Practicing difficult passage - Point VS Pass

[sirisobhakya]

Sorry if the topic sounds unintelligible. I just cannot describe what I want to say in short enough wording.

When practicing or teaching difficult passage, I have seen many people and educators doing what I call the “point” method: starting at exactly where the difficult section begins. Makes sense enough; you cannot play that section, you practice that section.

However, one problem that I have encountered, and have frequently seen encountered by the kids in my former school band as well, is that one may be able to play the section alone, but when actually playing it in the song as a whole, the combination of many other factors come into play, for example but not limited to: different breathing, lapse of concentration, fatigue, “shock” value (especially when the difficult passage with many rapid or complicated notes follows a relatively “easy” passage), etc., and one ends up messed up the difficult passage that one otherwise can play in isolation.

So I try to do difficult passages in “pass” rather than “point”, in other words starting as far from the passage as I can and have time for, and try to practice that passage as an integral part as much as I can. Takes more practice time (which is significant since both my former school band and I myself have very limited practice time) but the result so far is quite satisfactory.

Does anyone notice this issue and/or practice like this as well?

[2bobone]

I have had my students approach the entire passage within its context. Many times, students could play an isolated passage very well indeed. But, when it had to be played in its own context it was very problematic. A book of orchestral excerpts is a very helpful tool but when the same passages are played within the actual composition, the difficulties encountered are finally revealed. One example is the third movement of the Tschaikovsky 6th symphony where individual passages are easily dispatched. If the entire movement is played, however, then the real difficulties are exposed. After several demanding fffSz passages, the bass trombone is expected to predominate over an orchestra playing full tilt by playing four half G Major scales and then another full G Major scale that dictates the massively effective final chord. Without playing the entirety of the movement, it is surprising just how much momentum is lost through shear physical exertion. It is joyous and yet at the same time is super demanding ! When it all comes together as it is supposed to do I can't image any experience being SO satisfying !

[timothy42b]

If you can play it well when starting at the troublesome part, but not in context, that's great! Now you can start to identify the "root cause" of why you had trouble in the first place, which was something that occurred before that part.

Work backward slowly until you find what the real cause was, and work on that.

[Kbiggs]

This sounds like both a context situation and a “can’t see the forest for the trees” situation. They’re related.

When I was younger, I would get so focused on practicing a passage that I would forget to practice the bars or phrases leading up to it, or even the rest of the notes of the piece. When I first started learning orchestral excerpts, I noticed I was thinking, “Here are less important notes that I have to play, and then here are some really important notes that I need to get just right.” Fortunately, I had teachers that insisted I learn the entire piece.

We have to learn the entire piece, not just the hard bits, or the bits that we think, “That’ll really impress all the other trombonists out there!” The excerpts we play are only one part (the trees) of a larger piece (the forest). There are no second-class citizens and no second-class notes.

[Gfunk]

This is an interesting way of putting it for me, but I was just practicing both of the things you’re describing yesterday. The end of the first movement of the Grondahl is known to be a bit tricky, so I’ve been practicing it in isolation (a lot and with different methods) and then putting it with half the phrase before (but not on full breath so I am close to out of air at the C before the A tempo, like I would normally be) and then making sure I can get the same breath before the last 6 notes that I can when practicing it in isolation. That’s what gives me success. And then inching my way backwards tagging on more and more of the final section and eventually the whole piece. The goal is to create control of a phrase, and then control of a section of music, and eventually a whole piece. But it starts with each and every note.

[VJOFan]

The answer has to be both, right? I just went through that with a jazz band performance I did. There was one crazy technical passage in the middle of a piece. The solution was cycling between isolation and gradually adding bits before and after the passage.

Simultaneously, I cycled between at tempo and quite slow.

The final piece of the puzzle was doing this over a period of time. I was lucky to have a couple weeks between when I got the music and the concert. A little latency can do wonders in letting a brain and body figure something out. One doesn’t always have the luxury to space out practice, but it’s good when possible.

[Wilktone]

This is an interesting way of putting it for me, but I was just practicing both of the things you’re describing yesterday. The end of the first movement of the Grondahl is known to be a bit tricky, so I’ve been practicing it in isolation (a lot and with different methods) and then putting it with half the phrase before (but not on full breath so I am close to out of air at the C before the A tempo, like I would normally be) and then making sure I can get the same breath before the last 6 notes that I can when practicing it in isolation. That’s what gives me success. And then inching my way backwards tagging on more and more of the final section and eventually the whole piece. The goal is to create control of a phrase, and then control of a section of music, and eventually a whole piece. But it starts with each and every note.

Not sure if the sentence I bolded is quite what I'm suggesting, but it's the same basic idea.

I like to practice difficult passages from the end and work backwards. There are a few different reasons I suspect this is more helpful than starting from the beginning of the phrase.

• It forces you to target the end of the phrase, which makes both good musical sense and also helps to keep the air moving through to the end of the phrase.

• When the passage is difficult it usually falls apart by the end of the phrase, and so it forces you to practice that part of the passage.

• It introduces strangeness to the process, which helps you to connect the technique and expression in a way that sticks faster and longer. There's an exercise artists do where they copy someone else's drawing, but turn everything upside down first. I think it's a similar idea.

Depending on how challenging the passage is and other factors, you might start with the last two or three notes of the passage, practice it until you can play it accurately a few times in a row, then add the note or three just before. Work your way through the passage like this backwards until you are starting at the beginning.

One of the keys to this approach is that you must be able to play the section you're working on accurately a few times in a row before you go back and add any notes. Don't jump ahead, even if you don't finish the phrase today. Work it again tomorrow and see if you can go back even further.

Dave

[BGuttman]

I think one of the discontinuities from practicing difficult passages per se versus in context may be breathing. When you are playing the whole piece you may not have a chance to breathe before you tackle that tough passage. Learn to manage your air so that you don't enter the tough passage on a partial tank with not enough air to finish it.

[Gfunk]

I think one of the discontinuities from practicing difficult passages per se versus in context may be breathing. When you are playing the whole piece you may not have a chance to breathe before you tackle that tough passage. Learn to manage your air so that you don't enter the tough passage on a partial tank with not enough air to finish it.

This is a big part of what I talked about, although I didn’t say it as explicitly. A lot of issues come from performing in context different than in practice. Breath is a frequent culprit of that.

[TBone66]

The other thing to remember, as is alluded to by others, is that the tricky bit is just that - a bit, It is a part of the whole & usually does not sit in isolation. As Bruce said you need to be able to set yourself up properly in the preceding section to be able to play it, but also you need to be able to continue on afterwards. You're unlikely to be able to stop & congratulate yourself on how well you did immediately after completing that "bit", but will need to continue with the rest of that section. So get used to playing it in its context.