Hazard Ahead: A Dangerous Rest

I am slowly developing my own personal catalog of typical reasons for missed notes. Observing my own tendencies that lead to missed notes helps me to find effective ways to counteract those tendencies. For example, I wrote in “Hazard Ahead: Dangerous Line Break” about my tendency to get tripped up by certain line breaks and how I learned to mark my parts to avoid the problem.

This morning, I identified another personal pattern that leads to missed notes. I was working on this “New World” excerpt:

In the marked measures, I missed the written C₆. I didn’t expect to miss it, because I felt fresh, my high range felt good, and I had no trouble a few days ago with these measures. I started again, and I missed it again, the same way. I sat silently for a minute and mentally replayed the measures, remembering how it felt.

Then, I made the connection to something Hazel had previously pointed out in a lesson. The high passage I was playing for her, although different, was similar in that there was a short rest in the middle of the line. Hazel said it sounded like my setup was collapsing at the rest, which she said was making it unnecessarily difficult to play the following high notes.

I realized that the same thing was happening here. I was taking the concept of a “rest” way too literally. My energy, embouchure set, tongue elevation, and air support all dipped in the eighth-note rest after the written G₅. That left me unable to reset in time to play the written C₆.

Once a pattern like this has been identified, the next step is to come up with different ways to practice, or different ways to mark the part, to prevent the pattern from recurring. I decided to try playing these measures as if the rest didn’t exist. While playing the G₅, I maintained my face set, raised my tongue further, and accelerated the air flow all the way into the C₆.

It worked. The high note floated out clearly and with a soft tone color, just the way it was supposed to. I repeated it this way several times to lock it in.

My plan is to practice it like this for a few more days. Then I’ll figure out how to reintroduce the eighth-note rest while keeping that energy and support going continuously through the line.