Immediacy of Response

[AtomicClock]

...IMMEDIACY OF RESPONSE. In many cases, we are not late because of acoustic problems (though that does happen) but because we do not have good habits of starting the sound EXACTLY when we intend to. Check yourself very carefully, and you might very well find that the first note you play after picking up your instrument is a little late to a metronome or your tapping foot. Solve that, and you will not need to anticipate entrances nearly as often.

Hmm. I think you're talking about me. I discovered this several years ago when one day the principal trumpet player decided to play exactly in time (and illustrated how late we all had been the whole time). Whenever I'd try to do it myself (in other community groups), I'd stick out all alone; negative reinforcement. Trombone sections, or brass sections, or bands, seem to come to an unspoken consensus about how late notes should speak.

But then I had a 10-year hiatus. Coming back, I can't hear myself being late like I could before (or fix it). And conductors tell me I'm behind. They never used to.

Can anyone suggest some exercises or practice strategies? Accented attacks (pseudo-entrances) with a metronome is about all I've come up with.

[GabrielRice]

When I first met Sam Burtis in person and took a lesson to try to understand the Carmine Caruso methods better, the first thing he noted was that my first note was always speaking a tiny fraction of a beat late.

The diagnosis - which I was able to observe once it was pointed out - was that my tongue was coming into position for the articulation at the instant I wanted the note to speak...but the note speaks when the tongue RELEASES, so it needs to come into position before then, and therefore the initial articulation was sounding late.

One way to solve that was to deliberately bring the tongue into place farther ahead than would be ultimately ideal - just to gain awareness and explore the timing.

What I found over the next couple of weeks was that the next exercise he gave me - articulating at various subdivisions inside the beat - helped a lot to make the tongue motion of my articulation much more efficient, and time it in a lot better because I was doing something more rhythmically challenging than simply trying to play ON the beat.

Here's a video I made a few years ago demonstrating an exercise I made up based on that lesson and the work I did subsequently.

[Doug Elliott]

Accents are not the answer.
Record yourself with a metronome - you can probably hear how much different the time is. If you're actually playing WITH the metronome you won't hear the metronome. I would bet you trying to hear it, and then you're already late.

You have to actually anticipate the beat, maybe by a surprising amount.

[Kbiggs]

I’ve mentioned this to some other people before, and it’s met with mixed results. It’s along the lines of what Gabe is saying.

When I use Doug’s Set, Breathe, Play (as much as I possibly can ), part of the “Set” is I put the tip of my tongue in place. It might rest on hard palate just above the top front teeth for the upper register, or maybe at the gum line, or maybe right on the top front teeth for pedal tones. When the tongue is already in place, starting a note is as simple as releasing the air. It’s then a matter of allowing the tongue to drop at the right instant.

[AtomicClock]

I would bet you trying to hear it, and then you're already late.

Maybe. But generally I'm worse off when watching the conductor's stick, and better off when listening to the ensemble. I may have developed the bad habit of believing the conductors when they insist "you have to look up" (said a lot in community groups, usually with an exasperated tone).

[tromboneVan]

Exactly ... by the time you hear across the ensemble you are reacting, and late. By watching the conductor (light travels faster than sound) the ensemble has some shot of playing together.

[GabrielRice]

I would bet you trying to hear it, and then you're already late.

Maybe. But generally I'm worse off when watching the conductor's stick, and better off when listening to the ensemble. I may have developed the bad habit of believing the conductors when they insist "you have to look up" (said a lot in community groups, usually with an exasperated tone).

Oh, well there's your problem.

Kidding not kidding. Sorry not sorry.

In the professional world, conductors all have different relationships with time. Some always conduct ahead and expect to hear the sound after their ictus. Some expect to hear sound exactly on their ictus. Some conduct different gradations of ahead depending on what's happening. Some are completely unpredictable. Some have no discernable ictus. Some are a whole lot more concerned with showing phrase shapes than beats, and that's perfectly fine most of the time.

In all cases, it is up to us to play together no matter what, and that means knowing who you are with and learning how to play with them. As a bass trombone player, I am most often concerned with coordinating with the principal trombone. If we are all being led by the principal trumpet I put my attention there. Sometimes it's up to me to "lead" the tuba player to my left, or play with the cellos/basses, bassoons, tympani...I usually do that based on what I see from the conductor, but that doesn't necessarily mean lining up exactly with whatever is passing for an ictus that day.

