Seven Habits For Highly Effective Bands

by John Phillips

Over my many years in teaching music and adjudicating music festivals I have noticed that successful performances are based on the development of highly effective habits. Like all successful ventures, making music with a large ensemble is dependent upon the individuals within the group working cooperatively toward the same goals.

When students behave in a musical way, the results are musical. By helping students to form the correct habits teachers prepare them to accept music without hurdles such as poor posture, lack of breath support, lack of attention and so on affecting the musical outcome. Forming the right habits takes time, patience and persistence. Developing the wrong habits takes very little time and can produce a devastating effect in the ensemble’s performance. Here are my thoughts on Seven Habits of Highly Effective Performance for Young Band. While some teachers may have other priorities, I believe that establishing these “habits” will lead to more secure, consistent and musical performance down the road.

HABIT #1: Posture is the first step in establishing an ensemble that not only looks professional but is prepared to produce an effective tone as a result of the improved breathing. Sitting on the edge of the chair and raising the stand are two very simple but effective “tools” to get the ensemble ready to make music.

Ask the students to move their body closer towards you but don’t move their chair. This simple request will yield an ensemble that moves to the edge of their chair and is sitting erect so that breathing will be free and open.

Another trick is to have the students raise their music stand so that they are not slouching in their chair. While this may seem obvious, I can’t tell you how many groups I have adjudicated where simply changing the stand height effected an immediate change in their sound and attention toward the conductor. Remember that throughout the year the students grow taller and they need to adjust the stand higher from where they started in September. When they go on stage for a festival performance or play in a venue other than your rehearsal room, they will encounter a different set-up and again need to adjust the stand. It is well worth the time to address this issue with the ensemble prior to any performance that is outside of your normal rehearsal space. Often young students are reluctant to change a stand height in a new setting because they might feel they are not allowed to. After all this is someone else’s stuff. Let them know its okay and in fact before they play a first note, have them check their set-up and ensure they can see you, they have good posture and are seated comfortably.

HABIT #2: Holding the instrument is truly a key to any wind players’ musical success. There are two simple “tools” to help in this regard. As with the Posture, it is extremely important to ensure the students are aware of the correct holding habits and repeat them each time they perform.

I have the students think of bringing the instrument toward them , rather than moving toward the instrument. With the correct posture established, all wind players should keep their head up, chest high, shoulders relaxed and bring the instrument to their mouth. If they have to go on a journey to find the mouthpiece, most likely the posture will change and so too will their sound.

Another important trick is to balance the instrument. Be sure they have the correct hand(s) supporting the weight. Try having them balance their instrument with only one hand. Be sure to demonstrate this carefully or you could have some major repair bills. Have the flutes balance the instrument between their thumb and pinky of the right hand and their chin as if playing a Db.

Be sure the clarinets can balance between their mouthpiece in their mouth and just using the thumb on the backrest so that no keys are pressed down as if playing an open G.

Make sure the saxophones can balance the instrument with the neck strap only using no fingers as if playing a C#.

For trumpets the left hand must hold the majority of the weight so that the right hand is able to work freely while working the valves.

Young trombonists have great difficulty holding their instrument. The left hand should make a “gun” so that the thumb will rest on the cross brace, then put at least one or two fingers over the lead pipe and the fourth finger and pinky are tucked around the remaining bracing. The right hand should move fluidly with the slide and the thumb and first two fingers should “pinch” slightly the brace on the slide with the fourth finger and pinky free. Don’t let them use the death grip.

With the larger instruments such as tuba, bass clarinet, baritone sax, bassoon, euphonium you must again stress that positioning of the mouthpiece to the embouchure so that the student doesn’t have to reach, stretch or contort to do so is imperative. Whether it requires a phone book for the student to sit on, cradling the instrument or adjusting a seat strap or peg, be sure they are set-up for success.

Another habit to develop in combination with holding and posture is to establish a “playing position” and “rest position”. You can either have the students respond to a verbal command for setting themselves in these positions or by watching for a visual cue from the podium. This is truly important for ensuring that they are ready to make music “together”.

HABIT #3: Breathing requires the development of two important habits, inhalation and exhalation. Once you have them set up properly, they are in a position to begin the first step in producing a highly effective sound. Breathing should be a natural and repeatable habit which all wind players engage in every time they make a sound on their instrument.

