This month we send 90th birthday greetings to Walfrid (Wally) Kujala. His long history with our magazines began with articles he wrote for The Instrumentalist in 1971. He soon became a contributing editor who wrote regular flute articles, and with the creation of Flute Talk in 1981, he became a contributing editor for that as well. Over the years he has inspired flutists with his articles about anatomy, Jawboning and the Flute Embouchure, music theory, The 5 W’s of the Major Scale, performance guides, Debussy’s Syrinx, Bizet’s Minuet, Andersen’s Scherzino, Vivaldi’s Piccolo Concerto, Mozart’s Concerto in G and Cadenzas, and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chlöe, practice hints, Flute Fingerings: In Homage to Henri Altes, Shifting the Beat for a Cleaner Technique, flute history, and much more. His well-researched articles are appropriate for readers at all levels from students to professionals. This month his contribution, On Memorizing, continues this legacy.
    Kujala’s article, (The Instrumentalist, Dec. 1976), is one of the most widely studied of his articles. What is remarkable is that he wrote it just at the time when the early music movement was beginning to take off in the United States.
    To explain his ideas on embellishing the second movement of the concerto, he included Vivaldi’s piccolo part on the top line and put the embellished version directly underneath. Kujala stated, “Although it will probably undergo further change – most likely toward more simplicity – I am glad to share this current version with interested readers in the hope that it will offer encouragement to their own efforts in this direction.” Interested readers did pick up the banner. There isn’t a piccolo player today who is performing the Vivaldi who hasn’t looked at Kujala’s scholarship and based his own performance on this 13-measure example. Kujala suggested a tempo of eighth = 69-72, pointed out that on some piccolos the high C#s may sound flat or harsh, and offered two fingerings to rectify the issue.
    He further wrote, “I have purposely omitted editorial dynamic markings, trusting that the performer can work out a tasteful scheme of dynamic inflections that would in the long run sound better than some necessarily sketchy editing might suggest. There are obviously a number of opportunities for echo effects in this movement, but one should not do them too predictably.” (To read this article in its entirety, please go to )
    Kujala’s long and distinguished career began in Rochester, New York where he graduated from the Eastman School of Music (BM and MM degrees). Between 1948 and 1954, he played alongside his teacher and mentor Joseph Mariano in the Rochester Philharmonic. Later he would return as visiting professor of flute at the Eastman School of Music (1973-1975). In 1954 he joined the Chicago Symphony as assistant principal flute and became principal piccolo in 1958. He continued in this position until his retirement in 2001. During his tenure at the CSO, he was featured in concerto performances as well as in the orchestral repertoire. In 1962, he became professor of flute at Northwestern where during his 50 year teaching career, he directly influenced several generations of flutists.
    Kujala is the author of several textbooks including The Flutist’s Progress, The Articulate Flutist, Orchestral Techniques for Flute and Piccolo, and The Flutist’s Vade Mecum of Scales, Arpeggios, Trills and Fingering Technique. These are all published by Progress Press, a publishing house he founded in 1970. Kujala has served as president of the National Flute Association and was the recipient of the NFA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.
    In the music world, Wally has set the bar for performance, scholarship and teaching. His lifelong pursuit of knowledge is an inspiration to us all. Happy Birthday Wally and keep those articles coming.
– Patricia George
Editor, Flute Talk

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    Pick a letter, any letter, and see how a collection of words beginning with that letter can be inspiration for your practicing and performances. I selected the letter C.

Concentrate
    It sounds basic, but turn off the computer, iPad, and phone and get away from any distractions in your environment. This would include text messaging as well, which is just as distracting as a phone conversation. If your practice room has a window, perhaps turn away from it if you become distracted by passersby.

Calm Your Mind
    I find mental chatter can be really difficult to turn off at times, so when I face this, I write down my thoughts, and then I can be done with them. Another great habit that I learned from a sports psychologist is to touch a spot in the room and symbolically leave all your worries and distracting thoughts there at that place. Then you are free to touch the same spot on your way out the door, symbolically picking up your worries once again after you have finished your practice session.

