Looking for new music?

I have written some nice 3-4 minute recital pieces for intermediate flutists.

"Musical Journeys" is a collection of 7 pieces with piano accompaniments.
"Aurora Borealis: a trio of solos for piccolo or flute" is a suite of 3 unique pieces, designed to be played without accompaniment, allowing the piccolo or flute to show it's singular beauty on its own.

You can hear samples of the music on my Youtube Page

Interested? Email me at flutesolomusic@gmail.com

QUOTES ON PRACTICE

I just ran across a sheet of paper in my files and thought it worthy of sharing. It's from readersdigest.com 3/10

"If I've learned nothing else, it's that time and practice equal achievement." 
         - Andre Agassi, Open: An Autobiography

"Talent is only a starting point." 
          - Irving Berlin

"One day of practice is like one day of clean living. It doesn't do you any good."
          - Abe Lemons, basketball player and coach

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."
          - Beverly Sills

This final quote is attributed to "Tim Duncan, basketball player, quoting his mother" - but I am sure I have heard it elsewhere as well. No matter who said it first, it is still a valuable thought:

"Good - Better - Best.
Never let it rest, 
until
Your Good is Better,
and 
Your Better is Best."

Now, go practice!!

About Spit and Air..part 1

Recently I have been corresponding with a flute friend about getting enough air into my lungs, and dealing with the spit in my mouth during a solo. I had recently played Massenet's "Meditation" from "Thais" and she was preparing to play it. I found myself thinking our conversation was worth sharing. So here's Part 1.

Question: How do you get enough air in your lungs to manage a long phrase?

Answer: I break phrases an awful lot to breathe. It seems like no matter how much I practice bit, when it gets to performance, I put so much more air into things, that I end up breathing more frequently. My teacher keeps reminding me what one of her teachers told her: "the only ugly note is an unsupported one, better to breathe in the wrong place, than to run out of air."

I have worked a lot on developing the ability to sneak bits of air between notes and not breaking the phrase while I do so. Some of the time, I am able to pull air in through my nose between notes. Like so many things, it takes practice! 

I guess you could say I work at having good supported notes, and maintaining the Essenes of the phrase at the same time. 

Hope this helps! Part 2 will address the spitting part of breathing! And Part 3 will explore other breathing styles, like "circular" breathing.

Tests!! Thoughts on my first-ever music theory test!

This year I am taking the Music Teachers' Association of California Certificate of Merit test.

I have completed the written exam, which included ear-training elements, and will be participating in the performance element in a couple weeks. The performance part doesn't worry me. I am one of those rare individuals who does not get nervous. Lucky me!

I have nothing to which I can compare my experience taking this test. I certainly wasn't prepared to be in a room with students of other levels, and other instruments, and hearing a boom box play all the different ear-training tests the entire time! (Our classroom had 8 students: 2 flutes, 4 violinists, 2 cellos.) It was terribly distracting.

I found it almost impossible to concentrate on writing Dominant 7th chords (my nemesis!) while a voice was instructing the violinists to determine what era a musical example came from, and then playing the sample twice. (I wanted to stop and listen to the music!)

I also found myself distracted wondering why the violin ear-training offers music on a violin, but the flute has to identify intervals, etc played on a piano? (I have to admit, I am easily distracted.) It just seems odd to me to spend so much time learning the sound of intervals on a piano when I play a flute.

When I began to play the flute, I would have said that I had close relative pitch, from all the years I spent playing piano (never instructed, I just played for the joy of it). It was very surprising to me that my "relative" pitch disappeared when I listened to the flute! The notes sound so different to me! (Maybe this is just a "me" thing?) Anyway, this is why it seemed odd to me that my ear training was linked to a piano sound...especially when I discovered that the violinists were tested on a violin sound!

I also wasn't prepared to wait weeks until the scores would be made available. The written test and the performance portions are scheduled 4 weeks apart, so maybe we have to wait for the results after both portions are completed? I don't know.

Well, it's a journey, after all, and I must say that preparing for these tests has been a great tool to push me forward in my studies as a musician. It has been well worth it, (in spite of the craziness of how the test was administered). 

It won't stop me from pursuing it again next year, that's for sure!! Onward!

My "Internal Brace"

Nothing is new under the sun, and so neither is this, but that doesn't make it any the less exciting to discover. After years of effort to build my air control and sustain it, I have finally discovered what my singer friend always talked about as "support" ... And which never made sense, and looked ugly as her belly pooched out when she sang.

My internal brace supports not only my air control, but my spine and internal organs. I learned it from my physical therapist whose goal was to strengthen my posture to protect my "new" knees and my hips from the deterioration of arthritis. (Check out my blog on Partial Knee Replacement - an awesome surgery that has restored my life!)

This brace is the area below the diaphragm, starting just below the waist, downward to just above the crease where your legs begin, and into the lower back. It is hard to describe, but I'll try, because maybe it will help. 

