Performance as Research Reflexive Diary: Learning Klezmer music on clarinet

Inter-disciplinary research : music, drawing e pedagogy

Inspired by the unique precious possibility of understanding musical performance as a

research technique particularly in relation to the music of other cultures, I decided to

learn to play Klezmer music on clarinet.

Because I am not a trained musician and I have been an amateur clarinet player in a

small Italian band, there is a considerable gap between Klezmer music tradition and

my own previous experience. As artist-teacher I am involved in a praxis-based

research MA ‘Artist-teacher and contemporary practices’ that focuses on pedagogical

practices related to the visual arts. Interested in expanding this research to the field of

music and willing to revisit my previous experience of italian amateur clarinettist, this

study seemed to be a rewarding interesting challenge to enrich my educational work

and to expand my knowledge about music performance and Klezmer tradition.

Documenting the learning process of music performance in relation to the music of

other cultures is not easy and this documentation is not always accessible. This is one

of the reasons why I decided to visually map this process, creating an instantly

accessible useful resource able to communicate some specific techniques or gestures

avoiding possible language barriers. ‘The importance of ethnomusicology for the

study of music and cognition is not simply that brings into the research arena a wealth

of seemingly exotic data from musical systems organized on principles unknown or

unusued in western music, but also that it emphasises the study of music making as a

process instead of just music as a product.’ (Baily, 1985 p.238)

As artist-teacher I understand this focus because I find more relevant the art making

as a process than the result of it.

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Playing the clarinet in a small Italian village for nine years I learnt to perform and

march during traditional social or religious events. I enjoyed playing but finding

myself in an old and static context where there was only one way of performing, no

space for creativity and a few irreplaceable rules, I lost interest in it and I left the

group. During the following years I became an artist and I encountered the charming

possibility of learning to play the clarinet by ear, experiencing music in a deeper,

liberatory way. Having read the experiences of and Bakan (1999) in learning to

perform Balinese music, I was conscious about imposing my Western music training

onto the Klezmer tradition. However, I was excited about the possibility to use my

previous music knowledge in order to learn some Klezmer features, to challenge my

previous view of music performance and to adopt strategies of creative learning.

Discovering that ‘Tumbalalaika’, a Russian Jewish folk and love song and one of my

favourite tunes was part of the Klezmer music tradition and that in this genre it is

possible to learn the melody firstly and to add the ornamentation later on (differently

from other eastern and Balkan traditions), I found this kind of music charming and

accessible enough to be the focus of my performance. Klezmer music is the

traditional Eastern European Jewish wedding music played by the Ashkenazi Jews

who spoke Yiddish. ‘Klezmer’ is a Yiddish term that combines the Hebrew words

‘Kley’ that means instrument and ‘zemer’, the songs, meaning the instrument of the

song. Originally from the ghettos of eastern Europe where itinerant Jewish

troubadours, known as ‘klezmorium’ performed at joyful events, especially weddings,

it is only in the 1970 that Klezmer appeared again in America, were in the 19th century

Jews emigrated to escape pogroms. I will draw a map about performance as research

in learning some features of Klezmer music tradition on clarinet as well as rising

questions about the value of the visual arts in this learning process and in its

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documentation. My relationship with Klezmer music derives mainly from time spent

in learning pieces by year from a teacher of Klezmer and Balkan clarinet as well as

learning from audio recordings. I also experimented methods of self-teaching,

transcription, various learning strategies and I experienced group learning during a

class of ‘devilish Balkan and Eastern music’.

During the first weeks of self-teaching everything I listened seemed too complex for

me. The sound of my instrument was bad and reedy. I had never transcribed a piece or

played by ear and I had to learn a new notation system. It was six years I did not play

or perform in front of a public and I was the only non-musician attending

’performance as research’. It was inevitable to question myself daily about the

realistic possibility of learning to perform elements of an unknown music tradition in

three months of time. I was not sure of being extremely brave or completely insane

overestimating myself. As experienced by Alejandro Toledo, the material that I found

‘did not provided a way to bridge my current musical skills with technicalities and

performance practice’ (Toledo, 2013) in eastern and Balkan music. ‘Considering the

available sources, I concluded that the only way to approach this musical style would

be studying it directly with the musician that perform it.’ (Toledo, 2013) At the

beginning of the learning process I decided that my main goals would have been to be

able to play by memory some Klezmer tunes learnt by ear and to improve the quality

of the sound of my instrument revisiting my previous knowledge in music making.

