Category Archives: Wye the flute?

Day 35 – November 4th – Rain, sun, thunder!

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View of last night's sunset from my bedroom window. Please excuse our washing line!

View of last night’s sunset from my bedroom window. Please excuse our washing line!

It was raining at 6:30 this morning, and I almost didn’t go for my run, preferring to turn my alarm off and go back to bed! Then half an hour later the sun came out and I managed a quick 2.5 miles before the weekly Tesco trip. I’m still fascinated by the sky here after rain and storms, particularly at sunrise and sunset. The clouds, rendered turbulent and brooding, seem to twist the light and fling it across the sky in dazzling colours and brushstrokes.

Moyse and scales are getting gradually faster. The Moyse exercises were at crotchet = 118 today, but felt relatively comfortable, so will be pushed up to 120 tomorrow. As for scales, I’m now at:

Majors = 104

Melodic minors = 88

Major and minor arpeggios = 104

Dominant and diminished 7ths = 92

Augmented and diminished arpeggios = 88 (still feeling a bit shaky though)

Whole tone scales and chromatic = 104

I can certainly feel my fingers after my three hours of exercises and scales in the mornings. Hopefully that means everything is getting stronger and quicker, but I am making sure not to cause any pain with what I’m doing.

The repertoire for this week is Sonate en Concert for flute, cello and piano by Jean-Michel Damase. To be honest, I think it’s a little bit twee, and it’s certainly not the sort of repertoire I’d choose to play myself. Not that it’s easy, some of the trills and grace notes in the allegro sections are a killer. However, I have also borrowed out the Berio Sequenza, ideally to have a read through, but I’m not sure I’ll find the time.

Modelling my lovely new scarf.

Modelling my lovely new scarf.

Despite the onset of a rather ferocious thunderstorm this evening, two things made me feel warm and snuggly in a wintry sort of way. First off, my St Mary’s College scarf arrived in the post. It’s lovely and woolly, and a nice reminder of all the friendships I made at the college (and how much I miss them). Then for dinner I made a hearty sound using up some of the superfluity of potatoes, cabbage and carrots that we have. Bring on winter!

Day 34 – November 3rd – Planning a concert

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Today’s class went a lot better than I was expecting – all my articulation woes over the past few days had me totally prepared for a shredding. However, Andersen No. 4 was generally approved of, at least it was pronounced more staccato, more even and more musical than last week. Trevor’s one comment was that my dynamics weren’t either wide enough of consistent (the piano I started off with was not the one I came back to four lines later). Fair enough, but I was personally just happy that the notes were short enough! I still feel that this study is one that I need to keep returning to, and hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to play it again for Trevor near the end of my time here.

As for all the other studies, Altès was fine but No. 3 should have been faster (fair enough, I only learned it yesterday). My selection of Moyse studies met with a little more criticism, and I need to play both No. 9 and 10 again next week. No. 9, in Ab major, starts with a double-dotted theme, then goes on to two allegro variations that look simple but are an exercise in decrescendo-ing but not cutting slurs. Needless to say, I was both clipping and not decrescendo-ing enough! I also need to work on maintaining the rhythm throughout the theme. Moyse No. 10, on the other hand, is about playing loudly, crescendoing downwards and tenuto accents, and my fortes still need work.

We also received our allocations for the Christmas concert, with the repertoire mostly Trevor’s flute ensemble arrangements of jazz pieces. After dinner, we all read through them at the Old Dairy. I’ve got a smattering of piccolo and a couple of nasty little runs, but nothing too tricky. All the pieces are upbeat and crowd-pleasing with catchy tunes. I feel like I’m going to be utterly sick of them by the time Christmas comes round!

I’ve been trying to remember to write down some of Trevor’s quotes, with today’s pick being: “When you die, you either go to a flute recital or heaven”. I really do wonder sometimes whether he actually likes flutes at all!

Day 33 – November 2nd – Wet weather

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I think a proper autumn might finally have arrived. While I made it out for a rather blustery run at 6:45am and our walk also went ahead at 7:42pm, most of the time in between was very wet and windy. Ah well, I have a good stock of tea and plenty to do!

I feel like I’m getting through more in my practice sessions these days, partly because both scales and Moyse exercises are both happening a lot faster than a month ago. It also helps that I’m almost there with memorising the Reichert exercises – even if they’re not perfect, gone at least are the days of spending 15min trying to work out what on earth is going on in Bb minor.

My plan with the augmented and diminished arpeggios was somewhat successful, in that I think playing them at the beginning of my scales session helped with focus. There aren’t any good exercises for them in Complete Daily Exercises, though I remembered later in the day that there are a few in Exercises Journaliers which I’ll try. I ended up playing cascades of augmented arpeggios for a little while, which is easier ascending than descending.

The painful part of the day was most certainly studies and my articulation battles as a result. I am making progress, but slowly. Altes No. 2 is now up to speed, and the outer sections of No. 3 are fine, but there is a rather nasty B section in that one with lots of leaps. The Moyse studies I’ve been working on are like the Altes ones in miniature – No. 9 is an excellent exercise in making a slur a decrescendo but not cutting off the note. As for the dreaded Andersen No. 4, it is certainly better than last week in that I am playing shorter staccatos. However, I think my overall dynamic plan has suffered as a result, and I’m still not good at maintaining the super-short staccato for extended periods of time. My ideal for tomorrow would be being told that I can move on from the study for now, but need to return to it in a month or so when I’ve had the chance for the articulation exercises to sink in a little more.

