‘Follow your instincts’ we are often told when looking to the immediate future and seeking reassurance. It is often good advice. Life is for living, and it is easy to be tempted to ‘go for it’ when it comes to romance or a job opportunity.
The philosophical implications of instinctive behaviour versus our intuitive actions have been debated for millennia. Behaving intuitively is what we are doing when not relying on conscious thought before we act. The results of this can brighten our day when on the spur of the moment, we do something differently and we suddenly and absolutely know it to be the right thing to do. There is no doubt in our minds. We certainly learn to appreciate the good results of instinctive behaviour. But it is also the case that we can only experience degrees of certainty about an idea, and as horn players, we must be sure when we can trust one instinct over another. We may not be one of those individuals who, understanding the risks, are more prone to taking the instinctive path. Our approach to horn playing and perhaps life itself may generally be more measured for many of us.
When we are sitting in a horn section, we weigh up the way we should play something. When we do something a little differently, we aren’t always actually aware of doing so because our decision was subconsciously based on our experience of similar situations. There are numerous occasions when we know that we might regret a decision later, so we automatically play safe. We hope that our thoughtful previous practice will help us make the right decision at the right time. We tend to be creatures of habit.
I say ‘hope’, for we can misread a situation, especially if we are under pressure. For instance, when sight-reading something new, we may think we can get to the end of a phrase without having to top up the breath before the end. But then we find we misjudged it and had to breathe in an unsuitable place. We’ve all done it and have probably learned our lesson. Of course, sometimes we make the same mistake again, after a suitable time of being allowed to forget our first misdemeanour. If a habitual action, lodged in our deep memory, is automatically accessed, its repercussions become evident every time until we finally decide to do something about it.
When an orchestra plays a big symphony, there are a number of rehearsals scheduled to guarantee its success. When the same personnel in the same orchestra play it again one or two years later, it is usual for the same number of rehearsals to be scheduled as before. Why should this be necessary? We learned the intricacies of – say – that Mahler symphony the first time, after all. Perhaps it is because we tend to need to remind ourselves all over again not to make the same small miscalculations that we nearly made the previous time. We must avoid them as we did before. It would be a wonderful world if we did not need the reminder of another rehearsal, but we so often do.
As an ‘aside’, in fact, in my own experience in my first job, it was a real shock to the system when I found myself sight-reading ‘war-horses’ that the orchestra knew backwards, but which I had never seen before. Once, after I had missed a train and therefore the rehearsal, this included the Vaughan Williams Eighth Symphony. It did not help that the composer had dedicated this piece to ‘Glorious John’, who was conducting. I had to make many intuitive decisions that night. A few years later, when I had found my feet in the orchestra somewhat, I remember Sir Adrian Boult, in Sheffield, saying, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I think it would be wise just to touch a few of the corners slightly”. And he did just that; the first C major chord of Die Meistersinger, the opening four bars of Siegfried Idyll and the first bar of every movement of the New World Symphony – in the last movement, it was just the first two notes. We were out of the hall and in the Piccolo Café eating chip butties before you could say, “Jack Robinson”. I have many other memories of the City Hall in Sheffield.
Back to the thrust of this article, though. A mistake the first time repeated the second time is a forceful reminder of our human failings. We are as honest as the next person and won’t like to classify this mistake as a mere coincidence.
Coincidences do happen, but it would be unwise to attribute a second mistake to this phenomenon. We should, instead, aim to learn to better internalise the music more successfully the first time. We ought to aim to be mindful of everything we are doing at the very moment we are doing it. This is called Experiential Learning Behaviour. To accomplish this, we ought to be aware that we always have the choice to be in technical control at the time (it’s often called ‘focus’). We should know that we have the power to allow ourselves to access intuitive, risk-free decisions ‘on the day’ and that we can retrieve these decisions from our subconscious memory when we need them on another occasion. Only then can we confidently hold our head high and justifiably complain to the management about there being too many unnecessary rehearsals.
On one level, if we repeatedly make too many mistakes, a good and logical reason for regret might be that we won’t be asked to play in that horn section again – the hardest lesson of all. Upsetting others or losing money or ‘face’ is not what we want, of course, but if we think about it more abstractly, doing so is only a by-product of our human imperfections. We all have faults and are vulnerable every now and then. This being so, instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, we should sensibly learn our lesson for its own musical sake. In these circumstances, it should indeed be ‘all about us’, as sentient individuals with feelings, rather than about that orchestra that might not want us again. I have experienced all the usual feelings myself and remember just how very logical my thoughts seemed at the time. But on another, more realistic level, they must be seen by us – as musicians, professional or amateur – as completely false logic. When we start to play better, they will have us back again. And if they don’t, that is their funeral. They won’t have changed, but we will.
Counter-intuition (contrary to what one would instinctively expect to feel) means that, if necessary, we can get into the habit of quickly pulling ourselves up short before we start to play. Looking at our options, we can consider whether there might be something else we might do instead. These options may be very little different from what we were going to do anyway. It could involve a little more air, a little less, tonguing a note instead of slurring it as marked. After getting used to thinking this way, a counter-intuitive action will only take a split second to access. Soon we will begin to see the advantages in taking ‘the road less travelled’. What was an intuitive option is now a practical alternative. We can still happily call it an instinct, but the differences between the new alternative and what was an ingrained habit become less distinct, and we become more used to ‘thinking on our feet’. Please forgive the plethora of clichés. There are enough clichés commonly heard in the interpretations of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies. That is until one has experienced them, as I did seemingly for the first time, under the baton of Arvid Jansons.
