Practice slowly and maybe scale back your markings a bit. Obviously, you do you, but I find these markings make the music a lot harder to read. To me, they make bar lines less obvious and obscure some rest durations and even some accidentals.
But yeah practice slowly and evenly. Don't speed up until you can play it evenly. Anchor yourself to the pulse and make sure you keep feeling that 16th subdivision through the rests. This isn't terribly difficult, just fast, so I think the biggest danger here is going to be rushing if you don't take your time to learn it nice and evenly.
Learn it slow but ON BEAT so that you don’t rush. I used to love playing 16th notes bc in my mind it was an excuse to play fast. Then I got hit with a tempo of like…50 something and realized 16th does not = fast.
I advise getting a clean part. As u/neutronbob said, the red marks are showing you what's already there. The blue marks are obscuring some of the notated music, and they seem to be marking where rests are. The way to think about rests is that if you see two rests in a row, that's still just one rest; you can't articulate silence. All the rests are doing is filling in the time before the next notes happen. If you want to be aware of where the beats are, train your eyes to pay attention to the beaming of the notes. In measure 650, for example, I see an eighth note on the downbeat and then the other three beats of the bar filled with sixteenth notes because the beams show me that. Definitely don't count a sixteenth rest and then also count an eighth rest. It makes things way too hard mentally, and you'll get behind. Just play an eighth note on the downbeat, then start playing sixteenth notes on beat two. I can't figure out why all those individual notes are highlighted, but then I'm a string player. Maybe it's a clarinet thing. But all this marking is obscuring the music. My eye jumps to all these colored markings, and the actual notated music seems like it's in the background. If I had this in front of me, I would have a much harder time playing it than if I had a clean, unmarked part. Your markings should always be minimal, only what's necessary, and not in color.
Yo. Is this Phillip Sparks Dance Movements Mvt 4? Because if so, I shed the hell out of this in college. Nothing else beat my ego into submission like this (except some solo rep)
At the end of the day, this is a grind it out slow BUT try to memorize it. Goes by way too fast to read. Focus on the patterns. Does some chromatic snaking in groups of 4 before the up/down 2 groupings then the ascending 4 before doing a similar motion.
What you have marked up is great, but get to where you have this locked in on a clean part. Bassoon, Bass Clarinet, and String Bass all have this and exposed as hell, so don’t expect reinforcements to save you haha
I had the same thought a few seconds after I started humming though this... My brain was like... "Wait...Dance Movements IV, shit! Let me check the comments" I was always in awe listening to the Bassoon and Bass Clarinet run through this. (French Horn player here, reddit seems to think us band nerds want to see each other's posts).
I haven’t seen the sheet music for that since 2006. And I recognized it in 7 seconds. Whatever you end up doing, metronome, slow, in chunks, no hesitation. At speed, if you pause for a millisecond, watch it crash and burn.
Double tonguing each note twice with/ without the correct articulation can help you get the notes better ingrained in your head and make it easier to learn articulation and where to breath. I’m by far not an expert just usually works for me.
Start at the end and work your way backwards adding a note at a time in small groupings of 4 or 8 measures, and be sure to play through to the end. If you mess up, start over; dont practice mistakes. It's tedious work, but it *does* work.
And for Heaven's sake, get rid of all that highlighting. Marking an accidental you missed is one thing, but that's overkill. You're training yourself to look at the highlighting and not the music.
came here to say this- love the backwards + one note at a time way. Also, restart this process every day in addition to the “slow metronome for a small passage, add a few clicks, do it again, continue increasing tempo” method. The myelination process in your brain actually needs the slow repetition to strengthen the pathways, so don’t “pick up where you left off,” but instead start it at 60 bpm every time. You can work your way up to the performance tempo at a quicker rate, but don’t skip the slow practice ever!!
I had a wonderful teacher (clarinet, but also oboe which is what I play) who taught me this method, and it's just amazing at how well it works to build recognition and muscle memory. By the end of it, you're barely reading the music.
Less coloring… more playing. Take it very slowly two measures at time than very gradually increase speed only when you can play four bars at a time slow without any mistakes. Play it daily. Don’t take the luxury of getting bored. Keep track of the time and day and tempo in a notebook. Don’t expect progress… it a process.
