Learn to love your scales!

What comes into your mind when you think about scales and arpeggios? Perhaps memories from childhood - being nagged by a teacher to practise? Or maybe even a degree of perplexity about exactly what they are?

Many of us have a love/hate relationship with scales. When I think back to my teenage years I realise I owe my music teachers an apology for my lack of application when it came to these fundamental exercises. Time and again I would spend the last two or three weeks before a music exam frantically cramming my scales and arpeggios instead of learning them gradually over a longer period, Fortunately for me, I had an uncanny ability to learn them at speed and I usually got away with this last minute feverish rush of learning. The downside was that I never really absorbed them thoroughly, so within a couple of weeks of the exam I’d forgotten them all again! My slapdash approach must have been infuriating, but those teachers I’m still in touch with seem to have forgiven me!

Of course the irony is I’ve seen the same situation from the other side of the fence many times during my teaching career, quietly trying cajoling my students to start learning their scales and arpeggios as early as possible…

What are scales and arpeggios?

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The first movement of Telemann’s Sonata in F major which is built upon lots of scale patterns.

Scales and arpeggios are the fundamental building blocks of music and all western music is created from these patterns. A scale uses neighbouring notes, while an arpeggio uses the 1st, 3rd and 5th steps of a scale to create a broken chord, where the notes are played in turn to create a melodic line rather than as harmonies.

Major and minor scales contain eight different pitches within each octave, arranged in a particular combination of tones and semitones. On the other hand, a chromatic scale includes all 12 notes - just as you would if you played every black and white note in order on the piano.

You’re probably most familiar with the concept of major, minor and chromatic scales, but there are many more types besides. Pentatonic scales have just five notes (sound just the black notes on a piano and you’re playing a pentatonic scale), modes are created from the patterns made by playing the white notes of the keyboard in different combinations, and jazz musicians have their own varieties of scales.

They’re not just a feature of western music either - in some musical cultures other patterns are used. For instance, Indian music is based on ragas - scale patterns which can include intervals even smaller than our semitone.

Why do I need to learn scales and arpeggios?

This is a cry many teachers have heard from their students in frustration! While they may not seem terribly exciting, learning scales and arpeggios helps your music making in many different ways. Let’s look at some of them…

They help you gain fluency

If we’re to play music with ease and speed, fluency is vital. Getting to the point where your fingers automatically find the patterns needed for each note at speed will allow you to tackle ever more challenging repertoire. If you have to stop and think about which fingers to move before each note (as a total beginner might) your musical lines will lack a sense of flow.

Improve your sight reading skills

Because music is made up of scale and arpeggio patterns, being able to recognise and fluently play these combinations of notes helps you read unfamiliar music more easily. If you want a comparison, it’s a bit like learning to read text. When we first learn to read we recognise the individual letters. Gradually we learn that these letters often appear together in particular combinations so we begin to recognise syllables and ultimately whole words and sentences. The notes of a scale are like the individual letters, while a scale is a long word or sentence which we take in at a glance through familiarity.

Coordinating finger movements

One of the big challenges of recorder playing is the complexity of the fingerings. Modern wind instruments have keywork to help simplify the finger patterns. Recorders lack these, so instead we have to play complex forked fingerings (for instance B flat on the descant or E flat on treble recorder). Shifting between neighbouring notes can often involve moving multiple fingers up and down simultaneously. We can use scales and arpeggios to practise this and make our finger changes neater and quicker.

Coordinating tongue and fingers

Not only do we have to coordinate our fingers, but our tongue needs to match the speed of our finger movements too if we’re to play a genuinely legato melody. Once again, scales can be a useful tool to help achieve this.

Building up speed

Want to play faster? In that case you need to practise the patterns which occur most often in music and gradually learn to negotiate them more quickly. What’s the best way to do this? Yes, you’ve guessed it - scales and arpeggios!

Practising double tonguing

Once you’ve built up some velocity, you might need to explore double tonguing so your articulation can match the speed of your fingers. Again, using simple scale patterns are a great way to work on this without having to think about reading complex music at the same time.

For music exams

Most adult recorder players have no interest in working for exams, but if you’re someone who’s motivated by exams, you’ll need to learn some scales and arpeggios as well as pieces of music. The syllabus for the lower grades may only include a few different keys, but by grade 8 you’ll need to know all the major and minor keys.

Have I convinced you yet?

Assuming I have, you might well be asking some of the following questions…

Do I need to learn all of them?

In an ideal world, knowing all the major and minor scales and arpeggios (plus chromatic and other patterns) is a desirable aim. But this doesn’t mean you have to learn all of them! For anyone even learning a carefully chosen selection is immensely useful.

If you’re not sure where to begin, start by looking at the music you’re currently working on. What key is the piece in? For instance, if you’re playing a sonata with a key signature of two flats, try learning B flat major and G minor - the two scales with the same key signature. The music is likely to work through both of these keys at some point and if you can play these fluently the patterns you encounter in the piece will come more easily too.

Realistically, unless you choose to play Schickhardt’s set of recorder sonatas in every key, most music for our instrument explores a limited range of key signatures. It’s unusual to see recorder music in more than three sharps or flats, so I would recommend aiming for fluency in these keys before you worry about the exotic realms of D flat major or G sharp minor.

Do I have to learn them from memory?

This is a much debated topic among students and teachers. For music exams you’re expected to learn the prescribed scales and arpeggios from memory, but as we’ve already noted, many adult learners have no interest in testing themselves in this way.

In order to play scales fluently from memory you need to be completely on top of the finger patterns, knowing precisely which fingers to move between each note. This requires what is often called ‘muscle memory’, although in reality our muscles don’t have memories. This process is actually achieved by generating strong connections between our brains and the nerve pathways used to send instructions to the fingers. To achieve that (I plan to explore this more in a future blog post) requires lots of repetition, and in my experience, the process of memorising such patterns definitely seems to be harder for some people than others.

Memorising scale and arpeggio patterns presents a particular challenge for players of wind instruments. With the piano or a string instrument, there’s a logical visual pattern as you work your way up and down the keyboard or fingerboard. In contrast, each note on a wind instrument of any type requires a different combination of fingers. Yes, moving between some of these is fairly logical. But I’m sure you’ve noticed how that logic disappears when it comes to cross fingers (particularly flat and sharp notes) or the upper extremities of the recorder!

An additional challenge we face as recorder players is the limited range of our instrument. Most woodwind instruments can play scales covering at least a two, and sometimes three, octave range in all keys. In contrast, the recorder can comfortably manage a handful of scales at two octaves, but for most intermediate level players an octave and a half is the limit. This means scales come in different shapes to maximise the range we cover, either turning at the top or the bottom of the instrument. Remembering which scale follows which pattern is an additional thing to learn and can add extra stress to the process.

For my Score Lines subscribers I created scale sheets showing some of these patterns, which can be downloaded from your Members’ Area. I’ve linked to the treble recorder sheet here, but if you’d like access to all of them please feel free to subscribe here - it’s free and there are lots of other exclusive goodies for you to download besides the scales!

While learning scales and arpeggios from memory is undoubtedly desirable, I would argue that playing them from music is probably just as useful for most amateur recorder players. One of the most important skills to develop is sight reading (I’ve written a blog about this here) and being able to recognise scale patterns and convert them into fluent playing is a great way to achieve this. As with most skills, do this by starting slowly and gradually building up some speed.

How fast should I play them?

As with so many things, it depends! If you’re using a scale to develop your tone you might do best to play it very slowly - perhaps four beats on each note. But if fast playing is your aim you’ll need to take a different approach.

When I first started having lessons with Philip Thorby, I spent about three months solely working on slow scales and other exercises as we focused on developing my tone and legato playing. Ok, this may sound rather extreme, but I was aiming for a career as a professional player so it was absolutely necessary. My technique certainly benefitted from this approach and I finally began to understand scales and arpeggios in a way that set firm foundations for everything I was to learn later. Taking this approach with even just one scale and arpeggio can be hugely beneficial if it helps you focus on the foundations of your technique.

