Tuning Slide 5.15- Teamwork as Harmony

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note.
— Steve Honey

The teamwork required of musicians is something we can

~ take for granted,
~ ignore (at our own peril), or
~ find ways to take hold of and learn to use.

It seems to me that musicians playing in ensembles of any size absolutely must find ways to build that teamwork. We all know that part of it is to learn to listen while we play, paying attention to the dynamics of the group, and learning how all the sounds meld together into a sound richer than the sound of any one instrument. A few years ago Esther Murimi wrote an article on the website for the Merriam School of Music highlighting nine lessons that musicians can give about successful teamwork. It came from members of a group called “A Far Cry”. Reflecting on music and life and how they can interact will almost always come to look at this. In my (sort-of) humble opinion, the lessons from musical teamwork are as significant as what can be learned from athletic teamwork.

Here are several of them, in italics, with my comments included between them.

• Play Your Part
      ⁃ The musicians [in the group] spend countless hours scrutinizing their individual parts so that they not only play their individual roles well but also to ensure their interpretation of the music is accurate. This requires a significant level of human thoughtfulness.

~~ I will be the first to admit that I don’t always know my part well enough I really have to. The quintet had a few new numbers and when we rehearsed last week I was not prepared on one of them. I thought I knew it well enough to get by at that rehearsal, but I didn’t. It was not that the part I was playing was difficult, it was how my part fits with the others. I was not prepared for that. I just could not put it together with the whole quintet sound. This week I am working at it and listening to a recording of the piece to get the feel of the overall fit. Teamwork!

• Don’t Compare
      ⁃ Although any good musician will have several external influences, he or she will ultimately need to let go of comparisons and make the music personal.

~~ There are all kinds of ways to make comparisons of ourselves. Sometimes it is to show how much better we are than others; then it can be how much worse we are (as an excuse to give up?); or it can be the style of some mentor or famous musician. Some of this might be helpful when trying to get the feel for something new or to learn a new style. In the end, though, what is YOUR style, not just you, but you and the group? Make it yours!

• Spend Your Energy Wisely
      ⁃ When a violist’s part is similar to that of the violin, the violist should put his or her energy into adding depth. In contrast, when a cellist’s part is a variation on the melody, he or she will try to echo the other instruments’ parts while giving it his or her own spin.
• Anticipate Needs
      ⁃ Musicians need to watch one another intently so they can sense where they are taking the music and how the rest of the group should support that.

~~ These two remind us that we are each to play our part- and sometimes our part isn’t the most important at that musical moment. Sometimes it is our task to support another part. My colleague trumpet player in the quintet and I were working on a couple pieces together one evening. We came to a certain place and I realized that what I was doing should not be played “forte” like the music indicated. I was a sound floor under a far more interesting first part. We decided that I should stay at no more than a “mezzo forte” to give the more interesting part something to build on. It worked- it was teamwork.

• Know The Score
      ⁃ When there’s no conductor to point out changes in the melodic or harmonic structure, each musician must fully understand what other players are doing so they can fully understand what they need to do to enhance the overall performance.

~~ The big band ensembles I have been playing with, like the quintet, do not have conductors. Our biggest issue can often become an understanding of the whole picture. No matter how good we may be at listening, what is happening in our part will often skew what we are hearing. How do the trumpets, whose sound goes out over the top of the band, help the sound merge into a balance? That’s where all of us working together in rehearsal can point out what any one of us individually is unable to hear. We often don’t know what is supposed to be happening in the score at certain points. We need to let each other know. Teamwork!

It is important to remember that each team is a unique blend of personalities, skills, and levels of ability. Teamwork takes those differences and helps us meld into a cohesive organization. Each team has a set of goals for that particular project, music, or performance. When we take the time to listen, distill the differences into strengths, and then put the parts into a whole, the vital importance of teamwork becomes the foundation. In music, business, athletics, or just plain old play, Ken Blanchard says it well:

None of us is as smart as all of us.

(Link for the nine lessons on teamwork.)

