Helen Bledsoe

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  • Improvisation: Freedom and Responsibility

    Maggie Nicols

    On Sunday, May 20th I took part in a vocal improvisation workshop led my Maggie Nicols in Cologne. My husband is a huge fan, and signed me up in absentia while I was on tour in the US. There were about 25 of us, professional singers, lay singers, theater people, and professional instrumentalists. Some were seasoned improvisors who had taken part in Phil Minton’s Feral Choir Project, which I am deeply sorry to have missed. I absolutely love Phil Minton’s vocals, he is wonderful and grotesque, often stirring up something unrecognized and stagnant within.

    I wanted to write this in order to remember several of Maggie Nicols’ exercises that stuck with me. I thought they were great ways to introduce controlled improvisation to a group.

    One is to start with only a short sound, a single syllable at any pitch or dynamic (we all sang the syllable “bop”). In the beginning there is silence, then anyone is free to give a starting impulse by singing  his/her “bop”. All immediately follow, singing their own short “bop”. It will (and should) sound like a scattered cloud of notes. Then silence, then someone else (anyone) starts the second cloud of short sounds. This goes on, someone giving an impulse, others following, always with silence afterwards. After the fifth impulse there can be more freedom to develop, let things happen, sing longer notes, lose the silence, etc.

    Since you have a parameter of  one syllable there is no worry “oh, what am I going to sing!?” It’s just “bop”. Hooray!

    For this next exercise we split into trios. We were all free to sing and vocalise what we wanted, the only rule was that if someone stopped, we had to stop too. A wonderful way to exercise absolute freedom combined with the responsibility of listening carefully.

    Some of the social implications of these exercises interested me, since I am often bothered by the line between strong individualism and social consciousness. Maggie Nicols pointed out the importance of allowing absolute freedom of expression. If it is withheld, the repressed start to look cattily at those who express themselves freely. No one needs that.

    How do you exercise responsibility within this freedom? Well, in music, it is relatively easy, just listen. 

  • Singing and playing

    Some time ago I decided to devote at least a few minutes of my flute practice time to singing. Long story as to why, I won’t go in to that here. But the decision to sing, and the upcoming workshop I am giving at the Adams Flute Festival on Sunday April 15, 2012 inspired me to put together these ideas.

    Throat tuning is the best basic application of singing and playing. Tuning your throat to a pitch you want to play will help you to achieve maximum resonance. You can find a more detailed explanation in Robert Dick’s you tube videos and his exercises from Tone Development Through Extended Techniques. Here one of the exercises he demonstrates. This exercise is also much loved by Peter Lloyd:


    You can start with Taffanel & Gaubert’s first daily exercise in any key. I have chosen B-flat because it falls easily in my range. You can also choose any octave you wish. In case the musical example is not clear, here is what you do: 1. play the first 5-note pattern, 2. sing the 5-note pattern while silently fingering the notes on the flute, 3. sing and play together, 4. play only, but keep the feeling and resonance as if you were singing and playing. You may notice a big change in your resonance.

    Another application of singing and playing that I like to utilize is to use singing as a check-point for keeping a relaxed throat while playing high notes. If you can sing a low note while playing a high one, then likely you are using your embouchure and support correctly. If you can’t produce a low note while playing high, you are likely squeezing your throat in order to “help” the high notes out. That’s the easy way out! A good high register, though, has its support down below, and the lips do the work of narrowing the passage of air, not the throat.

    To experiment, play a high note (any will do, I have G here, but you can go higher or lower) and see how high and especially how low you can sing while holding that note.

    You will hear many strange difference tones while doing this; as your voice goes up, you may hear a “ghost” glissando going down, and vise versa. Being able to create this effect is application I love about singing and playing. Some composers use it effectively, and it also comes in handy when improvising.

    Now, back to the point about keeping the voice low: try playing octaves and keeping the voice in the lower octave. Keep the voice steady on pitch. Again, you can choose any key and any octave:


    A bit trickier is to keep the voice on a single low pitch while blowing through the harmonic series. If you aren’t familiar with the harmonic series, better to begin without singing. Don’t worry about getting the highest notes at first. Work your way slowly up.

