Tag Archives: exercises

Day 138 – February 15th – White Cliffs of Dover

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Rather distant view of Dover Castle

Today was a mixture of practice and sightseeing, as Trevor took us for a spin round Dover and then on to Dungeness for fish and chips.

I would have liked to spend more time exploring Dover, both the castle and the natural park above the white cliffs, but the plan was very much to see things and move on. No time to go hiking unfortunately. As for fish and chips, after last night’s extravaganza I opted instead for a veggie wellington, and was pleased I did! Then we once again took a walk out across the pebbled beach to find the tide was way out and there was still a huge beach of wet sand in front of us! All said, it was nice to get out and see a bit of the countryside.

Flute Studio group selfie at Dungeness!

As for practice…it was a bit of a mixture today. I did an hour before we went out, and was really quite impressed how well I was playing all the technical exercises. They were fast, even and with very few wrong notes. This afternoon, though, was a bit of a different story, and I felt like I’d made reverse progress with Andersen No. 14. I’m hoping it’s because I’m tired after a few late nights in a row, and so really tried to play through things slowly and deliberately a few times before putting the flute away.

 

Day 122 – January 30th – Snow and Frustration

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Snowy downs

Snowy downs

This morning I woke to the first proper snowfall; white fields and hedgerows. Despite the cold, I thoroughly enjoyed the walk to class and could almost have passed Trevor’s house by and carried on!

I rather surprised myself in the warm-up by getting through almost all of the proposed exercises from memory without slips. Of particular note, I was asked to play ‘solo’ scales round the circle of fifths (C major, A melodic minor, F major etc.) with Trevor beating a rather brisk time all the way. Only two slips, and interestingly neither of them in tricky keys! I also managed the arpeggios on page 96 of Complete Daily Exercises all the way up to Ab without any significant slips, and it was playing them once through as well.

Snowy downs

Snowy downs

However, my performance in the masterclass proper didn’t go brilliantly. I started the Taffanel Andante Pastoral too slowly, and despite feeling like I’d put a lot of work into the character of the piece, was told that I was playing in quite an insular, nervous way. By the time we got to the Scherzettino, I just wanted to sit down, and dropped quite a lot of notes. Apparently that was better, though, because I was feeling the rhythm more! I recorded the class, and so need to sit down in a couple of days time and process all the information again.

There was a general sigh of relief this evening, as we’ve made it to the end of a very hectic two weeks. Though there are studies anew to prepare for Monday, we had a bit of a night off, watched some truly awful American TV and played the board game Frustration!