[AndrewMeronek]

If you're actually playing WITH the metronome you won't hear the metronome.

Exactly!

[AtomicClock]

If you're actually playing WITH the metronome you won't hear the metronome.

This is obvious, and has been since I was a small child. It's why I keep buying LOUDER metronomes. It's trivially easy to play with metronomes when on the beat (not like Gabe's video).

[Doug Elliott]

But many people will play a hair behind so they DO hear it, and that gets repeated and exaggerated in an ensemble where other players are doing the same thing, waiting to "hear the beat" and then they're all late to varying degrees.
I think it affects brass instruments in particular because your ears are hearing yourself pretty loud internally and everybody else externally, and that affects your perception.

[AtomicClock]

waiting to "hear the beat"

I'm pretty sure I have that problem in an ensemble context (where I am usually playing a supporting role), but maybe not in a metronome context, when I am lead musician in a band of one. I'll record myself in tomorrow's practice and find out.

[Doug Elliott]

Record yourself with the metronome, and I bet you find the metronome is the lead in a band of two.

[Doug Elliott]

I was once in a recording session with 4 horns playing along with a prerecorded track. We had to re-record about 20 times before it was actually together with the track, and at that point we all felt like we were anticipating far in front of the beat.

[harrisonreed]

If only tapping your foot with the beat was an acceptable practice. Then you could physically internalize it, and more importantly the subdivisions.

I tap my toe inside my shoe (silently) and move my torso with the music and seem to have very good time, no missed or anticipated entrances.

Why is it okay for the conductor to flail around like a whacky inflatable arm flailing tube man, but you can't move with them? Why do good dancers have such good entrances? Move with the music -- it's human.

[Kbiggs]

There’s several things being discussed here: immediacy of response (production issues with the player), time/rhythm (training in the player), hearing the beat and synchronizing with it (player), acoustics (hall), conductor’s habits (conductor), visually timing the conductor’s beat with the sound (player), and sounding together with other section and orchestra members (shared).

Most of this is the player’s responsibility. I know that when I’m having difficulty with timing, I’m already playing behind the conductor. Aside from improving my time, rhythm, and hearing (always a challenge), consciously changing how I watch the conductor has helped.

If the conductor’s wrist is floppy, I find it more helpful to watch the end of the baton. It’s the “snap” that I want to anticipate. If the conductor’s wrist is comparatively rigid, then watching his hand seems to help more—it’s a bigger target. Adjust as needed.

[GabrielRice]

If the conductor’s wrist is floppy, I find it more helpful to watch the end of the baton. It’s the “snap” that I want to anticipate. If the conductor’s wrist is comparatively rigid, then watching his hand seems to help more—it’s a bigger target. Adjust as needed.

This is irrelevant in my world. I see too many different conductors and play in too many different halls with too many different colleagues. I have to play with the people around me, period. And in order to do that, the sound I make has to be happening when I think it's happening.

[WilliamLang]

So the Radio City Christmas Show, where I had a chair for 5 years, we played on click and with a conductor. Even in the first rehearsal everyone could play together on click. A lot of recording sessions go that way as well. It's fairly easy for everyone, and a part of the audition process.

[Burgerbob]

I have had issues with this for a long time. They were almost entirely my problem- I couldn't start notes when I wanted to. They would come out when they came out, early or late, sometimes on time.

Once you can place a note anywhere you want, these problems are immediately lessened.

[WGWTR180]

So the Radio City Christmas Show, where I had a chair for 5 years, we played on click and with a conductor. Even in the first rehearsal everyone could play together on click. A lot of recording sessions go that way as well. It's fairly easy for everyone, and a part of the audition process.

Very true. Subbed there for almost 20 years. However I have found it interesting throughout the years that some of those same musicians play behind in other situations where there's also a click. I think part of doing R City is getting through the show as fast as humanly possible. Playing behind the click only worsens the pain. LOL

[blast]

I think there are two different conversations going on here. One is about being able to physically start a note with immediacy, the other is about where ,when and with whom you use your skill.
Placing notes in an orchestra, especially an opera orchestra, is one of the most complex undertakings in music. Where you play is determined by many constantly varying parameters that not all performers seem to understand. That is potentially a very, very long post that I will refrain from indulging in now.
One little thought on orchestral attack.... things have changed in the last 50 years, at least in the UK, and the younger generation use far less attack as a default setting, resulting in what is often thought to be less immediacy. I am old school and feel we have to help those instruments in the orchestra with less ability to define the start of a note, by being clear when starting a sound, especially when playing with strings, for instance.