Finally, various listening projects today have unearthed two very inspiring (though very different recordings). The first, as part of my flute CD listening, was a recording of William Bennett speaking on BBC radio about the history of the French Flute school and his experiences in Paris. It was fascinating to hear his thoughts on different players, and Fernand Dufrene’s recording of the Jolivet Concerto included in the broadcast was superb.

Then I’ve been doing a little searching for flute and bass trombone repertoire for a potential concert in Australia next year. It’s a tricky one, but I found this piece by Gyorgy Kurtag for piccolo, trombone and guitar. I always find Kurtag’s music fascinating, and have had this video on repeat while writing today’s post!

 

Day 32 – November 1st – To market, to market

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Our little excursion for the weekend was a trip to the bi-weekly Wye farmers’ market this morning, which was enjoyable but rather short, with Trevor whizzing us round all the stalls at quite a brisk pace. Nevertheless, I got some nice bread and tried a selection of gourmet chutneys which were delicious but would have been rather decadent to buy!

Otherwise, practice was once again the order of the day. I managed to play through all six pages of the Moyse finger exercises at crotchet = 116 (from memory of course) without it feeling like a total disaster. Trevor emphasised on Thursday the importance of the tempo being just at the edge of what was possible, putting the pressure on and making it hard. It certainly felt hard this morning, but there is a wonderful satisfaction having got through it all.

Melodic minor scales are continuing to improve, but my augmented and diminished arpeggios haven’t. They seem stuck at crotchet = 84, and I can’t say that I’m remembering them any better than I was this time last week. Is it because I wasn’t practising them regularly before coming here? In an attempt to improve them, I’m going to try two things tomorrow: starting my scales practice with them, and also doing a couple of exercises from the Complete Daily Exercises in my first two hours of practice. Hopefully this will kick them up a notch or two.

Then it was on to studies, and it feels like everything I’m practising at the moment is to do with articulation! I’m finding it frustrating because Trevor highlighted my articulation as another area for improvement on Monday, and I can feel that it’s not up to scratch. So I’ve been practising the beginning of the articulation section from Trevor’s Practice Book 3 – short notes produced only by the abdominal muscles – and am feeling some improvement. However, preparing all these studies rather feels like I’m trying to run before I can walk. I know the notes in Andersen No. 4 need to be shorter, but am having trouble achieving this with all the leaps! Tricky one.

Lots of lovely people brightened my day today – both by email and post. Mum sent my slightly over-large pair of super-warm mittens that I bought in Helsinki, making sure that I’m wonderfully prepared for winter, Grandma and Grandpa sent a card, and a family friend in Cambridgeshire wrote to say I can go and stay for a weekend of Christmas craft in November. It’s nice to feel so loved.

Day 31 – October 31st – One month down

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I made it to the end of my first month! It at once feels like I’ve been here a long while and no time at all, and it’s still a bit strange to think of this little dairy and village as home. Now seems a good time for a bit of reflection on what has happened so far, so here goes:

– Trevor’s major criticism of my playing a month ago was that I didn’t play expressively. This has been a point of quite a lot of tension, as I was struggling to realise just how much I needed to project my musical ideas and dynamics, while Trevor was often insisting that I failed to understand the music. I had a turning point with Andersen Op. 15 Study No. 3 almost two weeks ago, and am now slowly counting up the classes I go without negative comments on that front. Hopefully it will continue that way!

– I’ve changed my posture somewhat to have a bigger space between the flute and my right arm/shoulder. This does feel more natural, and I’m not sure how the more closed posture had crept into my playing.

– Along with aiming to project musical ideas more, I have had to push my dynamic range out to a much bigger ff and a pp that is almost nothing. These extremities still need a lot of work, and I still have a tendency to go flat when playing very quietly. I am, however, now happy to play with a pp that is almost nothing, whereas earlier this year I would have sacrificed the dynamic for feeling safe with intonation.

– I’ve learned the importance of ending notes beautifully – essentially every one needs a diminuendo, they just vary in length.

– Thanks to all the hours of scales and technical exercises, I can certainly feel a different in the agility and precision of my fingers. Looking in the mirror, there is so little movement now when I play scales. It’s quite amazing what focused practice can do!

– I think that one of the big focuses of the coming month is going to be articulation, aiming for a really clear, short staccato and well-articulated beginnings to notes. This will be a lot of work, but also something I’m really keen to master.

– For the first time in my life, I feel like my body has finally become comfortable with running! I’ve got into the habit of going out about four mornings a week, and am slowly increasing the distance with an aim of five miles by Christmas. I’m really enjoying running (this still seems so strange to say), and am sure it’s doing some good for my playing as well!

I still need to keep reminding myself that I’m here for me and my flute playing, to go with the flow even if it’s not what I would choose myself. I need to take Trevor’s feedback on board, no matter how harsh (or occasionally bizarre) it seems. Yes, there are some things that he doesn’t need to know about, but he is a great teacher and I can feel the difference that this past month has made.

Today was Halloween, and while I’m not particularly into the idea of celebrating it as some sort of festival, I did contribute a yummy vegetarian chilli for dinner. I’m much more excited about bonfire night next week!