A few pages before the lamentable review of my scale books, in the November edition of Music Teacher Magazine, there is an excellent, intelligent article by recorder teacher, Heather Ward. The main thrust of her argument is for the recorder to be regarded as a “developmental” rather than “first-access” instrument. Having seen evidence of the excellent work done by my friend and colleague Phillippa Penkett at her school in Chelmsford, I certainly concur with this.

Heather Ward tells us: Current first access provision in schools may offer children one year’s experience of various instruments: perhaps ukulele, drums, harmonica, ocarina, strings, adapted woodwind or brass… At the end of the first access year, children are generally encouraged to take up orchestral instruments for continued learning. However, maintained schools and local authorities are often unable to make good provision for instrumental teaching. Any take-up is restricted to the few who have parents with the resources to pay for private tuition. Despite the ambitious initiative of first access, instrumental teaching for any but the wealthy is dying out in many primary schools. She goes on to suggest that the recorder can be a suitable alternative for continued learning as it offers a wealth of musical experience, is cheap, easy and can be taught in a whole class context. Perhaps most importantly, she states that, in the classroom, it can be taught with a minimum of expertise.

I feel this brings us to the heart of the matter. With the proliferation of academies and free schools and the decline of local authority control or funding for musical education, instrumental tuition has become worryingly unregulated. The hiring of teachers in schools is generally at the absolute discretion of headteachers and their overriding consideration when making choices is increasingly budgetary. Few heads have any understanding of instrumental teaching – why should they? – and the 2014 report, Inspiring Music for All (funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation) found that only 17% of primary teachers feel confident about doing music in their classrooms. The inevitable result of the deficit of understanding combined with the deficit of funding is a deficit in expertise. Pay levels for specialist instrumental teachers in the maintained sector are significantly lower than in private practice and ISM and MU recommendations are routinely ignored; the gulf between their pay and other teachers’ pay is considerable and widening. I have heard much – too much – about the problem of players who don’t know how to teach: the glaring problem is rather of teachers who don’t know how to play.

Every September, as a teacher who only works in secondary schools, I take on new pupils who have received tuition at junior school for two, three or even more years. Rarely beyond Grade 2 standard, and generally no further on than Grade 1, they routinely present serious deficiencies of technique and musicianship. Some of the horrors include: almost complete inability to read music, inappropriate or non-existent embouchure, no concept of pulse, rhythm or fluency in performance, inappropriate choice of left and right fingerings on the clarinet which generally leaves their playing impeded for ever more (more on this elsewhere in this blog). More than 50% have never been introduced to tonguing and, when asked to tongue a scale, either huff or grunt each note. Addressing these problems and putting them right can be very dispiriting for a child who has repeatedly been told “that’s lovely, darling!” for the past two years.

I have long contended that most junior school children do not have the stature or stamina to be able to learn orchestral instruments effectively. The clarinet presents more difficulty than the saxophone as many children struggle to cover tone holes effectively. The industry has responded with a variety of children’s instruments which have limited keywork. One, the Howarth Junior MX Bb Clarinet, developed with Lambeth Music Service for the Musitrax whole class ensemble teaching programme, appears to have a range of about a dozen notes and is barely sufficient for the demands of Grade 1. It costs £220 including VAT (the assisted purchase scheme, administered by local authorities means that you can purchase the instrument minus VAT for your child’s educational purposes. Academies and free schools can now also benefit from this scheme, but one academy I know charges a £25 handling fee). The next step up, the Howarth Junior PLUS+ Bb Clarinet, another limited keywork instrument which is barely adequate for Grade 3 (only one B and one C# key, both in the same hand: bang goes D major), will set you back a further £260 including VAT. These instruments are really designed to be bought by departments and authorities and loaned to pupils – fat chance for most of us with current funding levels. The Trevor James Alphasax alto saxophone, with no bottom Bb or B, nothing above top D and no side keys for F# and C in chromatic scales, comes in at an eye-watering £399 (I teach the full range and use of all alternative fingerings before Grade 3). Junior schools in my area are persuading parents to fork out these sums to buy these instruments for their children.

