Author Archives: flutietoot

Day 58 – November 27th – Thanksgiving

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I was surprised to find myself the only one practising at the new dairy today, but got on with it anyway – I tend to find days after class are the most productive! I still need to keep reminding myself that the goal with Reichert exercises and sequences is improvement not perfection. Some of the keys in Reichert No. 2 were fast and accurate the first time round, which is improvement. Others still need work!

I spent quite a bit of time on Altès studies this afternoon, particularly making sure that the rhythm in no. 5 is accurate. So long as I’m disciplined and practise the study in small bursts over the weekend, I should be ok.

Trevor trying to take credit for Dot's yummy cake!

Trevor trying to take credit for Dot’s yummy cake!

This evening we celebrated Thanksgiving for the American girls, giving Trevor an excuse to have us round for dinner. I had my misgivings about the whole thing – everyone’s descriptions of typical Thanksgiving meals seemed to suggest that the whole thing was a celebration of excessive eating. While we did end up with a lot of dishes, though, the evening turned out nicely. Trevor had some wine for us to taste, including two bottles of very nice Penfolds from South Australia, and everyone had contributed a dish to dinner. I roasted parsnips and carrots, and we also had ham (for the meat-eaters), twice-baked potatoes, sweet potato, salad, and both pumpkin bread and an amazing meringue cake (made by Dot) for dessert. All was very yummy, though I’m also very glad that we walked afterward.

Off up to London and Hilton tomorrow, first to vote in the Vic state election and then to spend the weekend with some friends. I can’t wait for the break!

Day 57 – November 26th – Bach

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Today’s class went well enough from a repertoire point of view. It seems like I’m generally alright with orchestral excerpts, and managed Strauss’s Salome without too much negative feedback. The main point, as always in Trevor’s excerpt sessions, is an incredible precision of rhythm, along with a knowledge of what’s going on in the orchestral parts beneath.

I also felt that my Minuets I & II from Bach’s C major sonata were well enough prepared and thought through that we could engage in a discussion of the music rather than my failings as a flautist! We discussed duration of notes, placement of slurs, and methods for ornamenting the repeat. Trevor’s advice on the final one was to be a bit cheeky or cunning; plan something out but not necessarily in the way that one would expect. It certainly shouldn’t sound like it’s been practised, and the best way to arrive at good baroque ornamentation is often to improvise to the extreme and then take away the bits that sound too much! This does, of course, mean that one needs to practise improvising though.

The rest of the class on Bach was really interesting, and I genuinely felt much better equipped to tackle a sonata by the end of it. I’ve tended to steer clear of Bach in recent years, as it always seems such a minefield of opinions and musical dos and don’ts. Trevor didn’t talk so much about ‘performance practice’ as what can be gleaned from looking at the facts of the score and using our own musical judgement. He also stressed the importance of a clear tempo relationship between all movements of a sonata – if an allegro movement can’t be played in good relationship with the andante then the andante probably needs to go faster!

Trevor quite likes picking a way of stirring someone (often me) a bit, and today chose the fact that Roya and I have masters degrees as his prodding point. Every other comment was followed by “but the masters will know this already” or a pointed question in our direction. This one though, I didn’t mind too much – he didn’t actually bother to ask until lunchtime about what my masters entailed, and when I went through my recital programs he did listen without any snarky remarks about new music. By the end of the day, the master-ness or lack of (Trevor didn’t go to uni/college at all) had grown into a joke for everyone.

Our repertoire for next week is Fukushima’s Mei, which I’m excited about working on. It’s a lovely piece, and I’ve been wanting to have a look at it for a while. Though performing contemporary music for Trevor will leave me wide open for cutting remarks, I also hope that I can apply some of what I’ve learned over the previous months to music that really inspires me.

Day 56 – November 25th – Something old and something new

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Rechiert exercises continue to be a pain, but I am slowly improving with both memory and speed. I can get through the whole cycle of Reichert No. 2 without looking at the book, though often loose confidence the first time through in a key. However the second (or third for harder keys) time through I can play it quite quickly, so I think part of it is now developing confidence in my memory rather than getting the notes in.

Today was a bit of a juxtaposition of musical styles. I started off the day with another good stint of traverso practice in preparation for playing in class tomorrow. The allegro movement of Telemann’s Fantasia No. 6 in D minor isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely sounding a lot better than a week ago. Some passages might almost come across as fluent. I think I unknowingly picked quite a tricky fantasia to learn; D minor has F naturals, B flats and quite often C naturals as well! Then there’s the odd G sharp thrown in for good measure whenever the music heads for the dominant! I’m looking at it as a good thing though – picking a piece in D or G major would have meant that I avoided most cross-fingerings. It shows how much I’ve learned that I could actually sightread the C major fantasia quite well this morning!

