Resources for Clef Practice

Resources for C Clef Practice

Before I leave this subject for a while, I thought I would list some of the resources I will be using to practice open score C clef reading for the next few years in preparation for the Fellowship exam, on the odd chance that another interested organist could profit from it as well.

1. Preparatory Exercises in Score Reading by R.O. Morris and Howard Ferguson

This is the volume that I've completed up to the last chapter at the moment. Though it is primarily designed to prepare the student for the difficult task of score reading, it serves as a very valuable study of the C clefs in different arrangement. After these first hundred exercises, you should have a fairly good grasp of the Soprano, Alto, and Tenor clefs. If you become very secure with those first hundred exercises, then you may proceed into the final chapter which provides exercises in substituting these clefs for transposing instruments. Though it is not required for the AGO exams, score reading is a useful skill and it would be well to cultivate it. But even if you skip the last chapter, this book serves as a valuable primer in the most often used C clefs.

 

2. Harmonized Chorales  by J.S. Bach

I have several volumes of the Harmonized Chorales by Bach lying around but they are all in the "condensed easy to read on 2 staves" version using Treble and Bass clefs. Editions that use four staves and the original clefs (SATB) are harder to find but not impossible. If you go to imslp.org then you can find over a hundred of them in open score. After the cost of paper and ink, it's still a cheap investment for good practice material.

These chorales make for good C clef practice because of their brevity and simplicity. The voices are independent but not to a great degree. A couple of these every morning will do a body good.

3. Fiori Musicali by Girolamo Frescobaldi

Published in 1653, this is a volume of organ music consisting of three organ masses and a couple of extras thrown in. I'll let Frescobaldi have a few words from his letter to the reader:

" Concerning this book, I should like to say that my main purpose has been to assist organists."

"I consider it of great importance for the player to practice playing from score, not only because I think it necessary for those who wish to intensively study the form of these compositions, but particularly also because it is a test which distinguishes the genuine artist from the ignorant."

"Trial and experiment will prove to him who would progress in this art, the truth of what I say! He will see how much profit he can derive from it."

I have a Barenreiter edition of Fiori Musicali which I like very much but it is again condensed to two staves for ease of reading again. While I understand this choice for sales, I wish there was an easily available version in open score, as the composer desired. On checking imslp.org again, we see that there is an open score version of the first edition which is almost unreadable due to the printing process. There is also a handwritten copy from the 18th century available in open score but again, the quality makes for difficult reading. Mind you, we are practicing reading of C clefs in open score, not reading from a messy score.

Seeing no easy solution, I've decided to make my own. I'm a third of the way through inputting the score into Finale in open score and should be completely through in a couple more days. After I finish this, I plan on making it as presentable as I can and uploading it to imslp.org to aid any musicians with similar needs. Here's the opening toccata:

3. The Art of Fugue by J. S. Bach

Again we return to the great contrapuntist for our practice. Fiori Musicali us something to practice that was more difficult and varied than the Chorale Harmonizations. Now we take the difficulty up a few notches. The Art of Fugue is almost exclusively 4 voices and can all be played by two hands with or without pedals with just a couple of exceptions. It makes fine reading material because of the difficulty of playing all four parts together and the great independence of the lines. It's also available in the original open score form on imslp.org.

Beyond this, I'm a little hazy on where to go but these pieces should take some time to get through. Afterwards, I do have an idea:

Up to this point, the C clef studies have been used to practice only one procedure, that of reading the notes on the clef literally. Once this is as steady as a rock, we can start introducing additional complications to help with different subjects. When transposing a line, we can mentally substitute a clef and a key signature to play in a different key at sight. However, we will usually have to shift up or down an octave from where the clef normally would indicate. We'll go through this process in greater detail later, but suffice to say that once we start transposing with clefs, we have to start imagining things that aren't really there. It's not just a literal reading process; now it has an imaginary element. The one lesson we should take from this is: one should completely master the real, literal process of reading before adding extra imaginary elements. These techniques hinge on a mastery of the normal reading of these clefs.

And I think that's all to be said about that. 



The Culmination of Clefs and the Future of Figures

The Culmination of Clefs

 

Well, Christmas has come early this year. A few months ago I started working through the Preparatory Exercises in Score Reading as an aid to learning to read the C clefs (Alto, Tenor, and Soprano specifically) and set myself the goal of reaching Chapter K by Christmas time, and I officially reached it yesterday. Hallelujah!

 

In case I never mentioned it, Chapter K is the moment when the exercises start taking the form of the Fellowship (FAGO) test question in which the organist is asked to sight read an open score in C clefs. The exercises of this book started with two staves, using two different clefs and gradually introduced the Alto, Tenor, and Soprano clefs into the staves, studying each one individually and then in combination with the others. Then a third stave was introduced using differing combinations of C clefs among them. I still recall what a headache three staves was at first, keeping up with the changing clefs in each staff.

 

After this was mastered, we moved onto four staves in a string-quartet sort of style, in which we had two Treble staffs, an Alto staff, and a Bass staff (that often moved into Tenor clef). After the difficulty of four lines at once was passed, we moved to a transitional form where Treble was on top, Alto and Tenor were in the two middle staves, and Bass was on the bottom. Most of these exercises seem to have been taken from late renaissance vocal pieces so it was very enjoyable to work on them.