    C is a good note to start on, but you can choose another. Also, don’t be discouraged if you can’t produce the highest harmonics while singing at first, just work on getting them one at a time, no vocal glissandi allowed here!


    And just because I am a bit fanatical, I wrote a vocalise to one of Reichart’s daily exercises. The voice sings the top line:

    If anyone wants the whole exercise, you can click the link here. You may distribute it, but please give credit where it is due.


  • The Radiant, Gradient Way: Color Practice

    No one can watch the inside of your mouth when you play the flute, thank goodness. However, when talking to students about color changes, an X-Ray machine might come in handy. You could demonstrate how the position of the tongue, the jaw, and so many things come into play when you change the sound of the flute from loud to soft, harsh to light, bright to dark. Using such words is usually the best we can do when trying to describe musical timbres. That can be tricky though, one flutist’s dark can be another’s bright. Words are not always sufficient.

    Thank goodness for imagery. Here is a collection of ideas to help stimulate the aural imagination. I was inspired by Photo Shop’s gradient tool to make the following images.

    Let’s take one note and see what kind of spectrum can be produced. I chose B natural because it is the Moyse thing to do, but choose a note that is good for you. The purpose is to take a full breath, play a single note while going from one aural extreme to another. What happens in the middle can be quite interesting, I find. You can also practice these exercises backwards.

    Some people work well with color imagery, so an exercise like this might work:
    Another exercise could be to imagine a trumpet-like sound, then go to the extreme of complete air noise. I thank Harrie Starreveld for this suggestion.

    You can also consciously control the position of your tongue by producing different vowel sounds. For example thinking a deep, open O sound, to a rather closed I (think of the word “eye”). I spelled it “aye” in the example. In preparation for this, I like to sing the exercise first to get a feel for how the tongue moves and how it changes the harmonic components of the sound.

    Peter Lukas Graf also has an interesting approach. He describes different categories of sounds starting with those that are rich in overtones, think of the opening of the second movement of Cesar Franck’s Sonata in A, to those that are poor in overtones, think of the opening of Debussy’s L’Apres Midi. Of course it is a simplification, the music of Franck and Debussy require a variety of colors, but these are the associations that stick. If such imagery is useful, here is an illustration:

    Any other ideas?

  • Contemporary Music: Where’s the Music?

    Funny how memories work. I am left with the lingering conviction, no doubt untrue, that the esthetic of Arnold Schönberg and the Second Viennese School was motivated by peevishness. Not that I was there to remember, but it is the sense I got from student reading and listening to hip lecturers. (For example, I enjoyed Brand and Hailey’s “Constructive Dissonance“, despite the 2 star rating on Amazon). It probably has to do with my own peevishness, and talent for turning fantasies into mis-remembered memories.

    “Not the damned Waldstein again!”

    Picture a circle of super intelligent youths, coming of age in a time when well-to-do educated folks actually made music together at social gatherings. We disenfranchised musicians can look back with nostalgia on this, but the Viennese version probably got on their nerves. I can understand their thirst for something more intelligent than the harmonic language of Sunday’s salon pieces, and for something genuine, unlike the popular faux-Bohemianism of Gustav Klimt’s circle.  If you are easily irritated (peevish), such a thing can make you want to set the world on fire. And they did.

    OK, that was way simplified. Better informed and better working minds than mine have pondered and written about the evolution of the Second Viennese School. My point is to look at now. The biggest question that I ask myself in my ensemble work as a “contemporary” musician is this: Where is the music?

    Schönberg may have been seeking artistic and intellectual integrity in music, but I want to know WTF happened to music itself? Yes, I am peevish and here’s why: Music seems the least important aspect to almost every project we do. If it’s a theater project, the visual aspect must take precedence (and be sensational, damn the score!). If it is multi media, the technology takes precedence. If it is “purely” musical, it must be set to a theme that draws audience members in, regardless of quality. (How else do pieces like Henri Pousseur’s  La Seconde Apothéose de Rameau get programmed?)