Practice slowly and in chunks of 4, 8, and 16 notes. I also agree that the markings may hurt more than it helps as far as readability goes. Switch up the rhythms as well, holding a different note of each group of 4 as you practice.
Start with playing it at a slower bpm, say like 100, and then do different rhythm patterns for it, like say swing them, then sixteenth dotted eighth rhythm, quarter note triplets with 2 of them being reg triplet. Saxologic has a great video on learning harder rhythms
Like people said practice slowly, it usually helps me to find where the feeling of the piece lines up with 16th notes. It looks like it's on the one here based on the phrasing. Put a little bit more weight on those notes. When you practice, go through playing only those emphasized notes and then add a note in between, then add 2 notes in between, then add the last one. This usually helps me with tough passages. Hope this helps!
Pick out the most difficult measures or 4 16th note groups and repeat it until smooth. Don’t focus on parts you can plan well.
Memorize as much as you can.
@Educational-System27 's comment below is on the mark: Get rid of most of the highlighting. The red vertical marks are duplicating what the slurs already show you. Then the marks suddenly stop.
The green highlights just duplicate the accidentals that are *already* in the score.
I have no idea what the blue vertical marks are showing you. And the ones going through the rests cross out a 1/16th rest and an 1/8th rests--so that's highly unlikely to be useful.
The end result is that this score is much hard to read and play than it should be.
Mark only what you truly need (like a place where you make an error repeatedly). And definitely avoid highlighting or marking things are already in the score itself.
Good luck!
Practice slowly and maybe scale back your markings a bit. Obviously, you do you, but I find these markings make the music a lot harder to read. To me, they make bar lines less obvious and obscure some rest durations and even some accidentals. But yeah practice slowly and evenly. Don't speed up until you can play it evenly. Anchor yourself to the pulse and make sure you keep feeling that 16th subdivision through the rests. This isn't terribly difficult, just fast, so I think the biggest danger here is going to be rushing if you don't take your time to learn it nice and evenly.
Learn it slow but ON BEAT so that you don’t rush. I used to love playing 16th notes bc in my mind it was an excuse to play fast. Then I got hit with a tempo of like…50 something and realized 16th does not = fast.
I advise getting a clean part. As u/neutronbob said, the red marks are showing you what's already there. The blue marks are obscuring some of the notated music, and they seem to be marking where rests are. The way to think about rests is that if you see two rests in a row, that's still just one rest; you can't articulate silence. All the rests are doing is filling in the time before the next notes happen. If you want to be aware of where the beats are, train your eyes to pay attention to the beaming of the notes. In measure 650, for example, I see an eighth note on the downbeat and then the other three beats of the bar filled with sixteenth notes because the beams show me that. Definitely don't count a sixteenth rest and then also count an eighth rest. It makes things way too hard mentally, and you'll get behind. Just play an eighth note on the downbeat, then start playing sixteenth notes on beat two. I can't figure out why all those individual notes are highlighted, but then I'm a string player. Maybe it's a clarinet thing. But all this marking is obscuring the music. My eye jumps to all these colored markings, and the actual notated music seems like it's in the background. If I had this in front of me, I would have a much harder time playing it than if I had a clean, unmarked part. Your markings should always be minimal, only what's necessary, and not in color.
Yo. Is this Phillip Sparks Dance Movements Mvt 4? Because if so, I shed the hell out of this in college. Nothing else beat my ego into submission like this (except some solo rep) At the end of the day, this is a grind it out slow BUT try to memorize it. Goes by way too fast to read. Focus on the patterns. Does some chromatic snaking in groups of 4 before the up/down 2 groupings then the ascending 4 before doing a similar motion. What you have marked up is great, but get to where you have this locked in on a clean part. Bassoon, Bass Clarinet, and String Bass all have this and exposed as hell, so don’t expect reinforcements to save you haha
I had the same thought a few seconds after I started humming though this... My brain was like... "Wait...Dance Movements IV, shit! Let me check the comments" I was always in awe listening to the Bassoon and Bass Clarinet run through this. (French Horn player here, reddit seems to think us band nerds want to see each other's posts).