The most important thing is to play your chosen scale or arpeggio correctly from the very beginning. If that means you start out playing each note at a metronome speed of just 60 that’s absolutely fine, as long as the notes are 100% right. When you can consistently play all the notes fluently and cleanly at that speed, gradually increase the tempo until you reach your desired tempo, checking at every point that you’re still maintaining the same consistency and precision. A metronome is a really useful tool here to hold you at one speed.

How often should I practise my scales?

I’m a big advocate of little and often. Having a huge practising splurge on your scales just once a week makes it difficult to achieve consistent results. A much better way is to programme in short, frequent practice times - maybe five or ten minutes every day. This way you remind your fingers of the correct patterns at regular intervals so they become habitual more quickly. Perhaps even keep a recorder out at all times (a plastic instrument can be handy if you prefer to put away your wooden recorders) so you can pick it up and play a scale for a minute or two every time you walk by.

Which variety of minor scale should I practise?

Minor scales come in two different species - harmonic and melodic. Harmonic minors use the same notes whether you’re ascending or descending, so they’re slightly easier to memorise. However, they also include an augmented second interval (the 6th and 7th notes, which sound vaguely reminiscent of a snake charmer’s flute), circled in red below, which is less commonly used in western music.

A Harmonic Minor

In contrast, a melodic minor scale raises the 6th and 7th notes by a semitone on the way up and returns them to their original pitch on the way back down. This is an added complexity to memorise, but these melodic shapes (hence the name) are more frequently found in the music we play. For this reason, if your plan is to practise them with music and you only have time to work on one type of minor scale I’d recommend the melodics as a priority.

A Melodic Minor

Using scales and arpeggios creatively

Most readers of this blog won’t be looking to become professional recorder players, so being able to play in every key with total fluency and at high speed is probably not your aim in life! But you can still use these patterns to improve your playing and have some fun along the way. Here are a few ways you could use them…

Vary your tempo according to your intention

If you want to improve your tone you need to focus on quality rather than speed. For this I would pick an easy scale (perhaps no more than one sharp or flat in the key signature) and play it really slowly. By simplifying the notes you free up your brain to think about breathing deeply and blowing freely, producing the best possible tone on each note. Perhaps spend four slow beats on every note before moving on to the next, breathing as often as you need to, always focusing on using the optimum breath speed for each fingering.

If speed is your motivation, again begin at a modest tempo but focus on keeping your fingering even and well coordinated with your tonguing. Perhaps use a metronome to ensure you maintain a consistent tempo. As you perfect each speed setting, switch up the tempo by a small amount and repeat the exercise several times. If you begin to stumble, take the metronome down by a couple of notches and refine your playing before moving on. Be methodical in your approach and you’ll be surprised how much progress you can make in a fairly short space of time. If you’ve built up a good turn of speed with an easy scale why not take the tempo back down again and try it with a more complex key signature?

Experiment with different articulation patterns

The music we play often contains a wide variety of articulation, from long tongued passages to intricate patterns, where small groups of notes need to be slurred here and there. It’s a good idea to begin by practising scales and arpeggios smoothly tongued, staccato and in long slurs as these all demand different technical skills.

Alongside these single technique scales I recommend you also practise patterns that require you to mix slurring and tonguing - you can see some of my suggested patterns below. These are the sort of patterns you’ll encounter in the real world and if you can apply them to your scales they’ll seem less scary in context. These are just a few of my ideas, but don’t be afraid to come up with your own variations.

Four varied articulation patterns you could try out

Be playful

There’s no reason why you must always play complete scales. Don’t be afraid to be playful and creative. Breaking a scale down into groups of four or five notes, running up and down, may help you really master the transition between specific fingerings more quickly. Once you’ve got that fluency you can then glue these small groups back together into complete scales. For instance, you could break up the F major scale shown below like this:

Breaking an exercise like this down into bitesize pieces is a recognised technique, called chunking. It’s immensely useful as a means of building up fluency and consistency, allowing our brain to focus more efficiently on small amounts of information.

Explore different note patterns

Bored with just whizzing up and down your scales as printed? Why not add some variety and explore them by playing the notes in a different order? For instance you could play each one in thirds like this…

You could follow the same principle with fourths and fifths too, although these are harder….

If you’ve learnt every key how about mixing them all up together? One of my favourite challenges is to go up one scale, then move up a semitone and come back down the next one - for instance upwards through F major, down via F sharp major, up via G major, down via A flat and so forth. The same exercise is possible with the minor keys too. If you can play both of these fluently you can award yourself a generous gold star!

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Major keys

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Minor keys

Finally, look for the satisfaction in a scale played really well!

You may not feel the need to learn scales in every key, and for less experienced players such an aim may be too ambitious anyway. However, there’s a satisfaction to be gained from playing even one or two of them really well, even at a slow tempo.

Scales and arpeggios can be a valuable opportunity to find a contemplative zone, focusing on a simple task done to the best of your abilities. I enjoy spending a few minutes at the start of a practice session playing scales really slowly, closing my eyes and listening to my tone. I focus on the quality of my sound, tailoring the speed of my breath and the strength of my articulation to suit each individual note. By doing this I reinforce the good habits I’ve learnt over the years, as well as warming up mind, fingers, tongue and lungs before I move onto more demanding music.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about scales and arpeggios. Are they something you avoid at all costs, or have you cultivated a love for them? Perhaps you’re still on your journey to becoming a zen scale-master? If you have tips you want to share with others or experiences you’ve found useful over the years please do leave a comment below.

Everyday Recorder Keep Fit

How often do you practise your recorder? Don’t worry, I’m not making a judgement about your playing or commitment to the instrument, but I am interested. For some people recorder playing is a skill they diligently practise every day, while for others it may be a fun activity they only do in the company of others. Of course, there’s a sliding scale of possibilities between these two options!

Bending the laws of physics

For many of us, simply finding the time to practise is the biggest problem - modern life makes so many demands on our time that it’s easy to neglect our music making.

I don’t know about you, but I often find myself wishing I could bend the laws of physics, creating the occasional 36 hour long day or 8 day week. Now I think about it, perhaps that isn’t such a great idea… Parkinson’s Law (coined by author Cyril Northcote Parkinson in 1955) dictates that work always expands to fill the time available. No doubt, if I had a 36 hour day at my disposal the boring stuff would still squeeze out the time for music making!

Of course, practice doesn’t need to occupy many hours every day – you can make gains in a short time if you know how. When I studied at music college I habitually practised for three or four hours each day. But when I emerged into the world of work I swiftly realised this was no longer practical. To compensate I taught myself to practise more efficiently, learning to achieve in 30 minutes what would once have taken an hour or more.

If you’re busy, don’t neglect the basics…

Inevitably we tend to focus on actually playing music - that’s the fun part of playing the recorder. But by neglecting the basics of technique you may compromise the quality of your music making too.

Below you’ll find a three step programme to help you hone your technique - think of it as a daily keep fit workout for your recorder playing. None of these exercises will take more than a few minutes, but if you do them regularly you will notice differences in your playing.

I’ve broken them down into three easy steps, each of which will take five minutes of your time. Now, you’re supposed to spend two minutes, morning and evening cleaning your teeth and I bet you spend those four minutes brushing without giving it a second thought. Just one of these steps takes only a minute longer. If you’re still thinking, “But I haven’t got the time”, just think of it as one of those non-negotiable tasks we all carry out every day without fail.

First things first…

Always have a recorder out and ready to play!

The simple task of assembling your instrument can create inertia, so why not keep an instrument out together and ready to play at all times? An inexpensive plastic recorder won’t take up a lot of space on your table. If it’s there, staring you in the face every time you walk past, you’re much more likely to pick it up and play!

If you have five spare minutes a day…

Let’s begin by thinking about your breathing and tone:

Step one… Spend a minute breathing deeply, really filling your lungs with air. Keep your stomach relaxed so it can expand as you breathe in. Initially, exhale freely, enjoying the benefits of all that oxygen. As I often tell the recorder players I meet, breathing is an excellent thing to do, whether playing the recorder or in every day life!

Next, try hissing as you exhale, gently squeezing your stomach muscles to control the speed of the air. Varying the strength of movement in your stomach muscles, you’ll hear the sound of your hissing change as the breath moves faster and slower.

Step two… Use the rest of your five minutes to play a simple scale slowly. And I mean really slowly – perhaps four steady beats on each note. Breathe as often as you need to - every couple of notes if need be. On every single note really listen critically to your sound.