 

Then we finally hit section K, where all of the exercises have the same layout: 4 staves, Soprano clef on top, then Alto clef, then Tenor clef, and Bass clef on the bottom. This is the standard layout for vocal scores of late renaissance and baroque times, the idea that each voice had its own clef that would minimize the use of ledger lines.

 

I recall attempting this section several times earlier on and those attempts ranged in quality from total failure, to extreme awkwardness. I just couldn't keep four lines continuous in my mind all with differing points of reference given by the clefs. As it stands today, I play rather cautiously but without much difficulty. With further practice over the next three years (till it's time to take the test) I should be reading it with ease. Of course, I will have to find new practice material beyond this book now, but I have a sort of plan:

 

I'll begin with taking the Chorale Harmonizations of Bach and find a copy which has them in this open score format and I'll practice sight reading at least one a day for a time until they become pretty easy. After that point, I'm not exactly sure what the best option will be; perhaps I should read through the vocal parts of some of his Cantatas as they are a much more active style than simple chorales. I do know that eventually I must find a copy of the Art of Fugue in this open score and practice reading from that; this was suggested by members of the AGO in regards to this particular test. Past sight-reading excerpts were actually from the Art of Fugue but are no longer. Still, the practice will put the finishing touches on this skill.

 

Some final thoughts on the process: I still think that slow practice, as usual, is the proper way to work on these exercises. One thing that I think took time to really assimilate into the mind was the relationships that these clefs had to each other. To think of each clef as a totally independent way of writing music was not a proper one to have, and I came to realize that each clef was actually a way of seeing the same thing from a slightly different angle. An E below middle C is still going to be in the space between two lines, whether it's in the bass clef, or the tenor. Another way of thinking about it is that these clefs cause some lines on the staff to become invisible and others to become visible. Maybe I can produce an awesome graphic of this concept some time but I have little time today. Once I become quite secure with all the exercises in the book, I can start using these clefs to work on transposition. Of course I'll still need to learn the Mezzo-Soprano and Baritone clefs, the only useful clefs remaining, but most of the work is already done. I feel like I can see and comprehend much more at a glance than I could when I started this. I think better with this skill. That alone has made the work worth it.

 

After focusing rather intently on this particular study for so long, I think it's time to start planning where that focus will drift to next, since the majority of this work is now achieved. I think that the next subject shall be...

 

the Future of Figures

 

Figured Bass, Thorough-bass, whatever you want to call it. The Associate test requires the organist to sight read a passage from figured bass to accompany a melody line played by the proctor. That's fine, as far as it goes, but the study of the figures and how to realize that bass line into music can teach a great many things about composition, analysis, and improvisation.

 

I haven't spent a great deal of time thinking about this recently but I have had some time to consider what should be learned in this practice.

 

Superficially, we are learning what the various figures mean and how to produce them as chords on the keyboard. If we dig a little deeper, we find that we are learning more than how to turn numbers into notes. In the practice books I have on the subject, we practice common cadences in all keys as well as sequences, and then we work out exercises using the figures being studied.

 

We begin with root position chords, chords that have no figures beneath them. Then we throw in first inversion chords using the figure 6, and then second inversion using 64, then the various figures for suspensions, then the seventh chords and their inversions.

 

If that is all that is learned, then you are learning just a simple system of encoding a lot of musical information that's not too specific, into a small area. That's a valuable thing by itself. I'm pretty sure it's not too easy to find good continuo players these days...

 

However, I believe there is more to it. I think that Figured Bass is another way to learn and fully assimilate music theory at the keyboard, as long as you keep your eyes open. We begin to see the functions of various chords within the key, what chords follow others, how cadences are constructed and elaborated. That is to say, we are given an intermediary step towards a sort of 'reckoning' of how a chord functions in context, how it can be approached and left. This soft of subconscious knowledge will be of great help in composition and improvisation, and also in interpretation and memorization of repertoire.

 

One should keep in mind that this isn't like studying for a test; we don't verbally memorize facts, data, and relationships, we must rather form that subconscious 'reckoning' of how these ephemeral entities behave.

 

So how do we do that?

 

I believe it's pretty simple, actually. We are again heeding the previous advice of not attacking a problem too directly and simply seeking to memorize the information from our theory textbook. Our method will be simply:  Repetition    in     all keys. Repetition of what? Examples of the different functions of a chord in different situations, that is: Cadences and Sequences.

 

So, put succinctly, we will absorb subconscious knowledge of chords behaviors by:

 

Repetition of Cadences and Sequences in all keys. Cadences and Sequences are essential elements of the Common Practice period, and contain most of the regular functions of chords within a key, and we can cull examples from various Thorough-bass books as well as theory textbooks. The repetition element doubly serves to let the functional concept be fully assimilated and also to understand that relationship within all different keys. Again, slow practice and concentration on understanding the relationships of the chords within the fragment are essential. This should be followed by a faster tempo for the sake of muscle memory in the fingers. Slow practice for the mind, quick practice for the fingers. I think that for guidance in this area, we will benefit the most from a man from the period; therefore we will start our search for guidance with C.P.E. Bach with his Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments.