Create a Plan
    Goals in practice sessions are very useful. For example, if you only have 45 minutes in between classes, try to work on a specific etude or choose two excerpts that need your attention. Further, decide which aspect of your playing you are going to improve upon, be it dynamics, articulation, or simply working on finger technique goals with a metronome. Try going up one metronome marking, say from 104 to 108, with no stumbles. Making a small but attainable goal will leave you with a feeling of accomplishment when you are short on time. Longer practice sessions must be planned out as well, including breaks for stretching and relaxation. Listening to recordings with a score gives me a break from the physical work, but I am still in the zone to get some work done.

Change
    If you are getting frustrated, change something, even if it is your mindset. I see countless Facebook posts from students who are angry at the world because their practice session is not going well. Don’t get mad. Get smart, and try something different. Relax, breathe, analyze, and find a new approach for the same problem. Most frustration happens because we are working in the same way and expecting different results. 

Constructive Criticism
    Use only constructive criticism in your internal dialogue as well. Remember that you would not teach a student by swearing and yelling at them, so don’t use that approach on yourself either. Telling yourself that you sound terrible is not going to help you improve. Instead tell yourself what to change in order to sound better. Remember, your subconscious will listen to the negative chatter that you foolishly think is productive and will believe it.

Center
    Center your tone. With the piccolo, tonal control is essential. Remember to place the piccolo slightly higher on the lower lip than you place the flute since the instrument itself is smaller. Also, if your aperture is off-center, remember to locate the piccolo at the center of the aperture, even if it is off to the side a little bit. The corners are firm but never pulled back tightly (it should never feel like a smile). If you say the word pure and notice that the eyeteeth are in contact with the lips near the corners, this will give you some stability. The center of the lips comes forward as if you were blowing a kiss to someone across the room, creating a space bubble over the top teeth. Try not to pull the top lip down tightly over the teeth, as this will result in a pinched tone. Likewise, tension might create a buzzing sound if the lips are pressed together (like a brass player or the Bronx cheer). If this happens, you will need to create a larger aperture by opening up a tiny bit more. It is best to practice the piccolo up to E3 until it is stable and reliable before going all the way up to the highest notes of the instrument. Build the stability first and then build the range.

Consistency
    Create consistency in all elements of your practice. Mark your breaths, and take them as you marked them. I hear lots of students who make a last minute decision to ignore planned breathing spots, only to produce disappointing results. What is the first thing we do when we make a mistake? We stop. So if you ignore a breath and feel short on air, your tricky brain might just create a distraction – a mistake, to get you to stop and breathe. So once you have made these decisions based upon phrasing and musical needs, stick with the breathing plan. It goes without saying you should maintain consistency in technical areas. Build a good foundation with good practice habits, and you will be consistent. In fact, try to be a consistent person in general. Be on time, be reliable and be pleasant to all colleagues in ensembles. These building blocks of professional behavior need practice also.

Courage
    It takes courage to play the piccolo. You are a soloist in the band or orchestra. Do not try to hide the high notes but soar on top of the ensemble’s sound. As you get confident with your role in the group, you will be able to crown the group with a tonal luminosity. Never try to force the tone through the tutti.

Command
    Take command of alternate fingerings as they are helpful in so many circumstances. The piccolo is its own instrument, and there are several basic fingerings that flutists would never really consider using that are essential to the piccolo for intonation and clarity of sound.

Captivate
    Captivate your listeners with your innate creativity by playing with flair. The piccolo’s role is one of great duality: soaring on top of the tutti and playing as a soloist. When you play as part of the group, it helps to match everyone or slightly exaggerate articulation as you are the top voice of the pitch ladder. As a soloist, piccolo players should step outside their comfort zone and strive to create great beauty. Many times students believe they are making a crescendo, but when they listen to a recording of their playing, they hear that it is indeed missing. I love to use the analogy about stage makeup. If you have ever seen an actor after a performance wearing their makeup, it looks grotesque in the normal light of day, but it appears just fine from the stage. Sometimes piccoloists might feel like they are exaggerating, but it is only to get that idea across the stage to the audience.

Celebrate
    Lastly, celebrate the small victories of your practice. Did you reach the tempo on that etude? Savor that moment and do a little happy dance in the practice room as you are all alone. Did you play that phrase exactly as you had heard it in your head? Smile about that and decide that taking risks is worth it for this kind of result. Don’t forget that rewards, even tiny ones, make all the work in the practice room worthwhile.