In the very first lesson have your students stand and relax. Ask them to inhale through their nose and hold it. This is not the recommended method for regular breathing in performance, but it helps to get them to feel where the air should go. Hopefully they will sense the stomach being pushed out. Ask them to again breathe through their nose and hold it, then take in some more through their mouth and hold it. Then suck in a little bit more through their lips. Hopefully they will observe just how much capacity they have for inhalation. The next step is to have them think of a silent vowel sound   “oh” and inhale. This should be the habit they establish for all breaths they take while performing.

Try having them inhale for various durations such as 2, 4, 8 and even more. Then try a one beat breath just as they would before beginning a phrase. This is the most important breath habit to form. They need to breathe rhythmically with the anacrusis for each phrase. This should become a repeatable habit that will improve not only their sound, but also the ensemble cohesion and rhythmic playing.

The exhalation is equally important and can improve musicality through extended phrasing, expression, tonal focus, pitch accuracy and tuning. As with inhalation this habit can be practiced without the instruments. The transfer of the concept to the instrument in this case is very important. Try this routine. Have the students breathe in using the correct habit of inhalation then immediately release the air by making a hissing sound. Practice this for various durations such as 4, 8, 16 and more. They can hiss various rhythm patterns, change the dynamics through the duration of the release and so on to add more interest and develop musical foundations that will be later applied to a piece of music.

While the hissing provides a slightly faster air energy than will be required for producing a tone on the instrument, it is important for the students to feel the intensity of air being released and literally pushed through a phrase. Later on you can have them return to the silent “oh” concept and feel a type of release more akin to what they might produce on their instruments.

These first three habits are necessary for all individuals to develop in order to be ready to make music as an ensemble. A little time spent each day checking and rechecking their set-up and practicing the correct breathing approach will bring your group a long way to being prepared to make great sounding music.

The next series of habits are more focused on the entire ensemble and are not affected by individual differences in instrument type. These are the ensemble skills that can be practiced in a warm up and transferred easily to any piece of music. Where scales are indicated in the exercises, a 5-note scale may be substituted for beginning groups.

HABIT #4: Watching the conductor is something that Young Band directors often complain about their students avoiding.   This may be the case because there hasn’t been enough expectation of them to do so until they start to learn a piece of music or that the director counts the group in far too often. This is not really a bad habit on the part of the conductor since you are trying to establish a consistent pulse and tempo, however, the result may be a group that cannot respond to the communication of your effective conducting in performance.  

Try this trick in order to establish secure non-verbal communication with your group. In warm-up conduct without counting in. For example, use a scale but have the students only play the various degrees of the scale with you conducting each step. Change the pace and duration of the notes as you ascend and descend, holding some longer than others, accelerating and so on.   Then add to this a dynamic or style indication. Use a legato or marcato style for a few notes or half the scale and see if the students respond to direction. Try the same thing with smaller and larger beat patterns to indicate a dynamic variation. With a few minutes of practice each day in your warm up, soon this habit will have dozens of pairs of eyes focused on you in every piece you conduct. It is important that you make the transfer to the music you are conducting and if the dynamic is piano, indicate that with the style of conducting you use.

You can also use scale degrees or solfeggio names drawn on a blackboard as the target point. Move a pointer, yardstick, baton or you finger up and down the “modulator” and have the students play the scale degrees that you point to. You can make up tunes based on these scale degrees and even have the students play “Name that Tune” as you try to challenge them by adding a note each time before they provide the answer.

HABIT #5: Shaping the phrase is something that many young bands have difficulty doing. Expressive playing should not be foreign to young musicians. Work on this habit during the warm-up in the early stages of learning to play an instrument will pay big dividends once they learn their first unison melody from the method book. Instead of simply a vertical approach to performance, the students will play with a much stronger sense of line. This may take some time to develop, but it is worth the effort.