[GabrielRice]

Placing notes in an orchestra, especially an opera orchestra, is one of the most complex undertakings in music.

And that's why I prefer to play in a ballet orchestra!

[LeTromboniste]

As a conductor, people playing exactly on my beat can one of the most awful feelings. Because if it's music where it's nice to have rhythmic flexibility, but you're exactly on my beat, and I decide I want to stretch the next beat for phrasing reasons, there's 99.9% chance you'll be ahead of me on that beat, and I therefore have no control.

Speaking of dealing with distances, just this weekend I was leading my students on a trip to Italy. We had a rehearsal day and a concert in a 16th century church with an original organ, playing from facing balconies. The slightest amount of imprecision with attacks often compounds into the whole thing falling apart. So you do need immediacy of response, but also a very grounded rythmical feel. The second you start "leaning forward", you're toast.

[blast]

Placing notes in an orchestra, especially an opera orchestra, is one of the most complex undertakings in music.

And that's why I prefer to play in a ballet orchestra!

And playing in a ballet orchestra is easier ? You know it isn't....the music has to be with the dancer's steps.... we always get the blame when the dancer's work is at odds with the music. Pity the poor ballet conductor.
Back to opera...... a few weeks back, we (the trombones) were told that we were late starting a little run of quarter notes. They had been marked down in dynamic. We simply raised the dynamic of the start and all was well. Clarity is important. Clarity is not often a ppp sort of thing.

[Cmillar]

Hmm....this might be a good time to advertise something I'm self-publishing, which is pertinent to the subject:

Play-Along tracks with click (and without)

Some fun and challenges for everyone! Mix of styles from jazzy/art/classical/funky, latin.
Music I composed for 'The Weather People'.

Matthew Wright, teaching at Tanglewood BUTI, is going to play some of the actual charts this summer with his faculty quartet)

https://cammillarmusic.com/playalong-with-wp

[robcat2075]

In every band or orchestra I've been in there has always come a moment where the conductor stops to tell the horns that they must tongue a bit earlier because their bells are pointed backwards and they must compensate for the extra time it takes for their sound to bounce off the rear wall to arrive to the listener.

This made total sense until one understood the quite rapid speed of sound, the very tiny extra distances involved, and the fact that being uniformly late was not the horn section's problem anyway.

[JohnL]

This made total sense until one understood the quite rapid speed of sound, the very tiny extra distances involved, and the fact that being uniformly late was not the horn section's problem anyway.

It's probably not a good idea to actually point this out to the conductor. I've heard a lot of things over the years that make my engineer brain want to scream: "NO! XXXX JUST DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY!", but I long ago learned to keep my engineer mouth shut.

[robcat2075]

I've heard a lot of things over the years that make my engineer brain want to scream: "NO! XXXX JUST DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY!", but I long ago learned to keep my engineer mouth shut.

I recall a high school physics teacher telling us that concert halls had their aisle down the center because that's where the left and right sides of the orchestra would cancel out.

[GabrielRice]

I've heard a lot of things over the years that make my engineer brain want to scream: "NO! XXXX JUST DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY!", but I long ago learned to keep my engineer mouth shut.

I recall a high school physics teacher telling us that concert halls had their aisle down the center because that's where the left and right sides of the orchestra would cancel out.

Cancel out what? Also, many concert halls do not have center aisles, including both Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall in Boston, two of the finest in the United States.

[CalgaryTbone]

No center aisle in our hall either - another fine concert hall.

JS

[robcat2075]

I recall a high school physics teacher telling us that concert halls had their aisle down the center because that's where the left and right sides of the orchestra would cancel out.

Cancel out what? Also, many concert halls do not have center aisles, including both Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall in Boston, two of the finest in the United States.

Of course, it's nonsense.

The premise is that if you put a sound source on the left and an identical sound source on the right, their sound waves will cancel each other out at all points equidistant from the two sources and produce silence. In practice, that will only be observable in an anechoic chamber that allows no interfering reflections from the surrounding walls.

In a concert hall designed to have infinite points of reflection and with 100 people on stage, none of whom can possibly be making exactly the same sound... the idea is nonsense.

