The Most Important Question

Last week, Mr. Wilson, my like-a-dad-to-me-junior-high-school-band-director, said, “I was wondering this morning what people would say if you asked them what the most important question was that anyone ever asked them.”

“I know what your question was,” I said.

“Yep,” he said.  “My mother handed me my brother’s old horn and said, ‘Think you’d like to try to learn to play this trumpet and be in the band?’”

“Changed your life,” I said. 

“Yep,” he said.

He took that proffered trumpet, joined the band, and learned to play the devil out of that old horn.

Mr. Wilson’s mother’s question gave him friends he would have never otherwise met, a sense of belonging to something greater than himself, and a band director who became a father to him just like he became a father to me. 

Her question gave him direction to his life, a career he loved, an avocation as well as a vocation, and a way to serve. 

Her question led him to a position of leadership in his faith community: at almost 80, he’s still the Cantor and Director of Music at his church.

Her question even led him to his beloved wife of more than fifty years (a cute little bassoon player who became mother to his seven musical children).

Because he became a composer and arranger, the question that his mother asked Mr. Wilson lives on; both of the bands I play in have performed his compositions this year. 

Because he is a teacher, the question that his mother asked him lives on: he taught music to countless youngsters, a gift that has enriched the tapestries of their lives. 

Because he is a band director, the question that his mother asked him lives on; a thousand students, of whom I am one, grew up to be who they are in part because of who he taught them to be in lessons learned in the band hall, on the marching field, and hanging around in his office after school. 

So what’s the most important question anyone ever asked you? 

I don’t know what the most important question is that anyone ever asked me, but I do know this: the most important question that anyone ever asked my like-a-dad-to-me-junior-high-school band director- Think you’d like to learn to play this trumpet and be in the band?- turned out to be a question that changed my life and made me who I am today.

Thanks, Mr. Wilson’s mom.  We never met, but your question to your son changed my life.

A Tribute to Two Musicians

Many years ago, my friend, Harvey McIntyre, wrote:

Some thirty years ago as a high school student, I had worked my way up to first chair clarinet in the band, and as such, I had been asked to perform at some civic function in Big Timber (MT).  My accompanist for that performance was Elnor Overland, a man who’d worked his way through college playing piano in a movie theater during the era of silent movies; he’d later worked his way through Law School giving organ recitals with the world-famous Eddie Dunstetter.  In the jargon of the day, he could make that organ stand up and talk.

About two-thirds of the way through the Clarinet Polka, the easiest piece I played all night, my mind went completely blank.  In stark terror, I looked at Mr. Overland, and he just winked at me.  He then launched into an improvisation of my part until I’d regained my thoughts and composure and could play that wooden licorice stick again.  No one in the audience probably realized that a true professional had rescued a rank amateur that evening.  To this day, I am indebted to Mr. Elnor O. Overland, Attorney-at-Law, composer, organist, and friend for what he later told me that evening: “Anyone can make good under the best conditions; professionals do it under any condition.”

When I read Harvey’s story, I nodded my head in recognition.  That week, virtuoso flutist Dr. Jackie Flowers had agreed to play with me, an amateur clarinet player, at a cocktail-party fund raiser. We had selected several Bach and Mozart duets.  The guests were gabbing, and clinking, and yumming, and making all the noises that people make at cocktail parties.  I wasn’t expecting that.  I don’t know why I wasn’t.  I know people make a lot of noise at cocktail parties.  But I still wasn’t expecting it, so I started out a bubble off plumb. 

When we got ready to play, I sat down to Dr. Flowers’s left, which meant that the sound of her flute was projected away from me.  But I didn’t think about that.  Until we began playing.  Immediately I realized that I couldn’t hear Dr. Flowers’s flute.  Heck, I couldn’t hear my own clarinet over the party-goers’ noise.  On our third number, a particularly complex invention, I lost my place in the music.  I looked at Dr. Flowers in a panic.  She nodded and continued playing while I figured out where we were and joined her again.  Before the next number, she suggested we exchange places so I could hear her flute.  We did.

Afterward, I told her how embarrassed I was.  The consummate professional, she laughed and reassured me, saying, “No problem.  No one else even knew it happened.”  

That night, Dr. Flowers rescued me just like Mr. Overland had rescued Harvey many years before.

So Dr. Jackie Flowers, Connsumate Professional, accept my profound thanks and admiration.