Do you enjoy your tone? If not, try using faster or slower air (using your stomach muscles, as in step one above) until you can make a full, rich sound on every note.

If you have ten spare minutes a day…

The next step is to make your fingers neater. Practise all the items above, plus the following:

Step one… Break your chosen scale down into groups of five notes and play these groups up and down, slurring every note. Begin slowly, playing the notes as whole beats at a speed of crotchet=72. Really focus on the quality of your finger changes – make small, quick movements. Playing in front of a mirror is handy to check you’re not lifting your fingers too far from the instrument.

Step two… When you need to move several fingers together, use a mirror to check they’re moving at exactly the same time. You may need to be more proactive with the fingers you lift as these don’t have gravity to help them!

If you have fifteen minutes a day…

You’re making progress on your tone and fingers now, so let’s build up some speed too. Practise all the exercises above, plus these:

Step one… Using the same five note scale patterns you practised in the last step, gradually increase their speed. Continue slurring all the notes. Really listen to the notes (close your eyes – it’ll make you listen more carefully!) and ask yourself if they’re completely smooth and even. If your fingers begin to rush away, use a metronome to help you control the speed.

Step two… Now put your five note patterns back together into a complete scale and repeat the process. This’ll demand more concentration and will help you take stock of your progress.

Don’t forget to keep listening to your tone - aim to maintain the beautiful sound you honed in step one at the same time!

Make yourself a promise…

My challenge to you is to practise these exercises every day for a whole month. Now much as I would love to be able to check in with you all on your progress, that would require me to have days which last at least 96 hours! Instead, make a promise to yourself that you’ll stick with it.

If you can make these simple exercises part of your every day routine, you will see results in a month’s time. If you don’t believe me, why not record your first session? The voice memo app on any smartphone is all you need, or a cassette recorder for those who prefer more retro technology! After a month, record yourself again and listen back to both for comparison.

I’d love to hear how you get on with this. Why not share your experiences in the comments below? Or perhaps you already have your own daily recorder ‘keep fit’ routine - if you do I’d love to hear more!

Metronome - friend or foe?

Many musicians have a love/hate relationship with their metronome. It’s intended to help keep our rhythms on the straight and narrow, but used in the wrong way it can feel more like a musical tyrant. This week’s blog is intended to help you make friends with your metronome. Used in the right way, a metronome can be an immensely powerful tool, and I hope my words will help you understand some practical ways you can make yours work for you rather than against you.

What does a metronome do?

For those who’ve never used a metronome, it’s simply a tool that plays a regular pulse at a variety of speeds. These speeds are measured in beats per minute, just like your heart rate. There are many different ways you can use one, but we’ll get into that shortly.

The wind up mechanical metronome was patented in 1815 by Johann Maelzel under the title “Instrument/Machine for the Improvement of all Musical Performance, called Metronome”. This wasn’t the first such device, but earlier ones depended on the use of a pendulum and made no sound.

For those who are interested in the etymology of words, the term metronome comes from the Greek words metron (measure) and nomos (regulating/law). With this derivation it’s no wonder we sometimes feel our musical time keeping device is laying down the law to us!

Which type of metronome should I buy?

If you’ve never owned a metronome, the choice can be bewildering.

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Traditional metronomes tend to be pyramid shaped, with a small weight mounted on a metal bar which swings from side to side, like an inverted clock pendulum. These models are clockwork so you do need to remember to wind them up from time to time or your chosen speed will gradually slow down. They can be beautiful (in my youth I had a hankering for a classic mahogany one but never had enough spare cash) and produce a satisfyingly analogue clunk, but aren’t very portable.

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If you’re after a more compact option, there are plenty to choose from. For many years I used a small battery powered metronome which had a good, loud tick. The tempo on models like this is controlled with a dial or buttons and many have a light which flashes too.

When I was a student I had the ultimate in portable metronomes - a flat, credit card sized electronic model. This was super convenient to carry to college, but its high pitched ‘peep’ was less helpful when practising the smaller recorders or harpsichord as its sound got lost among the notes!

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These days most of us carry around a smartphone and there are many metronome apps available to download for iOS or Android phones. Some are free, others cost a few pounds, but this option offers the ultimate in portability in today’s world. If, like me, you always have your phone in your pocket you can quickly check a speed whenever and wherever you need to. I use a free app called MetroTimer, which makes a satisfying noise, like two woodblocks being knocked together.

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There are a couple of other options I’d not come across until recently. The first is a metronome within an earpiece. Korg make such a model and there are others too. If you find it hard to focus on the sound of the beat while playing, this may be helpful, although you could also use earphones with one of the smartphone apps. One of my pupils introduced me to this type of metronome and told me she finds it harder to ignore than the traditional type!

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Finally, while researching this post I learnt about yet another variety - a metronome watch which vibrates on your wrist to remind you of the pulse. The model I came across was made by Soundbrenner (costing around £100 at the time of writing) but there are other makes available too. This may be a little too niche for many, but it’s worth considering if you really want to feel the pulse.

Metronomes with benefits

You may find the simple ticking of a metronome is all you need, but some models come with added tools. The most common is the ability to have a different pitch sounding on the first beat of the bar. If you find you wander from the beat while playing you may find this helpful, although of course it might just be an added distraction! The app I use offers this option but I can honestly say I’ve never used it because I prefer the ability to repeat patterns without having to wait for the first beat of the bar.

Tempo guidance

Many metronomes have markings which bring the beats per minute together with the Italian terms you’ll often find in music. For instance, Allegro may be shown as somewhere between 120 and 160. You may find these helpful, but in my experience they often bear little reality to the music I find myself playing! The correct metronome mark is very context dependent, so don’t be afraid to ignore these indications if they don’t fit with the music you’re practising. It’s also worth mentioning that the definition of some expression marks (Vivace, for instance) has changed over the centuries, so the tempo your metronome suggests today may not be appropriate for a piece composed in the 17th century.

Tune up!

Some metronomes also play a tuning note - usually A=440. This may be handy occasionally, but the important thing is that you play in tune with the other members of your ensemble, even if the overall result doesn’t strictly adhere to an absolute pitch. I would also argue that if you really want to check the pitch of your playing across the whole range of the recorder, it might be worth purchasing a tuner (or a tuner app for your smartphone) rather than relying on just one note.

Want a metronome with a difference?

Another discovery while researching this is the plethora of metronome options on YouTube! If you want to make your practice time more funky, just search for ‘metronome drum beat’ and the speed you desire and you’ll probably find an entire drum kit at your disposal, like this one. Maybe not the ideal accompaniment for Bach, but for those who are ‘mature’ enough (I count myself in this category) it may remind you of the 1980s Hooked on Classics craze for “improving” famous pieces of classical music with a funky drum beat!

Why use a metronome?

There are two main reasons why you might use a metronome - to improve the regularity and evenness of your rhythm or to increase your speed. I’ll look at these two uses in more detail shortly, but first I have some useful exercises to help you make friends with your metronome.

Let’s make friends with our metronome

I’ve taught many pupils over the years who struggled with their metronome. Used in the wrong way, it can feel as if your metronome is a sentient being, actively working against you. Go on, admit it - you’ve cursed yours at one time or another, haven’t you?!

This often happens because we’re either not truly listening, or we’re being overambitious with our speed. If you struggle to play in time with your metronome try these simple exercises to help you really zone in on the pulse.

1. Set your metronome to a comfortable speed, say 100 crotchet beats per minute. Listen to the beat for a few seconds - and I mean really listen. Don’t get distracted by the other sounds around you, focus on the pulse and count along silently with the beat in your head: 1-2-3-4.

2. Now quietly tap along with the pulse - use your fingers on the table, or against the palm of your other hand. Make it a small movement rather than big hand claps. Close your eyes and listen to your tapping against the metronome. Are they truly together?

3. While we’re going back to basics - make sure you never tap your foot while playing with a metronome. Your foot is part of your body and if there’s any internal conflict you’ll always revert back to following your foot rather than the metronome!

