Tag Archives: playing expressively

Day 90 – December 29th – Back into it

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We woke this morning to a heavy frost and deeply frozen puddles. On the walk to Trevor’s, the fields and paths lay glistening before us, iced in an ever-so-slightly spiky design. Look closer, and each fallen leaf was individually decorated and embellished, frosted round the edges and along the veins. Here smoky and dark, there crystal clear, the ice warped and cracked under my feet. In some, pockets of air had slipped in under the ice to create an ethereal marbling that foretold the rapid melting to come.

Class itself, and I was starting to feel like I might be getting my aunt’s Christmas cold, which wasn’t great. Trevor was keen to talk about things that we still need to work on over the coming months, and I earned a good list: playing expressively from the beginning, playing loudly, shorter articulation, not waving my flute around and not cutting the ends of notes. Despite these things and my feeling decidedly under-prepared (or maybe because of them?) I ended up playing quite well.

Moyse 25 Melodic Studies no. 1 was too slow, but otherwise make the mark for playing expressively and with good phrasing. Or almost – it took a while for me to play one phrase with the loudest point in the right place!

I then took a bit of a gamble and sight-read no. 2 in the same book. The notes aren’t hard, it’s just a lot of staccato semiquavers, and I did a pretty good job of getting them short. The only problem was that I was unnecessarily accenting the groups of four in the process. Overall, I still need to work on maintaining an even staccato across all dynamics and the entire flute range.

Andersen no. 10 was my low point for the lesson, which I was well and truly prepared for! There are just a few too many notes to cram in a short time. When Alyssa played earlier in the class Trevor asked her to play faster and “make it sound easy”, so I knew I wasn’t going to get too far. The first three lines (relatively accidental-free) were ok, but sure enough I feel apart a bit come the next few. Trevor seemed pretty happy with how the start was sounding though, and my request to spend some more time on it for next week was taken quite well.

Altes no. 12 and 13 were both pronounced fine but too slow, which I was well aware of. No. 12 is double tonguing hell, and to be honest I was happy just to get through it at all. Like Andersen 9b, this is a study for life rather than for just a weeks practice. I also still need to watch C#s here, as they were “horribly sharp” to begin with and I should have pulled the headjoint out before being told rather than after.

As for the impending cold, I’m really hoping that my sinus headache and general grogginess will go away with an early night and keeping warm. Fingers crossed.

Day 46 – November 15th – Wibb masterclass reflections

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After such a busy day yesterday, it was good to get back to practice and let some of Wibb’s comments and ideas from the masterclass sink in. For some reason, I found that I got a lot more out of this masterclass than the last one we attended – maybe I was a bit better prepared for Wibb’s teaching style this time? Here, in summary, are a few of the key points that I took away:

– The flute is like a voice, and Wibb tends to express things in vocal terms when talking about both rhythm and tone. Almost every key phrase was given a set of lyrics, which helped to guide the performer’s emphasis or encourage them to correctly show the meter. There were also a couple of favourites that kept cropping up: “el-e-phant” for triplets, and then “el-e-phant’s bum” for a triplet followed by a less-important crotchet. For tone, the performers were asked to sing a phrase “like a baritone” or “like a soprano”, which showed how different vibrato and tonal concepts can give us such a huge palette of colours to play with.

– A Moyse quote, related by Wibb in a lovely French accent: “syncop take accent”

– I was impressed by how Wibb managed to related everything back to either Moyse’s De la Sonorité or his 24 Melodic Studies. The exercise would always start out simply, gradually adding steps so as to arrive at the sort of phrase he had found in the piece. It really did bring home to me just how fundamental expressive phrasing is, and prompted me to practice my tunes with renewed awareness this morning.

– Love final notes in phrases, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that vibrato is needed.

– Composers, even really good ones, often make mistakes with slurs. The phrase is always more important than slur marks, and so we should edit in a way that bring out the melody rather than always trying to respect every single marking on the page.

Hopefully I’ll be able to incorporate some of this wisdom into my practice in the coming days.

Day 41 – November 10th – Good, but…

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I’d prepared a lot of things for today’s class: two Moyse studies, two Andersen, two Altès and the traverso scale. It seemed that the overriding theme though, with regards to my playing at least, was that no matter how hight I tried to set the bar there was always a but. Here are some selected highlights:

Moyse #9 (theme): Rhythm was now fine (as opposed to last week) but there was no expression.

Moyse #10 (theme): Good forte sound, but the last note was cut.

Andersen #4b: The first four lines were some of my best playing so far, but them the staccato got sloppy.

Andersen #5: “Some quite good playing happening, and not too many wrong notes”, but I wasn’t showing a good enough understanding of the piece’s structure and key changes.

Altès #4: Good articulation, but I was skipping beats because hadn’t learned the notes well enough.

Altès #5: A section fine, but I hadn’t learned the B section fast enough.

Traverso scales of D and C major: Fine, but why couldn’t I play a Bb or G# yet?

I’ve noticed that this teaching method of never being satisfied doesn’t apply to everyone – some of the others were told for this or that piece that “there are some good things coming from your playing” and that was it. I hope this means Trevor can see I’m a hard and keen worker, and that he can push me a bit further than some of the others. The main point that came across today though was that I still need to work a lot on playing expressively rather than trying to follow g musical ‘rules’.

In the evening, I went for dinner (fish and chips!), wine and some good British comedy with the lovely Sue and Paul. It was great to get away from the flute class for a bit, share some laughs and good talk, and generally have a bit of down time. I’m also now two episodes into Cold Feet, and looking forward to more!

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!

Day 30 – October 30th – Sister’s smile

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Today started off Skyping with my little sister, who I haven’t spoken with in three months! It was absolutely wonderful to chat and have a virtual tour of her new house, and I felt ready for just about anything that Trevor could throw at me in class.

As it turned out, I got off quite lightly today. Nothing is perfect, least of all my playing, and before coffee time Alyssa was required to give me a 20-minute ‘lesson’ on practising long notes in tune. However, it seemed that Trevor intended it as a pedagogical experience for both of us for various reasons, and it helped me to clarify a really key point: what sounds the best for me doesn’t sound the best out in the audience. We experimented with bending the note up and down, increasing and decreasing resistance in the air column. Trevor pointed out that the sound we tend to aim for is the point at which resistance is equal to air pressure, thus creating a harder, ‘purple’ sound. However, by closing off less of the embouchure, we reduce the resistance but maintain the same air pressure, thus achieving more of a ‘yellow’ tone that is more penetrating and, importantly, has harmonics that are more in tune. So step one is finding this tone, and then step two is practising long notes with a diminuendo from ff to pp.

As today was the last lesson of the month, Trevor wanted to check on those who’d been issued with recorders and the traverso, but Shannon and Chin Ting had forgotten theirs and were sent running home (a half-hour walk!) to get them. Luckily Dot persuaded Trevor to go and pick them up, but I think the point was made and all will be careful to do their extra homework in the future!

I’m counting my performance of the Griffes Poem as a success. It certainly wasn’t perfect, and I was actually ticked off and told that I “hadn’t practised” the fast bit. However, I got through the first page and a half with Trevor only making stylistic comments, and was complemented at the end of them for my new-found expressiveness. This week, I’ve been trying to worry less about getting everything ‘right’ in my class performances, and more on simply communicating my love for music. It seems to be paying off, and hopefully I can add to that more correct notes in the fast sections of the piece next week.

We finished off the evening at the ‘Old Dairy’ (I live in the ‘New Dairy’), where Chin Ting and Yi Yin made dumplings. It was nice to cook and eat all together, and I made a note of Chin Ting’s vegetarian dumpling recipe because they were yummy!