Embedded in these purposes are the concepts of self-motivation, the ability to explore

and select different learning strategies and the capacity to interlace formal and

informal learning in order to achieve ‘the complexity of the enjoyment’

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1992).

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Originally inspired by the greek music of ‘Rebetiko’ described by the musician

Vinicio Capossela in his book ‘Tefteri’, I was looking for someone able to help me in

discovering methods of self-teaching unfolding a few aspects of eastern and Balkan

music. Meeting a Balkan saxophonist, allowed me to understand how to get started in

the learning process (1). In this period of time I described the feeling of having heavy

hands not able to follow the velocity of my mind (a), the feeling of missing

information about my instrument, (b) the physical pain of my mouth and right thumb

(c). When my sound started to improve and my body readapted to the instrument, I

was still not able to play by ear from the recordings and I still didn’t found a teacher

yet. I tried to facilitate my learning ‘using software to slow down performances that

were executed too fast for me to grasp’ (Toledo, 2013, p.20), as Toledo suggested, but

it did not work either. The task that I was setting was always too high for me, leaving

me in a state of anxiety and ‘psychic entropy’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 199, p.33) . I was

doing a lot of background listening and desperately trying to figure out the detailed

listening of a tune. I didn’t have enough skills to transcribe that piece. “It is how

people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or

be miserable.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1992, p.7)

I passed from moments of boredom where I was trying to improve the sound of my

instrument doing slow chromatic scales in the corner of my studio to moments of

anxiety trying to notate or play a fast piece full of ornaments and not being able to

progress. As soon as I read about the concept of ‘flow’ (2) and I used it in my

research about the moments when arts practice inspires learning in children and in

teenagers, I understood that I could still achieve the goals related to Klezmer

performance as research.

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Setting easier and more focused tasks with the help of a musician I could have learnt a

few traits of this tradition using more efficient strategies.

The role of the visual art became fundamental at this point of the research. Drawing

daily after exercising with the clarinet was ordering my consciousness

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1992). Keeping up my self-esteem and providing immediate

positive feedback, it has been a way to document the complexity of this experience.

Feeling confident in making images and hoping to progress soon in music as I was in

the visual arts, I constantly shifted from a frustrating experience to an enjoyable one.

The act of drawing was giving justice to the act of playing, considering the second

one as important as the first one because an experience of the same elaborateness but

only at an earlier stage of practice and understanding. I was investing more energy

and attention in music making than in art making, so ‘I put faith in an instinctive

belief that so long as I could play, there was value to what I was doing, to how I was

learning and that somehow I was moving towards a new kind of musical

understanding that would ultimately prove significant and revealing.’ (Bakan, 1999,

p.296) I strongly believe that It’s really important ‘to connect learning with life

experiences’ (hooks, 1994, p.52) because it’s the way to give value to what is relevant

in the life of the learner and that will also motivate him in the next step of the learning

process. It’s also essential to break the institutionalized boundaries between subjects,

typical of the ‘factory lines’ (Robinson, 2010) on which the actual educational system

is based. Part of the spontaneous learning process happened in fact because of the

possibility to shift from an activity to another being flexible between playing,

drawing, reading, talking and writing. The description of this "process that captures

the notion of a ‘changing self’, a metamorphosis of the self and the music one

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performs.’ (Toledo, 2013) is something that it can be perceived in the drawings at the

end of this essay.

