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My Lessons with Eddie Daniels By Chad Donohue Monday July
30, 2001
Man, was I nervous! There I was about to go have my first
lesson with Eddie Daniels and my reeds were playing like 2
by 4's! Oh well. When I arrived at his house, everything got
better, I was calmed by the laid back atmosphere that I had
stepped into, which was great. I got my horn out and played
a few notes. Then, he asked me, "How about we start by
playing something legit first." I took out my Uhl studies
book from my case and turned to a fast-moving triplet study
that modulated an awful lot. We started slow and smooth,
showing the fingers exactly where to go. This is where I
learned a very important aspect of clarinet playing, which
was making a fluid movement of the fingers across an arc to
set them over the tone holes. He told me that concept was
the center of Daniel Bonade's teaching. After that, we
progressed slowly down the page until we got to an ascending
chord sequence. He stopped and said, "What are the chord
changes over that bar right there?" I stood there,
completely shocked because I had this classical frame of
mind going. It was then I realized that everything can exist
together and there is no such thing as thinking 'classical'
or thinking 'jazz'. It's all the same theory anyways so who
cares. After that ran through my mind for the longest 10
seconds I will ever remember, I said, "Well, that's Fmaj7,
Bbm7, Gm7b5, and back to Fmaj7." As soon as I finished
saying that, he started playing this Latin bass line moving
between the roots and the fifths of the chord, and he said,
"Okay here's the bass line, now let's trade two choruses a
piece." From that moment until I left for the day, something
truly magical happened and I absorbed so much just playing
and listening back. I can't wait until tomorrow!
Tuesday July 31, 2001
I couldn't wait to get to my lesson today. I was restless
all morning, which was wierd because I practiced until about
11:00 last night. I probably made some people mad. (Oh well,
if they understood what kind of opportunity I had right
then, I bet they would have done the same!) Well, I arrived
again at his house and we had a totally different agenda
than the day before. This time we started off with jazz,
playing the Miles Davis tune Four. He sat down at the piano
and started playing the chords. I played through the head
and started to solo. He stopped me and said, "You need to
make more of the changes, Chad." I knew he was probably
going to say that, but what he showed me after that was more
of the reason why I was there. He told me to pick a simple
lick (in my case it was 5,3,4,5,3,5,1) and play it over the
changes, changing only the notes you need to. This simple
concept got the changes "into my head." I was hearing more
things and I was more aware of what was coming up. Then we
played through the tune again. When the solo section came up
this time, I played those licks. As I got more comfortable,
I started to play around and between the licks, which
eventually developed into a simple solo. "Simple is never
bad," he told me. "Not making the changes IS bad." I totally
understood and once again went back to the hotel ready to
practice for a long time.
Wednesday August 1, 2001
The best thing about this whole experience was that no
matter how much I practiced the night before, he would
always find something new the next day to work on. Today we
went over the Uhl study again, this time very slow and
secure with every note. "Chad, you know I can play extremely
fast," he said, " but it would all amount to nothing if I
couldn't play it slow and show my fingers the roadmap to the
tone holes." Then we moved to one of the the etudes in the
front of the book that had a bunch of staccato passages. I
started to play and got about halfway down the page. I was
really frustrated, until he said, "No, you're thinking of
the staccato as being short and heavy, not short and light.
When I think as I am playing staccato, I am thinking: eddie,
eddie, eddie ...... So that helps me just float on top of
the notes. Think of it as stagado, not stacatttto." That
whole concept made tonguing so much easier, and it was so
simple. When you ever go to see and study with someone you
really look up to, you think that they approach everything
from a different, more complicated way than anyone else.
They do not do this. They master the simplest concept you
could think of and perfect it. That was another thing that I
was amazed with. We continued with the "stagado" study
starting from the top and this time I enjoyed playing, as
opposed to the struggle I had earlier. With all of this plus
the etudes and the jazz progression, I was going to be up
for a while practicing, but I looked forward to every minute
of it.
Thursday August 2, 2001
I couldn't believe this was going to be my last lesson for
the trip. It seemed like I had just checked in to the motel.
That proved the fact that time certainly does fly when you
are having the time of your life. My mother, grandmother,
and my friend James came to my lesson with me to see what it
was like and take pictures. After introductions, they sat
down and we started again with the Uhl study, very slow. He
asked me if I had anything else with me, so I pulled out my
Jean Jean book. I chose a waltz-like tune and we took every
concept from the previous days and applied them to that one
study. I know I keep saying this, but sometimes things just
click and you see everything in a whole new perspective,
which feels incredible! After that, we played on Four a
little bit. I did better than before, but I still needed to
learn the changes better. He said to me again, "Think
simple, Chad. Don't try to move your fingers through
something you have no clue about. Own the changes. Don't let
the changes own you." So, from there we just did a little
vamp as an example. It was just I to V, then back to I. This
was a perfect excercise to work on because it got you
through the most common chord progression in the history of
music, V to I. So, you start with two chord like this, then
branch out until you have the whole tune and know the
changes inside and out.
This trip has been one of the most remarkable and
pleasurable experiences of my life. I cannot express
everything on this page. There are things that you just
absorb from the environment around you without knowing it.
That was definately the case here. None of these wonderful
things could have ever happened, however if I didn't have
loving, supportive parents and a caring grandmother with a
strong passion for music. This experience has greatly
changed my life and I will remember it always.
Thank you so very much Mr. Eddie Daniels!
Chad Donohue
Summer 2001
Email
eddiedaniels1006@msn.com to schedule your next
musical breakthrough.
Eddie breaks down the barriers between student and
instrument. Making music becomes more fun.
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