Surely, a more effective programme for music in education would involve singing, including learning to read music and sight-sing, recorder playing, basic keyboard skills, rhythmic training with group percussion work. A combination of imaginative (and appropriately trained) teaching and suitable resources would give children a sound basis on which to develop as instrumentalists when the time comes and will keep them engaged by giving them a tangible sense of achievement. Some instruments such as strings need to be started at an earlier age and a minority of children will be ready to play wind instruments below the age of 11, but this this should be provided on the basis of need, outside the classroom, in one-to-one lessons.

My secondary school beginners generally quite quickly overtake those who have learned at junior school; it is as well that they do since much of the early learning material is aimed at rather younger children and they find it rather patronising. There is a running joke amongst some of my teenage students about adults who want to “get down wiv da kidz”. One student mocked up a cover for my scale books, with the title: “Fun Wiv Scalez and Arpeggioz for Kidz!” and a cartoon of a child on a skateboard, baseball cap on backwards, brandishing a clarinet. When they are ready, students are prepared to take learning seriously provided we take them seriously.

First, a definition:
[Embouchure is] the mode of applying the lips and mouth to the mouthpiece of a wind instrument as expertly advised and the mode actually adopted or developed by a player for a particular mouthpiece of a wind instrument. (Maurice Porter, The Embouchure, Boosey and Hawkes 1967)

Whole volumes have been written about this complex subject which, by necessity, preoccupies players and is the subject of endless controversy and debate. I am not going to try to add substantially to this written material since nobody ever developed an effective embouchure by reading a book. I will, however, offer some thoughts and try to dispel some popular myths.

When given instruction about the importance of using lip and face muscles, many students make the mistake of thinking that this is to apply sufficient pressure against the reed; and the higher you go, the harder you have to bite. Some years ago, I taught a student who was preparing to perform the Artie Shaw Clarinet Concerto. Always ready to instruct me in how things should be done, he explained to me that to get the top C at the end (no, not that one, the one with four ledger lines), the player would require an extra hard reed.
“No you don’t,” I said.
“Yes you do, then it all works fine.”
“No you don’t,” I said, and took a Vandoren 1 from my drawer and fitted it to my fairly close lay American mouthpiece before playing a top C to him.

It’s tricky, mind you: any pressure on the reed simply closes up the mouthpiece so that you can’t even get air into the instrument. What you do need is precision in placement of the lower lip, jaw etc. and a very firm muscle tone in the lip to make the right shape which is then applied to the reed very lightly. Many muscles go into this: the orbicularis oris (lip muscle) and all the other facial muscles which are attached to it. The position of the tongue is also critical as high notes entail the generation of sound waves inside the head, behind the reed as well as in the instrument and these have to be shaped appropriately within the oral cavity. It’s all horribly complicated and very, very hard to teach as most tone production is invisible and highly conceptual.

Q: How do you make a beautiful sound on the clarinet?
A: Listen.

It is not so easy to stand at one end of a room playing and, at the same time, stand at the other end listening objectively, and I have sympathy for players when they forget to try. There is so much to concentrate on, reading the text, choosing fingerings, playing in time and so on. We can all be poor listeners, hearing what we want to hear instead of what is really coming out. But, if we can listen properly, the process is really very simple: if you listen you will ask all the right questions: “Do I like that? If not, why not? What do I really want? OK, so let’s see if I can find a way of getting there.” I can talk (and, indeed, often have talked) until the cows come home about embouchure, applying physics, physiology, psychology, cultural history; it gets the student almost nowhere. Get the student to listen and everything will flow from there.