Using self-teaching strategies I was listening a lot of Balkan and eastern music as

background (3) and improvising daily to don’t lose the little progress I made, trying to

brake down the rigidity that went along my previous years of music making. I learnt

that I was playing better when standing up than sitting down and when I was

improvising as long as I could without brakes. The pic. (d) shows this desire of

freedom and fluidity. I recorded most of my improvisation in order to track my

improvements. However, to progress in a visible way I needed someone who was

giving me ‘tools of expression such as training skills and a suitable milieau for

musiking’. (Folkestad, 2006, p.141). My clarinet teacher has been able to figure out

with me the learning strategies to achieve realistic goals being able to produce ‘the

complexity of the enjoyment’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1992) and effective learning.

Starting the one-to one lessons helped me to structure my daily practice, improving

the management of my time and the quality of the experience. Following the structure

of these lessons during my daily practice, the progress was faster and gradual. The

pedagogical methodology adopted by my teacher has been very similar to the concept

of ‘Eduction’ (Folkestad, 2006, p.139) described by Ericson. In fact, pointing out how

my previous practice was limiting my music development and using my ability of

reading music to encourage me to transcribe a piece learnt by ear, she was ‘bringing

forth and developing the capacities, abilities and attitudes that already potentially

exist in the student’ (Folkestad, 2006, p.139).

This is easier to do when the learning starts from the interests of the students as

Giroux (2004) and hooks (1994) underline. In my case the teacher created the

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conditions for a ‘meeting place for informal and formal learning: formal in the sense

that is lead and organized by a teacher but informal in the sense that the kind of

learning that is obtained and the ways in which this is achieved have much in

common with the characteristics of everyday learning outside school.’ (Folkestad,

2006, p.139)

Meeting in her apartment, having tea before playing and talking about what we

wanted to do at the beginning of each lesson were all things that made me feel

comfortable and created the conditions for learning to happen. I started to understand

that ‘The failures and obstacles…are often as enlightening as the successes, provided

one is able to step aside and observe oneself and others, analysing the problems that

arise from clashing assumptions, perceptions, demands and capabilities, few of which

are made explicit.’ Benjamin Brinner, Knowing Music, Making Music

I was guided during the first tune and I took a long time to understand how to find,

reproduce and memorize the notes that Susi was playing. However, she gave me a lot

of autonomy in the following steps. I chose the other tunes to learn, we discussed

together if I was feeling comfortable in playing with her or having an accompaniment

with the accordion and I was also free to sit down or stand up. I have been able to

decide how long I wanted to play or what I wanted to say during my performance. We

were in a constant dialogue, a process of ‘critical pedagogy’ (Friere, 1970). She has

been flexible and sympathethic, changing the focus of the teaching on the basis of my

limits or potentialities.

At first I had to face that learning a new musical genre means starting from the very

beginning (e). I was looking at the hands of my teacher, listening and trying to repeat

these sounds. At the same time I had to keep in mind diverse corrections about my

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mouthpiece, tonguing and breath. Apparently, many of my habits were improvable or

wrong; a detailed visual map of these changes is available in the series of drawing

‘auditive and visual harmony’ (f).

In learning a tune I was struggling to play in tempo because of the huge amount of

energy spent in memorizing the notes. My teacher made sure I could read music and

she suggested to write down the tune that I just learnt. Once I transcribed it, I played it

in tempo and she was surprised about it. However, looking at my transcription she

was even more shocked because I didn’t do a proper ‘writing of musical sounds, […]

considered universally applicable and universally requisite to ethnomusicological

methodology’ (1992a:110) (Toledo, 2013 p,12) or ‘transcription’. I just put down a

series of identical dots on the staff, notes with the same value. In doing so I was able

to focus my attention on remembering only the rhythm of the tune. This strategy was

not certainly something to be proud of but helped me to achieve a faster result. After

that, I found a basic notated version of this tune online, which helped me in doing a

proper transcription of the version that I learnt by year using its musical structure as a

starting point for my notation. (4)

At this stage I was able to learn by year a piece from a recording, transcribing it first

with my unconventional strategy: writing notes with identical value and then playing

them in the right tempo. It was a bizarre method but in the available time it was the

most efficient one. ’In the process of notating and practicing I had actually

memorized most of the material I had learned’ (Folkestad, 2006, p.308) I was in fact

achieving my goal every week: being able to play by memory a new tune learnt by

ear. I started to be able to reproduce Klezmer mian melodies, to have some Klezmer

influences, to produce a better sound and to increase my self-confidence.

