Iowa All-State 2020

It’s that time of year again!

2020 has been a lot, and seemingly everything has been affected. HOWEVER, some of the changes we’ve been forced to make this year may turn out to be a good idea to hang onto. In particular, I’m thinking about the changes to this year’s Iowa All-State process.

Auditions are virtual!

Over the past ten years, many professional orchestras and university programs have been adding a recorded audition round to their application process. This has been GREAT for several reasons.

1. Committees and organizations save time and money, knowing the applicants invited are all highly qualified, and they won’t have to listen to underprepared players.
2. Applicants save TONS of $$$ on travel expense, knowing they are mostly invited to auditions they have a real chance of winning or advancing in.
3. Players themselves are challenged to submit the greatest, most refined recordings they possibly can, which drives them to listen deeper and refine their preparation beyond what they might have otherwise.

This last one is the MOST IMPORTANT. The rising tide of audition competition these past ten years has been intense, because the musicians who embrace self-recording for pre-screening rounds and daily practice grow SO FAST compared to those who do not.

It is my personal hope that you (students AND teachers) experience an incredible level of growth from participating in this year’s audition process, and that we all become advocates of self-recorded practice in the future.

-end rant-

This year’s percussion etudes are pretty straightforward. I have example performances on my YouTube channel HERE, and they will be embedded below. I also have a video on self-recording and practice methods to prepare for it, which I’ll discuss more below as well.

INTRODUCING OVERLAYS

This year I made some overlays of my notes for each piece. You can print them directly onto copies of your music, or onto transparency, or copy them onto a plastic sleeve, or whatever. I strongly encourage you to check them out, and use them as a model for how to add notes from others or from your own practice to your music.

INTRODUCING GUIDING QUESTIONS

I have two friends who play at the MET, Rob Knopper and Jason Haaheim. Both of them are great musicians, not because of some magical in-born talent, but because they work like crazy and have brilliant practice philosophies. I distilled and organized these Guiding Questions from a lot of their work and advice, and have found them to be a powerful tool in my own teaching and practice.

As you read through here, I suggest you test every suggestion with a recorder. What’s good for me isn’t automatically good for you, and you have to make YOUR recording sound YOUR best.

Snare Drum: Cirone Portraits in Rhythm #18

This is one of my favorites. It has a few of my favorite snare drum tricks and the tempo is just right for all of them.

Right away the accented fp roll has a great trick. Cirone gives you a hint later, in line 4, that this roll is two accented 16th buzzes, creating a wide, dark accent in contrast to the light, staccato notes which follow. I play the staccato notes mostly on the left hand, as indicated in my overlays, because I like the consistent tone and the way it looks like it sounds.

In line 2 I suggest the crescendo not quite make it to the level of the roll so there’s a bit of a pop as in the beginning. The quarter roll in this line is NOT like the 8th rolls up to this point, and I play it as a triplet, accented only on the first note.

ROLL SUGGESTIONS. Time for math.

The human ear blends individual sounds together between 1200-1300 bpm. The optimal arm speed for rolls is between 360-540 bpm. Ideally, you want:

[(tempo x subdivision = 400-500) x (3 or 4 bounces/hand) = 1300-1800]

In this piece (160 x 4 = 640bpm) so that’s a big NO, but (160 x 3 = 480) and that’s a good, quick arm speed for rolls. “But wait! what about the 16th rolls at the beginning!”. Those are single buzzes on each hand, NO arm alternation. They are more like an articulation on a down stroke than a sustained roll, so they work just fine.

Complete equation: (160 x 3 = 480) x (3 bounces) = 1440. Win.

Go down to line 6, this is where you may have an issue. Either you use the above math and play the quarter rolls as triplets OR, you play the rolls as 16ths with very, VERY fast arm motions. The triplet option makes for some tricky counting and potential distortion of the pulse in an already strange passage. The 16th option requires an extremely light and loose feel to avoid sounding oddly emphasized or tense. Test both options side by side for a week or more before deciding.

Now down to lines 8/9. Here’s my favorite trick of all time: Flex rolls💪. The accented pickups in this passage are 16th double-accents like the beginning. They are followed by a triplet roll with no terminating sound. That means the first roll is: two accented 16ths, triplet on beat 1, a single note on beat 2, leaving a slight gap before the next roll. The counts would be, “&a tri-pl-et 2” (or “taka ta-ka-di ta” if that’s your thing).

The trick now is to smooth the sound out so it’s not clear that we’re playing different rhythms through the roll. Still counting the rhythm, widen the 16ths and compress the triplet after the beat slightly to “flex” the rhythms into each other. When you have it right, you can count the exact base rhythm, feel the flex, hear the smooth tone, AND stay lined up to a metronome on 8ths to clean the start of each roll.

Before you dismiss this as being *way too complicated and strange*, get the base subdivisions into your hands and give it a try for about a week. This is the single best roll trick I ever figured out and I promise if you sit with it for a bit you’ll understand why.

