is possible to think consciously while playing/swinging, and the question of timing, not in this case the physical timing of gestures, but the timing of thoughts that lie behind those gestures. In making a golf swing this is essentially a one-part, or one-time, timing question. The swing is a thing that happens once, rather quickly. It contains a natural pause—after you have raised the club back over your head, and before you have brought it down to the ball—when you can briefly remember what you need to do to continue and complete the swing. Once the swing is over you can fully let go of concentration. It is a challenge not to let the conscious thought process cause hesitation during the brief period of the swing itself. In playing a piece at a keyboard instrument, those moments of possible conscious thought—with their attendant dangers, in particular the danger that the thought will introduce hesitation or distraction—are recurrent. They dovetail and overlap, and it is not safe to let go of concentration at any time during a piece. So, for me, the conscious and instant concentration during the golf swing is sort of a laboratory for working in isolation on a mental tool that I apply, in an ongoing way, at the keyboard. 

The need for physical relaxation while doing something difficult that also requires intense focus is uncannily similar in making a golf swing and in playing organ or harpsichord. The consequences of losing that relaxation are partly analogous, partly different. In the golf swing, a small amount of physical tension that develops during a swing will almost certainly lead to a really bad shot. Probably most or nearly all of the bad shots that I ever hit have this as their cause. (The tension literally pulls the golf club out of the path along which you think you are swinging it. So the club can’t hit the ball squarely.) In keyboard playing, physical tension causes a host of problems, including changing the feeling of a gesture in such a way that the hand (or foot) comes down in the wrong place, but also including slight changes to rhythm and, in some cases, the creation of a bad sonority. Again, with the golf swing, this relaxation has to be maintained through one gesture that takes a second or so. In playing at a keyboard, the relaxation has to be maintained longer. So the golf swing is a simplified but intense drill for what is needed while playing music. It is also a drill in which the consequences of getting it wrong are painfully obvious: a golf ball that bounces into the woods, or dribbles along the ground!

Relaxation and velocity

Related to the need for relaxation as such is the relationship between relaxation and velocity. There are benefits to a golf swing’s being fast. That is true both because a faster swing makes more powerful contact with the ball and sends it farther, and because in some cases the actual shape and direction of the shot—independent of the distance—can be right only if the club comes through the ball quickly. At the keyboard, we sometimes need to play fast: fast enough that it is a challenge. The first requirement for being able to execute a fast golf swing—or a fast keyboard passage or trill, for example—is that the physical gesture remain as relaxed as possible. And since there is a natural (if subconscious) correlation in our minds between the ideas “fast” and “strong,” and since it is very easy for “strong” to shade over into “tense,” it takes some doing to remember that lightness and relaxation lead to greater possibilities for speed: tension is a roadblock that slows things down. For me, the process of learning how to feel light and relaxed standing over a golf ball and how to recognize that that lightness actually gives me full access to the amount of swing speed that my body can create has been a helpful supplement to the work that I have done at the keyboard itself. 

This also applies to the role of breathing in the shaping of physical gesture, or in creating the conditions that allow a physical gesture to take place with relaxation and appropriate speed. There is always time to remember to breathe properly before initiating a golf swing. (You are always able to decide when you begin your golf swing yourself: there’s no clock, and no other player doing something to which you respond.) There is less time to remember to breathe properly once the swing has started, but it is possible to learn how to plan on doing so. Both of these elements are present in the act of playing a keyboard instrument.

So, in ways that include the ones that I have described, these two physical acts—physical skills—seem to have a lot of analogies to one another in the kind of mental work that they involve and in how the mental work relates to the physical act itself. There are also various interesting psychological or motivational connections or analogies. 

One of these concerns honesty. Golf occupies an odd position as regards honesty. On the one hand, the idea that golfers cheat is sort of legendary or axiomatic. There are jokes about it; it comes up in fiction and in commercials. At the same time, there is a tradition in golf of some of the purest and least self-interested honesty that is found anywhere. It is well known that golfers call penalties on themselves: that is, if they have accidentally moved a ball, or done something else that should be penalized according to the rules, but have done so where no one else can possibly have seen them, they report this themselves to their playing partners or competitors, or to officials, if it is an “official” situation, and accept the penalty. In many competition sports, players are expected to try to convince the officials that whatever they just did was whatever would have been to their—or their team’s—advantage. An outfielder who has just barely not caught a ball may try to signal to the umpire that he has caught it, or a base-stealer who was clearly thrown out will try to assume a posture and demeanor that makes him look safe. This is a bit like a system of courtroom advocacy, where each side’s job is to present their own case and the authority makes the judgment. But in golf, there is nothing at stake for anyone else. What is at stake for you is that you really, honestly know and acknowledge what you really, honestly just did. (And there is no authority.) If I, for example, swing at a ball that is partially buried in vegetation, and actually miss it, then, if I don’t count that stroke, I still know that I took it. As I look myself in the mirror later that day, saying proudly “I only took four strokes on that hard hole,” then, if I am not counting that missed shot, whatever I say, I know that I really got a 5. 