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‘The Klezmorim had more freedom than what was usual for Jews at the time, which

gave them a certain reputation’. (Klezmer!, BBC, 2012) They were kind of the bad

boys of the Jews old world, they didn’t respect what they were told by the synagogue,

they were in the community but also not in the community.’ (Klezmer!, BBC, 2012) I

find rules and mistakes really interesting, especially when they are related to

creativity and arts.

‘When you have a gipsy life you are a little bit different. You don’t follow all the

rules, when you play you are creative and when you are creative you brake the rules.’

(Klezmer!, BBC, 2012) Because I lived in three different countries and I am

completely absorbed in the arts practice, I feel close to the perspective of the

klezmorim and I understand that travelling and creativity necessary lead to brake the

rules, opening up new possibilities, perspectives and world views. Woods (1995, p.3)

seminal work suggests that during creative learning ‘pupils have control over their

own learning processes, and ownership of the knowledge produced, which is relevant

to their concerns’. Woods (1995, p.3) In art and so ‘in experiments there are no

mistakes, only unexpected outcomes’ (Smith, 2010) and that’s what I think about

braking the rules and consequently in making mistakes. Mistakes, or experiments,

promote risk taking, critical thinking and evaluation of these actions, creating new

knowledge through creative learning. ‘Creative learning should be on connection-

making, possibility thinking and knowledge; playing with ideas; discussion and

evaluation of options; risk-taking; the valuing of uncertainty; and the construction of

alternative solutions to problems’ (Jeffree, 2005). During performance as research I

had an experience of creative learning.

However, when I asked to my teacher how she was preparing for a performance, she

answered that she was playing the pieces so many times that it would have been

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almost impossible to make a mistake. This statement made me feel quite

uncomfortable, imagining myself prisoned in a loop of daily madness trying to

achieve perfection, constantly repeating the same tunes over and over again. I

discovered later that this was not the way to interpret those words.

As artist teacher I think that mistakes are nothing different than unexpected outcomes.

These unexpected outcomes are necessary to be creative and that is why I find

mistakes extremely valuable and important in the arts field. For this reason

interiorizing the idea of being able to perform different tunes without making

mistakes resulted quite scary for me because it was going against my usual perception

of mistakes, considering them in this case something to avoid and not to look for. In

my experience of learning devilish Balkan and Eastern music by ear with a small

group of intermediate amateur musicians, the teacher asked me to play louder because

I play a loud instrument and I didn’t have to be afraid of making mistakes. She also

added that I would have been an example for others, who would have been more

likely to make mistakes out loud. This was really interesting because it made me

understand the commonalities between visual arts and music making.

In the group experience we were learning together and chaos and dissonances were

encouraged because ‘True participation is open, we will never be able to know what

we give to the spectator author ‘ (Clark 1968, Bishop 2006 p.18).

‘The excitement comes from the effort of the group’ (hooks, 1994), and I think that in

this case making mistakes out loud was useful to keep the group excited and focus,

free from worries. Learning happens when we concentrate our attention on something

challenging that if it has a right balance between task and skills (Csikszentmihalyi,

1992) will bring over the time order in consciousness and achievement of personal

goals. In this specific situation, our goal was to learn by year some eastern and Balkan

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tunes and that is why it did not matter if there was an initial chaos and discordance of

sounds. Everyone was working towards the same goal but figuring out the

understandings necessary to achieve it with a very personal and unique process. This

way of solving order in consciousness is what interests me and the mistakes in this

process need to be encouraged.

When my teacher was talking about ‘being able to play in a way that is almost

impossible to make mistakes’ she meant of being able to have a coherent

understanding of a practice that was aligned with your goals. It doesn’t necessary

mean that the outcome needs to be correct under the perspective of a fixed system of

knowledge, especially in the creative context of ‘performance as research’ were the

students have a considerable amount of autonomy in decision making and the focus of

the module is more on showing a progress in performance as a result of

learning/research than reaching a high standard level.

