Tag Archives: Andersen studies

Day 6 – October 6th – Reality Check

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First full day of normal lessons, and I can’t say that I enjoyed myself too much. After the exhilaration of yesterday, as well as my practice over the weekend, I was hopeful that my playing might please Trevor a little more than on Friday. Fat chance – today’s theme seemed to be ‘let’s point out all Naomi’s flute failings’, which can be summed up as follows:

– “You play with absolutely no expression”

– My vibrato sounds like a goat

– I don’t have an innate concept of musical line

– I can play neither loudly nor quietly enough

On the other hand, my intonation has been pronounced ‘not bad’. That is still quite a list to be starting with, and certainly not aimed to improve my self-confidence. And this entire list was based on my performance of warm-ups and three lines of the Andersen Op. 15 Study No. 1!. Considering that this is only day 6, I think that the question is not whether all this is as bad as Trevor makes out (I know I need to work on aspects of my playing, that’s why I’m here), but how to deal with his teaching methods themselves.

I’m not for a moment saying that I was the only one to cop it today, criticism was dealt out to all in some form or another, but I did seem to get something of a special treatment. So, here are the things I’m keeping in mind for the moment:

– I do come across as quite self-confident, which I’m not sure is the done thing here. Both that and the fact that I’m a bit more ‘settled in’ that some of the others (language and culture-wise) perhaps means that Trevor thinks I’m ready for the weightier criticism straight away.

– I’m into new music, which is not Trevor’s cup of tea.

– Trevor’s motto as listed in his practice books is that one must “play in time and in tune with a decent sense of line” to get through orchestral auditions. If my intonation is ok and he has yet to pick on my rhythm, then the decent sense of line is clearly what he’s going to go for big-time.

– Hopefully I can only improve from here! Tomorrow is a new day with plenty of hours in which to practise (and now a clearer direction), I’m a hard worker, and I want to play the flute beautifully.

Otherwise, we had a lovely walk across the fields to class this morning before the rain set in. I think it’s going to be wet for a while to come…

Day 3 – October 3rd – Moyse, Andersen and Tescos

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Only the third day, and it feels like we might be starting to get into the swing of things. I went for a run again in the morning, and took some lovely pictures of the sunrise over the downs. There is a rather nasty hill that I need to get back up on the way home, and I’m hoping that in the coming week I can make it up without stopping. Both mornings so far, I’ve had a little breather by the field of cows.

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Running at sunrise

Yesterday, Trevor casually dropped that he wanted us each to play both an Andersen study (op. 15) and one of the Moyse 24 little melodic studies in class today, which sent us all into a bit of a practice panic. I decided to go with what I knew, and picked Moyse No. 3 and Andersen No. 3. We started class at 9am, and spent the first two hours playing an easy tune (from memory, transposing it up by semitones) and then exercise no. 2 from Seven Daily Exercises by Reichert. I’m keen to get this one off the book as soon as possible, but then ended up spending quite a lot of time doing a ‘solo’ because I wasn’t being expressive enough in my phrasing!

Studies started after the morning tea break, and everyone managed to play a different one from each collection. My Moyse wasn’t too bad, in that we didn’t go into it for half an hour! I need to remember that staccatos are always espressivo, and not to do funny things with my rhythm because I’m trying to be expressive. It rather sounds like I’m never going to win! My Andersen was less pleasing, and we spent a long time talking about the use of appoggiaturas in simple tunes – starting with Three Blind Mice. I’ve now been given a selection of basic tunes to practise so that I can “stop doing funny things all the time”. All in all, nothing too harsh in terms of comments, but I do rather think that we’re being broken in gradually! Proper lessons (including the walk across the fields to get there) start Monday, and from then on it’s two Andersen studies a week plus scales, exercises, excerpts and repertoire.

At 3pm we headed for Tescos, which is a drive away and so a weekly trip only (usually on Tuesdays). It felt like a return to civilisation! In anticipation of all the practice to come, I bought plenty of tea.

In the evenings, we all join Trevor on walks round villages and surrounding countryside. It’s nice to get out, and to talk with the others about things other than the flute. We’ve been issued with torches and high-vis vests for the laneways at night, and the air is crisp and delicious. Trevor knows all the cats in the village by name, and makes a point of feeding them all. This evening, he brought along a set of binoculars and we looked at the craters on the moon. I’m sure that once there is a little less light moonlight, there will be a huge number of stars to see.