4. Once you’re happy your tapping and metronome are matching neatly, grab a recorder and play repeated notes against the beat. Don’t try and play scales or melodies at this stage, but instead keep it really simple. Close your eyes and really focus on coordinating the movement of your tongue with the pulse from the metronome. Once your beat has settled, then double the speed of your tongue strokes to play quavers instead of crotchets. Are they absolutely even, or do they vary in speed? Don’t be afraid to experiment - play smoothly and staccato and try out different rhythm patterns against the beat.

Hopefully by now you’re really in tune with the pulse from your metronome. Now adjust the beats per minute, faster and slower and repeat the exercise. With each different tempo, take a few seconds to really listen to the beat before you start tapping or playing. So often I hear students jump in feet first without stopping to internalise the speed of the pulse first. If you haven’t done this you’re unlikely to play in time, at least for the first few beats!

As you vary the speed of this exercise, try to be aware of where your weaknesses are. At first glance, playing quickly may seem difficult, but slow music can be just as challenging. Tapping and playing against a slow beat takes great control, especially if the pulse is slower than your resting heart rate. Keeping a pulse of 70 beats per minute going consistently is one thing, but when the rate slows into the 40s and 50s the beats can seem an awfully long way apart. Try this same exercise at 40 beats per minute and you’ll quickly see what I mean!

Moving on from the basics

Having made friends with your metronome, the next step is to use it to benefit the music you’re practising. As I explained earlier, there are two main reasons why you might use one so let’s look at those.

Improving your sense of rhythm

One reason to play with a metronome is to improve your rhythmic control. Our sense of rhythm can be a very flexible thing, easily thrown by concentration (or lack of), or imperfections in our technique. Here are my top tips for improving the consistency of your rhythm and making the notes more even…

You don’t need to play entire pieces

I almost never play complete movements with the metronome. Quite apart from the danger of turning oneself into an automaton, there’s every chance things will unravel at some point, creating frustration. Instead, pick out a short passage to work on. Once you’ve made some progress then move on to the next section.

Really listen to your playing

Decide on the section you want to work on and play it with the metronome. Remember to listen to the pulse for a few seconds before you begin to really internalise the tempo. When you play, focus on your rhythms and ask yourself if the notes are genuinely even.

Try double time

If you find your fingers are rushing or slowing relative to the pulse it may be you’re struggling to judge the distance between the beats. If the pulse is slow your brain may find it easier to play evenly against a faster beat. Double the beats per minute and try playing against that instead. For instance, if you were practising at crotchet = 56, double the speed to 112 and play your quaver beats against that. This reduces the distance between the beats and can make it easier to play evenly.

For instance, this is a passage from Vivaldi’s Concerto in A minor, RV108, which I recently performed in a concert. When practising, this passage threw up a few problems which I solved by using my metronome. To tidy up my fingering I used exactly the process I’ve just described, starting with a quaver speed of 96 to make sure my fingering was completely even before speeding the music up again.

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Don’t pick an overambitious speed

If you struggle to play in time with the metronome you may be stretching your technical abilities beyond breaking point. Attempting a speed which is too fast simply means you have more multitasking to do - feeling the pulse, getting around the fingerings, tonguing neatly, remembering the correct rhythms and more. As we’ve discussed before, humans are pretty bad at multitasking, so taking the speed down a few notches may well give you a better chance of success. We’ll look at how a metronome can help you increase your speed later. 

Tackle unevenness with different rhythms and articulations

Do your fingers get out of control during what should be even runs of notes? If so, try changing the rhythm from even notes to dotted rhythms. Then play the rhythms with the note values reversed, so the short note comes before the dotted note, like Scotch snaps. When you can master this, playing the simple, even notes will seem easier by comparison.

For instance, the example below shows the first bar of the same piece of Vivaldi, first with dotted rhythms, and then repeated with Scotch snaps:

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Sometimes slurring can bring challenges too. Your fingers are more likely to become uneven and uncontrolled when you slur. For some reason, using the tongue to articulate notes often helps control the finger movements. Slurring removes most of the tongue strokes and often induces unevenness in the fingers. Quite why this is I’m not sure, but I’ve seen it in so many pupils’ playing that it can’t be a coincidence!

When faced with long slurs, try breaking them down into smaller groups, slurring in twos, threes and fours. As you regain control, gradually lengthen the slurs until you can play long strings of notes evenly without the aid of the tongue. Focus on the quality of your finger movements, making them small and quick - use no more energy than you need to. If you can play every phrase even and slurred, tonguing the notes should be easy by comparison!

Here’s that same Vivaldi bar, this time with different slurring patterns. I used exactly these patterns while practising and once I could play all of these neatly and evenly, playing them all slurred or all tongued felt easy by comparison!

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Close your eyes

In problem areas, memorise short bursts of notes and practise them with the metronome with your eyes closed. Removing visual distractions helps you listen more carefully and notice unevenness sooner.

Break the music down

Never be afraid to dismantle the music, choosing short passages to work on with the metronome - perhaps even just a few beats - and repeat them lots of times. Playing long passages demands sustained concentration and by the end you may have forgotten mistakes made earlier. As you put these smaller fragments back together again, vary where you start playing from. If you can confidently pick up a piece of music from any note in any bar you’ll have much more confidence and security.

The need for speed

Increasing speed is another important reason to practise with a metronome. When faced with a new piece of music it’s so tempting to push the speed on too much too soon. Doing this increases the risk of introducing new mistakes and then reinforcing them. We all know how hard it is to break bad habits - so why not avoid creating them in the first place?

Identify problem areas

With any piece of music many of the notes will become fluent quite quickly, leaving you with a handful of stubborn problem areas. These are the areas you need to focus on with your metronome. I tend to remind myself of their locations with a pencil mark in the margin, but you may have your own favourite annotations.

Find your starting speed

It’s easy to be obsessed with the finishing line and reaching your ultimate speed, but for now put that out of your mind. Instead, play the short passage which needs work and find a speed where you can comfortably and reliably play it correctly well. It doesn’t matter if this initial tempo is stupidly slow - your aim at this point is for consistent accuracy.

Below you’ll see a photo of another passage from the same Vivaldi Concerto. Here you get a glimpse into my process, with a mark in the margin to show I need to work on this bit, plus a metronome speed of crotchet = 76. This is at least 20 notches slower than the final performance tempo, but this was my starting point - a speed where I could consistently and accurately play the passage without errors.

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Try subdividing the beat

If your chosen speed results in a really slow pulse, don’t be afraid to subdivide the beat into smaller units. For instance, if you’ve ended up at crotchet = 50, the beats can feel an awfully long way apart. So why not double the speed of your metronome beat and play at quaver = 100. This doesn’t change the speed you’ll be playing at but makes it easier to slot your notes in against the metronome.

Preparing to speed up

Play the passage with the metronome at this speed a few times and really focus on your technique. Check your fingers are finding the notes cleanly and without any feeling of being on the edge of your comfort zone. Is your tongue working smoothly and evenly to articulate the notes? You may be playing the music at half speed or slower, but that doesn’t matter - you’ll soon begin to increase your velocity.

Fool your fingers into going faster

Before you go any further, take a moment to listen to the speed of your metronome. Let’s assume you’ve set it to quaver = 100. Really feel the pulse as the metronome ticks. Now increase the speed a tiny amount. On some metronomes the next step may be 104, so select that and listen again. It doesn’t really feel any faster, does it? Now play your chosen passage with this increased metronome speed. Is it still comfortable? The chances are you won’t really notice this tiny increase in speed but you’ve already taken the first step towards your final destination.

Play the passage a couple more times to reinforce the new speed and then notch your metronome up another step - say, quaver = 108. Continue this process, incrementally increasing your tempo. When you reach a speed where your fingers and/or tongue begin to falter, really focus on their quality of movement and try to identify which finger(s) is letting you down before you go any further.

Break things down even more

When your reach a tempo where your fingers move with less ease, don’t be afraid to break the music down. You could divide the passage into single beats and repeat each one several times before moving onto the next. If you do this, it’s also a good idea to continue to the first note of the next beat at least some of the time. This way you have a connection between the beats and that’ll be helpful when you begin to slot things together again.

It may be the transition between just two notes that’s tripping you up, so practise moving between them, ensuring your finger movements are clean and precise. I call this process of breaking the music down into smaller units forensic practising. It may only take a couple of minutes to tidy up a short passage but it’s worth being thorough. By doing this you’re reinforcing the finger patterns you’ve learnt, building strong muscle memory.

