How Playing an Instrument is Like Clash Royale

I like to check out what students are doing on their phones, and a couple months ago I decided to try out Clash Royale for myself. For those unfamiliar with the game, I'll mention that Clash Royale is "a fast paced, card based PvP brawler." Players construct a deck of cards and then fight in real time, using the units created by the cards to attack the opposing player's towers and defend their own. So what is so similar about band and this mobile game?

Competition (often) fosters a desire to get better

Some people don't care about winning games, but I do. It doesn't even matter what the game is--silly lawn games, Settlers of Catan, Dominion--if I am playing, I want to be better than the competition. Part of the appeal of Clash Royale is that your progress is measured by the number of points (trophies) you have, and the more you have, the better you feel. In band, when you can play higher, faster, or louder than everyone else, you feel confident. When you can't, you want to improve--or give up, which brings us to the next comparison.

People keep on playing as long as they make progress

Many people have tried playing--instruments and games--and have already quit, and one of the big reasons is they feel they can't make progress. The people you are playing with seem too good; you lose as much or more often than you win; and no matter what you try, there's no hope for improvement. Students (and gamers) who don't see a path forward will quit. If, however, students keep making progress and always see the next milestone ahead of them, they will keep playing.

Clash Royale does a terrific job of this at the start of the game. It seems like all of your first activities lead to accumulating treasure chests, acquiring new cards, increasing your gold, and advancing your rank. Perhaps this is how students feel when they open up their case on the first days of playing.

Still, it doesn't take long for the feeling of grinding away to set in, and that's why it's important to remember that...

Progress is mostly incremental and certain to have setbacks

While there are times that I have advanced several hundred trophies in a day in Clash Royale or memorized a whole sonata in a couple weeks, most progress is imperceptible on a day to day basis. I can look back on weeks, months, or years at a time and recognize the improvement in my double-tonguing or ear training.

We improve by watching others

Music teachers say this all the time, but I think a lot of us have trouble living it out. We want students to listen to the best players, but how much time do we devote to listening in rehearsal? I watched some replays in Clash Royale early on and realized some ways to improve my game just by how I place units. The same thing happens (though perhaps at a slower pace) when we listen to great musicians; we hear how they shape a phrase or the way they handle a tempo change. Another benefit of listening/watching is getting inspired to be like the best!

Strategy is key

Most growth in music is the result of applying the same strategies with patience. Slow down. Practice small parts. Repeat. These practice strategies never go out of style, yet some new music, demands a fresh approach. Remember the first time a teacher had you practice fingering and blowing without playing and the freedom you felt in your sound after that? Or how about the first time you were told the story behind the music and felt your emotions fuel your playing in a way you had never experienced? I've watched others (and myself!) make some of the same mistakes over and over again, and whether the failures come with my trumpet or a game, there are times I have to develop a new way to look at the problems I face.

One important difference

It may be years from now, but eventually, everyone who now plays Clash Royale will move on to something else. New games come out, old games get old--and our fickle, thrill-seeking brains are drawn to a new diversion. I suspect, however, that many people will still be playing instruments--including a great number who have already played for years. A video game does not provide the same sort of life-long satisfaction that is so obvious in older musicians--with music, there's always room to improve and grow. Jimmy Heath still sounds great at 89, and I hope to keep playing that long.

Rhythm Game Roundup

I like games, and they can be a great motivator in band class. Rhythm is one area of fundamentals that is particularly effective when gamified. Today I'll share some sample games I use with my first and second year students that are simple, fun, and helpful.

All of these games make use of the rhythm pages at the back of Essential Elements 2000 (books 1 and 2), but other rhythm pages would work fine as long as they are laid out similarly. It's nice that the EE book pages have a consistent four bars per line and progress from less to more difficult.

One other common piece of the rhythm games is the use of a metronome or some sort of background track--the drum loops in GarageBand can be particularly effective if you choose loops that emphasize the subdivision of the rhythms you are working on.