Even if Klezmer music is usually performed in a group and is quite fast and full of

ornaments, I would consider it for other aspects. Because musical relationships take a

long time to take place and because I can not play too fast to be accurate, I will play

by myself focusing on what I consider the biggest understandings I achieved about

Klezmer music in my short learning experience. I will focus on the idea of Klezmer

music as ‘joy with tears’ (Klezmer! BBC, 2012) and on the spiritual aspect of it, that

are making it so alive and profound. I found the zeal typical of the jews ‘niggonum’,

‘the singing for hours reaching a state of ecstasy and transportation through these

wordless songs.’ (Klezmer! BBC, 2012) in some of the tunes I performed and that is

why I accentuated their rhythm.

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Selecting the goals that were both fascinating and realistically achievable I created

order in consciousness, having a different focus from the one of my music teacher

oand from the one I had when I was a different type of musician. The daily music

practice became then not only focused on learning the notes or the rhythm of some

tunes but on a deeper desire of spirituality and enjoyment. These feelings were

renewing my daily experience keeping away the risk of the sterile frustrating

repetition typical of rota learning.

Reference list:

Baily J. 1985, Music structure and human movement

Baily j., 2008, Learning to perform as a research tecqnique in

Ethnomusicology” British Journal of Ethnomusicology

Bakan, Michael B. 1999. Music of Death and New Creation: Experiences in the

World of Balinese Gamelan Beleganjur. Chicago and London: University of

Chicago Press. [Chapters 7, 8 and 9]

Bakan, Michael B. 1999, Chapters , Learning to play: An Ethnomusicologist’s

Experiences

BBC Documentary, 2012, Klezmer! Available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1ukp6gCeko Accessed on: 20 May 2015

Bishop C., 2006, Participation, Cambridge, Massachusetts ,The MIT Press

Craft A., Cremin T. and Burnard P., 2005, Creative learning and how to

document it, Trentham: Trentham Books Ltd

Csikszentmihalyi M., 2002, ‘Flow’ the classic work on how to achieve

happiness

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Csikszentmihalyi, M (1988). The flow experience and its significance for human

psychology. Optimal experience: physcological studies of flow in consciousness

Folkestad g., 2006, Formal and informal learning situations or practices vs

formal and informal ways of learning, Lund University, Malmo, Sweden

Friere P., (1970) Pedagogy of the oppressed, New York: The Continuum

International Publishing Group

Giroux A.: Public Pedagogy. Culture as a space for the production of meaning

and for social interaction, Cultural Studies, Public Pedagogy, and the

Responsibility of Intellectuals (2004) Ney York, Routlesde

hooks b. (1994) teaching to transgress, New York: Routledge

Robinson, K. (2010) Changing Education Paradigms, Ted talks. Available at

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms

(Accessed on: 20/04/2015)

Smith K. (2010), Mess, the manual of accident and mistakes, Perigee Book

Toledo A. 2013. World Music, Creative Reinterpretation, and the East

Moldavian Roma Tradition .Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London.

[Thesis]

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Appendix (reflexive diary, lessons, conversations, transcriptions, drawings) GROUP LEARNING Excited by the fast progress in learning by ear I decided to attend a class of “devilish Balkan and eastern music” with a group of violins, accordions and guitars. The first lesson was a complete disaster and I almost didn’t play at all. I was very slow in figuring out which notes I had to play because most of the times the teacher was saying out loud only the notes for the violins and not those for clarinets. In addiction to that I didn’t know the English notation system so well to be able to instantly refer it to my fingers on the clarinet. The teacher was playing the violin and not the clarinet as Susi, so I couldn’t even guess the notes from the position of her hands. After this demotivating experience I discussed with the teacher the possibility of keeping a notebook during her class, hoping that trying to notate the tune would have helped me. She agreed and I felt I had another chance to catch up with the other musicians being able to stay in the group. In the following lesson something incredible happened: I have been able to play almost everything and I took the same time of the other members of the group to figure out notes, embellishments and rhythm of the tune. I had an experience of unexpected learning. Using a notebook was not really helpful for me, because I did not have enough time to notate or read properly. Differently from my methodology with Susi I was learning many elements at the same time: notes, embellishments and rhythm. I could not just use my previous strategies. At this point I heard that the teacher pointed out that in the tune we were playing there was the same mode of the previous one. When I looked for the notes of the new tunes in those of the previous one, I found them quite easily. Only in that moment I realized what a huge piece of knowledge was missing in my understanding: Even if I learnt the Balkan modes during the private lessons, I never thought that each piece of music had only the notes of one of this scales (modes) in it. Before this realization I was always looking for the notes of each tune in all the notes of my instrument and that’s why I was so lost and slow. ‘The failures and obstacles…are often as enlightening as the successes, provided one is able to step aside and observe oneself and others, analysing the problems that arise from clashing assumptions, perceptions, demands and capabilities, few of which are made explicit.’ Benjamin Brinner, Knowing Music, Making Music

