Category: Science/Technology

Threadspotting On Creativity

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A little over a week ago I posted on a new book by Jonah Lehrer called Imagine, How Creativity Works.  After hearing an interview Lehrer gave I was curious to learn more about this book (I still haven’t read it, by the way).  Since then I’ve come across a couple of other references to Lehrer’s new work, one positive and one a little critical.

First the positive.  Horn player and blogger Jeffrey Agrell wrote a post he calls Of Cartoons, Bathrooms, and Creativity.  Agrell’s Horn Insights blog is a great read for anyone interested in creativity and he has a number of posts dealing with that topic.  Like Lehrer, Agrell finds inspiration can come from moving outside of your normal range of influences and mingling with people in other fields.

There are still ways to stay in the same building and get inspiration. One is simply to poke your head out of your own narrow field. I have written quite a few articles over the years; I found it easy to get ideas and inspiration for a new article simply by looking past what horn players do and bringing back ideas from outside the gates of horn tradition. What are the other brasses doing (e.g. look in their instrumental journals)? How about woodwinds? In what ways could I bring back ideas from the world of percussion? How about other styles than classical? Jazz. Latin. World music. Electronic. What about going beyond music all together? Psychology. Brain physiology. Business. Sports. Language/linguistics. Child development. Video games. Magic/illusion.

On the flip side, Tim Requarth and Meehan Crist offer a critical review of Lehrer’s book.  

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Physical Therapy For Musicians

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The other day I had a great phone conversation with David Shulman.  Shulman is a physical therapist who specializes working with musicians who have repetitive motion injuries related to playing.  He had contacted me to ask for some ideas working with brass players who have injured lip muscles.  We talked for a while about some of the things brass musicians can do away from the instrument to help build (or rebuild) muscles around the lips without actually playing, which can lead to re-injuring a damaged muscle.  I talked to him a little bit about free buzzing, the pencil trick, and the P.E.T.E.

Here’s a short video he has put together where he describes his practice and the workshops he presents to music students and teachers.

One of the things I asked David about was about which lip was more prone to being injured.  Donald Reinhardt felt the upper lip was more likely to be injured due to excessive mouthpiece pressure.  David also noticed that the majority of lip injuries happen on the upper lip.  Reinhardt’s advice to keep more mouthpiece “weight” on the lower lip should help brass players avoid injuries like this.

Reducing Academic Pressure Through Failure

~ wilktone ~ 1 Comment

When I first saw the title of this article in Science Daily I was skeptical.  I figured an article with the title Reducing Academic Pressure May Help Children Succeed would be along the “A for effort” lines.  Unfortunately there seems to be a trend towards grade inflation, in spite of how current pedagogical research shows that reducing academic pressure in this way doesn’t actually improve students’ learning.  But this article covering research by Dr. Frederique Autin demonstrates how failure is a normal part of the learning process and can be used to actually improve the long term outcome.

It’s not about reducing pressure through grade inflation or dumbing down the work, in fact Autin’s study actually took a close look at the reverse situation.  In one experiment he gave students a problem to solve that was above their abilities, but the students in the test group were told that learning was difficult and that failure was common while the control group were just asked to solve the problem.  Both groups were then given a test to measure their working memory capacity.

The students who were told that learning is difficult performed significantly better on the working memory test, especially on more difficult problems, than the second group or a third control group who took the working memory test without doing the anagrams or discussions with researchers.

As with all studies of this nature it’s important to put the results into a proper context.  For example, the students’ improvements were temporary, yet there are some important implications.

Continue reading “Reducing Academic Pressure Through Failure” →

Non-Conscious Knowing Or Dancing About Architecture

~ wilktone ~ 5 Comments

First, thanks to Lyle Sanford, who blogged about this topic over on his Music Therapy blog and called my attention to an article on Discover Magazine called Your Brain Knows A Lot More Than It Realizes. In this article, neuroscientist David Eagleman notes how much of what we do in life is something that we can perform easily, but are unable to consciously access.  Eagleman writes:

The ability to remember motor acts like changing lanes is called procedural memory, and it is a type of implicit memory—meaning that your brain holds knowledge of something that your mind cannot explicitly access. Riding a bike, tying your shoes, typing on a keyboard, and steering your car into a parking space while speaking on your cell phone are examples of this. You execute these actions easily but without knowing the details of how you do it. You would be totally unable to describe the perfectly timed choreography with which your muscles contract and relax as you navigate around other people in a cafeteria while holding a tray, yet you have no trouble doing it. This is the gap between what your brain can do and what you can tap into consciously.