Don’t accidentally gain speed

Always play your repetitions of these smaller units against the metronome beat. If you turn it off you’ll almost certainly speed up in frustration and undo some of your good work.

Putting the jigsaw back together again

When the individual beats are neat and precise again, begin to join these small musical units together once again - half a bar at first, then whole bars and so forth. Don’t be ruled by barlines either - you could begin mid-bar and play across to the centre of the next bar. This is all about removing barriers in the music so everything joins up fluently. If all’s well you can then begin to gradually increase the speed of your metronome again.

Build up speed in short bursts

The process I’ve described may seem complicated and tedious, but you may be surprised how effective it is. Don’t try to reach your ultimate speed in one sitting though. It’s better to do a short burst each day (or even a couple of times a day if you can), creating staging posts on the way to your final destination. At the end of each session, pencil the speed you’ve reached into the margin of your music. This gives you a sense of achievement and will remind you where you need to start next time. As you have success with this technique it’ll encourage you to keep going.

When you come back to the music next time you may find things have slipped a little. Say you’d reached quaver = 126 in one sitting, you might need to backtrack to 120 briefly and work up from there. This ‘three steps forward, two back’ approach is entirely normal so don’t be disheartened.

Changing down a gear

At some point there will come a point where your metronome’s quaver pulse begins to feel very fast. This is the stage where you need to halve the number of your metronome mark and revert back to crotchet beats. Before continuing further, do play the music through with your new, slower crotchet pulse to get used to the change. From there you can continue the same process and eventually you’ll reach your final speed.

Putting things back together again

Every so often I would recommend slotting the passage you’ve been practising back into context, playing through the whole movement, warts and all. Don’t fret if you still make mistakes. Doing this allows you to take stock and see just how far you’ve come.

After a few practice sessions you’ll arrive at your final tempo with the knowledge that your fingerwork (and articulation) is really secure. This process may take a little while but, in my experience, it’s a surefire way to conquer a difficult passage and increase the speed in a reliable way.

Quick tips to hone your metronome technique

Finally, a few handy hints which didn’t quite find their way in elsewhere…

Don’t overuse your metronome

While the metronome is a valuable tool, there are times when you should put it aside. Don’t get into the habit of always playing with the metronome, or you risk sounding like an automaton. The pulse is a framework on which we hang the notes we play. The major beats need to be in time, but for music to really sound fluid and expressive there needs to be some flexibility. A metronome doesn’t allow you to stretch individual notes or take a little extra time to breathe between phrases. Don’t be afraid to put the metronome to one side from time to time and focus on putting your humanity back into the music.

You’re human - sometimes you’ll disagree with your metronome!

Your relationship to tempo naturally varies day to day. If you’re tired you may play at a more leisurely pace, but after a really good night’s sleep you may be pumped up and raring to go faster. This is entirely natural, so don’t be afraid to increase or decrease your metronome speed a little if the two of you disagree sometimes!

Don’t run before you can walk

Never be afraid to reduce the speed of your metronome if you need to. By hammering away at a speed which is beyond the ability of your tongue and fingers you’ll just reinforce your mistakes and make it harder to unlearn them. Going back to a slower tempo helps you regain control and make your playing more secure in the long run - slowing down isn’t an admission of failure!

Close your eyes

When we remove one of our senses the others work harder to compensate. Playing short passages (or longer ones if you’ve memorised the music) with your eyes closed will focus your ears on your playing even more. If you’re playing with the metronome, listen critically with your eyes shut and ask yourself if you’re really in time with it. You may be surprised what you notice!

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Do you think you’ve found a way to be friends with your metronome now? Yes, you’ll no doubt curse it from time to time, but a metronome can be such a powerful tool when used in the right way. If you have your own tips for metronome practice please do leave them in the comments below - I’d love to hear your strategies too and we can all learn from each other.

Survival skills for ensemble playing

Photo by Andreas Wagner

When you first start playing in ensembles it can be overwhelming. We all sometimes experience imposter syndrome - the feeling that everyone else in the group is better than you and you really shouldn’t be there. Can I tell you a secret? You’re not alone! In any massed ensemble there will be others who are feeling exactly the same. What are they doing differently? It’s probably just that they’ve developed more survival skills over the years and have learnt how to cope when the music gets tough.

A student on one of my courses asked me about this earlier this year. She felt she needed to learn the art of ‘self rescue’ and that term struck a chord with me. Professional players are expected to be on top of every note we play; able to cope with whatever the music throws at us. But then we’ve spent decades honing our skills to do this. As an amateur musician you no doubt have equivalent skills in whatever you do for a living. For instance, a surgeon knows what to do if a patient unexpectedly goes into cardiac arrest, or a driving instructor can often predict when their student might need an intervention to prevent an accident. If you’re still developing your recorder playing skills there are bound to be moments when you feel overloaded and unable to cope. Don’t give yourself a hard time - instead, realise this is completely normal!

Over the years I’ve met many very intelligent musicians who feel they should be able to do things in music through the power of their intellect - the idea that if I can understand something I should be able to do it! It’s a painful realisation, but sometimes this just isn’t possible. Don’t give yourself a hard time if you fail to achieve perfection. Perfection is something that doesn’t come easily to any human being - even us professionals! Instead, use your intellect to be critical (in a positive way) of your mistakes and try to understand what you can do to improve your playing and make fewer errors further down the line.

My aim today is to share some tips with you which will help when you’re faced with these mental overload moments. Survival techniques which will help you keep afloat and ease your way. These will help you survive a challenging ensemble session unscathed, having learnt from the experience and with a better idea of what you need to practise to find it easier next time.

Before we look at survival skills, lets briefly consider some things you can do before you start playing. These will improve your chances of playing well and getting the most from your rehearsal.

Warm up yourself and your recorder

Doing a few simple stretches to limber up your muscles can be immensely helpful. If your muscles are warm and relaxed you’re much more likely to play well. Think about your overall posture, ensuring you sit well - this’ll help you breathe efficiently and prevent aches and pains caused by slouching. Don’t forget your hands and arms too - recorder playing makes many demands on the delicate structures in your hands, as well as the tendons and muscles in your forearms which control them. An athlete wouldn’t dream off going for a 5k run without warming up first, yet many recorder players think nothing of sitting down for a two hour rehearsal without so much as a single stretch!

The British Association of Performing Arts Medicine have an excellent sheet of warm up exercises which you can print out and keep in your recorder case. There’s a permanent link to these in my Members’ Area for Score Lines subscribers or you can download them from the BAPAM website.

Once you’re warmed up and ready to go, don’t neglect your recorder! Playing in cold churches and village halls often results in fogged up recorders, which sound like you’re playing through cotton wool. This is caused by a build up of condensation in the windway and, ultimately, the swelling of the recorder’s block. The best way to combat this is to get the head joint up to body temperature before you play a single note. Doing this ensures the moisture in your breath is the same temperature as the instrument, so the water doesn’t condense onto the block in droplets.

A simple way is to pop the head joint under your arm for a few minutes - you may have spotted me doing exactly this in some of my consort videos. Smaller instrument head joints can be put into pockets or tucked into your waistband for a similar result. With larger recorders this is less practical so I’ll sometimes use a warm (not hot!) wheat bag (heated gently in the microwave) or a hot water bottle against the head joint. I recently saw this tip shared by the Von Huene recorder workshop in the US which might offer an alternative (albeit somewhat unsightly!) solution.

However you do it, warming up your recorder before playing will avoid the need for perpetual clearing of condensation from the windway and keep your sound clear and beautiful.

Take regular breaks

If you have a long rehearsal to get through be sure to stop at least every hour or so. Get up and walk around to improve your circulation and do some more stretches to loosen the muscles you’ve been working so hard. Chat to a friend about something unrelated to the music, allowing yourself to switch off from the piece you’re studying. You’ll come back refreshed and with improved concentration.

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Now let’s look at some practical tips to help you keep afloat in ensembles and, where necessary, perform some ‘self rescue’.