Line 10 is the last different roll thing in the piece. If you think of it as 3+3+3 it makes more sense than how it’s notated. In each set of 3 counts, the first two are a triplet, and the last is a single buzz (tap on the last note). Instead of getting hung up on where the downbeat is, stay focused on the smooth, even alternations. In 3/8 time it would be “Tri-pl-et 3” over and over. Alternatively, you could play it in 16ths, but at the given dynamic it’s pretty intense and I can’t recommend it for the sake of good tone.

The rest of the piece is application of the above concepts. I can recommend assigning dynamics to positions edge-center on the head to separate the dynamics by resonance as well as volume.

Timpani: Barry Dvorak All-State Etude #5

The trick here is three elements right next to each other:

1. Long rolls with crescendos that need a smooth sound
2. Short Rolls that are actually just a rhythm, but are still smooth
3. Fast notes that have to be obviously clearer than the rolls

There are two tricks that combine to make this work.

First, timpani heads are big, they ripple like a pond. Most of the ripple bounces off the round sides in all directions, but one spot straight across from your hand reflects directly back. When your hands are close together, the ripples which reflect directly back will cancel out your next stroke frequently, making for a more articulate sound. When your hands separate about 8″, they no longer cancel each other out as often, and the sound is smoother and more blended.

Second, mallets have a 10-15º tilt range. Played on the “equator” they have a more articulated sound. Angled towards the top of the mallet, the sound is smooth and warm. WARNING, too far and they “chiff” as they scrape on the head. Record and listen carefully to calibrate just the right position on every mallet you use.

Put these tricks together and you can get a lot of separation in your sound. All rolls are played 8″ apart and angled for the warmest, smoothest sound. All non-rolls are played close together on the “equator” of the mallet for the clearest, articulated sound.

On my overlays you can see the combination of stickings and roll subdivisions I use. You can go slightly faster than my suggestions, but the risk is always a pinched or choked sound. Roll speeds in the 700-800 range (tempo x sub division) are ideal.

Counting the 5th line while tuning. I change the meter partway through so I count in triplets for 2 bars, then in 8ths. The meter change at the end means the 8ths I’m counting become the quarter pulse. That seems to make it easier. I tune on the beat, and practiced with a gauge first to get the feel of where my feet go. After a few successful repetitions, I took out the gauge and let my feet go where they wanted, then checked them on a tuner after. They missed a few times, then I identified my tendencies to be high or low and adjusted. After about an hour, I never missed it again.

Tuning is not a chore we have to get through to get back to drumming. Tuning is just part of the thing. Be good at it. Practice tuning, and set up your practice so you have to retune a LOT. You’ll be really good at in a short time.

Marimba: Stan Dahl Etude #5

This etude has two difficult elements throughout

1. The chords and hand positions are VERY similar, and it’s easy to miss the *one* note that changes from beat to beat
2. The markings are minimal, and the player has to add a lot of phrasing and inflection to complete the piece.

My overlays include chord symbols, which show not only WHAT the chords are, but WHERE they are, to help train your eyes to look for the note changes. I suggest blocking every bar: playing every note in the chord at once to get the physical layout while playing the written subdivisions. You’ll find the hand and body movements you make to get in position are easier to remember than the individual notes, and form an underlying layer of memorization that’s make everything way easier.

My overlays also include recommendations for phrasing. I won’t go over them all here, but the process is the main thing.

1. Learn the notes to a metronome so you have the space between them well-conditioned
2. Loosen up and turn off the met. Set up a few phrase ideas and practice them to a recorder, allowing yourself to flex the time however feels good
3. Listen back for your favorite versions. Some will sound AWFUL. Just make a note not to repeat that and stay focused on what you like.

Learn – Loosen – Listen

Some of the notes are pretty quick. Get them successful at a slow tempo, then gradually speed them up over a few days. Play at a low tempo until it’s successful, then go up ONE click and repeat.

ex: target is 110, success is at 70. Day one: 70-80, Day two: 75-85, etc …. until you get to Day eight: 105-115 and you have slightly more capacity than you need to easily execute the passage. Using this method you have 88+ successful repetitions (at least 11 per day), consistency and probably memorization as well.

Self-Recording and Practice Method: by Dan Krumm

The video is pretty dense. I recommend watching it several times and making notes to yourself. If you’re into this approach, definitely check out Rob Knopper and his online course to get a deeper look.

When you set up your recording gear, take a couple runs and listen back for room noise and overall dynamic contrast. You typically cannot take out background noise on simple equipment without messing up the sustained tone of your instrument or voice. I typically take 10-15min to get the camera angle and audio settings right in a new room, then I write them down in case I need to come back. If you’re using extra lights you’ll want to write down those settings as well (I didn’t do that with my new lights and paid for it on a reshoot for this video… I bet you can tell where)

As always, I’m happy to go more in-depth and answer questions if people have them. Best of luck to all students and teachers this season, I hope you find this self-recording process as fulfilling as I do!