1) 12 March I met Alejandro and kept in touch with Susi. At the moment I have got a lot of music to listen in the background that Alejandro gave me. He reminds me of my painting teacher. My sound is very bad, my lips hurt and the air keeps coming from the side of my mouth. I discovered I need a thinner reed, a number 2 instead of a 3. “ As long as you like it you can play wathever you want!” A. “If you do it to make it part of who you are then it is going to work”. A. Structure: skill exercises, work on a piece, improvisation. On the side record improvisation, transcribe stuff and edit improvisation. Incorporate music with the visual art and especially with the performance art. Design little patterns and practice them in small exercises. You learn influences and then you put them in a context. Learn in both ways: by ear and through notation. To learn by ear you can download a programme to slow down music. To help the tonality of the instrument you should practice a long note focused on the colour of the tone, then you go up a semitone and then you come back.

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a) b)

c)

2) ‘Yet we have experienced times when, instead of being buffeted by anonymous forces, we do feel in control of our actions, masters of our own fate. On the rare occasion that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like. This what we mean by ‘optimal experience’ or state of ‘flow’. (Csikszentmihalyi M., 2002, ‘Flow’) 3) London Klezmer quartet Alejandro’s Full Attack Band She’koyokh Dikanda Dikanda Fanfare Ciocarlia Manea Cu Voca Kottarashky – hopa hey Selim Sesler – Kasap Havas

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Taraf de Haidouks Barcelona Klezmer Gipsy orchestra Karsten Troyke and susanna – Tumbalalaika

d)

e)

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f) The reedy sound was produced by the small amount of air passing through the mouthpiece. Putting more mouthpiece in the mouth made me blow more air in the clarinet, creating a warmer sound.

Keeping the tong very close to the reed helped me in stopping the movement of chin and throat while tonguing.

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Positioning the clarinet at 45 degrees from the ground allowed me to blow more air in it and more easily, diminishing the risk of squeaking.

Sitting with straight back and neck is the right way to give stability and strength to the sound of the instrument.

Keeping the fingers separated from each other even when not playing is a good habit that let the clarinettist be able to start to play at any time. Also, pressing the clarinet in the mouth with the right thumb avoid the instinct to use other fingers to hold the instrument.

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The fingers should always have the shape of claws and never be too tense or straight..

4) 26 February 2015-05-05 Today I started to play the clarinet again after 6 years brake. The sound is a lot worse than what I remembered. After a few minutes of random notes I feel I am not able to keep a constant volume. There is no fluidity. I make a few long notes to make my breath constant. I lost muscles tone and after

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10 minutes of playing my upper lip hurts and some air is coming out from the sides of my mouth. In the past, this was happening after 2 hours and a half of playing. I am so out of shape. I can still read the notation but I have to review flats and sharps and a few positions of my fingers. When I detach one note from another it sounds horrible. I need to practice tonguing exercises every day. I also need some new reeds, those in my box are six years old. I want to play something else, the old pieces I tried today are so boring. 2 March 2015-05-05 Today I felt that my lips took a longer time to get tired, even if it still happens too quickly. I started to play some scales taken from the thesis of Alejandro. I can’t play something without making mistakes. I don’t remember some positions with my hands and I feel it’s almost impossible to play a piece with four sharps. I follow the advice of Alejandro and I look fro the “double tonguing technique” on youtube. A clarinettist explains that the technique let you go twice faster than a normal staccato and instead of thinking of pronunciate the sound T-K with the double tonguing we should think/pronounce in the instrument the sound D-G. Other advice:

• Always practice lower keys notes first • Exercise on a scale or at least more than one note • Exercise max 10-15 min a day • Do it slow and then once you managed it try it fast

I need to review the position of all the fingers on the clarinet, practice scales, practice tonguing and double tonguing, learn English notation. 4 March 2015-05-05 Alejandro suggested to teach to myself some vocabulary of articulation: double and triple tonguing and ornaments on harmonic minor scales. Today I lasted 30 minutes. I tried out harmonic minor scales but I managed to do well only two of them. I didn’t really get the trills looking at his notation on his thesis, so I will ask him personally about this. I can’t really make thrills in a different way than the one I learnt in the past as a western amateur clarinettist. My sound is still horrible but it is slightly better, especially at the beginning. I can’t perform the transcriptions in the thesis of Alejandro. I found some interesting pieces of writing in his thesis and I will use them for my essay. 7 March I am demotivated. My mouth hurts, I am really slow in reading and I don’t know my goal anymore. I would just like to play something short an easy that sounds a little bit Balkan and a little bit good. I am not independent or confident and that kills the desire to do the readings or to play in a group. I am happy I will meet Alejandro today, hopefully his help would make a change. 19 March, Thursday I started to play with the reed n2 and it is so much better. The sound is more clean and powerful and I can play for a longer time. I play 30 minutes a day and I am also trying to study a piece by year through the use of a slow downer. I listen to Balkan and eastern music everyday and I find it really inspiring, alive and a bit bizarre and schizophrenic (in a metaphorical way) like me. I still feel that when I play there is nothing that sounds Balkan, but I imagine and I hope that once I learnt the piece that I am studying and had some of the lessons with Susi I will be able to decide what to include in my performance. I selected pieces of the thesis of Alejandro and analysed the structure of the example of essay we have been given during the last class of the module. Now I need to understand which concepts and theoretical frameworks are relevant to my practice. I noticed that It’s so much better when I perform standing up than sitting down. That’s very different from how I did in the previous years, reading the music to prepare amateur concerts with the band of my hometown village. Associating drawing with playing is really important for me. As artist, If I struggle with music and the process is very slow (it is a swing between excitement and frustration), drawing keep me self-confident and push up my motivation and self esteem in the music performance.

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Through the visual arts I can see the limit of my ways of playing, I can represent difficulties and optimal experiences. They show very clearly the potential of how much I can learn from music performance from both successful experiences and demotivating ones. 24 March, Tuesday I need to transcribe that piece. I can’t keep improvising only because I am not able to transcribe that piece. I will try to transcribe it for one hour a day. I find so many difficulties in differentiate main melody and ornaments. I am not able to transcribe properly. I feel I am losing so much time. 12 April I didn’t have the possibility to play for one week and the consequences on my music are terrible. I have to make so much effort to play. Anyway, I do well on lower keys notes and I love to improvise. Sometimes I do only improvisation. It’s what I enjoy the most. It makes me unlearn the rigidity of the music I was playing years ago. I am always looking for more tunes, notated and not. I sometimes listen to the recordings of my improvisation. Parts of them are quite enjoyable, part of them are annoying so I cant’ listen to everything I played. 15 April LEARNING KLEZMER MUSIC FROM SUSI Lesson n.1 I like her approach, she is direct and humble, she listen to me and is open to different learning strategies. She has been able set the perfect balance of task and skills for me. I already feel that I improved 10 times faster after one lesson with her compared to my methods of self-teaching. She plays the clarinet every day for 2-3 hours since 24 years.