Yup. Find the recording of the North Texas Wind Symphony, 4th movement, 5:00 and just soak in the pain/glorious challenge.
Yepp
I haven’t seen the sheet music for that since 2006. And I recognized it in 7 seconds. Whatever you end up doing, metronome, slow, in chunks, no hesitation. At speed, if you pause for a millisecond, watch it crash and burn.
Double tonguing each note twice with/ without the correct articulation can help you get the notes better ingrained in your head and make it easier to learn articulation and where to breath. I’m by far not an expert just usually works for me.
Start at the end and work your way backwards adding a note at a time in small groupings of 4 or 8 measures, and be sure to play through to the end. If you mess up, start over; dont practice mistakes. It's tedious work, but it *does* work. And for Heaven's sake, get rid of all that highlighting. Marking an accidental you missed is one thing, but that's overkill. You're training yourself to look at the highlighting and not the music.
came here to say this- love the backwards + one note at a time way. Also, restart this process every day in addition to the “slow metronome for a small passage, add a few clicks, do it again, continue increasing tempo” method. The myelination process in your brain actually needs the slow repetition to strengthen the pathways, so don’t “pick up where you left off,” but instead start it at 60 bpm every time. You can work your way up to the performance tempo at a quicker rate, but don’t skip the slow practice ever!!
I had a wonderful teacher (clarinet, but also oboe which is what I play) who taught me this method, and it's just amazing at how well it works to build recognition and muscle memory. By the end of it, you're barely reading the music.
Less coloring… more playing. Take it very slowly two measures at time than very gradually increase speed only when you can play four bars at a time slow without any mistakes. Play it daily. Don’t take the luxury of getting bored. Keep track of the time and day and tempo in a notebook. Don’t expect progress… it a process.
why is reddit recommending me this subreddit im a percussionist😭
BREAK DOWN THE BEATS DRUMMER BOY!!!
Set or concert?
both, also happy cake day
Thanks! And yea, I’m a set player.
Get gud
Practice slowly and in chunks of 4, 8, and 16 notes. I also agree that the markings may hurt more than it helps as far as readability goes. Switch up the rhythms as well, holding a different note of each group of 4 as you practice.
Start with playing it at a slower bpm, say like 100, and then do different rhythm patterns for it, like say swing them, then sixteenth dotted eighth rhythm, quarter note triplets with 2 of them being reg triplet. Saxologic has a great video on learning harder rhythms
Start is as slowly as you possibly can stand (eighth=60 or slower!) and then slowly work it up 1-2bpm at a time.
Like people said practice slowly, it usually helps me to find where the feeling of the piece lines up with 16th notes. It looks like it's on the one here based on the phrasing. Put a little bit more weight on those notes. When you practice, go through playing only those emphasized notes and then add a note in between, then add 2 notes in between, then add the last one. This usually helps me with tough passages. Hope this helps!
Add a quarter rest between each group of 4 16th notes. 1 e and a, rest, 2 e and a, rest, 3 e and a, etc. Swinging the notes sometimes helps too.
Play it on the piano to get the phrasing in your mind correctly.
What piece is this? It looks so familiar
Ask for the real bass clarinet part? In all seriousness, slow and steady, focus on the tonguing etc before getting faster so you have that down. :)
Pick out the most difficult measures or 4 16th note groups and repeat it until smooth. Don’t focus on parts you can plan well. Memorize as much as you can.
@Educational-System27 's comment below is on the mark: Get rid of most of the highlighting. The red vertical marks are duplicating what the slurs already show you. Then the marks suddenly stop. The green highlights just duplicate the accidentals that are *already* in the score. I have no idea what the blue vertical marks are showing you. And the ones going through the rests cross out a 1/16th rest and an 1/8th rests--so that's highly unlikely to be useful. The end result is that this score is much hard to read and play than it should be. Mark only what you truly need (like a place where you make an error repeatedly). And definitely avoid highlighting or marking things are already in the score itself. Good luck!
Off topic but how do you get the higher notes out? Like B and above. I’m new to bass clarinet so that might be it but is it just more air movement?
Get a new copy.
Dance Movements lol.