Later in the day, I Skyped a friend in Australia to put the finishing touches to an application for the New Music Miniseries (run by the New Music Network) next year. We’ve put together a concert of flute and bass trombone music, along with some potential new commissions to expand the currently rather slim repertoire. Who knows whether we’ll get the New Music Network’s support, but either way I really hope we can make the concert happen.

I then finished off the afternoon back in the Baroque, learning the minuets from J.S. Bach’s Sonata in C major BWV 1033 for class tomorrow. Trevor has assigned everyone different movements of the C and E major sonatas, with the aim to discuss Baroque style in general and get a good idea of how to play Bach. I’m quite happy to have fewer notes than usual to learn – more time on technique and studies!

I suppose my little gem of wisdom from today is that diversity is wonderful, and that it must be relished. I have the opportunity to engage with, play and dream about beautiful music from so many different eras, as well as (hopefully) to help in the creation of more. Vlve la différence, vive la musique!

Day 55 – November 24th – A change of outlook

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For a few days now, I’ve been mulling over some feeling of frustration with myself and the course. Some of them are unavoidable, but frustrations with my lack of progress in some areas of classwork need to be changed and I think I’ve worked out the solution.

I think I’ve had the idea in my head that by the end of my time here all aspects of my playing need to be ‘perfect’, and as a result am really down on myself if I don’t see improvements from lesson to lesson. The reality is that in an environment such as this I am going to improve a lot, and already have. However, music is never perfect and nor should it be. By thinking in this way, I’ve failed to see some of the changes that have already taken place, and probably played worse in class on several occasions as well.

So today I went into class trying to keep this in mind; I’ve improved a lot already, I’m working hard, and I’m also on a path for which there is never really an ‘end’ per say. Some things still weren’t amazing, but I was surprised by how much a positive outlook did improve things. Reichert still needs work, but I got through the major/minor scales plus shortened Reichert quite well at Trevor’s brisk speeds. My sequences were congratulated on being much improved since last week.

Unfortunately Altès studies still need a bit or work, with the dotted rhythms in no. 6 still giving me a bit of a headache. However, the Andersen study went well, and I now have a much clearer idea on how to fix the Altès. After focusing on expression in Moyse Little Melodic Study No. 13, the exercises instead became about dynamics, with Trevor asking me to play it fortissimo. Point taken, I still need to remember to play with a bigger dynamic range!

This evening the temperature dropped to around three degrees, and our walk back from the Old Dairy was chilly even with scarves and gloves. The sky, though, was stunning – cloudless and expansive, it twinkled with a patchwork of stars, and the Milky Way cut a streak right through the centre. It reminded me just how little of it I’ve seen living in Melbourne, and just how much there is beyond that isn’t visible to the naked eye.

Day 54 – November 23rd – Wet and wintry

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I seemed to get an incredible amount done today, probably because all there was to do was stay indoors and practise! I chatted with my parents and a friend in Australia in the morning, as well as sending in my Hatched application, but still managed all my practice hours before dinner. Had it not been raining, I would definitely have gone for a mid-afternoon walk, but alas this is England in November.

One of the things I haven’t written much about yet is my written project on the history of the flute, due just before Christmas. Essentially, this is part one of two, and we’re supposed to cover both the history of the flute to 1700 and ethnic flutes. The ‘paper’ (I don’t tend to use this word, but oh well) is 30-35 pages long, and we’re allowed to include pictures. Trevor gave us an example of one that he liked from a few years ago to have a look at, and this is where my inner academic kicked in. The example had no references or bibliography, wasn’t really formatted at all and didn’t reference any of the pictures that had clearly been copied from published documents. I was a little surprised that such a piece of writing passed muster, but then I need to remember that Trevor hasn’t been through the university system, and probably doesn’t consider that sort of thing as important as simply learning about the flute’s history. For me, I will write my paper to my own academic standards, partly because it matters to me, partly because it feels natural to write in that way.

As for how it’s coming along – I’ve done all the reading that I probably need to on early, renaissance and Baroque flutes, but still need to do a more research on the ethnic ones. Trevor has an impressive collection of books, and finding resources hasn’t been at all hard. The best selection of resources on ethnic flutes are a set of publications entitled Flûtes du monde, and their being in French means I’ve got them all to myself. I’ve made a start on typing out a first draft, and will easily make Trevor’s 30-page minimum. At the moment, I’m actually feeling that the problem may be keeping it below 35 pages!

I also had another big traverso practice session today, and am getting there with my Telemann Fantasia. The dolce movement is sounding quite presentable, and I’d be happy to play it in class tomorrow if asked. The allegro sounds good at an andante speed, and some of the runs are actually happening quite fluidly. We have our second class on Wednesday rather than Thursday this week, and I’ll definitely be able to play it by then!