Rhythm Chain

There are two or three teams--usually I use instrument families (woodwinds/brass) or sections. On each team's turn, students take turns playing one measure at a time in sequence. The goal is to play the longest stretch of measures without any mistakes. Once a student makes an error (wrong rhythm, rushing/dragging, etc.), their team's turn is over, and they earn one point per correctly played measure.

Variations: students play more than one note per measure of rhythm, or each student plays the next note stepping up a scale.

Rhythm Finder

For this game, I give the students a range of measure numbers to look at (as much as a whole page). I perform a measure (usually twice) and the students write down the measure number on a piece of paper. I sometimes do this game in teams (or with partners) to help weaker students. After every five rhythms, I stop and have students check their work.

Variations: To make the game more challenging, I'll improvise a melody rather than playing a single pitch for the measure.

Rhythm Tic-Tac-Toe

Invented on the last day of school this past year, Rhythm Tic-Tac-Toe could also be called Rhythm Bingo or Rhythm Connect Four. You need two teams that are roughly equal in musical ability.

Draw a 4x4 grid on the board and label each row with measure numbers corresponding to a section of the rhythm sheet (i.e., pick four lines from the sheet). Teams take turns with one student at a time selecting and playing a measure from the board. If they play it correctly, mark the square for that team. The team that gets four in a row first wins.

Variations: Play until the whole board is complete. Make students play more than one note for each measure. Increase the tempo on the metronome.

Warming Up vs Building Fundamentals, part II

In my last post, I described the difference between warming up and working on fundamentals. Warming up is the readying of the physical and mental aspects of playing an instrument, and fundamentals are the habits formed by working on specific skills or concepts, like tonguing or playing scales. In this post, I'd like to address the feasibility of warming up and working on fundamentals in the context of a large ensemble (as opposed to small groups or individuals).

An effective warm up address both the physical and mental aspects of playing an instrument. When having my ensembles warm up, I want every member of the group to be thinking the same thoughts at the same time. Any individual lapse of concentration causes the musicians nearby to think less about their own playing, and the ensemble suffers. Consider your own experiences in an ensemble. When another player demonstrates that they are not concentrating at the highest level (perhaps by making a mistake or causing a distraction), your mind moves to think about them rather than your own playing, even if for just a moment. For students, a stand partner who is late to set up his instrument can keep nearby students disengaged for much longer than that. Therefore, it is critical to make sure all students are ready to begin warming up at the same time. If the group can't keep one mind for the duration of the warmup, something needs to be changed.

For wind players, air is the most critical physical component of the warmup. I've never met a professional musician who thought they had "arrived" with their breathing, but it is rare for me to encounter a student who realizes the important of their lungs. Without proper breath support, tone suffers, embouchures grow tired more quickly, and the level of phrasing and dynamic the individual students and the ensemble can achieve will be very limited. Aside from air, students (including percussionists) need to make sure the rest of their body is limbered up and relaxed.

It may be easy to agree with the paragraphs above, but to determine what to do with a large ensemble to meet the needs of the individual students is quite difficult. While my next post will deal with a review of one specific resource, in this post I'd like to point out some general ways the director can address the group warm up.

Idea #1 - Students have petitioned me to let individuals warm up on their own before the group rehearsal begins. While this sounds like a great idea in theory, I have never seen it play out well. Even with explicit instruction on what to do in a warm up, students invariably play louder, faster, and higher than they ought to with the result that the room is cacophonous and the students are no closer to achieving the sort of consistency and flexibility that a good warm up would provide.

Idea #2 - The group plays long tones--perhaps from a scale or the Remington series--and while the physical may be addressed, the monotony of this routine ruins the mental preparation of the group. A really great group can probably get past this, but that brings us to...

Idea #3 - Teach the ensemble what the warm up is for and get them to buy in to doing it right together. I haven't succeeded completely with this yet, but I'm convinced it's the way to go.

At this point, I'm out of time to thoroughly address fundamentals. The next post, however, should hopefully address one way of teaching fundamentals in the context of the group rehearsal.