And Mr. Elnor Overland, rest in peace.  You may be gone, but you are not forgotten.

 

 

Lessons My Band Director Taught Me: # 2 Never Be a Prima Dona

My junior high band director, Mr. Phillip Wilson, grew up in the moving business.  Founded by his late father, Wilson Transfer and Storage in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is still family-run nearly a century later. Mr. Wilson, who gave up his share of the business to be a band director, told me about one of the family's notable customers.

“When I was a little boy, we had three enormously rich and important clients: Mrs. Cyrus McCormick of International Harvester, Mrs. Frank Rand of Remington Rand/Sperry Rand fame, and Mrs. David Lippincott of the eponymous publishing company.

“All three were lovely women, but Mrs. McCormick and Mrs. Rand always came to the transfer to conduct their affairs in their chauffeur-driven limousines.  Mrs. Lippincott, who was probably the richest of the three, drove herself in her Studebaker.

“Once our foreman asked Mrs. Lippincott why she didn’t have a chauffeur drive her around in a limo.  She said, ‘I like my Studebaker because no one else likes them.’”  Then he added, “Mrs. Lippincott never gave a hoot about what other people thought.”

 Then Mr. Wilson told me a story.

“Because our house was on the property in front of the company headquarters and warehouses, we had an enormous driveway where the moving vans could come and go.  Addresses were not clearly marked on houses in those days, so taxi drivers would come to our house to find out where someone’s address was.  As long as they came to the door and knocked, we were happy to tell them what they needed to know.  But invariably while we were eating dinner, a taxi driver would pull up in the driveway and blast on his horn.  He expected us to come out of our house, go to his car window, and tell him what he wanted to know.

“Whenever that happened, one of my big brothers or sisters would stick their head out the back door and holler, ‘We don’t offer curb service!’  If the taxi driver got out of his car and came to the door, we were happy to help him.

“I was a little pitcher with big ears, so one day when I was about six, Mrs. Lippincott drove up to the loading dock in her Studebaker and honked her horn, I stuck my head out of the warehouse and hollered, ‘We don’t offer curb service!’

“The foreman across the yard came running as fast as his little short, fat legs could carry him scolding me all the way.  ‘That’s Mrs. Lippincott!’ he cried.  ‘We don’t say that to Mrs. Lippincott!  She can honk her horn for us to come out any time she wants!’

“Then Mrs. Lippincott climbed out of her car, and the foreman fell all over himself apologizing.”

“’Nonsense,’ said Mrs. Lippincott to the foreman.  “The child is right.  I am a perfectly able-bodied woman capable of getting out of the car to ask for assistance.  Don’t you dare scold him.  Leave him alone.’

“That endeared Mrs. Lippincott to me forever after,” said my band director.  “She was immeasurably rich, yet she was humble and never expected any special treatment.”

The point of this lesson my band director taught me?  You may be a first chair, but be an humble first chair.  Don’t expect special treatment and never be a Prima Dona.

Thanks, Mr. Wilson, for that life lesson.  Thanks, too, Mrs. Lippincott.  Rest in peace.

 

On Loss and Gain: Shelter Dogs and Life Changes

Two days ago when we adopted our new dog, Laird Woodrow the Wirehaired of the House of Gore-Lancaster, I did something that gave me pause at first, but in retrospect, I know was right.

Woodrow, then called Jack, shared a cage with a female named Allie; she seemed a couple of years older than he.  They had wire-haired-ish faces, but different coloration and body builds.  She was snow white with a large brown patch; he was retriever gold with an eggshell muzzle.  She was taller and leaner, her face pointier, her mustache more pronounced. He loved people; she didn’t approach.

On the day we adopted him, the shelter attendant had to drag Woodrow-To-Be outside to meet us.  Long strings of fear-saliva flung from his whiskers, and he flattened himself on the walkway as she dragged him. I’ve seen roadkill less pancaked. “Sorry,” the attendant said.  “He’s not leash trained.”

I said, “He’s probably scared without his cage-mate.”

“Oh,” she said, “That’s his sister.” 

Whoa. “I didn’t know that,” I said.  “Petfinder doesn’t say they are pair-bonded.  I don’t want to break them up, and we can’t take them both. So we better not take him.”

“That’s the problem,” said the lovely young attendant, “People say exactly what you said; everybody thinks they’re cute, but nobody wants to separate them, so they don’t get adopted.”