This habit can also be developed and refined during scale warm-up activities. Play a scale in a returning fashion, for example, do-re-do, then do-re-mi-re-do, and so on until you cover the entire compass of the scale. (again you can substitute 5 notes for beginners) Have the students start the scale softly and crescendo up, decrescendo going down (or reverse the dynamic). This accomplishes both the act of shaping and extends the phrase since the goal should be to perform the entire scale in one breath. For the flutes and tubas try one breath up and one breath down. Eventually the students will be playing more linear, horizontal lines on this exercise that you can easily transfer to performance pieces. As with the “Watching” habit you can simply conduct a shape on a given note or scale to see if the students are observing the direction.

HABIT #6: Counting and playing in time is something that many students need to develop. They often sit during a rest and disengage from the music. There are several ideas that will help with the development of this important habit.

The “thinking exercise”, like some of the previous warm-ups, is based on a scale. Set a steady pulse of 4 quarters or subdivided eighths (you could have the percussionists play this, clap it yourself or use an electronic metronome). Have the students play the first note of the scale as an eighth then rest for the completion of 4 pulses (e.g. the rest of the measure) They catch a quick breath on beat 4 then play two notes of the scale, as eighths ascending only, in the second measure. Continue the pattern adding a note each time until they get to the top, then turn around and come right back down the scale all in eighth notes. It takes 9 bars to complete an entire scale. This can also be done with just 5 notes.

Once they can play this with a steady pulse in the background, take the pulse away and have them do it by simply breathing together at the end of each bar.

My colleague, Dennis Beck, has developed a very effective habit for his ensemble rehearsals in which the students must really focus on pulse together. Students play the first note of the scale at a moderately slow tempo for one pulse then rest for one beat and immediately move on to the second degree of the scale playing it twice and resting for 2 pulses. They move on to the third note performed 3 times and rest for 3 pulses. Once they reach the eighth note of the scale they remain focused and continue to count for 8 rest pulses before brining their instrument to rest position.

You can also develop the correct habit by simply having the students count aloud with you as you conduct a variety of tempos and beat patterns to reflect changing meter. This will ensure that all eyes are on the baton. Practicing without the instruments in this way can reinforce what they do while playing, at the same time giving them a change of pace and rest from their instrument.

I always ask the band before we start a piece this question; “Raise your hands if you don’t play in the first bar”.   Inevitably I get some hands from those who have a rest. I let them know that even though they are resting in the music they are still required to play those rests very carefully and for the longer durations, that requires some accurate counting. Be sure that you have them practice counting rests, aloud and silently. This will improve sight-reading and accuracy in performance of more complex repertoire.

HABIT #7: Listening is taken for granted all too often in ensemble performance.
We assume that the students are listening to one another and understand where their part fits into the big picture. Start with some simple focus drills to get them listening. Once they start listening across the ensemble, you will be amazed at how tone, tuning, blend and balance improve.

I ask the students to play a unison note in a comfortable range, usually concert F. I then ask them to listen to the person immediately to their left as they play the tone. You will be amazed at how much the sound begins to improve. Next I ask them to listen to the person on the right side, then on both sides as they play the note again and again. Without adjusting a slide, head-joint or mouthpiece the tuning improves.

In a chord setting within a performance piece, have the students listen for another instrument that has the same pitch at the same or different octave. You can ask very young players to listen for this as well even if they don’t understand the concept fully.

In music where there are distinct parts such as a bass line, harmonic support and melody, I ask the entire group “who has the melody”. Having them sing or all play their melodic part only. Those who are not performing the melody need to assess where they fit in and who else has a similar part.   Once the discreet parts are uncovered you can then address balance and have the students listen for a specific voice. This often requires them to play softer so that the melody or designated voice can be heard. This can also help with adjusting dynamic levels. If the brass cannot hear the flutes in a “pp” passage, they might well be too loud. Make this a habit that they are always at least aware of who has the melody in a piece.

Many great teachers have other exciting ways of getting students to develop the correct habits that lead to successful performance. I encourage you to emphasize those that work for you and to be consistent in your expectations. It takes time to learn the skill of performing on an instrument. If you insist on uniformity in the development of these skills you will see a faster rate of learning music in the end. Remember that patience is also an important component in developing these habits.

John Phillips is Principal of the In-Service Teacher Education Program at the Faculty of Education, University of Toronto. He has adjudicated music festivals around the world and is Judge Administrator for Drum Corps International.

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