 

As we learn a language, so we learn music: by observation and repetition of the sounds and grammar, not just in isolation but in context. A word of caution though: one does not master a language through observation and repetition alone, but through actually speaking on your own. In the same manner, we must turn our hand to improvisation and composition at some point. We will see when that point is, after some practice with thorough-bass.  



Pro tip #1!

Pro Tip #1:  

Concerning Celestes

I had a little experience lately that I thought I would communicate in the interest of it being of use to another one day. It concerns the use of celestes on the organ.

If you happen to be reading this and don't know what a celeste is, well it couldn't be simpler! A celeste stop is a sound that is usually combined with another stop of similar sound quality, but the celeste stop is tuned a little bit off pitch from the rest of the organ. For instance, on my organ, I have an 8' Viole, a string stop. Right next to it is an 8' Viole Celeste, which is the same string sound, but it is tuned slightly sharp. When these two stops are played together, the alternating reinforcement and interference with each other's sound produced a gently undulating sound which imitates the sound of both an ensemble of instruments and a slight vibrato. It's a very nice effect. There's only one rule:  Don't use the celeste on its own. It only sounds properly if played along with its 'sister' stop. Otherwise, it's just an out-of-tune rank...

"Well there's your problem! This whole dang rank is sharp!"

Some celestes are sharp, some are flat, others have multiple celestes which are sharp and flat, or sharp and really sharp, or flat and really flat, etc... The celeste on my organ happens to be sharp, and consequently I ran into an exception to the one rule stated above. 

I recently recorded a CD of wedding music so that couples who wanted music but had no idea where to start, could just pick some tracks from the disc as a starting point. One of those pieces used the strings prominently through most of the piece and the end consists of mostly holding a single A-flat chord while reducing the registration down to the lowest possible volume. First I dropped the great diapasons, then the swell principals while closing the swell pedal until I was left with only the 8' Viole and the 8' Viole Celeste, and naturally I wanted only the quietest stop on the organ so I flipped off the Celeste. 

That was the wrong thing to do! At least in my case.   It wasn't apparent when I played it, perhaps because of the acoustics or my exhaustion from practicing all day, but I heard it plain enough on the recording. I flipped off the celeste and the pitch instantly sagged; the last sound you hear is much akin to hearing a soprano struggle to maintain a high pitch but not quite getting there, leaving you grunting and straining as if you were to push enough, you could get her back on pitch. 

It seems obvious now; when a sharp celeste is switched off, especially in this high register that I was playing, the resulting normal pitch sounds flat in comparison. What I should have done was to switch off the 8' Viole and leave the celeste going, in clear violation of the rule. This was the exception to the rule; it was the end of the piece so there was nothing to follow that would make the celeste sound out of tune, and in this particular instance, the normal pitch sounded out of tune in comparison. If this was a flat celeste then it might have been a different story, but as it was sharp. On the other hand, I suppose you could just leave the Viole/Celeste pair on together, but it seemed just a little too noisy to me. 

So Pro Tip #1? Every rule has an exception. 

P.S. That's a Tip, not a Rule. Don't look for exceptions to Tips.

Impressions on Learning Clefs

Learning Clefs: How? and Why?!

Well, it's been a while on the new practice regimen, and I'm finding a few ways to streamline the process as well as considering the learning process and what I can learn from that process. I've been mostly thinking about the process of learning to read different clefs.

The Preparatory Exercises in Score Reading that I'm using for this practice is only concerned with three clefs in addition to the common Treble and Bass, the Alto, Tenor, and Soprano clefs.

The first section of 10 exercises, section A, begins with the Alto clef. All of the exercises are in two voices on two staves. First, the alto clef is on top with the Bass on bottom. Then the Treble on top with Alto on bottom. Then the alto can appear in either staff and change clef during the exercise.

The second section (B) works with the Tenor clef. The same pattern of study is followed as was the Alto clef.

The third section which I am half-way through involves combinations of Alto and Tenor combined with the Treble and Bass. We're still in two voices, two staves, but we generally use 4 clefs within the exercises.

Following this section will be introduced the Soprano clef. It will then be combined with use of the other 4 clefs of which we are now familiar.

Following this, we will start using three voices on three staves with various combinations of the 5 clefs. Then we will move on to 4 voices using the model of the String Quartet, and later the vocal quartet (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass clefs) which will be the layout of the AGO Fellowship question in Score Reading. Following this, short 'orchestral' excerpts are presented which must be played by mentally substituting these clefs for transposing instruments.

It's a sound pedagogical process, but it's important to understand what we're learning and how to properly perform these tasks.

I don't know about 'right' and 'wrong' but I have noticed different stages of thinking that I've passed through while learning these different clefs.