Continue
    As the popular phrase Keep Calm and Carry On implies, do continue the good work of building your piccolo skills so that you enjoy the forward momentum created by consistent practice. Each week pick a different letter and continue an exploration of vocabulary to center your practice.

The post Pick a Letter appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

    Even when I began my piano studies at five years old, I loved to play fast. I loved to play fast better than playing musically. On one of my first recitals, I was to perform Chopin, Op. 28, Nos. 7 and 20. I began with No. 7, the delightful A major waltz and all was well. Then I played No. 20 in C minor, which is the famous 13-measure funeral march. For some reason I took off on the funeral march at lightning speed. For a piece that should have lasted for at least a minute and a half, it was over in a flash. As I stood to bow, I heard a voice from the back of the hall saying, “Could you play that again and slow down?” I had no idea that I had rushed through the piece. The notes had flowed through my brain with such ease. It felt good because I loved to play fast. Reluctantly I returned to the piano bench and with all the concentration a child of six could muster, I painstakingly played the march again at a snail’s pace with exaggerated dynamics.
    I have some limited experience in teaching piano and often had students who could and did play fast. However, I find that fewer young flute students play fast. Perhaps this occurs because young flutists learn in an ensemble setting, and most of their playing is controlled by a conductor’s beat. Another factor may be that it takes only one finger to make a note on the piano while on the flute it can take as many as nine.
As flutists progress and gain control of the various fingering patterns, many students eventually do begin to play quickly. However, there are legions of flutists who continue to plod along, playing everything slowly and methodically as if they did not want to make a mistake.

Theoretical Foundation
    Flutists who can play fast have a thorough knowledge of scales, scales in thirds and sixths, arpeggios, and seventh chords (arpeggiated and broken). They see four-beamed notes in intervallic and scale patterns such as 1234, 1324, 1321, 1432, 4321, and 4231. They are equally practiced in all the keys. When learning etudes, they read by scale patterns. Chordal passages are identified by quality (major, minor, diminished, or augmented) and key. Students who continually play slowly read note-by-note, failing to see the patterns in music. Teachers should guide students through the process of becoming good readers in preparation for the day when they will play fast. Often teachers make metronome markings in the music to encourage a steady increase in tempo for practice during the week. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.

A Breakthrough
    A few years ago I had a university flute student who played unusually quickly. Everything she brought into the lesson was played in tempo; often even a bit too fast. However, everything she played was technically clean and musical. At the end of the term I assigned several Paganini Caprices to learn over summer break. When she came back in the fall, she had learned all 24. My first thought was wondering what was the quality going to be like, but to my surprise it was excellent.
    Good teachers know they can learn as much from the students as the students can learn from them. So, I asked her how she played so fast. She thought for a moment and said, “When I was in middle school, whenever we learned something new, my band director had playing tests to see who could play it the fastest. I liked to win.” She had learned to play fast by playing fast. What a novel idea.
    At the time I was assigning the Luigi Hugues, 40 Studies, Op. 101 as chunking material. With this technique, a flutist plays one inch of notes followed by a rest, repeating the process throughout the exercise. Since the eye takes in information in one inch chunks in about a quarter of second, I was retraining how flutists read music. With the insight I had gained from my fast-playing student, I added a new instruction to play each chunk as fast as you can on one blow of air. The one blow of air is important because plodders often count each note with a pulse in the air stream. Recall how many beginning bands put a breath accent on each note of the song. To play fast and musically, grouping of notes should be played on one blow of air.
    After a few weeks of playing each chunk as fast as they could, I noticed that other students in the studio were beginning to play fast. The bottom line is: If you want to play fast, you have to practice playing fast. Simple.

Additional Thoughts
    In order to play fast, flutists should have a good hand position with the flute well-balanced in the hands. Each finger should be able to move up and down moving only the key(s) and not the entire flute. The flute should be stable in the chin and balanced equally in the hands. However, if a difficult fingering is in the right hand, switching the balance a slight bit to the left hand, makes the right fingers feel light and agile. Flutists shift this balance regularly when going from C5 to D6 or C#5 to D6.
    Because of the nature of beginning band method books, which are designed to teach a variety of instruments together in one class, flutists are rarely required to play fast. As soon as a new note is introduced, the teacher should broaden the curriculum to have the flutes practice trilling from the new note to an adjacent note to keep the fingers light. For example, if flutists learn B5 and then C6, trill from B5 to C6. If the next note introduced is an A5, then trill from an A5 to a B5. Then add the tremolo from A5 to C6. Teaching a variety of these fingering combinations early on will help flutists learn not to clutch the flute and to keep it balanced. More advanced flutists can trill or tremolo between each two notes of an etude. Playing fast, slurred tremolos is also good for developing embouchure flexibility.
    After a day of teaching beginning and intermediate students, I find that I have played slowly for too much of the day. My fingers feel heavy and there is little sparkle in my playing. So, the first thing I do is play fast. Sometimes I play a round of trills, the Swing exercise, some scales, or chunk a book of etudes. Immediately my fingers begin to feel light and agile and my breathing is better coordinated with my fingers. Then I am ready for a traditional practice session.