The diaphragm is a wall of muscle which divides the thoracic cavity from the abdomen. It is attached at its circumpherence to the base of the rib cage and, in its relaxed state is dome shaped. It is largely controlled by the autonomic nervous system: in layman’s terms, its action is mainly reflexive and involuntary. If you stand unclothed before your dressing table mirror, you can flex and admire your pectorals, abdominals, deltoids and biceps muscles, but you cannot see your diaphragm which is internal. When your body needs oxygen for survival the unconscious part of the brain instructs the diaphragm to contract and move downwards, thus enlarging the volume of the thoracic cavity. This reduces intra-thoracic pressure: In other words, enlarging the cavity creates suction that draws air into the lungs. When the diaphragm relaxes, air is exhaled by elastic recoil of the lung and the tissues lining the thoracic cavity. In other words, inhaling is physically active, whilst exhaling is passive.

In the most effective wind playing the active/passive relationship is reversed. It is not enough to allow air simply to feed passively into the instrument, but it must be directed with some force. For wind players this means, primarily, using the abdominal muscles to exert force to the air stream against the natural resistance of the instrument. To illustrate this I invite the student to think of the breathing cycle in reverse order: in other words, blowing first and inhaling after. The abdominal muscles contract to force air from the body until the thoracic cavity is (comfortably) empty. On relaxation, the lungs reflate to return to their relaxed level of inflation through the natural elasticity of the body. I use exercises to demonstrate this principle to my students thus:

A good, positive delivery of air through the lower note of each pair will produce a secure upper note. The student should aim to pause on each pair of notes long enough to be comfortably out of air at the end of the upper note. Simply opening the mouth and relaxing should be sufficient to replenish air in the lungs for the next pair of notes. As the exercise progresses the student should gradually become more relaxed and each passive inhalation should cause more air to be drawn into the body. This exercise illustrates that the body replenishes its supplies of air without any appreciable action of the diaphragm. This also helps the student to detach breathing from any shoulder movement.

This exercise demonstrates that, whilst the diaphragm undoubtedly continues to function, for any practical purposes, its function is of no significant importance.

Wind teachers and singing coaches bang on endlessly about supporting from the diaphragm despite the above evidence demonstrating this to be physiological nonsense. Do they simply revel in using this technical sounding word?

A review in Music Teacher Magazine has, I fear, not fully done justice to the books. I have written in response to the magazine, but feel I must respond more fully here to correct what I regard as a number of misrepresentations. The reviewer begins:

On opening the first book, the reader is greeted with a lengthy introduction outlining the book’s intentions and is given a list of abbreviations and terms. After another five pages of information regarding key signatures and how scales are built (tones and semitones) we reach the first lesson.
I think this might bore the average Grade 1 student: Copas’s explanations and suggestions are well-meaning but serve to over-complicate matters, making the task of learning three scales (Grade 1’s requirements of F major, G major and A minor) quite daunting.

The introduction consists of three short paragraphs addressed to the student, followed by a page and a half addressed to the teacher, to whom it is made clear that the student will need careful guidance in lessons throughout the book to ensure that everything is understood. The section entitled How Key Signatures Work is the exact method I use in my own teaching and includes practical exercises and activities to build understanding. It deals not so much with tones and semitones as the circle of fifths, demonstrating that there is a clear logic to the system of keys. This section is also suitable to be delivered to a group or class rather than in the one-to-one context, should that be more convenient. Such theory work is essential as an adjunct to practical learning and my beginner students are able to grasp it at an early stage if it is properly explained.

The fear of boredom is, I believe, somewhat overstated: children work far harder these days than when I was young, and they are very ready to undertake lengthy and repetitive tasks if they have a clear objective and understand how it is to be achieved.

The first lesson itself, however, is a pleasant change, with clear fingering diagrams and the scale of F major written out. On the other hand, a boxed text paragraph explaining that the clarinet is a transposing instrument, with examples of what this means, is probably not necessary information at this stage.