This kind of honesty that is really accuracy—honesty with yourself, for your own sake—comes up in practicing. You know whether you are practicing slowly enough; you know whether you have really gone over that passage enough times; you know whether the passage that you just played accurately really felt uneasy just below the surface; you know whether you just practiced a passage enough times in a row, but with different fingerings, so that the times through cancelled each other out. If you—or I—let these things slide, then we are only cheating ourselves—and we know that we are.

I have always been my own golf teacher. Or, more accurately, I have mostly tried to teach myself golf and to work on my swing and my game myself, with some input from people with whom I play. I have never put myself in the hands of a teacher. Why not? I have never been sure why not. It’s partly the high cost of golf lessons, partly just that I love being out on the golf course, and, when my schedule allows me to do something golf-like I always want to be out there playing. However, it is also something more than that. I like the challenge and satisfaction of analyzing the physical and mental aspects of something like the golf swing for myself: something about which I am not an expert, still less any sort of authority, but as to which I want to feel some autonomy and ownership. I would probably shoot lower scores if I went to a good teacher and did what that teacher told me. But I wouldn’t find it as deeply satisfying.

What does this tell me about my own work as a teacher? Again, I’m not sure. Not that I should dismiss all of my students and tell them that they would find their musical study more satisfying if they did it on their own. If they wanted to approach it that way—if it happened to fill that role for them, as golf does for me—then they wouldn’t be looking for lessons. However, it does remind me to respect my students’ need to feel involved in the process, to take as much ownership of the learning process as they can take and want to take, not just to sit back and do something that I tell them to do. In fact, this leads me to encourage (but not force) students in that direction, since I believe that many people come to lessons scared to direct their own work as much as they in fact could. 

Creating beauty

So, what is a “beautiful” golf shot? There is always a practical goal with a golf shot: to get the ball to some spot that has been chosen as best for rolling the ball into the hole in as few strokes as possible. A beautiful shot presumably has done a good job of achieving that goal. But for me it is more than that: it has to feel right—relaxed, focused, appropriately fast and strong; it has to sound right—a club striking a ball in the right way has a metallic, musical pinging sound; the shot has to have a pleasing shape. In fact, the shape of a well-struck golf shot was one of my own first models for what I wanted out of harpsichord sound: starting crisply, rising, curving, eventually falling—it’s a surprisingly close analogy. I do occasionally hit such shots, though not many. I hit more that are serviceable, that send the ball pretty much to where I wanted to send it, but without the pleasing shape. The beautiful shots are almost random, but not quite: I do know what I am trying to do, and I do know that when I do it, it is because I have succeeded at something quite hard. That is satisfying indeed. This also tells me something about my students. As they work on becoming “better,” on getting closer to achieving what they want with their playing, they can, along the way, do things with music that are as beautiful and as effective as what a more advanced or accomplished player would do—perhaps not as often as that player might do it. If they understand what they have done to make that happen, then they have learned something and can feel very good about it. 

Gavin Black is director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He welcomes feedback by e-mail at . Expanded versions of these columns with references and links can be found at .