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The Swing
    Playing fast can happen when a flutist has some degree of expectation of what note is coming next. This is why scale (diatonic and chromatic) and arpeggio study are important. The following exercise is an excellent one for beginning students as it teaches which finger comes next in a scale sequence. While I made this exercise up for beginning students, it is an excellent warmup for advanced performers as well. Besides the obvious goal of teaching which note comes next, advanced performers can work on playing more and more notes on one blow or puff of air.
    Play each group ten times on one blow of air at a fast speed.

    Play this line many times.


    Many honor band’s audition rules require flutists to play a three-octave scale slurred from C4 to C7 ascending and descending on one breath. Most students can do this fairly well after they conquer the first two notes C4 and C#4. The problem with these notes is most flutists move slightly forward as they start this scale; however, the right hand little finger moves to the back from the C to the C#. Having students begin the scale by moving back ever so slightly for C4 and C#4 and then begin moving forward on the D4 will solve this problem.

The post Playing Fast appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

    Since the beginning of musical notation, composers have tried to communicate musical expression to performers. Interestingly, those communications have increased and become much more detailed throughout the years.
    Even in the 1300s composers were experimenting with ways to communicate musical direction to players. The image on the right is a photo of Baude Cordier’s chanson “Belle, bonne, sage,” from the Chantilly Manuscript, which dates from between 1350 and 1400. “The manuscript is one of the classic examples of ars subtilior, which requires red notes, or coloration to indicate changes in note lengths from their normally written values.”
    Initially, composers indicated tempo and expression with meter choices. A 2/4 time signature called for a faster tempo than a 4/4 time signature, while 6/8 was faster than 6/4. Words were not necessary because the time signatures said it all. In the Baroque era composers indicated tempo by adding dance names and their styles, such as Siciliano or Minuet, to the time signatures already in use. This told players how fast or slow to perform a work and in what style. There were very few dynamic markings in Baroque music. Think about how rarely Bach wrote a f or p in his sonatas that you have played. He did indicate dynamics once in a while but generally left them up to the performer. He assumed that, armed with time signatures and movement titles, players would instinctively know what the tempo and general mood should be. Everyone knew how to dance a Siciliano, right? Maybe not today, but back then they knew what to do.
    Expressive markings on individual notes, such as accents and staccato marks, were not used often until the Romantic era. From that point on to modern times composers have included more and more markings. It is interesting to compare Bach’s Partita, Debussy’s Syrinx, Edgar Varese’s Density 21.5, and Berio’s Sequenza for flute – all excellent examples of solo flute pieces from widely varied time periods. The Partita was written in the 1720s; Syrinx was written in 1913;  Density 21.5 is from 1936; and Sequenza was written in 1958.
    A comparison of the expressive indications in these four works tells the entire story. Partita has basic notation and movement names only. Everything else is left up to the performer. Syrinx includes phrasing, dynamics, Italian expressive terms, and specific articulation. Varese seems to apply an articulation mark to every note, as does Berio in Sequenza, the only difference being that phrasing in Berio’s piece is somewhat ambiguous. He tells you how many notes should fit within a given time frame. All in all, it seems that composers in the old days trusted musicians a bit more than they do today.
    Of additional interest are those instances when a composer bars the groups of 16ths in order to convey phrasing and directional movement. The Karg-Elert etudes are a good example of this. Instead of grouping four 16th notes together, he groups the last three notes of a group of four with the first note of the next beat. This is clearly a musical expression indication that those notes should move toward the next beat and not be shackled to the first note of that specific group of four. I confess that I played those etudes in high school for the first time and never noticed those grouping variances. It was only when I began teaching them decades later that I saw the notation anew and realized that he had grouped the notes a special way for a reason.
    I was a fairly decent young flutist, so how could I have missed that unusual notation? That notes were not barred in a conventional way did not even enter my consciousness, although I played the etudes correctly – that is, with correct notes and rhythm. Is that enough? Of course it isn’t. We must learn to look a bit deeper. We must follow the ink, and look for the clues. Composers have written them in everywhere. Musicians have only to interpret those clues. The next time you start a new composition, set up a little game for yourself. Instead of focusing on the notes and rhythm, take a pencil to the expression marks; circle them, look up any words you don’t know, and write the translation on your music. Explore every little mark. What is the composer trying to communicate to you? How can you communicate that to the audience? That is our job; we follow the ink and translate it for the audience.