As you will see from the sample pages on this website, there are boxed sections throughout the books containing detailed and often very technical information which is complementary rather than essential to the work in hand. Whilst of interest to the curious, these can be glossed over or ignored if a more single-minded approach is required or if the student is too young to be able to engage with such material. Perhaps I should have made this clearer in my already lengthy introduction, but I felt it to be self-evident.

The first exercise is written in quavers and looks very hard for a typical Grade 1 student. It is six lines long and (although it would of course be broken down) looks like a challenging piece – much harder than any Grade 1 piece.

The exercise is, indeed, as described and is challenging in that it addresses the coordinations required for the G major scale. Actually, the G major arpeggio exercises on page 16 are rather harder. Grade examiners are not just looking for the right notes, but want to hear scales played well and confidently. More to the point, scale work serves to develop general technique and the exercises are presented to assist this. I am puzzled by the reference to quavers: from my experience, there seem to be plenty of quavers in Grade 1 music. My Grade 1 level students cope perfectly well with this material – generally within the first term of learning.

In fairness, I should include the paragraph in which the reviewer is more complimentary:

A nice touch is the idea of a practice plan that has tick boxes and clear instructions on what to play. In Lesson 3, minor scales are introduced and the difference between major and minor scales is demonstrated with the help of a novel illustration depicting a military “major” standing on the ground with a “miner” tunnelling beneath. The misspelling is alluded to and the reason I include it is that it is very good: just the sort of thing that a book of this nature should be crammed with.

Actually, the practice plans are the bits students like least: they look daunting and extremely time consuming. However, most of the items on each daily list of scales should be very familiar and should take a matter of moments to drill. Only the first few items on each list involve repetition of new material.

Overall, however, I believe that the books include too much unnecessary information for a young student to deal with.

Who said anything about young? The correct age to begin learning orchestral wind instruments is subject for another debate which I am keen to get into, but will cover elsewhere in this blog. However, my secondary school beginners are generally quick to overtake their peers who have had two or three years of tuition at junior school; there are many and complex reasons for this. As to the unnecessary information, see my note above about boxed text.

Written exercises in the Grade 4-5 book use semiquavers and resemble exercises found in Paul Jeanjean’s Vade Mecum.

The reference to Paul Jeanjean’s Vade Mecum I take as a compliment: this excellent book was my constant companion throughout my student years and enabled me to perform some of the most demanding works in the repertoire. The essential principle of learning through repetitive, rhythmic exercise is sound, but Jeanjean is far too demanding for students at graded exam level. My offerings are carefully constructed to suit the relevant level; there are no tempo markings and the use of quaver or semiquaver note values should not be taken to imply rapid movement, especially when the exercises are attempted for the first time. I would be even happier if the reviewer had said that the exercises in all three books resemble Jeanjean’s.

From this point the reviewer reverts to talking more about himself than about my books:

Additionally, there are many fundamental choices that Copas makes in fingering which I disagree with, and his explanations sometimes leave me with an arched eyebrow to say the least. His dismissal of the LH Eb key (which more expensive clarinets are fitted with) seems to imply that players who use it are somehow lacking. The instruction to use a side-key fingered Eb (as opposed to a front Eb) for a chromatic is wrong. Using the front fingering keeps the hand movement minimal and is helpful when playing a chromatic at speed. Also the suggestion that a side-key F# should be used is misleading. It can be used, but again, at speed it’s easier to swap from a thumb F to first-finger F#.

From the reviewer’s somewhat indignant defence of the LH Eb key I surmise that he has this additional key on his own instruments. It certainly does, in many passages, obviate the need for tricky fifth finger slides, but he must be aware that many players of the highest calibre choose to go without it, with no apparent impairment to their playing. Almost no students preparing for graded exams have it so there is no place for it in these books. I have no doubt that he can execute rapid chromatic scales faultlessly with the front Eb key, but many other competent players, including myself, have equally sound reasons for using the side key. Neither party is wrong, but this is not about him or, indeed, about me. The books aim to present fingering patterns which can be used consistently throughout the study of scales and arpeggios. I have found that students who try to include the front key in their technique all too frequently try to use it in places where it simply will not work. With regard to the alternative F#, I can swap fingers neatly just as he can, but many students struggle to execute this smoothly with the result that an unwanted note creeps in between F and F#.