“I understand that.”

“But the bigger problem is that they’ve been here over three weeks.  The shelter director has passed them over for euthanasia twice.  They’ll both have to be put down soon.”

“Oh.”

“If you take Jack, Allie has a much better chance of getting adopted.  If you take him, she might be saved, too.”

Oh, I thought.  If they stay together, they’ll almost certainly both be euthanized.  If I take him, he’ll be saved, and she might be euthanized.  But she might not.  At least she’ll have a shot at being adopted.  We might save both dogs by taking one.

Meanwhile, Woodrow cowered in front of us.  But our dog Callie liked him immediately; she play bowed.  That was the first criterion: Callie had to like him. Tenderhearted Husband Don liked him, too.  That wasn’t much of a hurdle because Don’s a softie for dogs.  Dad commended Woodrow as a charming fellow, so the deal was done.  Dog Pound Jack was to become our Woodrow.  Allie would lose her brother, but because of her loss, she would have a real shot at being adopted, too.

The Jack/Allie Catch 22 has led me to think about the need for sometimes letting go of people, things, and old roles in order to embrace new joys that life has to offer. You see, two objects cannot exist in the same space at the same time. And once a space is made available, something must fill it up. Because Nature abhors a vacuum. That’s physics.  And metaphysics.

This year, I’ve had to let go of my role as a college professor.  Sometimes it’s been a struggle.  But making that space has allowed me to regain a role I had to sacrifice long ago: now, in the autumn of my life, I can once again say, I am a musician. 

This year I watched a widow let go of her grief and become a beaming young lover once again.

I watched a shy, friendless old woman let go of her solitary life and move into assisted living where she has learned how much fun sharing a meal with new friends can be.

I watched a man let go of a home he could no longer care for and thereby find that freedom from homeownership pulses with possibility.

So losing something offers the possibility of filling the vacuum with something new, and perhaps in its own way, better.

So this is my prayer for Allie, whose brother I took from her yesterday.

Creator God, to save our Woodrow, I have forced dear Allie to give up her brother.  I beg that Thou wilt transform her loss into gain; I beseech Thee to send her a person who will shower her with the love that we pledge to shower upon her brother.  And Lord, I beseech Thee to embrace with Thy peace all the dear shelter dogs who this day must die because they have no one to love them.

Amen.    

 

 

Finding Your Do-er: What a First Grader and His Teacher Taught Me About Retirement

Mrs. Moss, age 40, became a brand-new first-grade teacher in the elementary school where I had grown up.  In fact, she taught in the same classroom where I had attended first-grade, so I know that classroom, Room 4, well. 

The west end of Room 4 shared a boys' restroom with Room 5; the east end of Room 4 shared a girls' restroom with Room 3.  The classrooms and restrooms were like links in a chain.  By going from restroom to classroom to restroom, you could travel the entire wing without ever setting foot into the hall.

I've never seen another school with toilet facilities like this one, but having been a first grade teacher, I can attest to the handiness of the architecture.  A teacher could closely supervise the children using the toilet while still supervising the children who were at their desks.  She never had to leave the classroom to check up on someone who was ill or  lingering in the restroom.

One day, Mrs. Moss allowed six-year-old James to go to the toilet during class.  A minute later, an agonizing wail erupted from behind the boys' restroom door.  Good Lord, thought Mrs. Moss.  He's caught himself in his zipper!  She flew to the door, threw it open, and cast herself down beside the sobbing child to try to help extricate his tender flesh.

But nothing was stuck in the zipper.  Instead, James was grabbing desperately inside of his open zipper and wailing.

"What's wrong?" Mrs. Moss asked, and James threw himself into her arms.

"My do-er!"  he cried.  "I can't find my do-er!"

"What?" she asked, gently removing his arms from around her neck to try to assess the problem.

"I can't find my do-er!" he sobbed again, pointing to his zipper.  Then Mrs. Moss understood.  She unbuttoned James's pants and lowered them to his ankles.

"Sweetheart," she soothed, "You've got your underpants on backward."

Since I retired, I've thought a lot about James and Mrs. Moss.  About how terrified you feel when you think you've lost your do-er. About how important finding it is when you retire.

The president of my concert band told me recently that he had taken up playing percussion after he retired.  "I'd had a busy life as a Lutheran pastor," he said, "And suddenly I had nothing to do.  I didn't know how to fill my days, so I decided that I'd better find something to do.  I found band, and it made all the difference." 

