Just got back from a day in London, where we not only sat in on a day of William Bennet’s masterclasses, but then also went to hear Wissam Boustany give a concert as well! Despite the long day, I really enjoyed myself. Both masterclass and concert have given me a lot to think about, but I think I’ll leave written reflections until tomorrow.
Class today wasn’t as bad as I had thought it might be, though I am still really struggling with Trevor’s sequences in the warm-ups. The problem is certainly not to do with my ability to play scales and arpeggios, as I can do everything in the normal full-range mode at quite high speeds. Yet playing sequence such as these is still tricky:
Arpeggios, one octave: C maj up, C# maj down, D maj up, Eb maj down
Dom 7ths, one octave: C, C#, D, Eb etc.
Today I managed the major and minor arpeggios well at a slow speed, but as soon as Trevor pushed the tempo I was lost. I know that I need to keep working at these rather than just getting frustrated with myself, but am definitely feeling behind some of my peers on this exercise, and that’s not where I want to be!
As for pieces, my William Tell Overture was pronounced “quite good – much better expression” in the opening tune, though I need to make sure that the semiquavers continue to fit in with the cor anglais solo even when the grace notes start! My Damase study wasn’t stunning, but I think Trevor could see that I’d work on the musical aspects as well as the technical, and didn’t seem too bothered. As for the Ibert Pièce, I was a little bit miffed here that Trevor spent almost all time with one student and then didn’t seem terribly bothered about hearing the rest of us. Yes, it useful to hear Yi-Yin’s lesson, and I learned a lot about the piece, but I’m sure the afternoon’s time could have been divided out a little more equally. I did get up after Yi-Yin, but only to play the first page of the piece. My two key points for the lesson were flexibility in aid of expression (third bar of the a tempo, where I was playing totally straight triplets rather than letting them ‘fall forwards’ a little), and that it’s often better to breathe before syncopation in order to increase the tension.
Finally, we played Trevor some of his jazz arrangements that are on the Christmas concert program. I was a little surprised that he wasn’t harsher with our performance – all in all he seemed to quite enjoy it. The main thing is clearly rhythm, but no comments were made at all about intonation, despite a couple of dodgy moments. Maybe he was being a bit softer since it was the first time he’d heard them!
Today was one of those days where I felt like I tried to do everything and achieved nothing of consequence. Some of it’s my own fault – I was probably a bit ambitious for the Monday lesson, spending all weekend practising studies, and didn’t get round to the week’s repertoire until yesterday. While I’ve played the flute excerpt from Rossini’s Overture to William Tell before, I’m new to Ibert’s Pièce for solo flute. On top of that, Trevor issued us each with a Damase study after playing his Sonata en Concert last week, and has asked to hear some of our flute ensemble repertoire tomorrow!
We also had something of an excursion today – Trevor took us out for fish and chips to a place called The Pilot Inn in Dungeness. It was an excellent lunch, and the fish was great and the mushy peas (yes, English soft spot) were fantastic. I was a little disappointed in the coffee, but hey, I’m still yet to find a really good one here, and a fish and chip place is probably not the best place to be looking! I was a little surprised that nobody else besides me and Trevor seemed to enjoy the fish – clearly the Englishness in me is coming out. After lunch, we wandered over the mass of shingles to walk a little along the steely grey sea.
View out across the shingled beach to sea after our fish and chips.
So I’m probably not particularly well-prepared for tomorrow’s class, but have learned my lesson about the need to plan ahead and spread out my preparation for upcoming classes. Hopefully an early morning for a few more notes before class tomorrow will see me through ok!
More composer-naming on the way to Tesco today, and Trevor decided to return to ‘B’. We were directed to the Flute Ark website yesterday for a rather exhaustive list of composers and flute repertoire, with the clear instruction to have learned some by this morning. While the group is slowly getting better at volunteering information, I think Trevor still got a bit frustrated at the lack of enthusiasm for his game! On the plus side, I now know a lot more repertoire by composers beginning with B.
Otherwise, my practice today was rather scant. A family friend, Beryl, is holidaying near Lyminge, and I walked over in the afternoon for a cup of tea and a catch-up. While four miles is actually quite a long way, I enjoyed the walk over – is was a sunny day and remarkably mild for this time of year. I walked past fields and farmhouses, through a big wood, and up a couple of big hills. Beryl is just the same as I remember her eight years ago, and along with her lovely friends we had a good chat. I was, however, somewhat relieved to be offered a lift back.
In the evening, we rehearsed some of the jazz pieces for our Christmas concert. They’re cute and fun, but I’m worried that as a group we’re not using our rehearsal time very well. Though I know there are still some passages that I haven’t got under my fingers yet, on a group level there are tempo incongruities where there really shouldn’t be at our level. I’m not sure what to do to change this either, especially when several individuals’ foot-tapping is clearly not lining up! Hopefully Trevor will give some guidance on Thursday.
I’d prepared a lot of things for today’s class: two Moyse studies, two Andersen, two Altès and the traverso scale. It seemed that the overriding theme though, with regards to my playing at least, was that no matter how hight I tried to set the bar there was always a but. Here are some selected highlights:
Moyse #9 (theme): Rhythm was now fine (as opposed to last week) but there was no expression.
Moyse #10 (theme): Good forte sound, but the last note was cut.
Andersen #4b: The first four lines were some of my best playing so far, but them the staccato got sloppy.
Andersen #5: “Some quite good playing happening, and not too many wrong notes”, but I wasn’t showing a good enough understanding of the piece’s structure and key changes.
Altès #4: Good articulation, but I was skipping beats because hadn’t learned the notes well enough.
Altès #5: A section fine, but I hadn’t learned the B section fast enough.
Traverso scales of D and C major: Fine, but why couldn’t I play a Bb or G# yet?
I’ve noticed that this teaching method of never being satisfied doesn’t apply to everyone – some of the others were told for this or that piece that “there are some good things coming from your playing” and that was it. I hope this means Trevor can see I’m a hard and keen worker, and that he can push me a bit further than some of the others. The main point that came across today though was that I still need to work a lot on playing expressively rather than trying to follow g musical ‘rules’.
In the evening, I went for dinner (fish and chips!), wine and some good British comedy with the lovely Sue and Paul. It was great to get away from the flute class for a bit, share some laughs and good talk, and generally have a bit of down time. I’m also now two episodes into Cold Feet, and looking forward to more!