Clams & Concentration

[PC]

Hello,

I've noticed in my playing that more and more, nowadays, clams happening in performances do so on easy, relaxed notes while the difficult passages or high notes work out fine, if rehearsed properly.

I would assume this is due more to concentration lack in these passages as opposed to concentration peaks on the difficult ones (maybe excitement, adrenaline vs. apathy?).

Another explanation might be not enough overall rehearsing, focusing just on the hard parts and neglecting attention on details in obviously easy passages in the practice room. One thing I have noticed, for example, is that I might use sloppy fingering for the easy notes, losing finger-mouth coordination leading to a clam. Or, sometime, air support is lost when we think we reach an easy passage.

Overall, I think I can subdivide clams to these classes:
1) Bad timing between air, tongue and lips. Each of these was correct (i.e. clean attack, right lip tension and full air support) but did not happen simultaneously.
2) Not enough successful runs through to memorise (subconsciously) the correct playing mechanics (as rightly stated by many here, performance time is not when we should run checklists and fine-tune mechanical components of our playing), leading to (subconscious) guesswork for each succeeding interval, possibly leading to surprises.
3) Overall lack of air support between the notes, altering dangerously the balance between air, lips and tongue (I will thus compensate with increased lip tension and rely on percussive tonguing for the air, which works fine up to a point).
4) The opposite: relying too much on air with the lips too relaxed, losing focus and efficiency.

Ladies & gents, any thoughts, opinions, remedies?

Pierre.

[trickg]

I think that the clams are due in part to lack of concentration.

At one point in my playing career, I was doing quite a bit of brass quintet and stage band and I would notice that during performances of these two ensembles that I got to a point where I hardly clammed at all, yet in regular rehearsal and practice, the clams were more prevelant.

At the time, I was playing for hours and hours every day and I really didn't have anything else to distract me. I didn't have a car. I didn't have a wife/girlfriend/children. I was a barracks rat so I didn't even have regular home maintenance to worry about. The only bill that I had was a telephone calling card. My life was pretty simple with few outside stressors to distract me and in retrospect I really believe that my successes behind the horn were made easier because of that.

Just my humble opinion. Good post!
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Patrick Gleason
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[tcutrpt]

I think it is unnecessary for the most part to practice the "simple" parts in the music, but you must keep a high level of concentration throughout a piece of music. I find that when I make mistakes, it is most often due to losing focus. Daily fundamental practice should take care of the muscle memory skills needed to play "easy" passages, depending on how you define easy. Working on the hard parts until they become easy is important. I think practicing easy parts would only waste time that could be spent better on other parts of the music or different skills that need refinement. Just keep that concentration high, and the easy parts will be just that, easy!

Matt

[maynardwannabe]

I've got to agree with you on this one. Usually when I have a nice prepared piece I've played the whole song over and over and over and over and (so on and so forth) until I get to the point where I can play it all, hard and easy, flawlessly.

It also helps if you just break the piece down into sections, and practice those sections instead of the whole piece when you're having trouble. That way you cover the easy parts (before or after) as well as the harder parts.

The biggest problem I have lies in sightreading... I can't tell you the number of times I sight read something (Verdi! Argh!) and get the ridiculous rythyms that even my teacher expects me to get wrong right, and don't hold a whole note nearly long enough. I think that's the sort of thing that players need to work on more. You can't over-focus on the hard parts, because then that's all your mind can jump between--Your mind has to take the road in between, so to speak.

Just my two cents.

[dwm1129]

Sub-divide all the time, if you have 1234... 1234.... 1234...... going through your head you don't have time to think about being nervous or missing parts, it keeps your mind alert and will allow you to correctly play the difficult parts as well as the easy ones perfectly, concentration is practiced and can be improved..work on it!

[walter]

[ This Message was edited by: walter on 2002-09-20 08:14 ]

[dwm1129]

What I do Walter is sub-divide musically....whats going on in my head is always musical....the sub-division is being done on the pitch I am playing. It's kind of hard to describe without singing, but it helps me keep perfect time and pitch, while still being able to play musically.