Hone your sight reading skills

Being able to read new music swiftly and accurately is an important skill. The ability to efficiently assess and implement musical notation is one that takes time to develop but it’s worth the effort. I wrote a post about this very topic recently so I won’t repeat everything here. If you click here you’ll find masses of tips to help you improve your sight reading and it’ll open in a new tab so you don’t need to lose your place here either!

You don’t need to play every note

It’s easy to get hung up on the need to play every single note. During an initial sight read perfection isn’t the priority. Instead your aim should be to sense of the lie of the land, form a basic understanding of how your part fits into the whole and hopefully spot the bits you need to come back to and practise. Remember too that occasional groups of fast notes (perhaps a couple of semiquavers here and there) are often the least important, musically speaking. They’re probably just the means of travelling between two larger notes but because they’re quick we instinctively feel they must be important. The result is often laboured and slows the music down. Instead, don’t be afraid to slur them together initially if that helps, or even drop a few of them on the floor! I often jokingly say to groups that we can sweep them up later and it’s not a disaster if you don’t play every note on the first reading.

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The semiquavers in this piece by Schmelzer are mostly decorative and provide a means from getting one place to another so you can skate over them in sight reading rather than getting bogged down.

Conductors will often do a first read through of a new piece at full speed. This is because we know that taking the music slowly at first will set that slower tempo in the players’ minds and it’ll be all but impossible to speed things up later. Working on things slowly comes after the first read through, after you’ve got the ultimate tempo fixed in your mind. The ultimate tempo may be prove too much of a challenge at first, so try to focus on the main beats rather than every note, aiming to be with at least the first beat of each bar.

Learn to edit on the hoof

When I was studying for A level music we were all allocated another student to accompany. Our task was to attend their instrumental lessons and to play the piano accompaniments for them. I was allocated a baritone singer called Chris who had a penchant for Vaughan Williams. My pianistic skills were rather less developed than my recorder playing so I often felt out of my depth. But playing for Chris’s lessons taught me a vital skill - that of on the spot editing. Faced with a piece in five flats, I knew I couldn’t get to every note initially, so I learnt to leave some of them out! In piano terms this often meant keeping the bassline going at all costs, while thinning down what went on in the right hand (treble) part. By doing this I could provide Chris with some important harmonic support, while keeping the pulse consistent so he could focus on his singing. Over time I gradually added more of the detail back in to give a fuller picture of the music.

In recorder terms this might translate into cutting down some of the whizzy runs. If there’s a long run of semiquavers, perhaps aim initially to play the first of each beat. As you become more familiar with the music you can gradually complete the picture with more notes. The key benefit of developing this skill is the way it allows you to keep up with the pulse at all times - a vital skill for any ensemble player.

Use your conductor, if you have one

As Walter Bergmann was fond of saying, “Your conductor has been paid for. You waste your money if you don’t look at him.” Assuming you have someone standing in front of your group offering a regular beat, you would be wise to make use of them! At the most basic level, a conductor will show you the speed of the music and their beat patterns can be immensely helpful.

If you can ensure the first beat of each bar you play occurs when the conductor’s hand is heading downwards you can be sure you’re in the right place at least once in every bar! If the gestures given by conductors has ever puzzled you do take a look at my blog post, Do you speak the same language as our conductor? Here I explored the gestures we make with our hands, what they mean and much more. A good conductor will convey much more than just the pulse in their gestures so it’s worth learning what some of these mean.

Ensure you can see your conductor

As we get older our eyesight changes and it’s not uncommon to need different strength glasses or contact lenses for music reading. Reading the notes accurately is important, but if you neglect to ensure you can also see your conductor’s beat you’re missing out on some vital information. The most important thing is to be able to at least see the beat in your peripheral vision. It’s surprising how much awareness you can have of your surroundings even while you’re focusing on the music. Your conductor won’t mind if you’re seeing a somewhat fuzzy image of him or her but they will object if you completely ignore them and play out of time! Try adjusting your music stand to different heights until you find a combination that works for you. Many musicians end up buying single vision lenses which are set for the distance of their music stand. This allows you to set your stand at a height where you can easily see both the music and the conductor, even if their movements are a little blurry.

Understand your music

Before you play, glance through the music and look for significant moments, such as key and time signature changes or tempo changes. If you don’t know what the Italian (or maybe French or German) terms mean you could quickly look them up online. Alternatively, look at your conductor and you may well see some clues. I often ask groups what a given term means and there’s almost always a chorus of, “Watch the conductor!” in response. There’s no harm in making a point of learning the meaning of the most common terms and Wikipedia has a great online dictionary of them here.

Read ahead to avoid surprises

One of the most important skills to develop i your sight reading is the ability to read at least a few notes ahead. In slow music you may only need to know where the next couple of notes are leading, but in fast runs it’s helpful to be able to look a few beats ahead. This takes practice, but in time you’ll find it helps remove a lot of the surprises in the music you’re about to play.

Beware of line and page breaks

No matter how good you are at reading ahead, certain danger spots remain - usually points where you move to a new line or page. When you see a line break coming up try to read ahead a little more so you’re ready for what comes next. Such spots are governed by an unwritten law that the trickiest parts of any piece inevitably occur just after a line or page break - just when you’re least expecting them! In old manuscripts you’ll sometimes see a custos (or guard note) written at the end of each line - a warning of the first note you’ll encounter on the next line. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t write such symbols into your own music if that helps you prepare for the line ahead.

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The little squiggle at the end of each line in this Sammartini Duo is a custos, indicating the pitch of the first note on the next line.

Navigating your way around bar numbers

The quickest way to restart in the middle off a piece of music is to use bar numbers, or sometimes rehearsal letters. Bar numbers come in different formats - sometimes at the start of each line or perhaps every 5 or 10 bars. It often surprises me how hard musicians find it to navigate around a score so it’s worth having some handy tricks up your sleeve. Just as an air steward warns you the nearest emergency exit can be behind your seat rather than in front of you, sometimes it’s easier too count backwards from a higher bar number rather than on from an earlier one. For instance, bar 88 is closer to 90 than it is to 80.

Rehearsal letters are handy if the music has them, and conductors will often shout them out if they know some of the players have come adrift. These letters (or occasionally numbers) tend to be placed at points in the music where something significant happens - perhaps a double bar line, key change or a moment where the mood or character of the music changes. These can be handy landmarks to check you’re still in the right place.

Learn to count rests efficiently

Apologies if this sounds like teaching grandma to suck eggs, but if this helps one person it’s been worth it! With blocks of rests, count the beats in the bar but with each successive bar replace the number 1 with the number of bars you’ve counted. So, four bars in 3/4 time are counted 123, 223, 323, 423. Counting this way will help you easily keep track of how many bars have passed.

Do you get flummoxed by large blocks of rest? When you pass ten or twenty bars it can be easy to miscount. Don’t be afraid to use your fingers as an aid! Lots of professional musicians do exactly this so you’ll be in good company. You can do so in a subtle way, with your fingers on your lap or your recorder. You can even use a two hand approach, counting each successive ten on one hand and the intervening bars on the other hand.

Finding your spot amid blocks of rests

Blocks of rests can also be problematic if your restarting point occurs in the middle of one, especially when the conductor is keen to get going again. A useful trick is to identify the bar number of when your part resumes (say, bar 72). Once you know this simply count on from the bar number where you’re restarting (say, bar 68) until you get to the point where you need to play again. Using the examples I’ve give you’d count bars 68, 69, 70 and 71 then play in 72. Much simpler and quicker than figuring out how many bars are left to count, especially if you’re faced with a long block of rests.

Don’t play in ‘bingo mode’

This is the term I use for musicians who bury their heads in the music (eyes down, as you would at bingo!) and ignore everything that’s going on around them. When you first start playing in ensembles listening to the other players can be a distraction. Conductors will often implore musicians to listen more carefully but there may well be a small voice in your head saying, “In your dreams, matey!” If this sounds familiar, try instead to listen in a general way rather than focusing on the detail. Especially when playing older music, which is in a style we’re familiar with as listeners, having an overall awareness of the sound can tell you whether you’re in the right place. Violent clashes or completely contradictory rhythms in a piece of Baroque music may well be a sign that you‘ve come adrift from the rest of the ensemble. Yes, it could be that you’re right and everyone else is wrong, but in all likelihood you’re the one who’s out place!

