Category Archives: Wye the flute?

Day 116 – January 24th – Piccolo

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Today was piccolo masterclass with Patricia Morris, the retired Principal Piccolo of the BBC Radio Symphony Orchestra and author (with Trevor) of The Piccolo Study Book and Practice Book for the Piccolo. It was a great day, and I felt like I really learned a lot about the way to practice piccolo effectively and for life.

Patricia advocated practising piccolo every day, even if it’s only for ten or twenty minutes. Rather than note bashing, this should ideally be slow practice of tunes of segments of studies, as the most important thing on the piccolo is achieving a homogeneous tone across the whole range. This all needs to be in tune as well! We talked a lot about getting up to high notes quietly, and I need to remember not to push for them – much better to set up properly a few notes beforehand and then let it happen. That said, when Patricia asked me to play (sightread) the picc solo from the slow movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 6, I didn’t do too bad a job of getting the high note out. The alternate fingering she showed me did help with this though!

I mentioned in a blog post a few weeks ago that I’d set myself the task of learning all the excerpts for the Queensland Symphony Orchestra piccolo audition in preparation for this class. I was feeling pretty prepared, with the only elephants still being Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 (eeek) and Verdi’s Othello (I’ve just never played it before). Needless to say, we didn’t actually get onto any of my excerpts at all, though I now think I’m better equipped to work on them myself.

Now I’m working myself up to some more practice, and there are another three classes next week. No rest for the wicked!

Day 115 – January 23rd – Learning it quickly

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One of the big things I’m learning as part of this course is how to prepare a lot of music very quickly. Last weekend up in London I was telling a friend about all the studies we have to play each week, and then added that Thursday is repertoire and excerpts. She almost fell off her a chair!

While it’s not normally comfortable preparing this much music each week, I’m definitely getting much better at it. This week, however, is another step up again. Not only is Trevor applying pressure to me in particular with studies, we have the Fauré Fantasie on Thursday and then different repertoire for the masterclass on Friday. I’ve played the Fauré before, and so my main worry this morning was the Taffanel for Friday – the Scherzettino in particular needs to be fast and fluid despite some tricky finger passages.

This afternoon, though, I spent 45min working quite solidly on the Taffanel and already feel a lot better about it. I think that I’ve learned to isolate the passages that really need work, and also the type of work that’s needed, rather than assuming I need to spend hours on every last corner of a piece. In the Scherzettino, I need to spend more time on articulation in the theme, as well as some fingering bits at the end. The Andante Pastoral isn’t as hard as it looks – there are a couple of demi-semiquaver flourishes at the end that need a bit more time, but otherwise it’s basically counting and making sure that my ornaments in the poco piu mosso stay in time.

The other big factor in learning all the music quickly is definitely all the scales and finger exercises – my fingers fall into the patterns so much more easily now! The studies, though, are another story. They’re meant to be hard, to challenge both our technique and our musicality. Looks like they’re what I’ll be working on after piccolo class tomorrow!

Day 114 – January 22nd – Studies, studies and more studies

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There were only five of us for class today, as it seems like colds are doing the rounds. So far I’ve been ok, and I’m hoping that it’ll stay that way!

As I said in my post yesterday, I was feeling a little trepidation about today’s studies, particularly the two Altès that I’ve spent a lot of time on. By contrast, I’d spent very little time on the Moyse studies, and (unfortunately) not as much as I should have Andersen No. 12! The results were interesting:

Moyse #5 and #9: Good following of notes with my lips, though both could have been faster. After no. 9 we talked a little about my needing to open up the tone in my top register. When I played the study again I did it with a lovely full tone, but need to be doing that all the time rather than just when prompted.

Moyse #8: “Lovely” – just get rid of a few wrong notes. I’d practiced this one a lot at the start of the week, but not in the last few days, and so just decided to go for it.

Then Trevor was a bit mean and made me sightread the next three studies so that he could show everyone what needed working on with them! It seems that he wants me to prepare all these in time for Monday which isn’t going to be much fun.

Andersen #12: Started out well but then I fell apart at the end of the B section where there were some particularly nasty leaps. Trevor didn’t seem terribly perturbed though, which was a bit strange. He just said ‘thank you’ and asked what was next – it seems he could tell I just hadn’t spent enough time on it. Looks like that’s back on for Monday, along with no. 13 which is a whole lot of chromatic scales.

