Transform Your Sound: Build a Tone Library!

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you already know that I love talking about tone! I firmly believe working on your tone is the single most important task you can undertake to improve as a recorder player. A beautiful, clear, rich, and resonant tone makes everything you play sound better, and lies at the heart of captivating playing.

But producing good tone is also notoriously difficult. And in the beginning and intermediate stages of developing your tone, producing it requires a lot of thought and focus. If you think of your cognitive resources as fuel, good tone is a gas hog!

Now, Ideally, the production of good tone will become more automatic as you practice it over time, taking up less of your brain space and allowing you to juggle other things.

But in the meantime, because it requires so much focus and attention, good tone is often the first thing to go when music’s cognitive demands increase: if you add another part, say, or you have to play lots of notes or think about articulation, etc. etc.

This lvel where I see many recorder players get stuck. They have done the work to be able to produce good tone on single notes and slow scales. But as soon as they try playing actual music, their tone suffers.

This is where the Tone Library comes in.

A Tone Library is a collection of short, low-demand pieces that don’t tax you technically or rhythmically. They are the kind of pieces you can play almost without thinking, and, thus, are pieces during which you can devote the lion’s share of your cognitive resources to improving your tone!

A Tone Library can be physical (printed or scanned material) or, even better in my view, mental (short memorized pieces). It can be extensive (many pieces) or abbreviated (3-5 pieces). The important thing is that the pieces are easily accessible to you in whatever form they take.

Once you’ve established your Tone Library, use it as a practice repository to help you build your bank of experiences playing music with good tone. Every day you practice, pull out a piece or two from the library and play with the best tone you can muster. It only takes a few minutes, and over time, the “money” you’re putting in the bank of good tone will pay amazing dividends!

What are the characteristics of an ideal Tone ibrary piece?:

1) Not Long

2) Slow or moderate in tempo

3) Lego or mostly legato

4) Non-taxing rhythm and melody

5) Pleasant to play!

I want some examples! Every Tone Library will look a little different. But here are some pieces that have worked for many people.

Simple. Gifts

Tallis Canon

Lo How A Rose

In Dulci Jubilo

Want more tips on tone? I have a webinar for that