• Learning english names of notes • Arpeggio C major do mi sol do sol mi do • Arpeggio E major mi sol# si mi sol# mi • Mode (fregghish) mi fa so#l la si do re mi • Tune: S’iz nito keyn nekhtn (MAIN MELODY) It has the essence of spontaniety. You learn

the main melody but when we will add the ornament is a kind of improvisation • Tonguing:

1. Tong on the top of the reed 2. Keep the tong close to it and ready to go 3. Look at your chin and throat in the mirror (try to don’t move them when you do the

tonging) 4. Use tonguing to close the note

19 April I can play the main melody of the first tune quite fast now. I get tired after 20 minutes of intense playing so I decide that from today I will play 20 minutes in the morning and 20 in the afternoon. Lesson with Susi n2. She still thinks that my main problem is tonging. It is. I spend half of the lesson on trying to change it. Then I ask to learn another tune that would like to play. She knows it and she teaches it to my by ear. In the previous lesson I discovered I was moving too much the throat and the chin. I was moving the throat because my tongue was going too far away from the reed and then coming back. It is suppose to stay a few millimeters of distance from it. I was moving the chin because I didn’t have enough mouthpiece in the mouth, that was provoking a reedy sound as well. I learnt how to don’t move anymore. Susi suggested me that to be efficient I should play 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes at lunchtime and 15 minutes in the evening.

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I passed from playing 40 minutes a day until I was exhausted to play 3 times a day for 15 minutes each. I started to manage tunes on lower keys before playing them on higher keys. I also discovered different aspects of my practice that were limiting my learning progress and I found ways to change most of them. Tounguing:

• Put the clarinet mouthpiece more in your mouth (Open the mouth more as a consequence) (Put more mouthpiece in your mouth. IN THIS WAY THE SOUND IS MORE ROUND, more air is passing through the instrument.

• Release a bit the lips (so that the sound is not so reedy and thight) • Think more about not moving the mouth or the throat

Exercises: 1. Do all the cromatic scale without breathing (just at the beginning) 2. Do a rithmic slow cromatic scale, legato 3. Do a long note and try to release the mouth gradually (same technique as embellishment).

Relax slightly the theeth 4. Try to make flat chin and pull up your mouth with the cheeks. You should feel the muscles on

the side of your mouth working. Tunes: Tumbalalaika main melody. Try to notate it now. Mix of the basic notation found online and your arrangement by year of the song. History and main modes: Klezmer music, origin, function, cross pollination, the loss of a tradition, the revival. MAJOR MODE ARMONIC MINOR AHAVA RABA MI SHEBERAKH Lesson 3: The clarinet is one of the most difficult instruments to make a nice sound. Anything where you have to make your own sound it’s a challange. All instruments are difficult to play well. When you are talking about tonging you are talking about legato. Try to make the notes as smooth as possible. A delicate tonguing It’s almost a licking the reed. When I play I can feel the muscles working, that helps. Try to play slowly, legato (re mi fa sol la sol fa mi re). Then do a delicate tonging (lick the reed) Tumbalalaika: ok to improvise but make sure you follow the structure of it. Do not lose the rithm. Exercises to direct the sound better and avoiding squeeks (up and down with the inclination of the clarinet) S’iz nito keyn nekhtn – remember (a legato with a few delicate tonguing)

• 2 times begnning • 2 times middle part • 2 times the ending part

: Make it more interesting. Embellishments. (listen to the recording) 2 main parts where I put embellishments. Try to play higher up Keep the hands closer to the instrument Keep the tong close to the reed Keep the fingers relaxed, not too straight (like claws)

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Keep your back and neck up (90°) MODES: start with the right hand. Mi, fa diesis, re diesis, mi, fa, do diesis, re (e a scendere) Luis amstrong “let my people go” You can have a lot of spirituality without being religious Book “eat pray love” (how all the different culture see marriage) There are so many options others that marriage. Lesson four: I had more control on the music I was playing and I started to enjoy it entering “the state of mind when consciousness is harmoniously ordered” and I wanted to purchase what I was doing “for its own sake” (flow).

De se thelo pia (Δε σε θέλω πια) is a tune that I found online and I played with joy. Looking for the meaning of its words, I discovered that it was a very sad and tragic song. This drawing about ‘De se thelo pia’ rapresents a warning: not always things are what they seem to be.

 

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