Tag Archives: Reichert exercises

Day 64 – December 3rd – Doing it at speed

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It continues to be rather cold in a very wintry sort of way. I put off my morning run because of the rain, but even when I did finally head out at 2:30pm it was brisk and chilly. Overall I quite like the cold – properly rugged up, I really enjoyed our walk this evening – but am not sure how much longer my morning runs are going to last!

One of the thing that Trevor has pointed out a few times now is that I need to relax and trust myself with the warm-up exercises. I think part of the problem is a fear of letting my fingers go onto autopilot, which applies equally to pieces where I have to play things at speed. Today there were moments where I surprised myself with the Reichert exercises – I could genuinely get through two or three keys at speed without dropping any notes. Then suddenly I would be back to thinking about what comes next, and so would fall apart. The only way I can see of resolving it is to keep pushing the threshold. If I can get through three keys without a slip today, then maybe tomorrow I can do four, and I can do them a bit faster. I’ve definitely improved at this since being here, and I can do things now that I couldn’t have two months ago, but it’s still an area that I’d like to feel better about.

Also on the topic of speed, I did my Moyse finger exercises at crotchet = 124 today, which is getting pretty brisk! Interestingly, it actually felt easier than crotchet =122 yesterday, and I’m not sure whether that’s because I’m nearing the end of a two week cycle, or whether I was a bit more focused today.

Tomorrow we’re playing Fukushima’s Mei in class, or at least I’m playing it. Some of the others haven’t practised it, and all seem to be assuming that I’ll go first, Trevor will talk about the piece, and then they won’t actually have to play. I’m rather dubious about this plan, as I have a feeling that no matter how well I play, Trevor will dig into me about my penchant for new music and declare that I’m no better at it than anything else. I have, however, taken the time to practise the piece, and really like it. Hopefully I’ve done enough work to have a constructive lesson, and will be able to return to it at some point in the future.

Day 63 – December 2nd – Cold

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With the start of December it has suddenly started to get cold in earnest. I can’t quite believe that on the weekend I was in London and Cambridgeshire walking around in a light jumper, and now I’m snuggled up in my room trying to convince myself that another layer (I’m wearing four, one of them thermal) is not yet necessary. Alas, I think part of the problem is that my room is not as well-insulated as the rest of the dairy. I’m just going to have to develop a thicker winter skin!

Though we had out weekly shopping excursion this morning, I feel like I’ve had a productive day. I tried to shake my practice up a bit in two ways, with the first being more astute with my Complete Daily Exercises routine. I tried not to repeat any of Reichert No. 2 or 4 unnecessarily. Rather, I tried to start out each key in a tempo that I thought was achievable, and play through without scaring myself into mistakes. If it was super easy, I repeated it at a brisker tempo, if it was super hard, I went for a really slow, deliberate version. I’ve still got a bit of a way to go trusting myself with no. 2, but was pleasantly surprised how no. 4 is coming along.

I also spent a bit of time playing exercises in thirds the way Trevor showed us in class yesterday, though just majors for now. The exercises is like Taffanel and Gaubert No. 4, beginning the scale from the tonic, mediant, dominant and finally leading note, though rather than following this pattern back down the final descent is two octaves long. A nice variation is playing little moon the way on the way back down, though I only tried this if I was feeling relatively confident with the rest of the pattern.

As for sequences: I am no longer scared of them, I can play them, they just need to keep getting faster.

With all my various studies, excerpts and pieces (and there are a few) I tried not to work on anything for more than five minutes at a time. Most of this time, this meant that I isolated one element of a study that I felt needed work and focused on it for that time. With things like Andersen No. 9 (single and double tonguing) this worked really well. With others, such as Mei, it didn’t work so well since I was trying to think in bigger chunks. I ended up instead by prompting myself to move on from things if I didn’t get them within one or two tries. As a result, I know very clearly what still I need to work on with it tomorrow, and can hopefully target areas the way I was with my studies.

Day 61 – November 30th – Best-laid plans

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Beautiful autumn colours in the garden at the Dunk's

Beautiful autumn colours in the garden at the Dunk’s

Today I headed back down to Kent after a lovely weekend with the Dunks. I’ve had a lovely time, with wonderful company, conversation, food and wine, as well as some little trips down memory lane. However, there were also a few amusing twists and turns along the way, and today didn’t quite go as planned…

This morning, Ali invited me along to the children’s choir rehearsal at church, since there was a little-known Australian carol on the rehearsal list. The plan was to be there for the rehearsal, then for us to sneak off before the service proper so that I could practise and Ali could work in her garden. But then Ali realised it was the first Sunday of advent, and that she hadn’t done the advent wreath, so there were the two of us frantically constructing and decorating this wreath as the service was going on! Once we’d finished, brought it out and lit the first candle, escape was impossible, and we stayed for the rest of the service.

