Patterns in Music

I’ve recently finished this book by Neal Stephenson.  If you don’t know his work, it typically involves Science and Fiction but not always science-fiction.  How’s that for clear.  Anyway, this particular book deals with topics like geometry quite a bit and I’ve found myself thinking about the clarinet at the same time and so, here we are.

Economy of motion and economy of thought are an important aspect of my technique.  For example, I try to never move two hands (especially pinkies) when one will do, and I try to think in groups of notes as much as possible. Paying too much attention to technique during a performance leads, in my mind, to music which sounds technical.  So this idea of economy is important because it opens up the possibility to more easily engage in the rest of the musical process.  I’m thinking here of things like: listening, phrasing, and communicating (with an ensemble and/or audience).

The Bounce and The Orbit

I’m going to go back to every clarinet players friend Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto to demonstrate an idea, the bounce and the orbit.  Look at this example from the exposition for a minute.

Pay special attention to how the first three notes relate to the rest of the passage.  First, let’s think about the  D’s that run through the first four bars.  Don’t you just love how they’re all the same!?  It makes the whole thing so much easier to play.  Why?  Because you no longer have to think about them.  The rest of the notes just bounce right off them.  And if you stop thinking about the D’s, it means that even if your fingers are moving at the rate of sixteenth notes, your mind only has to think at the rate of eighths.  And that’s the fastest it will have to think because if you look at the pattern some more, you’ll see that the whole four bars orbits around the 1st and 3rd sixteenths of the first measure.  (As an aside, the whole thing sort of revolves around G until 145 but that’s another matter.)

Here’s another example this time from the Voxman clarinet edition of the Prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1.  I know it’s not in the right key, but if you don’t have a low C bass clarinet you’re probably not playing it in the right key anyway so…

Notice how in the first measure there are basically only three pitches that repeat over and over (the D is a consequence of the rhythm).  What I think is really interesting about this measure is that you can just skip right over the G’s.  Since it will come out just by opening your fingers, you don’t really have to think about it at all.  The fingers just come up, and then they come back down.  But the speed at which that whole cycle happens isn’t really the speed of the sixteenth notes.  Again the action of the fingers is slower than the action of the music.  Another useful thing to observe is the three patterns which run through excerpt.

• Each two beat cycle begins on C
• The second note in each measure goes up by one step in each measure (until the last sixteenth)
• The third note in each measure forms the pattern E – F – F – E

These three simple ideas encompass almost everything you need to remember about these four bars.  So now it’s much easier to work on using a good tone, or creating a beautiful phrase.  Reading through all of the jumps is less of an issue because by remembering the pattern you will be able to get through the notes more quickly.  As the piece goes on these kinds of patterns present themselves over and over.  In fact there’s a great section towards the end which ascends chromatically but every other note is an open G.

Once you start looking for these kinds of patterns you can’t help but find them.  You can find the orbit and bounce in Rose Etudes, Weber, and countless other pieces.  As you see them more often, you’ll be able to think more clearly about other musical elements like: ensemble, tempo and pulse, and phrasing.  So, what’s one thing you can do to get faster at this?  Play through scales and arpeggios every day.  There are literally hundreds of good books full of patterns.  I’ve talked about one of my favorites already.  If you have any patterns that you notice over and over in your music, please let me know!