A lovely retired nurse in the adult beginners band where I teach woodwinds told me the same thing.  She didn't know what to do with herself when she retired from years in neonatal intensive care.  Then she found New Horizons Band.  An experienced pianist, she decided she wanted to learn to play clarinet.  Her do-er went into high gear, and she's thriving.

People at the humane society thrift shop where I volunteer have told me their stories: after retirement, they didn't know what to do with themselves.  They felt lost. Worse, they felt Unmotivated. Unmotivated to learn anything new, like how to play pickleball or the tuba. Unmotivated to improve talents they'd always dabbled with, like writing or singing. Unmotivated to make the world a better place, like volunteering at the food bank with their church group, or raising money for shelter dogs with a bunch of like-minded strangers who might become friends. They couldn't find their do-ers. 

Then they'd met someone who did work at the thrift shop and suggested they try it, say one four-hour shift a month.  Or maybe two.  They'd tried it, liked it, and had found something to do.  Once they found something to do, they got motivated.  They found their do-ers.

So this is what James-the-First-Grader and Mrs. Moss taught me.  Sometimes when you think you've lost your do-er, it's still there. You just have to know where to look for it. 

That might mean having to tell someone else that you're afraid you've lost your do-er. That might mean asking them how they found their do-ers, and asking them to help you find yours.  And that might mean following their advice, even if they tell you to drop your trousers, step out of your underpants, and turn them around the right way.

Clarity in Woodwind Sound

                              Clarity in Woodwind Sound

The elements of good woodwind sound are stability, clarity, focus, color, and depth.  Today we will think about clarity. 

I had cataracts.  Little-by-little my world became fuzzy.  I didn’t notice at first.  Because my vision deteriorated at a snail’s pace, I thought I saw fine: my world was a lovely, soft blur of yellowish tones.

When I finally realized that I couldn’t read street signs well enough to be safe driving in unfamiliar territory, I had my eyes checked.  Out came the cataracts.

Suddenly, the world appeared in brilliant relief.  Each leaf on each tree stood out from the other leaves.  Trees were no longer a fuzzy, soft, comfortable blur, but individual leaves.  The edges were crisp and clearly separated from the empty space around them.  Some leaves appeared closer than other leaves!  “Good grief,” I thought.  “I knew that.  How could I have forgotten what things looked like in 3D?” 

Letters on signs stood out in crisp relief to the blank space around them.  They startled me.

The silver keys of my clarinet startled me as they contrasted with the shiny black of the granadilla.

Nothing was fuzzy.  I liked what I saw.  Crispness.  Definition. 

In addition, colors were no longer muted.  My cataracts were brown, so everything appeared yellowish-golden.  I told my hair stylist that my hair was turning yellow.  She said it was not.  I argued because I could SEE that it was turning yellow.  She shook her head.

I went to the dentist and complained that my teeth were turning yellow.  He said they were not.  I argued because I could SEE that they were turning yellow.  He shook his head.

When the cataracts came out. I was startled to look in the mirror and see my white hair and teeth.  “Oh,” I said to myself.

My world went from a fuzzy, muzzy, muffled, muted blur to a crisp world of objects that nearly sparkled in sharp relief to the space around them.

Woodwind clarity of sound is like that: unfuzzy, unmuzzy, unmuffled, unmuted.  (This makes a nice chant to say over and over with the accent on the second syllable. Try it.)

With clarity, each note of the clarinet or other woodwind stands in sharp relief to the nanoseconds of silence that surround it.  The sound is tight and contained, the edges defined with laser-finesse.  The sound sparkles, whether the timbre is light and bright or dark and mellow.  

Sound with poor clarity- fuzzy, muzzy, muffled, and muted- blends into the silence.  The nanosecond where sound begins and silence ends lacks definition.

Think about the trumpet player who sits behind you.  The one to whom you occasionally say, “Can’t you point that thing in some other direction?”  He probably has a clear sound.  Brass players have different clarity problems than woodwinds do.  Now think of his sound when he stuffs the mute in his horn.  (Which we wish he would do more often.)  Now you can’t easily tell where the sound begins and the silence ends.  They lack definition.