 Stage 1: Transposition
When I first started learning the Alto clef I noticed that I could find the pitches by imagining a Treble clef and then imagining the note to be a step higher than it appeared. So, a note on the third line of the alto clef (B in treble clef) is imagined on a treble clef one note higher, on the third space giving me C. For a while I read alto clef by imagining all the notes one step higher. This is definitely not the way one should be reading from a clef. It's much the opposite of what we want to use the clefs for in the end! This is like learning a new language by translating a book using a dictionary, one word at a time. The meaning will be revealed over time and you'll learn about the language incidentally, but progress will be slow.

 Stage 2: Where is C?
Later I tried keeping track of C and gauging the location of other notes relative to it. In the Alto clef, this is easy because middle C is in the center of the clef, on the third line. I discovered that this still isn't much like the process I use for reading from the old familiar clefs. Still, it is better than Stage 1 because I'm not transposing the notes into an old clef; I am viewing the notes as they truly are.

 Stage 3: Relativity
Still later I started reading a bit more like how I read everything else: by interval. If you know your starting note, you can simply play the proper intervals from that note, whether it be a step or a leap of a 6th. This delivers good results but accidentals can still throw you off and you're not building great familiarity with all of the notes and their places on the staff.

 Stage 4: Visualize and Attack
At this point, I'm trying to incorporate all the good points of the stages above. I'm not transposing the notes. I'm gradually increasing my experience with all of the notes and becoming familiar with the position of each note on the staff, not just Middle C. I use intervals to help with sustaining my reading, but I train myself to visualize each of the notes on the keyboard and try to build associations between those notes on the keys and those notes on the staff. Put simply, I'm trying to avoid any shortcuts and just observe and learn. Every missed note is a learning opportunity since that will fix its solution in one's mind more firmly.


But there is the matter of what's being learned. I only noticed this after thumbing to the end of the book and attempting an exercise or two. There's a skill involved with reading from an open score of multiple staves that is mostly lacking in piano music and only approached in organ music. When I read music from the page, I see the shapes of vertical sonorities (chords) and reproduce that shape on the keyboard. Even contrapuntally dense music can be mentally reduced to a simple progression of chords. This way, one can get around the discipline of comprehending multiple lines.

In score reading, however, each voice, each line has it's own staff, and sometimes its own clef. The shapes of the chords are broken and the lines must be comprehended both on their own and how they fit together. The shortcut is thus removed and the music must be performed 'honestly', with an awareness of each line simultaneously.

Thinking of it this way, reading music (especially contrapuntal music) from a score is the greatest mental discipline of reading in music. The use of a clef ideally suited to each voice heightens this discipline even further. Therefore, the learning of all the clefs is not only a good idea for an easy way to transpose to any key at sight, but it more importantly expands and trains the mind to hold the whole of the music one is performing or creating. In this way, being a better reader makes one a better performer, composer, improvisor.

And I think that's pretty nifty.

A Practice Schedule

No time! I have no time!

Time is in increasingly short supply, so I've made for myself a practice bag full of practice materials and instructions on how to use them, so that whenever I have some free time, I can quickly and efficiently practice the different subjects that will eventually be assessed on the AGO exams.

Contents include:

Sight Reading:
Bach - Riemenschneider  371 Harmonized Chorales and 69 Chorale Melodies with Figured Bass
Start every practice with careful sight-reading of two pages of chorales with the Bass in the pedals and the other voices in the manuals. The process is to read through each chorale carefully before playing and endeavor to mentally 'hear' and 'feel' the music before a note is played. The goal is to anticipate both the sound and the physical act of playing the chorale, and then perform it as perfectly with regard to sound and technique as is possible. Change registrations between chorales to give a little variety to the exercise.

Clef studies/Transposition:
R.O. Morris and Howard Ferguson - Preparatory Exercises in Score Reading
An extremely helpful book, it's goal is to prepare one for the task of rapidly reading open scores using transposing instruments by the substitution of certain clefs. The book consists of brief pieces (composed or from the repertoire) written using a combination of F, G, and C clefs. It begins with the Alto clef, then the Tenor, then Alto and Tenor together, and finally includes the Soprano clef. The organist's job, however, is not over since he must also become acquainted with the Mezzo-Soprano and Baritone clefs if he would become adept at transposition into any key at first sight. However, the majority of the job will be finished. The procedure is to take one brief piece every new day and practice it so that it is thoroughly learned, so that reading from the unfamiliar clef becomes a 'thoughtless' process. One's intuition and creativity is lent to deciding what tempos and registrations are appropriate for each piece since none are given.

Thoroughbass/Continuo/Figured Bass/Harmonization:
Hermann Keller - Thoroughbass Method
I have several texts on thoroughbass, and my opinions on which are the best will probably evolve over time, but for now, I am using this volume. Keller supplies, in the beginning, a number of short cadences that are to be reproduced in every key. Then the same is required of given basses with figures; reproduce your solution in every major and minor key. This fosters a familiarity of the relative function of chords in all keys. The exercises used in Figured Bass will be applied to attempts at Harmonization later on. Play through an example or two in all keys every day, proceeding into realizing more complex figures.

