Article: “Our Ears, Our Greatest Teachers”

Suggestions for Flutists, but Also Other Wind Players.

Dear Musicians,

How often have we all been told: listen! You’re not even playing what’s in the sheet music, or something similar… In fact, there is a risk that we no longer listen to ourselves, or not closely enough, when playing.

We fall into an automatic playing mode, our thoughts are elsewhere, and our ears aren’t really with it either – with the music, with ourselves! Perhaps this sometimes comes from a certain boredom – repeating the same thing too often? Playing through it again and again, not going into detail – then our ears have no work to do, why should they stay attentive? They get bored. But good listening is the foundation of all learning in the wide field of music. Instinctively, even as children, we grasp the different styles when listening to the radio without being told what’s what.

Folk music, brass band music, popular music, jazz, classical music…. Or for classical music specialists: why does Mozart sound different from Beethoven? All these differences are different languages, or in the case of Mozart and Beethoven, perhaps only dialects within a region… these languages speak without words and reach the souls of people, they are international and understandable all over the world! But if we just play along without listening to ourselves, then we no longer speak and do not reach our listeners either.

So what to do?

First and foremost, there is the written word – the will of the composer – expressed in musical notation.

The exception, of course, is improvisation. With improvisation, this first step is omitted because there is no reading involved. The sound image to be realized originates directly in our head and is constantly “replenished” in a creative process.

The written musical text expresses as well as it can what is to be played. However, the written text can never describe the entire atmosphere of the piece, the stylistic classification accurately enough.

Therefore, expressive worlds are awakened in our ears – or our memory – which must be realized, based on the text and on the basis of the many listening experiences when playing ourselves, when listening to the radio/CD etc., or in concert.

The text is first addressed to our eyes – then, based on what is read, a sound image is developed in inner hearing, in our musical imagination – and this is now to be implemented. A really complex and sometimes difficult task, depending on how familiar we are with what has just been read and its stylistic classification. This process must not be skipped, otherwise what was described at the beginning happens. So where is the secret of “listening well to yourself”?

If we want to listen to ourselves well, we must first hear internally what we want to play. Down to the last detail! Tempo, rhythm, melody, dynamics, timbres, vibrato, personal expression, stylistic confidence… etc.

But this listening has to be learned and practiced. For flutists, there is a legendary exercise book by one of the fathers of modern flute playing, Marcel Moyse: “De la Sonorité” (“On Sonority”).

“On Sonority”

In this book, if we use it correctly, we truly learn to listen. At the beginning, there are simply two notes to connect:

MUSICAL EXAMPLE

Before we play this note connection, some decisions have already been made: Which dynamics do I choose, or which dynamic design, such as:

DYNAMIC MARKINGS

How long will I hold the notes (decision for a pulse). Do I play with vibrato or without?

Now I start with this note connection. Often the next one, a semitone lower, is played immediately – but no – stop!

Now it is important to repeat this note connection several times and to be completely with the ears. It is important to assess:

Does my tone have background noise?
Am I satisfied with the timbre? Am I playing the chosen dynamics – can you hear it???
Did I play vibrato? Does this vibrato match the chosen dynamics?
Is the vibrato free, is the neck perhaps too closed?
Or did I really follow my goal of playing without vibrato?

Of course, a control of our playing technique also takes place at the same time:

Is the embouchure flexible enough?
Is the breath support well adjusted?

Because if we don’t hear what we want to hear from ourselves, the reasons are usually in the technical detail and then the search must continue there in a constant interplay.

WHAT DO I HEAR – WHAT DO I FEEL

So it is important to link the feeling of playing with the listening expectation until both meet. In younger years, we also have our teachers to help us, who give us tips on how something should be interpreted or executed. They draw our attention to it if something does not correspond to the text or style.

Later, in the phase without regular lessons, it is very helpful to record yourself from time to time, which is so easy today with cell phones and with high quality.

Regularly it turns out that we are not playing what we had intended. Now it is important to stay with the matter and not to give yourself anything: in small steps we can get closer to our goal, to reach the inner sound image, through repeated recording. Perhaps all of this sounds like hard work – but you only have to get involved – then you experience incredibly beautiful moments and sometimes even practicing in “flow”.