Finally, the killer blow:

By contrast, absent throughout are any tips for embouchure or diaphragm support, which would be especially useful when approaching high notes for the first time.

With regard to the lack of tips about embouchure or diaphragm support, these issues simply do not fall within the remit of the books. Clarinet technique is complex, bringing together very precise control of fingers, embouchure and breathing. It is made clear in the introduction to each book that this is not a complete method for learning and should be used alongside other teaching material. All woodwind instruments involve mechanisms made up of the conjunction of the human hands, with all their articulations, and keywork. The books are instruction manuals to deal specifically with these complex mechanisms. The reference to “diaphragm support”, which is an expression used all too often by wind and singing teachers is physiological nonsense. The truth about the diaphragm is revealed in another post in this blog.

I feel my books have also been misrepresented by omission. The change of emphasis in Book 3 towards learning through aural awareness and introducing a more empirical approach has been ignored, despite the fact that, at 151 pages, this constitutes almost 50% of the total series. I have no doubt the reviewer was facing a tight copy deadline and a complex narrative of 313 pages is an awful lot to plough through, but such a casual dismissal does no justice to the cause he and I should both be serving.

I write this blog as both author and publisher of the Learn Your Scales and Arpeggios book series. I am not quite a one man band, though:

My colleagues, Charlotte

and Emily

are always bustling about the office, supervising my work and ensuring I don’t start slacking.

The first books, for clarinet, are already available via this website and through other major retailers. A similar series for saxophone is due for publication in the new year.
Any publication setting out instructions for fingering or any other aspect of technique is like red rag to a bull for most in our profession and I am fully aware of the controversy that will be sparked by some 300 pages of very specific rules and guidelines. I welcome the debate, so please send me your comments.

300 pages may seem an awful lot to plough through to get on top of these scales and arpeggios, but should be considered in the context of quite a few years spent on the journey from Grade 1 to Grade 8. Scales are hard on all wind instruments, especially the clarinet with its big range and 12th overblow. There seems to be little logic to the fingering system: some keys you press to close holes, others to open them. The 17-keyed, Boehm system instrument of today is the result of centuries of piecemeal development; if you started designing it from scratch now the end result would probably bear no resemblance to what we use today, but this is what we are stuck with. Fingering involves the conjunction of two mechanisms: the human hands with all their complex articulations, and this higgledy-piggledy key system.

Notoriously, wind players struggle with scales: every grade examiner I have spoken to confirms this. It seems that many teachers sweep the problem under the carpet – “Don’t worry about the scales: as long as you pass on all three pieces, you can’t fail the exam” – some, in an increasingly unregulated profession, can’t even play the scales themselves. Students, even when they have the best will in the world, often do not have a clue how to set about learning them. Clearly, what is needed is an instruction manual, setting out how to play each item, how to incorporate scale work into general technical development and how to condition scale knowledge into the unconscious memory through repetition in practice. My own, step-by-step handbooks are based on teaching methods I have employed successfully for many years.

The remit of these books is strictly limited to the mechanics of finger work, and I make it clear in the lengthy introduction to each book that this is not a complete method for learning, but should be used in conjunction with other teaching material. One criticism that I have received bemoans the absence of tips for embouchure or diaphragm support, which would be especially useful when approaching high notes for the first time. These are obviously vitally important issues and I would love to encourage use of this site as a forum for the exchange of ideas. However, please do not look for coverage of embouchure and breathing in the scale books, which deal solely with the mechanics of fingers and keys.

In forthcoming articles I will explain the thinking behind the various instructions about fingering in the books. You may find some of this controversial but I hope you will not dismiss my reasoning just because it’s not what you do.