Altès #18: “Some good things about this study, but you’re not bringing out the tune” sums this one up, and I agreed. I had spent so long on the notes and making sure that the articulation patterns were right that I hadn’t thought enough about musical direction. I need to play it again on Monday, which is a bit of a pain, but I do think I’ve learned a lot from this study.

Altès: #19: Fine, though I think Trevor would have liked it a little faster. I can play segments of it up to speed, but my tongue still feels like it’s going to fall off when I try to do a page of triple tonguing at crotchet =100!

Bach Variations #12 and #13: Ok but not tight enough…. I need to being doing little bits of this every day for a few minutes to get it tight enough.

Bach Variations #14 and #15: Trevor seemed quite pleased with these, but then tried to push and see how expressively I could play. The challenge with all these studies is achieving the articulation challenges as well as making them sound musical, and I was almost there with both. A case of attention to detail and then forgetting it and letting the music come through.

With regular class as well as the two masterclasses, we still have five to prepare for in the two weeks. Trevor’s solution to this is to set us even more work, and has asked us to write a cadenza for the first movement of Mozart’s G major flute concerto as well for next Thursday. Looks like I’m spending the evening working!

Day 113 – January 21st – Snow!

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I woke up this morning to some proper snow, though it was in the air rather than on the ground. My morning practice accompanied the flurries and eddies playing round the dairy. Sadly, I couldn’t persuade it to settle, and by lunchtime any little traces at the side of the road had all melted.

It reminded me of another long practice day I spent accompanying snow, five years ago now. I was in Helsinki on my exchange year, and ended up in one of the big practice rooms in the ‘P-talo’ (P-house) with two grand pianos, a couch and a wall of windows. It had snowed for months, and the fluffy morning whiteness no longer astounded me the way it had at first. Yet that day the snow danced as it fell, whipped up by the wind into great swirls and currents of fairy floss. I was practising scales, and remember trying to make them ebb and flow in the same way the snow did, flourishing effortlessly as I ascended. Today wasn’t quite as magical as five years ago, but I tried to capture the same feeling nevertheless.

Tomorrow is a studies class rather than repertoire, as we’re still getting back on track after Trevor’s illness. This time yesterday, I was trying not to panic too much about my studies, the two Altès in particular. I find both of them difficult – no. 18 for the combination of a tricky 6/8 articulation pattern and lots of leaps, and no. 19 for the speed at which I’m required to triple tongue! However, as often happens on the final day before class I really felt like I made a lot of progress today, and am now playing both at something approaching the marked speed. I dealt with the triple tonguing one by playing it every twenty minutes in all my practice sessions today – I probably drove the others a bit mental but it’s working. As for no. 18, I’ve learned the notes and will probably play it better tomorrow in class if I take a step back and trust myself rather than being too pedantic about trying to get every single note.

Day 112 – January 20th – A Gavotte and a Charleston!

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This morning we were off up to London for another of William Bennett’s flute masterclasses. The repertoire was pretty standard, and the only work I hadn’t heard before was Philippe Gaubert’s Sonata No. 1. It ended up being my standout piece of the day – it’s stunning and was also played beautifully by masters student Katy Ovens. I’m rather tempted to see whether Trevor might let me have a go for the February piano masterclass!

As always, Wibb was an engaging and energetic teacher, whose use of little sung phrases (many of them rather naughty!) to show musical direction and emphasis had everyone in fits of laughter. Musical direction and musical intent were the themes of the day, and every note had to fulfill its proper place in the musical line. Expressive breathing was also key – even if a breath isn’t needed, it should be felt if the musical sentence needs it.

In the afternoon, Wibb seemed to become even more animated, breaking out into some impromptu dancing on not one but two occasions. The Allegro movement of J.S. Bach’s E major sonata was a jazzy Charleston – all the syncopation needs to be felt and played upon. Wibb’s Charleston itself was also quite impressive! Then the final work of the day was Paul Taffanel’s Mignon Fantasy, whose gavotte Wibb danced to show how light and flexible the tempo needs to feel.

Good coffee at St Pancreas Station, lunch with some lovely friends at the Royal College, and arriving home to Elmsted to find some faint traces of snow made for a nice day, though am hoping our dairy will warm up a little overnight!