The post Musical Communication or Follow the Ink appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

    Why should we memorize? It had never occurred to me to ask such a question when I began studying the flute seriously. I just took it for granted that memorizing one’s solo repertoire was the right thing to do and was also an important mark of professionalism. I loved to memorize. I even memorized my high school marching band music – as I also did later in the 86th Infantry Division Band during my World War II service in the U.S., Germany and the Philippines – mainly because I hated those clumsy, bobbing music lyres.
    By the time I entered college, I had already built up a reasonably solid, memorized repertoire of Chaminade, Enesco, Gaubert, Griffes, Kennan, Ganne, Saint-Saëns, Caplet, Poldini, Telemann and Handel. Then, at Eastman I added Bach, Mozart, Debussy, Dutilleux, Piston, Varèse, Hindemith, Hanson, Faure, Martin, Reinecke, Hüe, Schubert and Ibert (the Prokofiev sonata hadn’t yet been published).
    After graduation I was fortunate enough to win the second flute/piccolo position in the Rochester Philharmonic, and two years later got to play the Bach 4th Brandenburg Concerto (but not by memory), collaborating with my esteemed teacher Joseph Mariano, concertmaster Millard Taylor and conductor Erich Leinsdorf.
    My first solo appearance with the Chicago Symphony was in 1959, when I performed the Vivaldi A Minor Piccolo Concerto by memory under music director Fritz Reiner. By this time I had picked up several good strategies not only for memory reinforcement but more importantly, for coping with possible memory slips.
    Devising strategically placed flagging spots in the score to land on in case of a memory lapse was an indispensable part of that strategy. Basically, I practiced the last four bars of the movement by memory, then from the last eight bars, then from the last sixteen bars, and so on. Next I practiced “pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey” style, starting anywhere in the movement randomly.
    My flagging system actually came in very handy when I accidentally omitted one arpeggio in the first movement during my performance of the Vivaldi. It happened near the end of a very long passage of arpeggiated 16th note triplets, and luckily I landed unscathed on the next flagging spot that was just one beat away. I had probably left out no more than five 16th notes and one heartbeat.    
    After the concert I went to Reiner’s dressing room to apologize for my stumble, but before I even had a chance to finish my apology, he smiled (a rarity for Reiner), quickly complimented me on my performance, and reassured me that my lapse was of no consequence. That was a great relief! He then sat me down and in a blithe mood told me about concerts he had conducted where some famous soloists suffered memory slips serious enough to necessitate starting over. He added that of course no one is completely immune to memory lapses, for even great artists like Jascha Heifetz, Artur Rubinstein, Nathan Milstein and Rudolf Serkin had experienced them (usually in Bach performances).
    Reiner, himself, conducted most of the standard symphonic repertoire by memory, but did use a score when conducting concertos and newer works. Virtually all the major conductors of that era conducted by memory, being greatly influenced by the renowned Arturo Toscanini, who in so many ways set the standards for all conductors, including for memorization. Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, Erich Leinsdorf, George Szell, Eugene Ormandy, Fritz Reiner, Serge Koussevitzky, William Steinberg, Josef Krips, Bruno Walter and Dimitri Mitropoulis were among the most notable memorizers.
    Mitropoulis was especially notable. When he guest conducted the Rochester Philharmonic in 1952, the major work on our program was the Liszt Faust Symphony. He not only conducted the concert performance by memory, but even more impressively, the rehearsals as well. At any stopping point, after making comments and corrections, he would quickly identify our restarting spot, e.g. “12 bars before letter F,” without referring to the score! (Check out his rehearsal of the same work with the New York Philharmonic on YouTube – John Wummer, principal flute and Ben Gaskins, piccolo.) 
    Leinsdorf also had a prodigious memory, no doubt influenced and strengthened by his close association with Toscanini, with whom he worked as an assistant at the Salzburg Festival during 1934-37. In addition to the standard orchestral repertoire, Leinsdorf conducted all concertos and new works by memory. I never knew him to make an error.