I asked my band-director-dad, Phillip Wilson, what was technically happening when sound lacked clarity: was fuzzy, muzzy, muffled, and muted.  He said that the harmonics were out of proper proportion, that clarity of sound was proportionately proper harmonics.  Every sound has a fundamental frequency, and then the harmonics, which are multiples of that frequency: the frequency doubled, trebled, quadrupled, quintupled, sextupled, sextupled, etc.  When the frequencies are not in proper proportion, we get FM3 (fuzzy, muzzy, muffled, and muted) sound.

Dr. David Griesinger (www.davidgriesinger.com, noted Harvard-trained physicist/acousticist/concert-hall-designer, said that clarity is the quality that allows us to perceive distance, timbre, and location of a sound. 

I put these four ideas together to come up with the following working definition: Woodwind Clarity, the opposite of a fuzzy, muzzy, muddled, muted tone, is the quality that allows us 1) to demarcate the edges of the tone from its surrounding silence and 2) identify the distance, timbre, and location of the tone.  Clarity is the result of proper harmonic proportion.

I am proud of my definition.  Use it at will.  Just be sure that your woodwind sound is clear, however you define it.

 

Stabillity in Clarinet Sound

Stability in Clarinet Sound

The five dimensions of clarinet sound are stability, clarity, focus, color, and depth. Today we consider stability. 

Think of a one-quart water balloon as your sound.  Lovely thing.  Hold the water balloon in your hand.  Feel how satisfying it feels.  Stability is one of the characteristics that makes it beautiful.

Stability in clarinet sound is a measure of how consistent our sound is. Consistency.  Reliability.  Dependability.  We want all our water balloons to look and feel alike.  Stability and flexibility are opposing forces that create a delicious dialectical tension.  But we must achieve stability first.  We leave the flexibility to the veteran jazz musicians. They have mastered creating stable water balloons, so they have earned the right to create flexible ones that suit their purposes.

Stability manifests in four ways:

1.    Stability of tone shape

2.    Stability of tone color

3.    Stability of tone response

4.    Stability of pitch 

Stability of Tone Shape: Imagine the tone coming out of the bell of your horn as an acute angle.  As it moves forward toward the audience, the sides continue on from the angle of origin.  If you produced an angle of 15 degrees, you have a narrow tone shape.  If you produced an angle of 45 degrees, you have a wide tone shape.  Hold your pointer finger and your middle finger together.  Then spread them out to make an acute angle of 45, then 30, then 15 degrees to imagine your tone shape.  

We want to produce the same size angle every time.  A 30 degree angle is good for our purposes.  Think of a triangular balloon blowing out of the end of your horn.  We want all the balloons to be the same angle, so at ten feet away, we will have the same-sized base of the triangle.  We don’t want to produce a balloon with a 15 degree angle, and then a 41, and then an 18, and then a 23.  That would be ugly.  A cascade of 30 degree angle balloons would be beautiful.

Stability of Tone Color:  Also called timbre (tam-ber), tone color is what makes two instruments playing the same pitch at the same volume sound different.  Tone color is what makes a clarinet sound like a clarinet.  A clarinet and an oboe are distinguishable because of their different tone colors. A clarinet tone color should be clear, warm, and woody.  An oboe tone color should be nasal, pointy, and woody.  Either can be dark or bright, delicate or forceful. Or a whole dictionary of opposite, yet acceptable, characteristics.

Tone color is the result of the harmonics, the multiple sound waves that the instrument produces.  Think of the harmonics as thin strips of balloon rubber stacked upon each other, each strip cut into more pieces than the one above it.  The top rubber strip is whole; the second, cut in half; the third cut into thirds; the fourth cut into fourths, etc.  They work together to create the harmonics of the sound we hear by vibrating at different speeds as we blow.  The whole rubber strip, the slowest sound wave, is the fundamental tone, and may be called something like warm.  The shortest strip vibrates the fastest. The more short waves in the harmonics we hear, the brighter the sound.  We want to master the art of making our tone color consistent so that the fundamental wave is always the same speed. The harmonic waves will follow its lead.

Stability of Tone Response refers to the relationship between the amount of energy we put into the sound and the way the sound comes out of the instrument. Stable tone response means that if I blow a quart of air into the balloon, the balloon fills with a quart of air.  I don’t have good tone response if I blow a quart of air, yet only a pint gets into the balloon.  Effort in, tone out.  Blow a tightly controlled stream of air with good breath support, get a lovely pianissimo.  Blow a large stream of air with good breath support, get a resounding forte.  Pianissimo is harder.

