Preparing Our Fingers to Perform

Conquering the Bad Habits in Our Playing

This past spring, I was preparing Olivier Messiaen’s “Abyss of the Birds” for my recital. It’s a great solo clarinet movement from Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, and a standard in clarinet repertoire. However, the middle “bird call” section is a clarinetist’s worst nightmare. It became the most nerve-wracking part of my recital preparation. The opening of this movement contains these long, slow legato lines that seem to last for a small eternity. By the time you get to the ten second crescendo and short pause before the frantic bird calls, your fingers and mind are bracing for the sharp contrast in articulation and finger movement. It feels like going from 0 to 100 miles in one second. Each time I arrived at this section, I could physically feel my fingers tensing up and my mind saying “oh no” as I jumped into the frantic calls. Unfortunately, my mind and fingers were having a hard time being ready for this challenging passage… and it was pretty obvious because my fingers and articulation were a jumbled mess.

Doing what any good student would do, I practiced this section quite a bit starting at a slow metronome tempo and gradually increasing the beats per minute. In my mind, I thought it was an execution problem, so I would pull random people into the practice room to add some extra pressure. However, by the time I performed this for my clarinet professor, I was still having difficulty with it. It sounded messy. After I performed this section, he stopped me and asked, “What are you doing with your fingers? You can’t slam your fingers down and just hope that it comes out. You need to have your fingers down for the fingering of the first note before playing.”

How long have I been doing this? I have absolutely no idea! It’s probably an embarrassing amount of time. Worst of all, this is something that I know is important, but never stopped to ask myself if this was something I was doing. Once someone points out a bad habit, you begin to see it everywhere. As I started being more intentional with noticing what my fingers were doing, I realized that having your fingers already prepared for the first note is something that applies to not just fast passages, but also slow ones as well. In other words, it is always important!

To clarify, when I use the term “fingers down”, “prepped for the first note”, or “fingering the first note” I am saying that the player is physically pushing the keys and/or covering the correct holes for that initial note. At this point, they should be able to blow air through the clarinet and have that note come out.

As I started fixing this bad habit, I began thinking about my own students and my own teaching. What I noticed is that as teachers, we are often more focused on what we are hearing rather than what we are seeing. As students, we are great at hiding bad habits that we have no idea are happening or even meaning to do. These bad habits are easy to hide and can appear in other areas such as too much tongue movement, too large of range of finger motion, and incorrect embouchure. These are all things that can be hidden if we are simply listening and not watching. Up until that point, I think that I was timing my fingers and air just well enough so that it wasn’t noticeable in my sound. However, the speed and awkward fingerings that are presented in this section of “Abyss of the Birds” does not allow room for this bad habit to work.

In my own playing, I could hear that my fingers and articulation were not lining up, but I was not there watching my fingers to see that I was setting myself up for failure by not already having the fingering down and covering the holes for the first note. Therefore, I started taking more time to watch my students’ fingers as they played instead of watching the music on the stand. Just because we are not hearing a bad habit does not mean it is not happening. It wasn’t until I was learning “Abyss of the Birds” that this bad habit became obvious since I was not able to hear the effects of it. Now instead of just watching the music that my students are playing, I am being more intentional with watching other things such as finger movement, hand placement, and embouchure.

So how do you fix this? Oftentimes, just calling attention to it is enough to see drastic improvement. However, there is one thing that I began doing that greatly helped. I started highlighting/circling the first note of my music or parts where my fingers had a long enough rest before my next entrance where they might be tempted to relax. Seeing the visual marking was a great reminder to have my fingers already down for the fingering of that next note. Over time, it becomes automatic, and it is easier to catch yourself if it begins to come back.

Why is this important?

Once I started being intentional with prepping my notes, I began to see some huge changes in my playing and performing. First, I found that my breaths were much fuller and deeper since there was not the struggle to try coordinating the breath, fingers, and beginning of the note all together. Since my breath was more relaxed and fuller, the beginning of my phrases had a richer and deeper tone. The beginnings of my passages were beautiful! My level of stress and anxiety before performing sections like that of “Abyss of the Birds” greatly decreased. As that stress and worry decreased, my confidence grew and so did my enjoyment of the piece! What a difference something as simple as having your fingers already down for the first note can make, especially in high pressure situations! Not only is this important for band music, chamber settings, and solo repertoire, but also in settings such as district auditions where you must play technical and fast passages such as the thirds, arpeggios, and scales. These things require a solid start and that begins with prepping the first note. Practicing the preparation of your fingers before these passages will greatly increase the chances of the success of your performance!