There's always a big freak-out here when i say there are teachers out there who don't know what they are talking about but in my school-going life I usually didn't have to wait long to hear someone telling me nonsense.

[Kbiggs]

IMG_0424.jpeg

[quote=Kbiggs post_id=276912 time=<a href="tel:1748277137">1748277137</a> user_id=172]
If the conductor’s wrist is floppy, I find it more helpful to watch the end of the baton. It’s the “snap” that I want to anticipate. If the conductor’s wrist is comparatively rigid, then watching his hand seems to help more—it’s a bigger target. Adjust as needed.
[/quote]

This is irrelevant in my world. I see too many different conductors and play in too many different halls with too many different colleagues. I have to play with the people around me, period. And in order to do that, the sound I make has to be happening when I think it's happening.

I get it. We live or die together in the back row, as comrades in arms. The conductor dies by himself on the podium—or just looks plain silly trying.

[robcat2075]

Of course, it's nonsense.

The premise is that if you put a sound source on the left and an identical sound source on the right, their sound waves will cancel each other out at all points equidistant from the two sources and produce silence. In practice, that will only be observable in an anechoic chamber that allows no interfering reflections from the surrounding walls.

Now that I think about this again... the if one could contrive two identical left and right waves, the exact midpoints should be where the two waves sum to a stronger wave, a louder sound.

This makes my physics teacher's assertion of midpoint silence all the more mysterious.

He claimed that he had experimentally proven this by placing a trumpet player on each side of a stage and measured the sound in the exact center to be "indeed somewhat less".

I don't know how he measured that but just the idea of getting two high school trumpet players to produce identical and unwavering pitches seems unlikely.

[AtomicClock]

He claimed that he had experimentally proven this by placing a trumpet player on each side of a stage and measured the sound in the exact center to be "indeed somewhat less".

I think that was just due to the inverse square law. I do the same thing when I'm in a cafe with muzak. I try to find the table equidistant from the closest speakers.

[JTeagarden]

In every band or orchestra I've been in there has always come a moment where the conductor stops to tell the horns that they must tongue a bit earlier because their bells are pointed backwards and they must compensate for the extra time it takes for their sound to bounce off the rear wall to arrive to the listener.

This made total sense until one understood the quite rapid speed of sound, the very tiny extra distances involved, and the fact that being uniformly late was not the horn section's problem anyway.

I went to hear the Chicago Symphony perform Till Eulenspiegel, and there's one part toward then end where the poor little fellow is being led to the gallows, and the trombones come in tutti on a low F, the trombone came in the tiniest fraction early to create a real endge to the sound, it was sooooo perfectly in sync, smack on one would have been boring!

[robcat2075]

I was once in a recording session with 4 horns playing along with a prerecorded track. We had to re-record about 20 times before it was actually together with the track, and at that point we all felt like we were anticipating far in front of the beat.

I have to wonder if this was some sort of misunderstanding/mishandling of latency by the recording engineer.

[Doug Elliott]

Not at all. Definitely a performance issue. I've been aware of it for years, but it's really easy to fall into playing WITH horn sections that perpetually play behind. You get used to it and don't notice any more.

[elainechat]

As a conductor, people playing exactly on my beat can one of the most awful feelings. Because if it's music where it's nice to have rhythmic flexibility, but you're exactly on my beat, and I decide I want to stretch the next beat for phrasing reasons, there's 99.9% chance you'll be ahead of me on that beat, and I therefore have no control.

Speaking of dealing with distances, just this weekend I was leading my students on a trip to Italy. We had a rehearsal day and a concert in a 16th century church with an original organ, playing from facing balconies. The slightest amount of imprecision with attacks often compounds into the whole thing falling apart. So you do need immediacy of response, but also a very grounded rythmical feel. The second you start "leaning forward", you're toast.

That’s a really insightful way to put it, especially the part about control being lost when players are exactly on the beat but the conductor wants to stretch the phrasing. The example from your Italy trip really highlights how much precision matters in those acoustically challenging spaces. Playing from opposite balconies must have made everyone really focus on listening across the ensemble and keeping that grounded rhythmic feel. I’ve actually been planning a similar trip in Italy through https://gowithguide.com/Italy, so it’s great to hear how much the setting and acoustics can shape the experience. It’s a good reminder that “immediacy” isn’t just about being fast, but about being locked in and responsive together.