The metronome—pros and cons
For the sweltering summer months of July and August, I have decided to write about somewhat simpler, more circumscribed topics—almost “light summer fare”—that I hope will nonetheless be interesting. Next month’s column will be a potpourri of brief ideas, anecdotes, and questions modeled in part on my long-ago experience as a student in the organ pedagogy class at Westminster Choir College. This month I offer a few thoughts about something that for some people is almost a symbol of music or of being a music student, namely, the metronome.
I’ve always had a sort of love/hate relationship with metronomes. I tend to like mechanical things, especially old ones: clocks, telescopes, some kinds of pens, some kinds of umbrellas—come to think of it, even harpsichords and organs fall into this category! I like metronomes for this sort of reason—that is, old fashioned, wooden, pendulum-driven metronomes. Back when they were still common, I would often feel tempted by one when I happened to be in the kind of music store that had a display of them. This is chapter 1 of the “love” part of the story.
On the other hand, I grew up in music hating metronomes because of what they do. Early on, I thought the problem was that I just found the noise distracting if I was trying to read or play music. In fact, I think that what I really had trouble with was the inexorability of the beat. It didn’t let me get away with taking those extra hundredths of a second to remember my fingering or successfully read what the next note was supposed to be. (This discipline, of course, is what some people like about metronomes!) A bit later on, I disliked metronomes because I disliked playing that was “metronomic.” In the latter part of my student days, I was afraid that if I ever used a metronome, I would be in danger of permanently losing my ability to be flexible as to rhythm, that I would develop the instincts of a metronome rather than those of a musician. Early on in my work as a teacher, I had the same exaggerated fear about my students, and I strongly discouraged any metronome use.
The second part of the “love” is more recent. Over the last eight or ten years, I have begun to discover ways in which metronomes can be used in practicing and learning that are very fruitful and helpful. In particular, these uses of the metronome do not have any tendency to lead to “metronomic” playing. They also avoid various other pitfalls of metronome use—ways in which metronomes can actually undermine basic rhythmic steadiness.
There are a couple of points about the history of the metronome that I think are interesting. First of all, when the metronome was invented and marketed in the early nineteenth century, it was considered to be primarily a device for conveying, across space or time, what the tempo of a piece should be. That is, it was not at first considered to be an aid in practicing a piece or in learning how to play. That came later. The need to convey tempos to someone—an anonymous someone—outside of the composer’s musical community was correlated with the spread of publishing and also with a generalized increase in world travel and trade. This was the same need that gave rise—at about the same time—to a general increase in printed performance instructions: more detailed tempo markings, phrasing and articulation marks, dynamics where appropriate, and, in organ music in particular, printed registrations. All of these things had existed before the early to mid-nineteenth century, but they proliferated then.
I had always assumed that the reason that the metronome wasn’t invented until the early nineteenth century was that the technology of earlier ages was not sufficiently advanced—the same reason that we would give for the failure of the eighteenth century to invent cars or computers. Technological change is—we assume—progress, and of course as soon as something can be invented it will be. I later realized, however, that with the metronome (if not necessarily with the car or the computer) the causality may well have been in large part the other way around. There were ideas put forth by inventors at least as early as the late seventeenth century for metronomes, but they (in the words of the New Grove) “did not attract much attention.”
Quite possibly the technologies that permitted the creation of accurate clocks several hundred years earlier still could have led to the development of a metronome. That this did not happen was probably largely because of what I suggested above, that spelling out performance details on paper is only important to the extent that the music is going to be sent out into the world, away from the composer’s milieu. It may also reflect, at least in the area of keyboard music, the then still strong link between the composing of keyboard repertoire and improvisation. It could be assumed—more strongly the farther back you go in the Baroque era—that anyone playing a piece of keyboard music was also, or even primarily, an improviser of keyboard music and thus had an inner understanding of the compositional process. Such a player, it could be assumed, needed little in the way of performance suggestions or aids.
The main pitfall for players who want to keep a metronome going during practice is this: if the metronome beat is too slow or represents a note too far away from the fastest prevailing notes (for example, quarter-notes in a passage with many eighth- and sixteenth-notes), then there is a significant danger that the player will place many or all of the notes incorrectly as to timing, and actually play less steadily with a metronome than he or she would without it. The most common form that this takes is that someone will play with the metronome on a given beat, then play all of the notes prior to the next beat a bit too soon or too quickly in order to focus on listening for that next beat. Then the player will (probably) successfully play with the next metronome beat, rush the subsequent notes, wait up again, and so on. This can be a slight or subtle effect, but, to the extent that a player cannot just shake it off when the metronome is turned off, it is training the player to play unsteadily and also to ignore the rhythmic shape of the notes that don’t happen to be “on the beat.” Those notes, of course, are just as important as—and usually more numerous than—the notes that are on the beat.
Another form it takes is that of waiting for a tiny fraction of a second after each metronome beat before playing the notes which should be on that beat, in order to make sure that those notes are not early: that is, playing the notes once you have heard the metronome rather than mentally preparing them infinitesimally in advance and playing them exactly when the metronome is (so to speak) playing its note.