1. Lying flat on a firm surface, place your thumbs on the top of the hipbone, fingers pointing down. Now slide your hands toward the center of your body, about 1 1/2-2 inches.
2. Push inward with your thumb and index finger. Push pretty hard so that you are poking yourself. (It should hurt a little.)
3. Now take a breath and try to expand into your fingers and thumbs without allowing the belly to push out. Try to create the sensation of a balloon within your body that pushes against the muscle walls, both front and back. It pushes on your backbone and supports it.
4. Try to hold this balloon solid and breathe in and out. You will feel like you can't exhale without letting go.
5. As you practice and get better at it, you will not need to poke yourself so hard. Eventually you don't need the fingers at all.
6. This is an exhausting exercise! Easy does it!  Only do it for a maximum of 5 minutes each day. These muscles exhaust very quickly, and once fatigued it is counter-productive to keep working them.

It takes quite a bit of practice to master this technique. But it's worth the work, and eventually you should be able to hold the bace without a lot of conscious effort. As you feel more confident in the lying down position, try it sitting, standing, and even while walking about the room. For ladies, make sure you are lifting the pelvic floor before you brace so that you will not be pressing downward. This is an expansion out to the sides, not up or down. (An upward thrust will just push the belly out and give you that ugly look.)

I have been working at this for just a few weeks, and the other day when I was practicing,  it occurred to me to "put on my brace" at the same time I took a big breath for a long passage, and all of a sudden I could play it all the way through without losing the note! 

Give it a try and good luck!

Do, Re, Mi...

It is a whole different world to study music on your own as opposed to taking a prescribed course of study in a college setting. It is easy to simply focus on the art of performing the music and never go beyond that. 

Lucky for me my teacher loves music theory! Once I was finally ready to explore it, we have worked together. Sometimes I would like to put my flute away and focus entirely on theory for a while. 

This year the opportunity to participate in the Certificate of Merit program as an adult student has pushed me to a more focused study. When I realized an element of it is testing on ear training, I began to freak out a bit. This brought about a discussion of focusing on scales as "Do-Re-Mi" -- I was resistant. I didn't see a need to apply silly names instead of note names, (C-D-E..).

Enter a new app called EarBeater. As soon as I discovered this app, I was thrilled. Here was a way to work on ear training, anywhere, anytime I have a few minutes. Here I can create tests that narrow in on exactly the things I need to work on. And here is where I changed my mind about "Do-Re-Mi."

I started working scale identification: Major (Dorian),  Natural minor (Aolian), Melodic Minor and Harmonic Minor. I quickly realized I needed to focus on the intervals between the notes, or rather, the whole and half steps and where they are in the scale. 

This led me to make a little card which gives me a visual representation. With the focus on the relationships of the notes, hearing all different keys of scales...the only answer was "Do-Re-Mi"... And now I see why my teacher advised me to explore it. 

Here's my card: 

The vertical lines are the space of a note. 
Two note names within a space indicate half steps.
Above the lines are "W" and "h" - indicating the scale degrees. For example, a Major scale is W, W, h, W, W, W, h

By looking at the card it is easy to see that Major and Melodic minor will sound the same except for the half step between Re and Mi. Also, Melodic minor and Natural minor are the same except for the half step between So and La, and the whole step between Ti and Do.

A friend of mine just showed me another trick for learning to use Do-Re-Mi.. Curwen hand signs...cool. The senses you can involve in learning, the better!

Air, more air, more air!!

Flutists are an airy bunch: we lose more of the air we put out than other wind instruments. Other wind players blow into their instruments, but we create our notes by bouncing the air across an into the instrument. In fact, part of the skill of playing flute is to direct the air into it as well as across the hole.

As a flutist air capacity has been one of my problems from the very beginning. My teacher would stand there and say "more air, out more air into it!" and I would push,but there was nothing to work with. I have improved, but putting enough air behind a note is still an issue. I am forever running out of air in the middle of a phrase.

My teacher has a new exercise for me: pick an easy note, play it very softly, for as long as you can, until the air is fully exhausted from your lungs...goal: 1 minute. Sounded easy until I tried it. I thought I was blowing for at least 30 seconds....nope. Only 17. Sigh. 

I just had a partial knee replacement (second knee, now both are fixed!), and part of my time in the hospital was breathing into a bottle. The bottle is called an "incentive spirometer." It's purpose is to expand and oxygenate your lungs. Your goal with this little tool is to breathe in through the tube and keep the markers in the right place. It is surprising how difficult it is! I thought I had good deep breathing technique, but not so good as I thought. As I used this tool, I also focused on making a flute embouchure and blowing the air out as long as possible. 

I haven't picked up the flute since my surgery, and all my breathing in the bottle (10 breaths very hour!) but I am eager to see if it is any better.

There are other ways to work on air, so check back to see what I come up with!