Tuning Slide 4.7-

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

The feeling of togetherness- not togetherness as in some rigid lock step, but togetherness as in dance- is vitally important in music making.
-Barry Green, The Mastery of Music

Barry Green is the author, with Tim Gallwey, of the classic book, The Inner Game of Music. His second book looked at The Mastery of Music: Ten Pathways to True Artistry. In this book Green expanded beyond the Inner Game ideas into developing “true artistry” in our music. Every couple weeks I am going to take one of these ten pathways and bring it to my life and the applications to the Tuning Slide goals.

In The Inner Game of Music Green talked about two of three disciplines than demands mastery. The first was the techniques, the second was concentration. These two are basic, essential, foundations of making music. The conflicts and agreements of our Self 1 which is always ready to remind us of our mistakes and Self 2 which is the innate and intuitive side that knows how to do it are the building blocks. The third discipline is developing what Green calls, “true artistry.” In my view this takes the technique and concentration and begins to develop musicality. To find these, Green looked at different instruments and different people who seem to live and even embody these 10 pathways. He interviewed them and put it all into this book. Let’s start the journey with Green.

Pathway #1— Communication: The Silent Rhythm (Ensembles and Conductors)
I am working under the assumption that we are musicians because we like to make music and that we practice so that we can do that with others. A solo recitals can be nice, but that isn’t really what making music is all about. Even practicing with a play-along CD doesn’t get to the real joy of music that playing in a combo or band can. In order to play well with others there has to be some way we learn to communicate with each other. There has to be some method, style, trick, or just plain intuition that leads us to do more than just be a collection of musicians doing our own things and hoping (or believing) it works together. And most of the time we have to do it without speaking, on the fly, in the midst of a piece.
Green calls this the “silent rhythm” that unites us in communicating with the audience. He calls it “non-verbal, rhythmic union.” Musicians playing in a group get into something called “entrainment.” They sense the rhythm of the music as played by their colleagues. No one is micromanaging the rhythm through conducting. They feel it. As the group locks into a pulse they become more in tune and more efficient and musical in their playing. Yes, there is a science behind it.

In 1665, Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens, inventor of the pendulum clock, was lying in bed with a minor illness and watching two of his clocks hanging on a wall…. He noticed something odd: No matter how the pendulums on these clocks began, within about a half-hour, they ended up swinging in exactly the opposite direction from each other.

Research has shown that the reason for what Huygens noticed is in vibrations (sounds) on the wall caused by the pendulums swinging works to move them into synch, in tune with each other. In reality this falling into synch is improving efficiency. The two pendulums are no longer working against each other. They are “in tune.” In order to get to that point as musicians we have to go back to the technique and concentration Green related to in the Inner Game. We have to know how to play the parts we have- mistakes, flubs, ineffective fingerings can get out of synch with the rhythm.

We must also give in to the group. We must cease being a lone musician who just happens to be playing with others and let Self 2 do its thing. Self 2 is not as worried about your own technique. Self 2 knows what you or I can do and just wants Self 1 to let us do it. Self 2 knows what’s needed- so let it happen. Distraction, whether by the hyper-critical or hyper-analytical Self 1 or a lapse in focus can easily get you out of synch. Concentration- mindfulness and surrendering to the music- keeps us on.

As we share that with each other, Green lets us know that we are receiving guidance from the music itself, from its pulses and chords, phrases and rhythm. In so doing we receive energy (those vibrations) from the music and our colleagues in the group. In Eastern philosophy there is the idea of “Qi” or “chi” as energy. (Hence Qigong and T’ai Chi). As we play in a group it is that same type of energy that is being shared, silently yet powerfully among us.

Green talked to both percussionists and conductors to explain this idea since it is they who must most fully embody that in the group for all of us. They can get the rhythm, or even set it and communicate non-verbally with the rest of us. As we all fall into it, the “groove” sets in and, well, then it “swings” no matter what the genre of music!

But it is not something that can be forced. One of the musicians Green talked to (Ralph Towner) called it a “zen thing— as soon as you think you have its you lose it.”

There are no secondary roles in music: everything you do affects the total music. So it is critical to be one hundred percent attentive to everything, all the time, and hear the whole as it evolves.