Both of these problems come about when the metronome beat is slow enough that it is difficult for the player to feel it internally or to follow it without subdividing. One solution—assuming that there is any reason to use a metronome in these circumstances at all (see below)—is to let the metronome subdivide the beat. We are all brought up to believe that it is usually better—more “musical”—to hear only larger beats and to let the smaller rhythmic units have as little weight as possible. Often it is said, for example, in a rehearsal or a lesson or coaching session, that a passage should be felt in 2 or even in 1 rather that in 4 or (especially!) in 8. This often makes a lot of sense as a matter of performance, helping a performance to flow. However, at a stage at which a piece is being played through with a metronome, the immediate goal cannot be a rhythmically persuasive or flowing performance (that is, not at that very moment: of course the goal is to make such a performance possible later on). The goal is for practice to be as accurate as possible rhythmically, and for it to feel easy to achieve this, with no sense of having to struggle or to pay undo attention to anything other than the notes and fingerings. For most people, metronome beats between about 90 and about 140 are easy to follow. In using a metronome to play through a piece or passage that is already essentially learned (i.e., comfortable as to notes and fingerings), the metronome should usually be set somewhere between those numbers, and then allowed to represent a note value for which that beat speed makes sense.
There is still a question as to why, at a stage when a piece is fundamentally learned and comfortable, it should be necessary or a good idea to play it with a metronome. I don’t see that it ever is, unless the reason for doing so is external. If, however, any player—student or otherwise—finds it useful or satisfying to do so, that is certainly OK as long as the concerns of the last few paragraphs are addressed, along with one further major pitfall. It is extremely important that you not assume that you need the metronome in order to develop an accurate inner sense of rhythm, and in so assuming, ignore that fact that you already have such a sense. This is common, especially for students, and most especially for students who have been told that they need a metronome. Whatever help a metronome may sometimes give, the message, given by a teacher to a student, that the student actually can’t hear accurate rhythm and needs an outside aid to do so is usually destructive.
(I believe that anyone who has ever spent any time walking, chewing, drumming fingers on the table, or listening to almost any kind of music, or who breathes, or who has a heartbeat, can learn to project accurate rhythm and timing on organ and harpsichord without using any external cues whatsoever. I will devote at least one future column explicitly to this.)
There are several external reasons why using a metronome might be a good idea. One of these is that it can stand in for a conductor when you are practicing a piece that will later on be conducted. Of necessity, the metronome beat cannot be any less steady (or even inflexible) than the conductor’s beat will be, and it can get the player accustomed to flattening out any rubato or other inner-derived flexibility. It cannot, of course, imitate any rhythmic shaping that a conductor might do: that must be worked out in rehearsal.
Another reason for using a metronome is to discover where you are speeding up or slowing down. A metronome will reveal this in a kind of mirror-image way. If you feel, with the metronome, that you are going too fast in a passage, then you were probably slowing that passage down beforehand; if you feel that you are going too slow, you were probably previously speeding up. It is important to remember that the speeding up and slowing down is not necessarily bad. The metronome can reveal it, but your ears and your aesthetic sense can evaluate it. The assumption that what the metronome suggests is correct musically—just because the technology of the metronome happens to exist—is the source of “metronomic” playing. That is, the metronome is not the source of metronomic playing, but the attitude that we sometimes bring to it is.
There is a stage of learning a piece at which a certain kind of metronome use can be extremely helpful and important. That is well prior to the time at which a piece is basically learned, but rather when it is still appropriate to be practicing very slowly. If someone is working on a piece that is tricky enough that it should be practiced at a “molasses” tempo—and I have a strong bias in favor of doing that with nearly all pieces—then the metronome can be used to make that process easier. The protocol for that is something like this:
1) For the piece that you are practicing—or the passage or the component of the piece, such as one hand or the feet or a contrapuntal voice—figure out a tempo that is so abundantly slow that playing the piece (passage, etc.) feels extraordinarily easy. At this stage overkill (too slow) is good, inadequacy (not slow enough) is very bad.
2) Find a metronome speed that is well within the range that you yourself find it easy to follow (again, this will probably be between 90 and 140, and within reason, faster is better) and that corresponds to some note value at your chosen practice tempo. If the metronome beat corresponds to a very small note value, that is good. For example, if you are practicing a passage that is primarily in eighth notes, and your chosen practice tempo is eighth note=65, then set the metronome to 130, and let each metronome beat be a sixteenth note. Thus you will listen to two beats for each eighth note. (If for this same passage at this tempo you were to set the metronome to 65 and let each metronome beat serve as an eighth note, then you might well fall into some of the pitfalls described above.) If your passage is primarily in notes that, at your practice tempo, should go at 90, then you should probably set the metronome to 90, and let each beat correspond to one of your notes, though setting the metronome to 180 and hearing two beats per prevailing note would also be worth trying. The two main points are that the metronome beat should be fast enough to be truly easy to follow, and that, all else being equal, it is better to have two metronome beats per shortest commonly occurring note than only one.
3) After you have played the passage (piece, voice, etc.) enough times that it feels truly easy—essentially automatic—then turn the metronome up by the smallest possible increment, and play at that speed until it again feels easy.
4) Repeat step three until you have got the passage up to or slightly above the performance tempo that you want.
5) Then, stop using the metronome.
This procedure is the essence of effective practicing. The role of the metronome here is optional but important. It both helps the process of speeding up actually to be systematic and gradual and, perhaps even more important, reassures the student that this is the case. I will discuss this approach to practicing— though with less emphasis on the role of the metronome in it!—at greater length in a later column.