    One benefit of all this is that contemporary classical music is reaching a wider audience. But are we marketing it to death and losing sight of the search for something genuine and meaningful? When I finished my formal musical studies I had a limited number of choices. Contemporary music was one of the least remunerative, but I felt it fit my Geist, somehow. I felt I understood the drive of 20th century composers such as Schönberg and Boulez to find a new language that satisfied both the intellect and the aesthetic. (Not that I put myself on the same level as them!)

    Nice weather we’re having, did you enjoy the concert?

    Somehow, I feel we have lost sight of this, and I wonder if we are facing the death of contemporary music as we know it. Because as musicians, when you focus on the banalities of market theory, embrace bourgeois  Sunday salon mentality, there is a danger of ignoring  the actual music, ignoring the basic precepts of artistic integrity (be genuine, don’t compare yourself to others). These things will die if not nourished. Even if art music doesn’t immediately expire, it will suffer the indignity of being back where it started. A musical revolving door.

     Rewind, look at Schönberg’s Vienna. Salons, forced small talk, social, artistic and economic comparison of others in a bourgeois setting. I don’t want it. I want the music back.

    Revolution sucks. Evolution rocks.

  • Polyrthythms IV – Practicing Tempo Modulation

    This is a continuation of my previous post, where I use Taffanel/Gaubert’s Exercises Journaliers no. 1 to practice polyrhythms. Check that out before trying these! It will give you the correct placement in the measure for 4:3 and 4:5, which I have not notated here.

    In these exercises, the metronome stays the same but the player has to change gears. I like to use this as an articulation exercise. You can shift from single tonguing to double tonguing as the tempo changes (but the metronome doesn’t). It keeps you on your toes.

    Set your metronome to a 3-beat pattern. The suggested tempo is a quarter note=45 but you can start slower if it helps. You’ll need to start on the third beat for this to come out right. I love the fact that this pattern gives you an added rest for breathing!

    The following variation puts the polyrhythm first. If you are doing this as an articulation exercise, it is good to start with double tonguing and then go to single tonging. I find this shift to slower tonguing more challenging.

    Here is another variation going against a 5-beat pattern. Set your metronome to reflect that, at quarter note=75 (or slower if that helps). For this to come out right, start on the second beat. (This pattern gives you an eighth note for breathing, hooray!)

    And here, a variation starting with the polyrhythm.

    I hope these exercises will be of some use. Please post a comment if you have questions. I have had various comments regarding the notation of these exercises. There are more detailed ways of notating them but I find the notation above gets the concept across. In the end, you don’t need the notes to perform the exercises. My goal in this was to use melodic material to develop a sense of rhythmic phrasing.

  • Polyrhythm III Exercise with Taffanel/Gaubert

    Here is the third of my posts on rhythm. You can read the first post here and the second here. I wouldn’t proceed here unless you can perform the exercises of these previous posts.

    What I like about using Taffanel/Gaubert no. 1 from Exercices Journaliers is that it is a melodic study. In my first post, I emphasize the need for rhythmical phrasing, and the goal of playing rhythmically and not mechanically. One way of developing this, I think, is to develop your own strong, steady sense of pulse. This is something different from practicing with a metronome. If you test and develop your sense of pulse against the metronome’s ticking, it will grow stronger.

    If you take the basic 4-beat pattern of TG no. 1 and set your metronome to a 3-beat pattern at tempo 45, it could fit together like this:

    And if you take the basic 4-beat pattern and set your metronome to a 5-beat pattern at tempo 75, it could fit together like this:

    You may have noticed that in both examples the 16ths are the same speed, only the metronome setting is different.

    An interesting way to practice Taffanel Gaubert nos. 1 and 2 is to first play with the metronome at a quarter note = 120. Play a number of patterns until you feel comfortable with the speed, then continue but change the metronome to a quarter note = 45 and play the 4:3 pattern. When you feel comfortable with that, change the metronome to a quarter note = 75 and play the 4:5 pattern.
    This is a wonderful way of practicing groove!