Is it any wonder that right behind “sound” is “rhythm” in the building of musicality? Green concludes:

We don’t just play notes: music is a live current, and we navigate it. This current can be shaped and gently guided, but not pinned down…. The moment we interfere too much, the music’s power, effectiveness, and flow will be disturbed…. We have to be silent, attentive, and sensitive to its shape. We have to intuit a silent rhythm that has the power to unite us. We each have unique capacities to respond to the music, and the better we understand, the more we feel, the closer we will come to the true spirit, and the more artistry we shall have to express.

Just like life.

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
— John Donne (1572-1631)

---

The Mastery of Music: Ten Pathways to True Artistry by Barry Green, chapter 1, pp 21-43.
(2003, Broadway Books.)

The Tuning Slide - Watching With Wow! and Insight

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Last week I talked about the  "Wow!" factor and how it is  important not to fall prey to it in the sense of being overwhelmed and not getting intimidated by the music (or other things.)  Well, this past week I came across a trumpet quintet video that blew me away. My first reaction was "Wow!" But as I kept watching I allowed the music to move me and my understanding to flow from it.

Here's the video. Take 7 1/2 minutes if you like to watch and then read on.

Oklahoma State (Division Winner) perform Toccata and Fugue in ...
Oklahoma State University win the Getzen Trumpet Small Trumpet Ensemble Division with “Toccata and Fugue in D minor (Bach)” at the 2015 National Trumpet Competition.Video - Michael Cano
Posted by Auckland City Brass Band on Thursday, September 24, 2015

My first thoughts- any brass group doing a decent job on a Bach transcription deserves the "Wow!" The music of J S Bach is always spectacular and moving. Bach touches so many sides of the human experience that one must allow the music to live on its own. Math and magic and amazingly well-constructed phrases make Bach untouchable. His "Toccata and Fugue" ranks among his greatest works. The toccata shows the "improvisational" touch and the fugue the polyphonic structures. Originally written for organ, a brass transcription has to take certain liberties. Any group wanting to perform it has to know the music and their place in it.

So what was it about this group that caught my attention and my "Wow!"

First, they just start out with such confidence. The opening phrase sings and in so doing lifted me up into the music from the word go. "Now that we have your attention...."

That took poise and confidence. So second I was aware that this group was comfortable with itself and its musicianship. They are performing at a competition, so they have worked hard to get to this point, but they don't appear in the least bit nervous. They are there and want you to listen to them. They like what they are about to do- and they want you to enjoy it, too. They also trust each other that the other people will do what they are supposed to do.

As they play, I noticed, third, that they are aware of each other no matter what is going on. Even when the one moves around to the opposite end the whole group is involved. Their body language throughout let me know that they were playing as a unit. More than a team, the unit moves together with all parts moving smoothly.

Fourth, and I know this may be part of watching on a computer monitor, at times it is difficult to separate which player is playing at any given time. That is part of the movement I mentioned above. But it goes beyond that into the smooth transitions from each musical phrase to the next. The handing-off of the melody is seamless.

 Next, fifth, when they are having to move around, change instruments, adjust the tuning, they do so with class. Part of that is the awareness of each other, but it is also, I think, that they are aware that even when they are not playing, what they do is part of the music. That is an often overlooked aspect of a public performance. Yes, people are there to listen to the music, but the performers can do things onstage that detract from that. These musicians are very aware of that and work very clearly to keep it to a minimum.

Everything else falls into place for me as I notice these aspects. It allows me to revel in the wonderful sound they present, the fine technique that is always evident, the deep knowledge of the music itself since they are not using music.  The entertainment value of the music is enhanced. The success of the group is in their relationship with each other and the music.

Instead of just going "Wow!" I found some things for myself, none of which is profound in and of itself. We all know about working together with others as "teams" and "units." We are all aware that we need to be sensitive to those around us and their part in what we are doing together. We agree that if we do not feel comfortable or competent with what we are doing, we will not succeed.

I may never play the Toccata and Fugue in a trumpet or brass quintet, but the inspiration of this performance will have an impact on what I do play- and beyond that- to how I interact with people every day.