Stability of Pitch: Stability of pitch can mean that we hold a sustained note steady without letting it flatten or sharpen.  The frequency of the sound is the same from the moment we start playing the note until we release it.  Stability of pitch can also mean that our G in the chalumeau register, throat register, clarion register, and (Heaven forbid!) altissimo register all sound like the same note save for the octave.  Our tendency is to play some of those G’s sharp, some flat, and some on pitch.   We want to produce balloons that are consistent, not some flat, some overfilled, and some exactly the right size.

We want to have stability to make our beautiful water balloon sound: stability of tone shape, color, and response, and stability of pitch.  Consistency.  Reliability.  Dependability.   Good characteristics in a friend.  Good characteristics in a woodwind sound.

To be in Band: A Second Chance

In eighth grade, I realized how much my two best girlfriends wished they were in band like me.  Band was the center of my world, and my heart ached that they had nothing in their lives like I had in mine.

Frankie was musically illiterate.  Shelly wasn’t.  She was a good pianist.  But we didn’t have a piano in band.

I occasionally brought Frankie and Shelly to the band hall after school when no sectionals were scheduled.  My band director, Mr. Phillip Wilson, welcomed everybody into our band family.

When junior high graduation loomed, Mr. Wilson said, “Bring Frankie and Shelly to see me after school on Friday.”  He would not tell me why.

Frankie and Shelly were nervous that Mr. Wilson had summoned them.  So was I.  When the three of us arrived, he offered them a chair. They sat. He asked them if they would like to be in high school band.  He explained that they could both become percussionists: it wasn’t too late.  He told Shelly that her piano background would allow her to play glockenspiel, xylophone, marimba, and chimes.  He told Frankie that she could learn to play drums, cymbals, triangle, woodblock, maracas.  They were stunned.  So was I.  My Mr. Wilson could make this happen.  My friends would be part of the high school band. 

We all showed up together the first day of marching band practice.  The high school band director never learned that this was the first day of band for them. They worked hard, and each learned to make important contributions to the band. 

But the crowning glory was when our band played Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.  We needed a harpist.  And who could quickly learn to play harp?  Only one person in the band: Shelly.  And she played like the angels in heaven.

So ever since I was in eighth grade, I’ve had a heart for kids who wanted to be in band but never had the opportunity.  Maybe they lived on farms and had to milk the cows early and late.  Or they couldn’t afford an instrument.  Or their families thought band was only for sissies.  And they didn’t have a Mr. Wilson to give them an entry point into band in tenth grade. 

I saw one of those kids a few months ago.  At 3:00 in the afternoon, we went to The Shack in Jessieville for the world’s best hamburger. School let out while we were there.  Three children came in, probably seventh graders.  They sat at the counter.  The kids on either end had a musical instrument case and a cell phone.  They ordered sodas and candy.  The child in the middle had no instrument case and no cell phone.  He asked only for a glass of water. 

I thought, “That’s a child whose friends are in band, but he can’t be.  I wish I could help.  I wish Mr. Wilson could tell me what to do.”

I haven’t seen those children again, but several months later, God had something new in store for me. 

The president of our local New Horizons Band (New Horizons International Music Association) asked me to teach woodwind sectionals.  New Horizons is an international organization for senior citizens who played in a school band and want to play again.  Or for senior citizens who always wanted to learn to play an instrument but never had the opportunity; they missed the entry portal in sixth or seventh grade.  They couldn’t afford an instrument.  Or they had to work on the farm.  Or their families thought band was for sissies.  And they didn’t have a Mr. Wilson to give them a second chance at an entry portal in high school.

Me? Teach woodwind sectionals? I was stunned.  I am a good, solid player.  I know a lot about the theory of woodwinds because I’m a scholar by nature.  And I am a teacher by trade… 36 years by trade.  But I’m not a music teacher, and I am CERTAINLY not a virtuoso. 

I said I would think about it.

The next week, a dozen people came up to me and said, “I’m so glad you’re going to be our new woodwind teacher!” 

I said, “Uhhhhhmmmm…”

So that’s how it happened.  I started today teaching God’s grey-haired children who never got to be in band.  The little girls who sat at school assemblies enraptured by the band that they could not be part of.  The little boys who watched the band march by and wanted to touch the bright, shiny trumpets singing the fanfares.  The children who cried in their beds because band itself had passed them by. Because they didn’t have a Mr. Wilson to help them.