    In my next post, I will use these same sort of exercises to practice tempo modulation.

  • Polyrhythm II

    To read my first post on how to figure out polyrhythms, click here.

    To internalize an unfamilar polyrhythm, I suggest the following steps:
    1) clap and tap the rhythm away from your instrument
    2) play it on your instrument, using a single pitch (no moving notes yet)
    3) if it’s a difficult passage, play it using simplified material (a simple scale pattern)
    4) play as written

    Here is a written-out variation on how you can practice a scalar passage 4:5.
    Your first step (not shown here) could be to play repeated sixteenths (here, it would be repeated F’s) and accent every 5th one.
    The first line shows how groups of 5 sixteenths fit into a 5/4 bar.
    The second line fills in the ties with moving sixteenths.
    The third and fourth lines are played the same but notated differently. It’s good to practice both.

    When you have an even number against 3, I find it easy to feel or visualize the second half of the second beat. It serves as a goal-post, or check-point. Here is an exercise similar to that above, but with 4:3.
    Remember, your first step (not shown here) could be to play repeated sixteenth F’s and accent every 3rd one.

    Here are some further exercises with even numbers against 3.  If it helps, focus on the back of the second beat.

    In the next post, I will take the scale patterns from Taffanel/Gaubert and fit them into a polyrhythmic pattern.

  • Polyrhythms I

    This is the first of a series about practicing complex rhythms related to a pulse, a.k.a. polyrhythms.

    Why bother practicing polyrhythms? Some of us have been taught that our metronome is our best friend, but how useful is it really? Do we bother to listen to it? If we do, does it ensure us a good sense of rhythm? If some of us were honest, we would admit that we do not want to listen too closely, for fear of being labeled mechanical. After all, we want to play rhythmically, not mechanically. How to do this?

    What I suggest is a method to develop rhythmical phrasing through the study of Taffanel/Gaubert’s study no. 1 from Exercices Journaliers. (I choose this because most of you reading this are flutists, and it is best to apply these ideas to something that is already familiar.). But this introduction will first cover the basics.

    A well developed sense of rhythmical phrasing can help whether you want to become the next star beat-boxer or want to keep a steady Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s  A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

    You will need a metronome that can be set to a simple beat pattern (2/4, 3/4, etc.), and a willingness to feel a bit clumsy at first.

    The following examples use simple mathematics to see visually where your pulse is against the metronome’s (or your partner’s). It is a graphical guide to help develop a FEEL for the polyrhythm.

    Given polyrhythm a:b, where b = metronome beats and a = your beats, there are two ways of figuring it out:

    1) Take the b number of metronome beats and divide it into units of a, then clap or play every b number of these units. Let’s take the example where a:b = 3:2(three against two). In standard notation it looks like this:

    Now take two (b) metronome beats, divide them into units of three (a),
    Now clap or play every two (b) of these units as shown by a crossed note head:

    _____________________________________________________________________________
    2) The second way to figure a:b  is to multiply a times b, in this case 3 times 2. This gives us six:

    Now divide this 6 into a (3). That gives us two, so mark every two pulses with an O on top. Then divide 6 into b(2) . This gives us 3, so marks every 3 pulses with an X on the bottom.

    The “O”s are the rhythm you play or clap, the “X”s are the metronome beats.

    Here is a more complicated example: 5:7

    Let’s see how it looks using the first method: given a:b, divide b (7) into units of a (5) :
    Now clap or play every b of these units (7) notated by a crossed note head:
    Try writing this example using the second method. (Begin by multiplying 5 x 7.)
    The next installation will give practical exercises on how to feel 5:4, and any even number against 3.
    For more practice, see Peter Magadini’s Polyrhythms, the Musician’s Guide, Hal Leonard Publications, 1993
    If you would like a pdf of this information in English or German, please leave a comment.