Lyle notes in his blog post how much the examples in Eagleman’s article can relate to performing music and music therapy.  This got me thinking about how much of what I teach in a variety of music classes (ranging from private lessons to music theory, history, composition, and survey courses for non-musicians) is similar in this respect.  For example, Eagleman’s article points out how dividing baby chicks into genders and spotting and identifying incoming planes in Word War II era England were feats that required a master/apprentice relationship where the student couldn’t receive instructions, but instead needed to get feedback from their mentors.

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Ben Cameron on The True Power of the Performing Arts

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Ben Cameron is the Program Director of the Dorris Duke Charitable Foundation and supervises grant programs for the performing arts.  In  his recent TED Talk Cameron discussed the role that technology has played in how we consume performing arts today and also who participates in them.  He sees a paradigm shift that blurs the line between professionals and amateurs, with less of a separation between performers and audience.

Frankly, what we’re seeing now in this environment is a massive time, when the entire world is changing as we move from a time when audience numbers are plummeting. But the number of arts participants, people who write poetry, who sing songs, who perform in church choirs, is exploding beyond our wildest imaginations. This group, others have called the “pro ams,” amateur artists doing work at a professional level. You see them on YouTube, in dance competitions, film festivals and more. They are radically expanding our notions of the potential of an aesthetic vocabulary,while they are challenging and undermining the cultural autonomy of our traditional institutions. Ultimately, we now live in a world defined not by consumption, but by participation.

Here’s the video.

Confirmation Bias and the Art of Music

~ wilktone ~ 1 Comment

In blog posts lately I’ve been noting confirmation bias and its role in determining how teachers and players determine the best pedagogy or best way to practice.  My personal example of fooling myself into thinking I could accurately predict a player’s embouchure type by looking at their anatomy alone is one example of what I mean by this.  Crunching the numbers showed that very few of the physical characteristics I thought would be helpful predictors turned out to be statistically significant.  There are plenty of other examples of how our biases can even change how we perceive the exact same performance.  Science itself is a process which strives to distance ourselves from confirmation bias and control for it in such a way that we don’t fool ourselves.

But there is another side to this discussion that I haven’t really written about too much before, how confirmation bias affects the musical perceptions and enjoyment of the art music making.  Writing for the Scientific American blog, Samuel McNerney explores this topic. Continue reading “Confirmation Bias and the Art of Music” →

Brass Embouchures: Playing On the Red Is Fine (as long as it fits your anatomy)

~ wilktone ~ 61 Comments

With regards to the best mouthpiece placement there is some controversy among different authors and teachers.  In his text, Arban’s Complete Conservatory Method for Trumpet (Cornet), J.B. Arban stated, “The mouthpiece should be placed in the middle of the lips, two-thirds on the lower lip, and one-third on the upper lip.”  (Arban, 1982, p. 7).  This contrasts with Dennis Wick, who recommended 2/3 upper lip and 1/3 lower lip (Wick, Trombone Technique, 1971, p. 21).  Philip Farkas felt that such differences were related to the particular type of instrument, with 2/3 lower lip being an embouchure for trumpet and 2/3 upper lip better suited for instruments like horn and trombone (Farkas, The Art of Brass Playing, 1962, p. 32).

Although the recommendations of these and other noted brass pedagogues comes with some caveats and is considered somewhat flexible by many, one recommendation about mouthpiece placement is frequently advised by almost all of them – avoid placing the mouthpiece so that the rim sets on the red (vermilion) of the upper lip.  Frank Gabriel Campos wrote in his text, Trumpet Technique:

To function properly, the inner edge of the mouthpiece must be placed on tissue that is supported by muscle, but the lips are composed of fatty tissue that by itself cannot support a normal embouchure.  A performer whose mouthpiece inner edge is habitually placed on the red (vermillion) of the upper lip is using an embouchure that is not capable of producing the flexibility, strength, and endurance necessary for normal performance.  It should be avoided at all costs.

– Campos, 2005, p. 73

With such a large consensus on this issue it would seem that this advice is sound and should be trusted.  Unfortunately for the field of brass pedagogy, this recommendation is not only based on misinformation, but there are many examples of brass players, particularly high brass, who break this rule and perform at very high levels.  While placing the mouthpiece so the rim rests on the red of the upper lip is rare and not ideal for most players, suggestions to always avoid this placement are incorrect for a sizable minority of players who not only are capable of playing well with such a low mouthpiece placement, but actually play most efficiently this way.