So I suppose, through the voice of our New Horizons president, I heard a voice calling in the night. I asked, “Is it I, Lord?”

Apparently, this time, it is.

 

The Five Dimensions of Woodwind Sound

The Five Dimensions of Woodwind Sound

If we don’t know where we are trying to go, we don’t know how to get there, and we don’t even know when we’ve arrived.  I’ve lived a lot of my life like that.

For years, I didn’t know what a good clarinet sound was.   Good Clarinet Sound was my desired destination.  I knew people and clarinets and reeds that I thought had a good sound, and people and clarinets and reeds that I thought had a bad sound, but I couldn’t tell you the difference between the two.  The first I liked; the second I did not.  And I couldn’t tell you why.  Which made me feel stupid. 

I knew that some days, my sound made me happier than it did on other days, but I had no idea what I was doing one day and not doing the next to make that beautiful sound I wanted to make.  Which made me mad.

Over the years, I have kept up with new information about clarinets on the internet.  Some of the information I share in this post is widely repeated throughout other sites.  Other information has stayed in my head, but I have no idea where I read it on the internet.  I am responsible for none of the technical information here.  I am only putting it together on posts on this blog for the convenience of my woodwind friends in New Horizons Band.  Neither they nor I are young, and some of us don’t have time to search all over the internet to find out what we want to know about making a beautiful sound with our woodwinds.  Most of us are over sixty.  Some are over eighty.  Which gives me a sense of urgency.

In this post, I address the five dimensions of woodwind sound.  Because I limit my posts to 800 words, I will address the dimensions in separate posts.  This post identifies the dimensions and provides ways to remember them.

The five dimensions of woodwind sound are

·        Clarity

·        Focus

·        Depth

·        Stability

·        Color

I offer three mnemonic devices to remember the five dimension of good woodwind sound: a visualization exercise, a story, and a song.

The Visualization Exercise

Close your eyes.  We are going to hunt for a beautiful, rare black pearl.  Slip on your diving gear. 

First, we must be sure that the water is still.  We won’t go into the sea if the waves are high.  We want still, stable water.  Stable water represents stability in the woodwind’s sound.

We drop over the side of the ship and go down, down to the depths of the ocean floor where the oysters live.  Water depth represents depth of sound.

If the water is murky, we cannot see the oysters.  Fortunately, the water is clear.  The clear water represents clarity of sound.

The ocean floor is dark, so we use our small, high-beam, highly-focused light.  The highly-focused light shows us one oyster at a time.  The highly-focused light represents focus of sound.

The oysters stand open before us.  We want only one pearl: a black pearl.  Straight ahead we see exactly the right color:  a rich, rare, black pearl.  The color of the pearl represents the color of our sound.

 

The Story

A Woodwind Fairy Tale

The beautiful French Queen Clarinet  and the handsome German King Saxophone  ruled the marvelous, magical, musical  Land of Band.

Queen Clarinet and King Sax wore beautiful colors: she, a cape of grenadilla black draped with silver keys, and he a beautiful silvery-brass robe studded with pearl-white keys.

 Queen Clarinet and King Sax had stability, consistently the same size and shape, unlike the unstable Jester Trombone, who would change his size from short to long, long to short in the blink of an eye!  A real slippery fellow, he!

Queen Clarinet and King Sax were focused.  They sang a focused song, unlike the Tympani Sisters, whose sound made wave after wave like a stone dropped in the water.  Very unfocused, the Tympani Sisters. 

Queen Clarinet and King Sax spoke with clarity so everyone could understand what they were saying, unlike that rude Knave Trumpet, who could speak with clarity, but often stuck a mute in his mouth, and who on earth could tell what he was saying then? 

And Queen Clarinet and King Sax had depth of character, unlike the shallow Fairy Triangle, who often acted like an alarm clock gone berserk!

Ergo, to the chagrin of the brasses and the percussion, Queen Clarinet and King Saxophone ruled the beautiful Land of Band.

 

 

The Song

To the Tune of Frere Jacques (Are You Sleeping, Brother John)

 

We have stability,

Clarity and focus,

Color and depth,

Color and depth.

We have stability,

Clarity and focus

Color and depth,

Color and depth.

May the words of this post help you bring beauty into the world through the voice of your woodwind.