Improvisation

• Gerre Hancock - Improvising:  How to Master the Art
• Westminster Press - The Worshipbook  (a hymnal)
• Spiral bound manuscript Paper

I also have several texts on Improvisation. After a thorough study and synthesis of their respective ideas, I've decided that Hancock's opening exercises in scales are the best in fostering creativity, defining one's own unique musical language, and concise practice in many skills required of a skilled improviser. I will cite elsewhere why this practice is so comprehensive, specifically. I require manuscript paper to write examples of what is to be improvised before they are worked at the keyboard. A hymnal is required for a different approach to improvisation, that of the practical approach and starting with a complete composition and gradually departing from the printed page.
The Hancock exercise is on a weekly schedule, treating a different key every week for 48 weeks.
The process for working with a hymnal is simply to pick a hymn every day, and then practice a specific technique with it so that it can be done freely and without hesitation. The beginning techniques involve moving the melody to different registers, such as the feet, and an octave down in the left hand. Further techniques involve adding passing and neighbor tones, improvising descants, and reharmonization. I am following a set list of techniques which will be learned and practiced in order. An example or two will be written on staff paper before they are improvised at the keyboard.

Composition:
Arthur Hutchings - The Invention and Composition of Music
Composition is a staggering subject to try to learn without a teacher, but I've become enamored of this book and will use it for practice in the art. Hutchings advocates the making of a practical musician, a musician who actually writes music that is needed, not one who shies away from situations that he feels are beneath his Grand Art of Harmony. A somewhat difficult read, it has a great number of composition exercises that, if completed, will prepare a musician for most any situation. These exercises should be worked on every day, but that may not be possible. Therefore, this book is included in my lunch-bag for if I have time and a quiet place to work.

...and two pencils.

I've decided not to set a certain time on any of these subjects, but to be guided somewhat by feel, and to achieve a certain task each time. To summarize the schedule in order to be practiced:

Technique - Pedal scales (invigorating!)
Sight Reading - 2 pages of chorales
Clefs/Transposition - One piece of music (or two if particularly easy)
Thoroughbass - Between 1 and 4 fragments in all keys major and minor
Improvisation - One hymn with techniques applied, Hancock scale practice according to weekly schedule
Composition - One exercise if time permits. No hurrying allowed!
Repertoire - Whatever time permits.

Give it a try!

Wanted: A Concise Theory of Everything

Wanted: A Concise Theory of Everything

Organization of Improvisation

Let's talk about improvisation again. But this time, let's get organized. 

Over the last few weeks I've been working on cleaning a house, finishing building a bathroom, having a first birthday party for my favorite little man, and starting new projects at work. In some free time, I decided to take all my notes, books, and DVDs on the subject of improvisation and attempt to synthesize some sort of master document that would reveal common trends and all the basic truths that were held by all authors regardless of individual method or order. Of course, this mystical master document was a bullet outline in Microsoft Word. These sources were:

Books:

• Cours Complet d'Improvisation a l'Orgue Vol. 1 & 2 - Marcel Dupre
• Improvising: How to Master the Art - Gerre Hancock
• Making Music: Improvisation for Organists - Jan Overduin
• Hymn Improvisation - Michele Johns
• Bach & the Art of Improvisation - Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra
• Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments - C.P.E. Bach
• Breaking Free - Jeffrey Brillhart
• Harmonization at the Keyboard - Charles Proctor

DVDs:

• Hymn Tune Improvisations: Increasing Your Skill - William Porter
• Improvisation Masterclass - Philippe Lefebvre
• Ex Tempore: The Art of Organ Improvisation in England - Ronny Krippner

The YouTubes:

• William Porter's Course on Organ Improvisation - Smarano Organ Academy

Hand-written notes from masterclasses with:

• Bruce Neswick
• Jeffrey Brillhart
• Sophie-Veronique Cauchefer-Choplin
• Edoardo Bellotti 

And innumerable examples from recordings, YouTube, and live occasions. 

Having no wise and experienced teacher to point me daily in the right direction, it becomes necessary to have a working knowledge of the complete picture so that already limited practice time isn't wasted on false avenues. Thus motivated, I looked for a complete conception of improvisation, which is also composition. To have a concise idea of how music works is a difficult task, unless one takes a few brisk steps away from the picture to lose the details and instead see how the largest of pieces fit together. 

The Big Picture

Dupre gives us an abbreviated view of organ technique, orchestration, harmony, and thematic analysis before he gives a single exercise in improvising. Then he moves into harmonization of chorale melodies, and from there into different chorale forms. After this he spends the rest of the volume on illustrating the many forms that should be learned, from Minuet and Trio, to Sonata-Allegro. 

Johns gives us the essential techniques for improvisation on hymn tunes and general instruction for study and practice in that area. 

Brillhart gives us a solid compendium of French techniques used in improvisation.

Overduin gives us many techniques for making the most out of limited skills and shows the importance of many different areas such as hymn improvisation and forms, listing important skills such as being able to improvise in regular phrases, and putting two voices together. 

Hancock covers the practical aspects of improvisation in church services and uses those skills to build a foundation on which more ambitious forms may be worked. He also gives us clear instructions on how to practice forms, which are pretty vague and inconcrete subjects. He also gives us what might be the most useful exercise in getting started improvising, though he doesn't explain clearly why.

