Pedagogically speaking - Hot Springs

What you are looking at is the combination of two photos, I assume taken by Columbus State student Andy Hudson, as Steven Naimark demonstrates, in his final moments, what happens if one drinks a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke and then swallows four mint-flavored Mentos.

Actually, he is teaching the other apprentices (pictured are Karen Pearce, Kevin Pearce, Kelly Austermann and Sam Ross in the foreground) how to circular breathe. I have already heard from a few of them that they made quick progress on their circular breathing skill after Naimark's demonstration.

The photo and story above are the attention-getter, and now on to what I really wanted to talk about: the pedagogical focus of the festival for clarinetists. Maybe it is the challenges posed by the large and/or boomy rooms that the festival uses for its concerts, 

but more likely just the typical issues that an ORCHESTRAL clarinetist faces: being HEARD, and with CLARITY. You need a sound that projects at a distance, and the only way to practice being a clear communicator as a wind player, is to play in an orchestra, and get feedback from someone sitting in the audience. 

During the school year, the majority of my teaching is done in a small teaching studio, so for me, this is a great learning experience, or at least I am reminded of 

THE LITTLE THINGS THAT TURN INTO BIG THINGS in an orchestral environment, such as:

(1) unclear attacks make playing sound tentative and late

(2) fast diminuendos make many notes hard to hear

(3) articulation needs to be much clearer and pronounced than most players think

Those are just a few comments for all you aspiring players to think about. Please forgive the CAPS and the strange line breaks, just don't want the important things, those things I might emphasize in a lesson, to get lost in the middle of a paragraph.

HSMF...what?...HSMF: signage in Arkansas

Then there is the town, a wacky tourist town. The small city of Hot Springs, AR might not be culturally unique for its part of the country, but its magnolia tree-lined main drag, never fully replete of the sound of freshly-detailed Harley Davidsons and "salt of the earth" locals, its unkempt charm both intrigues and disgusts.

About the photo above: of course, the person who typeset the billboard at the church fully understood the joke being made. However, this was the questions that I heard more than one festival participant ask, and that might sound offensive, that these guests of the city would assume that the local's weren't sophisticated enough to get the joke, but many of us had enough encounters with the locals that would make us wonder.

"TODA'S SPCIAL, Humbergers, $4.99" - I read this, scrawled on a blackboard sign placed outside of a Mexican restaurant just a few blocks from the school where we all stayed. But--before you might assume that an adult without a high school diploma wrote this, here is some context. This restaurant was only open occasionally, managed or owned by a single family. A mother and her two children would be working when it was open, and the daughter, who seemed to love "playing restaurant," took my order when I ate there, and her writing on the tablet was full of misspells and backward letters. Maybe she was ten years old, maybe younger. She had fun making change, coming to the table and asking "how is everything?" and when I saw the blackboard, I recognized her handwriting immediately. I have noticed this about Arkansas...my guess is that in most states, kids under 16 are not allowed to work at food establishments, but AR seems unique in this regard.

Hot Springs Music Festival Auditions for 2010

Since I will likely refer prospective apprentices to this blog, let me just outline here what I like to hear in the audition CDs. I prefer more than 10 minutes of material, a combination of solo repertoire (with or without piano) and some orchestral excerpts. I feel the most confident that I know your playing at its best if the recording is made in a performance space like a concert hall, but the microphone is placed 10-20 feet from the clarinet. Sounds too close if you record in a practice room, sounds too far if you are in a concert hall, with your minidisc recorder sitting on a seat in the middle or back of the hall. 

The apprentices for 2009 were, in left to right order in the photo above: Karen Pearce, Katy, TX, Kelly Austermann, St. Louis, MO, Steven Naimark, Tempe, AZ, Sam Ross, Denton, TX, Andy Hudson, Columbus, GA, and Taryn O'Neil, Evanston, IL. It was great to work with a variety of students from a variety of studios. Their teachers include: Lawrie Bloom, Lisa Oberlander, Robert Spring, Yehuda Gilad, James Campbell, John Scott, and myself. This is an opportunity for all to exchange ideas, which we all benefitted from. 

An invitation to the festival as a clarinetist is a two-year proposal, apprentices may return for a second year with no re-application hassle. Six apprentices is unusual, though. Next year, my guess is that there will be four or five. 

Hot Springs Music Festival

First things first about the Hot Springs Music Festival. What is it and what is it like? What you are looking at above is the most typical rehearsal, an orchestra rehearsal, in the most used venue at the festival, the "fieldhouse", at a former high school, once the high school where Bill Clinton attended. Yes, it looks like a gymnasium...it is pretty much a gymnasium. Amazing though, the recording team knows just how to record in there, and all the recordings they make sound quite excellent. The fieldhouse is well air-conditioned, so it is comfortable, and pitch problems aren't a distraction from the music making.

Most days, there is an rehearsal in the morning and one in the afternoon, and a concert in the evening. About 60% of the events are orchestral, and 40% chamber music. This year was a great year for clarinet, Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony, Beethoven's fourth symphony, Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe Suite no. 2, Mozart Gran Partita, Mendelssohn's Walpurgis Night, Beethoven Septet, and an early, chamber music version of DeFalla's Three-Cornered Hat ballet. There were six clarinet apprentices, and each one got some opportunities to play principal clarinet.