So a morning of practice turned into an hour before lunch. I was surprised how much I got done actually; though the Reichert exercises aren’t exactly raring along quite yet, they are increasingly fluent, and all from memory. Sequences, I’m proud to say, now sound quite good and are across the whole flute range.

Then came getting home. The plan was trains St Neots – St Pancras – Ashford – Wye and then a taxi from Wye to Elmsted as five miles was a bit too far to walk in the dark. But it turned out there were train-replacement buses from Ashford to Wye and that the next one wasn’t for another fifty minutes, so I buddies up with a few other travellers and caught a group taxi to Wye with them before carrying on to Hastingleigh myself. For som reason, I then thought it was a good ideas to get some exercise and save a bit by walking from Hastingleigh back to Elmsted. While it was a nice walk, and still quite mild, I probably should have just caught the taxi all the way and done a big more practice. Though what I have got done today has been focused and perhaps more productive than some days, I’m still feeling somewhat under-prepared for class tomorrow!

Day 58 – November 27th – Thanksgiving

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I was surprised to find myself the only one practising at the new dairy today, but got on with it anyway – I tend to find days after class are the most productive! I still need to keep reminding myself that the goal with Reichert exercises and sequences is improvement not perfection. Some of the keys in Reichert No. 2 were fast and accurate the first time round, which is improvement. Others still need work!

I spent quite a bit of time on Altès studies this afternoon, particularly making sure that the rhythm in no. 5 is accurate. So long as I’m disciplined and practise the study in small bursts over the weekend, I should be ok.

Trevor trying to take credit for Dot's yummy cake!

Trevor trying to take credit for Dot’s yummy cake!

This evening we celebrated Thanksgiving for the American girls, giving Trevor an excuse to have us round for dinner. I had my misgivings about the whole thing – everyone’s descriptions of typical Thanksgiving meals seemed to suggest that the whole thing was a celebration of excessive eating. While we did end up with a lot of dishes, though, the evening turned out nicely. Trevor had some wine for us to taste, including two bottles of very nice Penfolds from South Australia, and everyone had contributed a dish to dinner. I roasted parsnips and carrots, and we also had ham (for the meat-eaters), twice-baked potatoes, sweet potato, salad, and both pumpkin bread and an amazing meringue cake (made by Dot) for dessert. All was very yummy, though I’m also very glad that we walked afterward.

Off up to London and Hilton tomorrow, first to vote in the Vic state election and then to spend the weekend with some friends. I can’t wait for the break!

Day 56 – November 25th – Something old and something new

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Rechiert exercises continue to be a pain, but I am slowly improving with both memory and speed. I can get through the whole cycle of Reichert No. 2 without looking at the book, though often loose confidence the first time through in a key. However the second (or third for harder keys) time through I can play it quite quickly, so I think part of it is now developing confidence in my memory rather than getting the notes in.

Today was a bit of a juxtaposition of musical styles. I started off the day with another good stint of traverso practice in preparation for playing in class tomorrow. The allegro movement of Telemann’s Fantasia No. 6 in D minor isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely sounding a lot better than a week ago. Some passages might almost come across as fluent. I think I unknowingly picked quite a tricky fantasia to learn; D minor has F naturals, B flats and quite often C naturals as well! Then there’s the odd G sharp thrown in for good measure whenever the music heads for the dominant! I’m looking at it as a good thing though – picking a piece in D or G major would have meant that I avoided most cross-fingerings. It shows how much I’ve learned that I could actually sightread the C major fantasia quite well this morning!

Later in the day, I Skyped a friend in Australia to put the finishing touches to an application for the New Music Miniseries (run by the New Music Network) next year. We’ve put together a concert of flute and bass trombone music, along with some potential new commissions to expand the currently rather slim repertoire. Who knows whether we’ll get the New Music Network’s support, but either way I really hope we can make the concert happen.

I then finished off the afternoon back in the Baroque, learning the minuets from J.S. Bach’s Sonata in C major BWV 1033 for class tomorrow. Trevor has assigned everyone different movements of the C and E major sonatas, with the aim to discuss Baroque style in general and get a good idea of how to play Bach. I’m quite happy to have fewer notes than usual to learn – more time on technique and studies!

I suppose my little gem of wisdom from today is that diversity is wonderful, and that it must be relished. I have the opportunity to engage with, play and dream about beautiful music from so many different eras, as well as (hopefully) to help in the creation of more. Vlve la différence, vive la musique!