Cart before the HorseThis Cart before the Horse page explains why practicing clarinet and music fundamentals FIRST will truly help your musicianship.
1. You wish to play music, but do not know scales. 2. You sight-read music, but do not look at the key and time signatures. 3. You want rhythmic creativity, but do not practice with a metronome. 4. You want to play the Mozart Concerto, but do not know your scales, thirds and arpeggios. 5. You complain about reeds, but do not rotate them. 6. You hope that you become a better musician more than you practice. 7. You wish to take clarinet lessons to improve your audition standing, not learn the clarinet better. Then, stop taking lessons after the audition is over. 8. You wish to do well on an audition, but only practice on the solo or prepared etudes. You do not practice fundamentals like tone-production, scales, articulations, or regular sight-reading, etc… 9. Advanced students wish to go to music school but do not practice enough to compete with musicians out of their circle.
ABOUT THE CART AND THE HORSEBasically, Cart before the Horse Syndrome is a problem of sequence. You wish to do something but you would do it infinitely better if you followed one or two correct steps before your desired event or need. This simple solution here is to put the Horse before the Cart.So, let’s talk about the Cart and the Horse first. If the horse pulls the cart, the driver can steer the horse and the cart will follow. If the cart is in front of the horse, the horse could try to push the cart with its nose or they could make some kind of special backwards harness. Here are some problems with the Cart before the Horse scenario: 1. The horse can’t see where it is going 2. The driver either can’t see where he/she is going or has to look back and forth too much (the Cart before Horse stop is a prime location to open a chiropractic office) 3. Steering is awful 4. High percentage of wrecks 5. High insurance costs It’s just bad business to have the Cart before the Horse. So, basically, if you switch the sequence, Horse before the Cart instead of Cart before the Horse, everyone is happy – WHY?
1. You’re cart is able to move forward 2. The horse can see 3. The driver can see 4. The harness is not special but normal 5. Steering is much better 6. Lower percentage of wrecks which lowers insurance premiums 7. The world gets its supply of milk, apples, hay and Wells Fargo gold bars 8. Musicians learn a valuable lesson (the hard way) to practice fundamentals first
Now, those who lose out on the Horse before the Cart deal is the chiropractor and the backwards harness manufacturer. So, HOW IN THE WORLD DOES THIS RELATE TO CLARINET PLAYING?????????? Practice your fundamentals first and regularly.
So, here are the Symptoms of Cart before the Horse syndrome listed again with the solutions:1. You wish to play music, but do not know major and minor scales.SOLUTION: Practicing your scales will help you play music much better than trying to play music without scale knowledge. Scale knowledge is a matter of you learning the notes, hearing the correct scale pattern and acquiring finger memory. Read more about
scales here. SOLUTION: At minimum, look at the key and time signatures before you start sight-reading a piece of music. Knowledge of the scales helps you understand the correct key signature. Read more about
sight-reading here. SOLUTION: Knowing how to play in steady time will help you eventually play around with tempo in the future. Playing with the beat will help you perform better in ensembles and give you a “leg-up” in learning complex rhythms and time signatures. 4. You want to play the Mozart Concerto, but do not know your scales, thirds and arpeggios. SOLUTION: So, many people do this, they want to learn a great piece of music, but have no fundamental background. Without knowing your scales, thirds and arpeggios, it will take you entirely MORE time to learn the Mozart Concerto. AND, your final product will probably sound uneven and disjunctive. AND, when you start on the next great piece of music, you will start from zero. 5. You complain about reeds, but do not rotate them. SOLUTION: You will kill your reeds fast if you play a one reed only, then play the next reed only, then the next. Having (at minimum) four reeds in rotation will keep your reeds playing longer. See this
Clarinet Reed Adjustment page 6. You hope that you become a better musician more than you practice. SOLUTION: Life is a balance of hoping and doing. In the words of Kalmen Opperman, “Practice and hope, but never hope more than you practice.” Really think about that. If you practice steadily, your hope of success is higher than if you hope (A LOT) but do not practice. What do you think? Is hoping more than you practice putting the Cart before the Horse? 7. You wish to take clarinet lessons to improve your audition standing, not learn the clarinet better. Then, stop taking lessons after the audition is over. SOLUTION: So many students do this. When it is time for NYSSMA (New York State School Music Association) solo try-outs, I often get calls to teach and help students on the solos. They come steadily during this period of preparation and then drop-off after the contest is over. Have a little more fore-thought when it comes to try-outs like All-County or All-State Band or Orchestra auditions. Learn your instrument well YEAR-R0UND, and you’ll breeze through the audition when it is time to perform. Read more here about
Maximizing your Clarinet Lessons SOLUTION: Again, you are cheating the fundamentals of clarinet playing. The more you practice the fundamentals, the better the solo or etude preparation will go. More than likely you have scales on the audition, too, right. Find out how you get free points for practicing your
scales here. 9. Advanced students wish to go to music school but do not practice enough to compete with musicians out of their circle. SOLUTION: Music school is serious. Music is fun, no doubt about it. However, it takes a boatload of work to practice and meet the demands of college, university and conservatory professors. Not only this, but you are about to leave a small pond. Your competition will increase proportionately upon going to music school. Loving to practice and play music will improve your odds of success.
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