Porter shows us how to establish an automatic accompaniment that will work for anything in a pinch, to act as a safety net for when inspiration fails. He also points us on the way to how to extract winning ideas and solutions to problems from the repertoire and practice them so as to incorporate them into our improvisations. 

From Lefebvre, Bruce, Edoardo, and Sophie we learn specific exercises for strengthening certain necessary skills used in improvisation.

Let's stay focused and follow the trail!

There's much more detail there, but we're interested in the big picture. As I started grouping together similar techniques, I was able to start clumping together bigger categories. So many simple techniques could be put into the category of Harmonization. There are a few clear techniques for thematic development, so we have a nice tidy category of Theme sitting there. A large portion of many of these books is concerned with formal structure so we have a category of Form that is quite large, but clearly defined.

Looking at all of the forms that were springing up, it became clear that the fundamental building block of all of these larger forms was the of the Phrase. Hancock is very concerned with the phrase at the beginning of his book and uses his phrase work as a foundation for all the larger forms to come. We find other building blocks of form, such as Expositions, commentary (both deductive and foreign). We find transitional material such as bridges and interludes. We stumble into development and play with episodes.

We even find 'meta-forms' which are just groups of smaller forms, such as the Triptych, or the Symphony.

From the details we find connections to fewer and fewer fundamental concepts.

Then I started piling knowledge of harmonization, counterpoint, imitation, scales, and modes into a category that I want to call Texture. (However, that may not be permanent.)

I eventually found myself setting aside various common ideas such as creating a sense of freedom, analyzing the repertoire for solutions, practicing slowly, starting from written outlines, etc. All of these things are important but I felt that they were extra-musical in nature; they seemed to lie outside purely musical concerns. I was eventually left with only three categories for music-making, an extreme of simplicity, but an arrangement that could be comprehended fully away from the written page and could be conceived at the keyboard. I was left with:

• Theme
• Texture
• Form

Since I've established those three categories, I've become very interested in Texture. Let's see why.

Theme brings Unity

Theme - A musical idea that can serve as a germ from which the rest of the composition grows. A theme will bring unity to the music like nothing else and opens up greater diversity, as well as the possibility of development. There are specific techniques for developing a theme, such as turning it upside down, playing it backwards, stretching it into longer note values, altering the notes and retaining the rhythm, changing the meter... One can play around and experiment with altering a theme with no care about texture and form. However, it is difficult to imagine a situation where playing with nothing but a theme would result in a satisfying improvisation or composition. 

Each theme is a unique snowflake and how proud we are of all of them... but the theme alone does not reveal the uniqueness and originality of the composer. On the contrary, look at what a simple and bland theme Beethoven used for the first movement of his 5th symphony... da da da duuum!

Form brings intelligibility

Form - We channel our raw unrefined emotions and ideas into a structure built to hold and express it meaningfully. This is the broadest level of music making, where we really construct a piece of music out of all of the smaller materials. Most people aren't directly aware of the structure of a piece on a conscious level, but they can sense that the music is 'going somewhere'. This is because of a logical and/or intuitive structure. There are many broad general forms such as Sonata, or Fugue, or Passacaglia, but the great composers don't use cookie-cutter forms. They alter and change them to suite the unique needs of the composition. Just like building your own house; you have all the same ingredients--bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, living room--but tailor them to your specific needs and aesthetic desires. 

People love using icebergs for presentations.

Texture - Texture (there must be a more accurate term) as I define it, is the body of the music, the unique context. Everything we learn from the study of Harmony and Counterpoint goes into this category. You have a theme? Well, what matters is how it is presented. This category is where one's unique musical language and originality can show. This is the section that is, coincidentally, treated the least in Dupre's treatise on Improvisation. This category also presents the mysteries of good music making. Consequently, I am the most interested in studying this category. Also, texture can easily be practiced and explored without needing a theme or a form. We like to call this 'doodling'. 

What now?

Now we have to try to give some order to the near infinite variety of musical textures. A great place to start will be to browse through the gigantic repertoire of the last thousand years and try to make some logical sense of it. Are textures based on a sliding scale of contrapuntal independence, such as going from chorale to fugue? Are there discrete textures that can be collected like a bag of tricks? Are there discrete ingredients to texture that can be augmented and diminished depending on what effect is desired? What emotional effect do textures produce? What is different and what is the same?

I will seek some answers to these questions. In the meantime, here is a recording of some doodling of my own. It fails as a good improvisation, but makes for satisfactory noodling. 

Sight Reading

A hauntingly beautiful passage (calm and hypnotic despite the appearance on the page) from the Passacaglia from Sorabji's 5 hour long Opus Clavicembalisticum. 

Sight Reading

Sight reading is a subject that strikes a chord for me personally, because I am very good at it. I state this as a simple fact, based on experience seeing other people reading and their opinions of my reading. I'm not proud of this skill because it was not hard-won for me. Mark Twain said in his autobiography that he wasn't proud of being an excellent speller because he did not work hard to become so; it just came naturally. I feel the same way, though I know that the skill did not come naturally; it was a product of how I learned to play the piano and is a reflection of my poor practice habits as a student growing up.