The concept of counter-intuitiveness might, on the surface, be thought to have its parallels in the making of false assumptions. For example, it is intuitive to believe the saying, ‘we burn fewer calories when we sleep’, but this may strangely not be the case. It is a good example of something appearing to be obviously correct while it is not in fact, true. No more necessarily true than the assumption that because we had earlier gone out without a raincoat, the slight cold we had the next day was a direct result of this. Or the apparent assumption among 80% of drivers that they are in the top 20% of good drivers.
Nonetheless, it is important that one’s intuition must never be ignored. This is not counter to everything I have just said but only reinforces my argument that it is sometimes worth thinking about other options. Some options need not ever be considered. We never decide to cross the road without checking the traffic; it is a nonsensical thought. But if we think it is important to stress one note over another for perfectly sound reasons, it is usually absolutely right that we should choose to do so. But when there is the slightest doubt whether deciding to make a difficult musical choice is, in fact, for the common good of the ensemble, it may be a difficult decision to make. By making that choice, we learn and can practice the principle of always testing an intuitive assumption practically and, therefore, becoming more experienced in every way.
Finally, on the subject of the breathing example, I referred to at the beginning of this article, we might use both intuitive and counter-intuitive ideas as part of the same creative process. Most importantly, we ought to realise that inhaling and exhaling are both independent and crucial skills, although we have not been in the habit of thinking this way hitherto. We might experiment by repeating that same melody after taking different amounts of air. Like scientists, we are testing theories. Or, without playing, breathing in over four, six or eight seconds, and then expelling it over similar, shorter or longer periods. We can then soon discover that we can inhale more and more quickly, but always efficiently, and in a composed way, over different amounts of time. Looking at experienced players, they seem to fill their lungs as fully as they want in only about two seconds. They might also be seen quickly to empty their lungs of stale air just before they inhale.
We can be poised to play properly however deeply we have inhaled. But it is wise to have some air left at the end of the phrase. So, it is equally sensible to become accustomed to inhale habitually relatively deeply. Not just as a way to make the air last longer, but because it will mean that we can use it more efficiently and profitably. When we have finished the phrase, we simply expel the stale air and breathe normally until the process starts again. The act of expelling unused air helps us to remain calm. It, therefore, stands to reason that a few minutes of inhaling properly and exhaling as completely as possible is good to do before going on the platform.
Always being conscious of beginning the action of inhaling, and then lifting the instrument to our lip will allow us to make a quick intuitive decision whether to play for example, that high G-sharp, piano (simply because it is marked piano and we normally do as we are told). Or to make a counter-intuitive but more sensible decision that mezzo piano will better guarantee its accuracy and will come more naturally and safely. Our experience may tell us that the latter might be the better option. When our playing is advanced enough, we can revert safely to the softer dynamic. By then, our intuition will have also matured, making the decision less of an issue. If we want to develop a highly successful technique, we must do a lot of thoughtfully structured practice.
The point about inhaling an adequate amount of air for our purposes is important in itself, but there is a further great advantage coming from it. We should inhale in a technically relaxed way and exhale under controlled tension — all in one smooth movement. Barry Tuckwell demonstrates this clearly in his book, demonstrating with a simple chart the moment at which we tongue the note at the top of the breath. If we are consciously aware of the fact that we are doing this correctly while we are doing it, there can be an enormous benefit to our embouchure. I recently discussed this separately with two students, who were both having trouble with excess tension in their embouchure and upper body, just when they should be starting the note cleanly and positively. I first suggested that they should both not lift the instrument to their embouchure until they had completed three-quarters of their breathing in. They soon found that two things happened if they relaxed but inhaled rather more fully and then co-ordinated their lower abdominal muscles firming up at the precise moment they tongued and released the air. The first was that their preoccupation with their embouchure was reduced to nil (there is no need to worry that the mouthpiece will not go straight to the correct place on your lip – it will). And the second was that their tongue had no tension in it and could do precisely what it was designed to do, i.e., flick a tiny amount forwards and up to an exact position behind the teeth in a completely natural, relaxed fashion. Everything became precisely co-ordinated. Or, put another way, they were allowing themselves to play.
One might argue that every note on the instrument has its own tongue position. And that after practising, the tongue just knows the position. Suppose we accept this and consciously hear ourselves (i.e., experience) achieving it after repetitive practice. In that case, the brain will soon begin to know precisely where the tongue should go without any interference from any devil in us that says to the contrary. Focussing on the act of breathing in and out efficiently gave these two the opportunity to do their job with only the minimum tension that their embouchure and their tongue needed. Apart from anything else, their strength and stamina were immediately enhanced as a result.
There is nothing average about horn players. We all have technical issues that need to be considered and sorted out. We may have that in common, but when things are resolved, even that does not make us similar players either. We are all capable of becoming good musicians, but our approach to playing is distinctly our own. And if we apply common sense, we will get there. And the horn section will sound completely balanced and homogenous. First, we should learn the obviously common ‘truth’ – that good breath management will allow different players to reach their goal in their own way.
As for trusting our intuition, we won’t even notice that we are making decisions, intuitive or not. In the case of us horn players, we will just play.
