James Campbell Masterclass

1) What is the main 'problem' that James Campbell detects with this
student?
2) How does he try to solve it? Which solution(s) does he give? Which ones
work and which ones don't?
3) Do you detect other problems, which James ignores?
4) Could you give an example of how you would try to improve this
'problem'?
5) Could you tell something about the shape of the lesson?
6) In general, what did you think of this masterclass? Was there something
that could be improved?

Student nº 1:
1) Mainly rhythm and inner tempo, then some things about phrasing and voicing (tone
quality)
2) He gives a lot of exercises for the student to fix his tempo problem: he helps him build
a “mental creative metronome” with the help of the student’s colleagues by creating a
big beats/small beats kind of subdivision of the tempo, which helps him a lot ( together
with a later exercise of subdividing the notes while you play to even out everything
and getting everything inside of each note). He helps him with phrasing by doing an
exercise in which the student played everything but the notes, so really just playing a
long tone and phrasing in it, and he helps him with intonation/voicing by making him
do an exercise using the 12th jumps. In general all of the exercises work pretty well
with the student, but there is one about the hierarchy of the beats that I think doesn’t
help as much as the others.
3) I think in this case I would have noticed more working on the sound (and dynamics)
and maybe mentioning the air escaping sometimes.
4) I would for instance help with the air loss by making the student really focus on
centering the sound and being aware of how we blow in every note. For the sound I
would suggest a lot of singing, since this is a very operatic concerto.
5) This lesson focused exclusively on the first bars of the concerto and how to work on
them very detailedly from different points of view and things to work on to put
everything together in the end.
6) I think it was a great masterclass, very detailed and with lots of interesting exercises,
but maybe I would have worked more on the musical ideas and characters as an
overall view as well.

Student nº2:

1) I think the main problem he detects in this case is mainly the air column and how the
lack of air affects other aspects of his playing (like, in the end of the exposition, the
tempo).
2) He tries a couple of exercises with him, and for the most part they work. Like for
example, he tells the student to pretend as if he was doing a crescendo to keep the air
 going, but it is not until he pushes with his clarinet bell in the students belly or he
(James Campbell) tells him to blow through his bellybutton that the student really
starts pushing more air. Also for some color problems he asks the student to really
study from the orchestra part to really be sure of what’s going on and make a totally
conscious and interesting interpretation from that knowledge. James Campbell brings
back again the concept of the inner metronome and subdivision with this student (due
to tempo problems) and it helps him find more stability and color.
3) Yes, whilst a lot of problems I saw were tackled by James Campbell, like the air
column, I would actually have worked more on articulation (which was sometimes a
bit floppy) and in character!
4) For example, I would try to help the student by reinforcing the idea that this piece is
indeed a bit operatic and that he should find characters and a story to transmit even
more and dramatize/lighten up what needs to be (and maybe show him some of the
stories I made for this, like a dinner in a palace etc.)
5) With this student James Campbell went from detailed parts in the middle and the end
of the piece, to going back to the beginning, which is extremely important, and finally
making him play a bit through to see all the small changes (of his target practice) come
together in the last interpretation.
6) I liked it, and I enjoyed some exercises he mentioned and some ideas, but I don’t
completely agree with everything and sometimes I thought that maybe I would have
had another approach; but above all I liked it, enjoyed it and I learned from it.

Student nº3:
1) The main problem he detects is rhythm and the flow of the phrasing.
2) He tries to make the student listen more to the piano, think of big beats (in one each
bar), he snaps the offbeats to make him keep the flow, he makes him play perfectly in
tempo so that he can later move it a bit around, and he makes him play one note of a
phrase as if it was the whole phrase to improve the flow and the continuity. For me,
most of this exercises worked (maybe the offbeat’s one didn’t make that much
difference for this student), and there was a notorious improvement in continuity.
3) The only thing I would suggest to take care is the beginnings and endings of phrases,
which sometimes are a bit not taken care of. James also talks about phrasing, but I
would insist more on that.
4) I would suggest to just pay attention to every ending until it stops sounding so that we
do not leave the ending in the air but well closed, and for the beginnings to sing more
the note before playing it. For phrasing I would insist of being conscious that not every
silence is done the same: for example, in the first eight bars of the second movement,
the silence between the first part of the phrase and the second must be like
“suspended”, not relaxed (and so on).
5) He built up this lesson in a way that he showed to the student how the same
“problem” was showing up in different parts and how changing it improved the
overall performance very much.
6) I really enjoyed all the things he said in this class and I don’t really think there was
something I would do differently (given the time they had).

Student nº4:
1) The main problem he tackles with this student is mainly making it sound easier and
getting it more flowing, as well as helping her have her own personal overall
interpretation and vision.
2) He works with her in every small small detail a lot of time, breaking everything up in
very small beats so that later when everything comes together it sounds more easy
 and flowing. He as well helps her look for her own musical phrasing by noticing the
chords and what the orchestra is doing. Then he tries to give her a tip for not rushing,
which is to think in the quarter note – eight note of every beat of the 6/8 (by
articulating it, then hearing her colleagues sing it, etc.). This made her think to much
about the notes, but then she combines the flow feeling from the first exercises with
this tempo one and gets a really based solid phrasing and interpretation.
3) Maybe sometimes the endings or the starts of the notes, but these both improve by
exercising the other things that James tells her to.
4) Probably just to acknowledge that and make her listen more carefully till the end (not
to rest in the rests but to actually do rests)
5) The lesson was basically shaped in a way of going from very teeny tiny details to the
more general things, making everything come together by working on it in small
blocks, then bigger blocks… and so on.
6) I really enjoyed this Masterclass in the way of how everything worked came together
in the end in a very nice and progressive way; I don’t think I would change anything,
other than maybe talk a bit more about music and characters and a bit less technical
things.

In general, what did you think of this masterclass? Was there

something that could be improved?

I really enjoyed watching this masterclass and it’s overall structure of working on the whole
concerto through different students, and remarking in the end some basic things that all need
to work on, as a basis thing that everyone should keep all the time in mind.
I think there is always room for improvement, as I would maybe have talked more about
musicality maybe, and the origins/context of this concerto, but still this Masterclass is very
enjoyable, organized in a very nice way and it’s overall like a really big class on one matter (the
Mozart clarinet concerto).

Marta Pedreira Aldao

2nd year Bachelor, clarinet