Someone asked me once what it was like before I learned to read music. I puzzled over the question for a minute trying to dredge up something from distant memories but couldn't find anything. I assume it's the same as trying to remember what it was like before you learned to read words. I don't remember ever not knowing. 

I do remember that the first piece of music that involved sharps was something involving dragons... from a little book that only exists in memories now. Soon after, I started working through the Bastien books, levels 1 through 4. Then I started reading into easier pieces of the Anna Magdalena Notebook, and tried very hard with some Chopin. Eventually, I found enough facility that I could proceed on my own without the assistance of my mother. I distinctly remember getting over my fear of difficult key signatures when I was reading through Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, that passage in C-sharp major (7 sharps in the signature). For some reason, that passage crystallized my understanding of reading signatures. 

For all my years up to college, I had no teacher after my mother and thus felt no need to practice. All I did was read. I played through all the books I could get a-hold of and played through them again and again. Playing piano was much like watching TV; just planting myself on the bench, seeing what's on, and just watching the music go by. After a few years of this...

I get a kick out of these internet memes because I'm an amazingly mature person.

... I got to college and continued this habit, fostering an interest in the repertoire by reading through it, and neglecting my studies by not concentrating on a single piece for more than 20 minutes. 

That's basically how I got here. It's an addiction that I am still fighting, though it's helped me get acquainted with a good deal of organ literature. 

How is it done?

Sight reading music is much like reading words on the page. One starts by recognizing individual notes and matching where they are on the staff to where they belong on the keyboard. After doing this enough, one doesn't think about the names of the notes anymore, but simply recognizes them as locations on the keyboard. 

The next step is to start seeing larger structures in the music. An easy example are chords, stacks of notes. If you step back from the individual notes, you can see that each chord has its own shape. Some shapes come up very often and once you recognize how to play one of them, it's not a far stretch to play all of the chords of that shape. 

After chords, you start to see lines of notes. Realizing that written musical notation is really a graph of pitch over time, you see where notes line up in time, and how these lines appear on the keyboard. Basically, we start to see larger structures up to a point where we can take in all the notes faster than is needed to play them. Now we can sight read instead of practice. And if the notes get to be too many, we just fake it a little till we get to a more manageable spot!

Obviously this is a very flawed attitude towards music and will actually stunt your growth as a musician. Reading becomes a type-writer process, a process that requires no comprehension of the structure of the music or indeed the very sound of it. Sight-reading with headphones on becomes simple if you can just keep time. 

~ ~ ~

Nowadays I read a bit differently. I try to do it intelligently, listening carefully to what I play. It's a more productive use of time but is still a distraction from real work. So, I'm still trying to cut back. It makes for a good stress-reliever, however.

Sight reading is a part of each AGO Examination and ranges from reading from two staves in the Service Playing Test, to four staves in C clefs in the Fellowship Test. My current regimen consists of 15 minutes of sight reading Bach harmonized chorales each morning. I try to do it rigorously by taking thirty seconds to scan the music and mentally play through sections, looking for possible problem points. Then I carefully play it through a little slower than I would in performance, as correctly as I can. 

Later I will practice reading 4 stave vocal scores in G and F clefs in preparation for the Associate Exam. After that, I will practice reading the Art of Fugue in 4 parts in C clefs (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass clefs) in preparation for the Fellowship Exam.

I've just about finished creating my weekly practice schedule, incorporating all of the subjects found on the exams. As usual, I'm still trying to find the ideal method for practicing the Improvisation subject. Hopefully I can share what I've come up with on my next post. 

The FALLacy of Study

Living in an age where there is an oppressively large amount of junk orbiting around the planet, it's natural for me to think of orbits when I think of musical study. Really, it's an observation of how counter-intuitive some actions can be.

When something is in orbit around the earth, it is actually just falling. As you can see in the above illustration, if a hypothetical cannon fired a ball at a high enough speed, the curve of the earth falls away at the same rate that the ball falls towards the earth's center of gravity and just keeps on falling, getting no closer.

When we experience weightlessness in orbit, it's not because there's no gravity above the earth's atmosphere. There is a little less gravitational pull our there but the weightlessness is experienced because the spacecraft and the astronauts are falling. This is how we can experience weightlessness on airplanes if they perform some special maneuvers.

 Now, say that a spacecraft in orbit is trying to catch up to another spacecraft ahead in the same orbit. One's first impulse would be to fire your rockets so that you go faster, and catch up to it. What happens is quite the opposite. By firing your rockets and propelling yourself forward, you would actually boost yourself into a higher orbit (it's not quite that simple, but we'll just say that it is). Your new higher orbit takes longer to go around the earth, so the pursued spacecraft will escape further and further.

Slow down to catch up?
What you say?!

So, naturally, you do the opposite of what seems natural and intuitive. You blast your rockets in the opposite direction to slow yourself down.

This puts you into a lower orbit which moves around the earth faster, allowing you to catch up to the pursued spacecraft.