This essay will cover some of the most common arguments for not playing with the mouthpiece placed on the rim and show how these points are based on misinformation, inaccurate assumptions, or simply confusion and misunderstanding on the part of the author.  While good intentioned, making such strong statements that a particular mouthpiece placement “should be avoided at all costs” is simply wrong for many players.  With a more accurate understanding of the anatomy of the lips and embouchure form and function brass teachers will gain a tool that can help them make more targeted recommendations when a mouthpiece placement is actually hindering a student’s progress, or whether other issues in embouchure technique should be dealt with instead.

Continue reading “Brass Embouchures: Playing On the Red Is Fine (as long as it fits your anatomy)” →

The Plural of Anecdote Is Not Evidence

~ wilktone ~ 4 Comments

Recently a conversation about my thoughts on the tongue controlled embouchure spun off into a different topic that I thought deserved a discussion of its own.  It is actually something that I’ve alluded to a couple of different times before, but it’s a very common misconception.  So common, in fact, that many of us brass teachers and players frequently make this fallacious argument to support ideas that may or may not actually be correct.  This is taking our personal stories and concluding from them that this can then be applied to other brass players in general.

There is a difference between “anecdotal evidence” and statistical or scientific evidence.  The former is when someone uses personal stories, or those of other people, as evidence for something you’re already prone to believing.  This is different from collecting data using controls designed to reduce the chance of cognitive bias and compiling it using proven statistical methods.

We are all prone to this cognitive biases, it’s human nature.  In brass playing and teaching this can take many forms.  One of the most obvious examples I often come across are brass teachers who instruct their students to play with the same mouthpiece placement as they do.  The assumption is that if this placement works best for the teacher, then it must be the correct one so all students should do the same. There are so many examples of this in the literature and if you read enough of them you’ll see authors recommending 2/3 upper lip and others recommending 2/3 lower lip, others 50/50.  Clearly this isn’t a very accurate way to develop good brass pedagogy.

As another example, one commenter responded to my discussion on the Balanced Embouchure method’s intentional use of a bunched chin.

I did my own research via youtube, old photos etc. From what I saw, overwhelmingly, the worlds best players are not using flat chins.

Essentially, this commenter took a group of anecdotes (collecting whatever photos and videos you happen to personally come across) and used this to confirm his already held belief that a bunched chin is helpful to good brass technique.  

Continue reading “The Plural of Anecdote Is Not Evidence” →

Embouchure Dystonia: Mind Over Matter?

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Dr. Peter Iltis is a Professor of Kinesiology and also a horn player.  After developing some serious embouchure issues Iltis was diagnosed with focal task specific dystonia of the embouchure and became interested in looking further into the subject.  Gordon College’s Faculty Forum invited him to give a presentation on embouchure dystonia and posted his lecture on YouTube.

The whole lecture lasts an hour, and unless you’re interested in learning a little about neuroanatomy and kinesiology you might want to skip around.  There are several highlights that I found particularly interesting or have comments about.

Continue reading “Embouchure Dystonia: Mind Over Matter?” →

Misconceptions About the Diaphragm and Another Look at Wedge Breathing

~ wilktone ~ 6 Comments

I’ve blogged a bit about some of David Vining‘s writing before.  If you’re not familiar with Vining, he’s a fantastic trombonist and at one point in his career suffered from focal task specific dystonia in his embouchure.  He eventually persevered and was able to make a full recovery and return to playing.  Vining is an advocate of an approach where the goal is to better understand how your body moves and functions when playing so that your analogies don’t get in the way of you’re technique.

Here’s a link to a short, but excellent article Vining wrote on breathing.  Specifically, he discusses how some current pedagogical practices rely on descriptions of breathing that are anatomically inaccurate and how they can lead to breathing in a way that hinders a musician’s playing.  He first illustrates by linking to an excellent video that shows exactly where the diaphragm is and how it functions.

Having recently been experimenting with “wedge breathing,” I found a couple of things Vining mentions interesting, as they mirror some of the drawbacks I noticed while practicing wedge breathing.

Continue reading “Misconceptions About the Diaphragm and Another Look at Wedge Breathing” →