Author Archives: njohnson

Day 169 – March 18th – Kids Concert

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It has been an odd day, mostly because it seems so odd being here and doing anything even vaguely removed from routine! This morning, I had a Skype interview for some volunteer work in London once the course is over. So….from mid-April I’ll be working as a fundraising volunteer with the Garden of Ideas project for three months! I’ll be busy, but am looking forward to having more of a balance in my life and to flute being part of a bigger whole again.

This afternoon, we all walked over to Bodsham Primary School to give the students a little concert and talk on the flute. It’s a lovely school, with only about eighty students. We played four pieces arranged by Trevor, and then talked about the way the flute works, and showed the children some different examples of the flute family. Trevor has some good tricks for this sort of concert, including a bicycle pump flute (like a big melody pop), a paper-covered headjoint so that we could chop bits off the end and raise the pitch, and of course a whole myriad of different world flutes.

The kids seemed to enjoy it, and I certainly did. It was really nice to perform outside of class again, and the task of explaining to little ones was refreshing. It’s a reminder that not everything in music is about fast technique!

Looks like we have class on Friday, so tomorrow it’s back to the studies.

Day 168 – March 17th – Looking ahead

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Still with no flute lessons in sight, today became a day of sorting out bits and pieces, looking ahead and a spot of baking. In the morning, Paul was kind enough to take us on the penultimate Tesco trip, though without the regular composer quiz! Trevor being unwell is always a reminder of just how isolated we are here. While a walk to the shop in Wye would have been possible, we couldn’t have carried everything back, and the next option was Tesco online.

In the spirit of using up things in the cupboard (and because I felt like doing something different) I attempted to make bread this afternoon. I left the dough to prove while walking to Trevor’s to collect some extra flutes for tomorrow’s concert. I’m not sure whether it was because of this long proving time, or because of the size of the loaf, but it was still a bit doughy on the inside despite being perfect on the outside. Most important thing, though: I had great fun!

For the rest of the day, I spent some time thinking about everything that’s coming after my time here. First off, I’m off on holiday to France with my mum, which I’m looking forward to immensely. Then I’m visiting my grandparents in Grimsby for a few days, and then l’ll be boarding in Surrey (close to Hampton Court) for a few months. Plus, after being unsuccessful with my Bang on a Can application, I need to re-think some of my ArtStart plans for the summer, and also start thinking about when and how I’m heading back to Australia in July/August. All need work, and I’ve sometimes forgotten to stay on top of it all when there’s always another study round the corner. So I’ve been sending emails, clearing my inbox, making some lists. Hopefully all adding up to me being a little more organised.

Looking forward to our Bodsham Primary concert tomorrow. Complete with the extended flute family, some fun pieces and a bike pump, hopefully we’ll inspire the kids to get into some music!

Day 167 – March 16th – Tricky bits

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No class again today, as Trevor’s cold doesn’t seem to be getting any better. This afternoon we had another rehearsal for our concert and talk at Bodsham Primary School on Wednesday. The pieces are sounding quite good, though without the feedback of Trevor’s rather critical ear they’re not quite as polished as the Christmas concert ones were. For talk, we’re showing a little of how the flute works and then introducing the modern flute family as well as some more distant relatives. It should be good fun, and I hope the kids will enjoy it.

As we’re not sure what’s happening with classes, I’m in a sense of limbo with what to practice. This morning I did a good long session of technique, changing from the Practice Book 6 exercises to Moyse’s 480 Daily Exercises. I also finally got all the way round the circle of fifths for Taffanel and Gaubert-style scales with descending mordants in one sitting. It wasn’t amazing, but is certainly getting there. I’m finding a particular set of notes in the third octave tricky: G – A – G – F – Eb – F – Eb – D. The mordants happen on the G and Eb, and both use trill fingerings that don’t sit well under the fingers. For G – A, it’s left hand first finger and the first trill key, and for Eb – F it’s both second and third fingers of the left hand. For whatever reason that combination doesn’t sit well under my fingers at all!

In the afternoon I decided to focus on studies. While I spent some really productive time on Andersen and Drouet, I was probably a bit too tired by the time I got to the Altes. Oh well, with no classes in sight until at least Thursday there’s still time.

Day 166 – March 15th – Tongue

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I haven’t been feeling the best today, and wonder whether it might be my turn to come down with a cold. Hopefully not, and an early night tonight will certainly help.

I did get a few hours of practice in earlier in the day, and had something of an ah-ha moment with tonguing. I’ve been working quite a bit on articulation of late, and am still finding some things (maintaining a really clear, quick staccato; clear double tonguing) tricky. Often, it’s better when I don’t think about it, and I know that standing up in class I tend to tense up a bit.

The ah-ha moment was with double tonguing. I’ve finally worked out how to turn of the slight twitchy movement in my throat that was accompanying my double tonguing and clearly the source of its muddiness. I think it’s a combination of my work on using only the front part of the tongue, and drawing my tongue in a little bit when I double tongue. Still nowhere near perfect, and I can’t maintain in for very long, but it did feel like a substantial step forward after a few weeks of quite frustrating practice.

This evening I’ve been working on my history project, which is almost done. I’ve been working my way through all the different nineteenth and twentieth century flute designs, and have now arrived at the Kingma system – a relatively recent innovation for playing quartertones. All I’ve got left to do is a couple of section that Trevor has dropped in during class conversations; things like flageolets and mechanism options on modern flutes. If anything, I might have to do a bit of cutting down in the end to get it under 35 pages.

Day 165 – March 14th – Trills 

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I didn’t have a hugely productive day today – after yesterday’s long day and late night I needed a lazy morning. After a run and lunch, though, I was feeling sufficiently guilty about a lack of practice to start doing battle with my studies. 

Altès no. 25, the penultimate study in the book, has a devilish half-page of quick trill coupled with dotted rhythms. I spent quite a while on this bit, really aiming for clean trills that sound easy and don’t disrupt the rhythm. I’ve often been told off for not linking my final turns with the rest of the trill, so this is a big part of my ‘sounding easy’ criteria. Rather than starting slowly, I first made sure that the rhythms were correct without the trills but at the right speed. Then I played through small sections adding in the trills and making sure that all sound even. I though this was a better solution than starting slowly because the temptation with more time would be to add in more oscillations of the trill. Most of it is now sounding quite good (though I’m prepared for it being a couple of notches worse at the start of practice tomorrow), but I need to remember to relax rather than get tense over the trills! 

At the very start of my practice session, I stuck to my goal of working with drone tones. I decided to play my warm-up tune – Morning has Broken – with the drone because it uses a lot of notes from the major triad and has quite a few leaps as well. Even over the ten-minute time frame I became a little more sensitive to my intonation in relation to the drone, which is good. My 5ths and 8ves were likely to be on the flat side, and then individual keys have special difficulties. Theoretically I know all this, hopefully the drones will help me iron it out in the long run. It’s tiring work though, and I felt my concentration wavering after ten minutes. 

Trevor’s cold continues, and it looks like class is off again on Monday. We’re so near the end of the course now, but the next two and a half weeks still seem like a long time!