“If all the others are wrong and you alone are right, follow the wrong.”

Walter Bergmann

Don’t always trust your hearing…

Having implored you to listen, there will be times when your hearing won’t be entirely trustworthy. The acoustic qualities of a building can be misleading, especially if it’s a boomy church. By the time a note reaches you from the other side of the room it’s bounced off several walls and the ceiling and this takes time. A half second delay can be catastrophic for coordination, so in this situation be careful to play with your conductor’s beat rather than simply trusting your ears. If everyone does the same, the combined sound reaching your audience will be in time. The same applies if you play multichoir music, where you’ll often be geographically spread around the room.

Take the best seat in the house if you can

When you have the opportunity to play with large groups of players (perhaps a massed playing session at a course or festival) don’t underestimate the effect of where you sit. So often I’ll see the musicians with the least confidence or the poorest hearing sitting right at the back, usually struggling to keep up and hear what’s going on. Instead, grab yourself a seat in the front couple of rows. You’ll find it much easier to hear and see the conductor, keep in touch with the music and you’ll have the support (musical and technical) of those around you. Conductors very rarely bite so you needn’t fear us and, even better, you’ll hear the full tonal range of sound from those behind you!

Listen to the conductor’s advice

My job as a conductor isn’t just to keep everyone in time - I’m responsible for shaping the music too. Along the way conductors will often sneak in snippets of technical advice too - tips about fingerings or perhaps the best articulation to use. Don’t underestimate the power of these tips - listen carefully and you might pick up something that’ll benefit your playing beyond the current rehearsal.

Don’t chat

If your rehearsal is also a chance to see friends try to save your chitchat for the breaks. At the very moment you’re nattering with each other mid-rehearsal you might miss out in a crucial piece of information from the conductor! Likewise, don’t tootle in the rests or when the conductor is talking - it’s very distracting for others.

Always carry a pencil and don’t be afraid to use it!

A pencil can be a very powerful tool for a musician. Jotting in accidentals or highlighting repeats ensures you get those details right next time and frees you up to concentrate on other things. Don’t be precious about writing on music (always in pencil, never pen) - professionals do it all the time and needing to annotate reminders doesn’t make you less of a musician. Remember too to write in your music in such a way that you’ll understand what it means later. It’s no good writing something cryptic in the music which you can’t translate next week - it’s always better to call a spade a spade!

Add some cues to your music

In orchestral music parts often include cue notes - small notes which show what’s going in in other parts of the score. These can be immensely helpful. For instance, during a long block of rests, you’ll hear another line playing a melody at the moment it’s marked in your score, confirming you’re in the right place. Sadly such markings are rarely used in recorder music, but there’s no reason why you can’t add your own. You could take a look at the score and pencil in a snippet of the melody from another part, but even having the words ‘tenor melody’ or ‘dotted rhythm in basses’ jotted in can be reassuring.

Don’t get hung up on trills

Trills often reduce recorder players to quivering wrecks. But in an ensemble situation don’t get too hung up on them, at least at first. If you have the spare mental capacity to put some of them in that’s great, but the main notes are more important, especially when sight reading. When you’re comfortable with the music perhaps start adding the simpler trills, which don’t require complex alternative fingerings. As you gain control of them you can gradually add in the others. If trills make you tremble why not take a look at my recent blog about these decorative delights?

Take the music home to practise if you can

If you know you’re going to be working on a piece over several sessions don’t be afraid to ask to borrow your part between rehearsals. Practising ensemble or orchestra parts can feel unrewarding, especially when faced with a passage of long notes or off beats. However, spending five minutes each day practising that tricky semiquaver run will undoubtedly give you more confidence at the next session.

Don’t worry about nerves and don’t look back!

Playing with a new ensemble or orchestra can be nerve wracking and there’s no shame in having a few butterflies. A little nervous energy will make you concentrate harder and you’ll soon find your feet.

Inevitably you’ll make mistakes (we all do) but when you’re in the middle of a run-through don’t look back at errors and berate yourself for them. Doing so will almost certainly distract you from what’s coming next and cause you to make more mistakes. Instead, try to remember where you went wrong so you can come back and fix it later. I’ll often mark trouble spots with a pencil mark in the margin to remind me to practise those bars at home.

Fake it until you make it

You often hear this phrase used to encourage people to blag their way through a situation, with the idea that if you have enough conviction everyone else will believe you. While this is frequently an oversimplification of what’s required to be successful, there is an element of truth in the saying.

I often hear recorder players being tentative in ensembles, assuming that if they try and hide no one will notice their mistakes. I can understand the logic, but in reality that strategy doesn’t often work! Tentative recorder playing tends to result in weak tone quality, poor intonation because you’re under blowing, and the rhythm often becomes mushy too.

A better approach is to ignore that scared voice in the back if your head and instead play with conviction and positivity. As a result you’re more likely to produce a good tone, be better in tune with others, and play more rhythmically. This positive experience will probably boost your confidence and help you to keep doing the same again. Yes, you’ll still make mistakes, but no one will die as a result and you can easily fix those later!

Don’t forget to breathe

Breathing in is a good thing to do, whether in music or everyday life. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment while wrestling with a difficult passage, only to run out of breath. There’s always somewhere to breathe (even in Bach!) and if the place isn’t obvious just take a breath anyway - the extra oxygen will help you think clearly as well as improving your tone quality.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

If you lose your place while playing don’t be afraid to make eye contact with your conductor to seek help. If I see someone doggedly look down at their music, wiggling their fingers while I’m conducting I have to assume they’re ok. On the other hand, if a player looks up at me pleadingly I’ll do my best to get them back in, perhaps at their next entry after some rests or by shouting out a rehearsal letter. If I don’t know you’re lost I can’t help you!

Remember, you’re doing this for fun!

Ultimately an amateur musician (by definition) plays for the love of music. Whether you play every note perfectly, or with lots of errors, you should aim to enjoy yourself. Your life doesn’t depend on your playing so don’t let mistakes distract you from the enjoyment your hobby brings.

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Improving between rehearsals

I’ll finish off with a few quick ideas to help you get more from your ensemble playing.

Pick your level carefully

If you have a choice of different standard ensembles (perhaps at a festival or on a course) don’t be afraid to experiment. Sometimes selecting a session which is well within the boundaries of your technique will help boost your confidence. Equally, a level which stretches you just beyond your comfort zone can be a useful way to improve your survival skills.

Don’t forget that courses and festivals can be a great opportunity to find your feet with a new size of recorder too. For instance if you’ve just started learning the bass recorder you could give it a first outing in a large massed playing session (where there’s safety in numbers) or in an easier session which won’t stretch you beyond your abilities.

Take some recorder lessons

If playing in an ensemble highlights particular weaknesses in your playing don’t be afraid to seek out some lessons. A few sessions with an experienced teacher can be useful to help you understand what you need to work on to improve.

Practise regularly and strategically

It’s not necessary to practise for hours every day, but a few minutes spent on a few technical exercises can pay dividends for your ensemble playing. Maybe some long notes to work on your breathing and tone, and a handful of scales and arpeggios to build your finger technique - all of these will help you cope better in an ensemble situation.

Use ‘virtual’ ensembles to improve your ability to keep up

My playalong consort videos (and there are plenty of others out there too) allow you the opportunity to play ensemble music and they offer the same pressure to keep up as a real ensemble. Even better, you can rewind and repeat them as often as you like without the feeling you’re holding others up!

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The most important thing you can do to become a better ensemble musician is simply to get out there and play with others. If you wait until you feel you’re ‘good enough’ there’s a danger you’ll perpetually live in fear. Remember, in every ensemble there will be others who are equally worried about getting it wrong. We learn from our mistakes so go ahead and play, safe in the knowledge that every ensemble experience is going to help you develop as a musician.

Do you have ‘self rescue’ strategies I haven’t mentioned?

If there are things you do in rehearsals to help you keep going which I haven’t covered I’d love to hear about them. Strategies which seem obvious to one person may not be instinctive to others and I’d love it if we can all learn from each other. Please do leave a comment below with your favourite musical survival techniques.