What this shows us is that often systems are more complicated than they first appear, and that very often blasting straight towards a solution to a problem is not going to get you any closer to the solution. This is true in the study of music.

Sometimes the sound approach of isolating a problem and practicing it alone won't lead to mastery of that subject. Sometimes they can only be practiced indirectly, in the context of something else. One example is the practice of learning absolute pitch. I knew a conducting professor that worked on it by keeping a tuning fork in his pocket all hours of the day and periodically ringing it to see if his A was still on pitch. After years of this practice he was no-where closer to pitch discrimination; he just knew what his tuning fork would sound like if he rang it, much like you know how I am the Walrus will sound before you play it. He didn't listen to all the pitches in multiple timbres and registers and listen for the underlying feel of each sound and how those were different for each pitch.

So, what can we take from this? Just take it as a warning, that while it is usually sound advice to take things apart and practice the parts individually, sometimes your time is better served by keeping the elements in context and practicing them indirectly. As long as you keep this warning in mind, you will soon acquire the wisdom to know which is which.

A summary of exam subjects

Seeing as the AGO Professional Certification Requirements aren't the clearest thing to read, I decided it might help to see a concise summary of the subjects involved with all of the tests. Some subjects are treated in more than one exam but at a different difficulty level, such as the Improvisation question that ranges from improvising simple phrases in the Collegiate exam, to an improvisation in ternary form on a given theme in the Fellowship exam. The tasks to be completed within each subject are listed roughly in order of difficulty.

All of this information can be gathered easily enough from looking at the Certification Requirements, but it may not be immediately obvious what the overall progression of study looks like.

Without the guidance of a good teacher, it's easy to lose track of what one is working towards in a particular subject, so I have found it useful to try organizing information in different ways to try to discover how they all relate to each other.

The next step will be to understand how these subjects and concepts can be incorporated into one's daily life as a musician. These subjects should be put towards a practical purpose, not simply academic.

Subjects of study for AGO Certification

·       Repertoire

o   Pre-Bach

o   Bach

o   Romantic

o   Modern

·        Hymns

o   Correct playing technique

o   Contrasting presentation of stanzas and sensitivity to the text

o   Creative hymn-playing

o   Introductions

o   Interludes between stanzas (can be modulating interludes)

·       Transposition

o   Hymns

o   Chorales

o   M2, then M3 in either direction

·        Sight-Reading

o   Chorales (four parts, two staves)

o   Choral scores (G and F clefs)

o   Art of Fugue (C clefs open score)

o   Repertoire

·         Harmonization

o   Simple hymn tune

o   Plainsong melody

o   ‘folk-style’ hymn

o   4 parts for part of which the treble melody will be given, and for part of which an unfigured bass will be given

·         Accompaniment

o   Psalm Accompaniment

o   Anthem Accompaniment

o   Vocal solo Accompaniment

o   Arrange at sight for the organ the piano accompaniment of a vocal score (which may be a reduction of an original accompaniment for orchestra)

·         Improvisation

o   Passages

§  Two phrases of four bars each involving a modulation and a clearly defined cadence.

§  Two phrases of eight bars each involving a modulation and a clearly defined cadence.

§  Passage of 30 seconds providing a bridge or modulatory passage between two hymns of a different key.

§  Short preparation time (less than 10 minutes)

o   Brief pieces

§  Ground Bass – five or six variations

§  Hymn Prelude – on a given hymn tune

§  Chant Prelude – on a given chant

o   Ternary Form – about 2 minutes in length, on a given theme. Supply a recognizable contrasting motif for the middle section. Clarity of form and structure will be expected.

·         Continuo / Figured Bass

o   Play the continuo of a chorale or short instrumental movement from a figured bass. Only the bass and figures will be given.

·         Analysis

o   Respond to questions regarding a composition. Venture opinions as to composer, approximate date, harmonic and contrapuntal texture, and/or form.

·         Counterpoint

o   Analyze examples, respond to questions, and write brief examples of counterpoint in 16^th-century style. Original note values will be used.

·         Fugue

o   Analyze examples, respond to questions, correct intentional errors, and write brief examples of 18^th-century fugal composition.

·         Ear Training

o   Associate – Write down from dictation:

§  A single melodic line

§  Two parts (treble and bass clefs)

o   Fellow – Write down from dictation:

§  A short passage in four parts. Key and time signature will be announced.

§  A short passage of two-part counterpoint. The key will be stated, but not the time signature.

·         Orchestration

o   Demonstrate knowledge of the capabilities of orchestral instruments, the craft of orchestration, and the historic stylistic use of the orchestra through responses to questions, analysis of examples, the transcription of a brief passage for orchestra or ensemble, and/or the reduction of an orchestral score for performance on the organ.

·         Composition

o   Continue and bring to a conclusion a passage for organ whose opening is given. Approximate length will be specified. Imaginative use of the tools of composition will be expected. Continuous writing in a specified number of parts is not required.

o   Write a composition for unaccompanied voices on a given text. The length will be specified. Imaginative use of the tools of composition will be expected.

·         Questions

o   Answer objective questions on music history, including questions on organ repertoire, choral music, organ construction and maintenance, and contemporary trends.