The Practice Files

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a love/hate relationship with practising at various times in my musical life. It’d be wonderful if we came fully formed to our chosen instrument, but the simple fact is it takes time to build up skills. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the concept of needing 10,000 hours of practice at anything to become world class in that skill. He offers examples as diverse as Bill Gates’ computer programming skills and the Beatles’ time spent performing hundreds of concerts in Hamburg. This theory doesn’t take into account natural talent (which Gladwell notes is undoubtedly useful) but does reveal the importance of repetition in the process of honing any skill.

For most musicians the motivation behind practising isn’t to become world class. For some this is the aim, but the rest of us have other ideas…. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Why do we practise?

It’s important to have an understanding of your motivation when it comes to practising. After all, it’s usually a means to an end rather than practising for its own sake. These are some of the reasons I practise, but no doubt you’ll have your own motivations:

• Improving my technique - for instance, speeding up a difficult passage or expanding my breath control.

• To learn new repertoire - this one’s a big motivator. Life gets very dull when you perpetually stick with the same pieces of music.

• Working on new skills. When I first went to music college I spent many hours improving my legato articulation, which in turn helped me to master double tonguing.

• Preparing for a performance - this one’s uppermost in my mind right now, as I polish up tricky passages in readiness for a concert next week.

• For fun! Yes, even practising can be fun and there are times when I’ll rip through unfamiliar repertoire just for the heck of it.

Always have a pencil handy when you’re practising and don’t be afraid to use it!

How to practise well

There are endless elements to practising, but if you want to make real progress the most important thing is the quality of your practice. It’s all very well endlessly repeating a passage, but if you’re not taking care to listen to what you’re doing with self awareness it becomes rather pointless. It’s easy for practice to be counterproductive if done in the wrong way.

Let’s look at a few of the strategies you can use to ensure your practice is of the highest quality:

How much practice is enough?

The simple answer is, it depends! A budding professional pianist, studying at a conservatoire, may need to do six hours a day - partly to learn the large scale repertoire, but also to build up the stamina necessary to perform big pieces by Rachmaninov, Brahms and others.

For an amateur recorder player, practising for six hours will probably leave you with very soggy instruments and diminishing returns! While at music college I regularly did 3-4 hours practice each day but, looking back, I realise I didn’t always practise efficiently and could probably achieve the same results in less time now. If you reach the end of an hour’s practice and can see improvement in the piece you’re playing that’s a good result. Quality of practice is just as important as quantity.

Practise efficiently

If you’re juggling working life with recorder practice it can be difficult to achieve everything you hope for. If you find you run out of time, try to practise in a more focused way. On days when you’re short of time, perhaps zoom straight in on the bits you find difficult and save longer run throughs for days when you have more time.

Don’t try to take on the whole world at once

Always listen critically as you play and be sure to stop and sort problems out as soon as possible. Rather than trying to work on huge quantities of repertoire, sometimes challenge yourself to really master just a bar or two with polish so the gains you make really last. Then you can return with confidence at the next practice session and add to that progress.

Are you working towards a deadline?

If you’re preparing for an exam or a performance that’s when you really need to knuckle down and practise effectively. If you don’t have a deadline in the near future don’t feel bad if you have off days - we all have practice sessions where nothing goes quite as planned!

Keeping motivated

Motivation is so important - without a clear desire and sense of direction it’s easy to get downhearted and lose your way. If you find yourself flagging, bear these points in mind:

Looking for new inspiration? Why not explore working from facsimiles of historical notation?

Don’t be afraid to try new things and explore. This might involve working on a different technical skill or reading through some unfamiliar repertoire. Have fun, trying something new and don’t be afraid to make a mess as you explore!

Don’t keep flogging a piece until you feel it’s perfect. Remember, perfection doesn’t exist - at least not for human beings! Sometimes you’ll reach a point where you have achieved all you can with the technical skills you currently have and that’s absolutely fine.

If you hit a wall with a piece of music, don’t be afraid to put it to one side for a while. Even when you stop working on something the music will continue to process in your subconscious. Countless times I’ve returned to a piece I worked on previously, only to find it’s improved in the intervening months - partly because my technique has improved through working on other things, and partly because it’s continued swilling around in my subconscious!

Ten tips for better practice

I’ll cover lots of these topics in more detail over the coming months, but here are ten quick ideas to help you focus your practice more efficiently.

1. Warming up. Don’t neglect this element of practising. Just as an athlete warms up their muscles, you need to limber up your fingers, awaken your diaphragm for deep breathing and relax your throat to make a truly beautiful tone. A few minutes spent on the fundamentals of technique can make a huge difference to the progress you make in what follows.

2. Scales and arpeggios. As a teenager I was a teacher’s nightmare - I hated scales with a passion and always left learning them until the last week or two before an exam! It was only as an adult I really learnt to appreciate what working on these simple patterns could do for my playing. If you’re not working towards an exam you don’t need to practise them in every key - instead pick the ones with keys which feature in the music you’re practising. Do you find them hard to memorise? Play them with music instead - at least then you’ll recognise the patterns when they appear in real music!

3. Choose repertoire strategically to focus on specific skills. That might be reading up an octave, playing music with a minim pulse or getting to grips with a new size of recorder. Pick a piece where you can really focus on one thing rather than trying to multitask all the time.

4. Don’t spend all your time at the bleeding edge of your capabilities. Sometimes it’s helpful to select a simple piece and focus on playing it with real polish. A slow melody gives you time to think about the beauty of your tone, or to concentrate on the quality of your finger movements.

5. Record yourself so you hear your playing as a third party. If you have a smartphone use the voice memo app to record a piece you’ve been working on. You’ll be amazed at the things you notice which slip past unheard while you’re in the throes of playing!

6. Keep a recorder out at all times (a plastic instrument is handy for this). If you have a particular weakness, pick the instrument up every time you pass by and spend 30 seconds working on whatever skill you’ve selected. This could be as simple as playing clean low notes, maintaining a relaxed throat or picking confident high notes out of thin air. Doing this several time a day can be a really good way to hone good habits.

7. Find a practice buddy. Then you can share pieces and explore duet repertoire. You’ll learn a lot by bouncing ideas off each other, and responding to one another as you play together. Challenge yourselves to work on different things and be honest about flaws you see in each other’s playing. You’ll each have different strengths and weaknesses.

8. Practise little and often. A short practice session (maybe even just a few minutes) will often be more effective than one big splurge once a week. Regular repetition of skills brings swifter progress. For many years I set myself the challenge of taking at least one new photo every day. Even on busy days, when I took just a handful of photos, this taught me something new and my photography skills improved more quickly than if I’d just got my camera out for holidays.

9. Find a routine. Think about how you work best elsewhere in life. Do you achieve the most in the morning? Then set aside a little time at the start of the day to practise, so it’s done before you get distracted by other jobs. Or maybe you prefer your practice to come at the end of the day as a respite from the stresses of life. There’s no single correct answer.

10. Structure your practice time. Good habits are developed through consistency and thoughtful repetition. Try building a regular pattern into your practice sessions - perhaps five minutes’ warm up, a selection of scales & arpeggios, followed by more detailed work on repertoire. This will help you build your technique efficiently.

Playing with others can be a great way to mix up your practice routine

Do you have to practise?

There’s no getting away from the fact that practice really does help you improve as a player. However, there will be times when you just want to get on and play. Many years ago a member of my class at a course boldly told me that she never practised. For her, playing with friends at her local Society of Recorder Players branch was enough and she had other ways she wanted to spend her free time at home. Who am I to say that’s wrong? Sometimes we all need some downtime, and if you have periods when you take a break from formal practice that’s fine!

Finally, remember this….

By definition, as an amateur musician you play the recorder for love rather than for a living. So your practice should also be a pleasure, not a chore! Yes, have clear aims for your practice when you want to really make progress. But equally, don’t be afraid to have fun too. Even the act of romping through some unfamiliar music in a rough and ready way will bring benefits and will blow the cobwebs away!

What are your practice conundrums?

In the coming weeks and months I’ll return to some of the points I’ve covered here, to help you become a more skilled practiser. Lots of you have already sent me suggestions and requests, but if you have a burning question please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or drop me a line via email, and I’ll build them into my future blog posts. Equally, if you’ve got a top practice tip you want to share, please do leave a comment below - let’s see if we can all help each other!