    After Leinsdorf left the Rochester Philharmonic in 1957, he led the newly established New York City Opera and then returned to the Metropolitan Opera where he had made his original American debut in 1937. In 1962 he became music director of the Boston Symphony, conducting many stellar recordings with that illustrious orchestra. He resigned his BSO post in 1969 and for the rest of his career devoted himself exclusively to guest conducting, making annual appearances with the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and several European orchestras.
    In the first of his annual guest appearances with the Chicago Symphony in 1969, it was interesting to note the changes in his conducting style since I had last played under him in Rochester. He had thrown away his baton, and he was no longer conducting from memory! In several conversations I had with him he emphasized the importance of expanding his repertoire, not only into new works but also lesser known but significant works of the master composers of the past and present. That meant that the time saved in not memorizing scores would give him more opportunity to expand his non-standard repertoire. This resulted in very fascinating program designs that juxtaposed familiar and non-familiar works. The CSO and its audiences always looked forward to Leinsdorf’s unique programming brand.
    1969 was also the year when the highly-revered conductor Sir Georg Solti became music director of the CSO, and he was the first major conductor who had the audacity to conduct everything with the score – even the national anthem. It was almost as if the so-called Toscanini curse was at last broken. Solti not only conducted from the score but also marked his music profusely, using various colored pencils. To look at any of his scores was almost like visiting an art gallery.
    These markings were not just cues and balance adjustments, however. Most of them were related to Solti’s analysis of the score. His knowledge of the score was a very deep and perceptive one, and he was always searching for new insights. In fact, I remember several occasions when we were about to revisit a Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert or Shostakovich symphony. At the first rehearsal he would proudly announce that he had discarded his old, marked-up score, obtained a new one, and looked forward to taking a fresh approach to the work at hand. The implication was that if one memorizes a score, there is always a risk of becoming locked into a single, hidebound interpretation.
    Sir Georg’s successor, Daniel Barenboim, took over the CSO in 1991, and he was just the opposite of Solti in the memory department. I could easily have voted for Barenboim as the world’s champion memorizer, and I’m sure Toscanini would have agreed. Except for premieres of new compositions, Barenboim conducted everything from memory. He also sported an enormous memory bank of piano works. He not only knew all the Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Grieg, Schumann, Bartók, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky piano concertos, but most of their sonatas, concert pieces and many of their chamber works. Fortunately, Barenboim’s phenomenal memory doesn’t seem to interfere with his knack for interpretive flexibility.
    What about orchestras – do they ever memorize? Actually, yes. Alan Walker’s terrific biography, Hans von Bülow, A Life and Times, gives a detailed account of that famous conductor’s years in the 1880s as music director of the Meiningen Court Orchestra in Germany, during which time he had his musicians play by memory all nine Beethoven symphonies plus many other works, often in standing position. Of course Bülow himself had a fabulous memory, both as a conductor and pianist. He had studied piano with Franz Liszt, who incidentally was the pioneer of memorized recitals, which in those days were sometimes as long as three hours (he was facetiously referred to as “Liszt: The Inventor of Stage Fright”). Bülow hired the young Richard Strauss as his assistant conductor, mentored Johannes Brahms, whose 4th Symphony was premiered by the Meiningen Orchestra in 1885, and worked closely with Richard Wagner, whose Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger were premiered in Munich with Bülow conducting. He also championed the music of Berlioz and Tchaikovsky. Bülow in fact played the premiere of the Tchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto in Boston in 1875. His musical influence in Europe and the U.S. was all-encompassing. 
    Most big-name soloists perform from memory, but there are some notable exceptions. One of those notables is the violinist Gidon Kremer. (He also often conducts his concerto accompaniments.) Pianists who play from the score include Olli Mustonen, Gilbert Kalish, Alexandre Tharaud, Peter Serkin (sometimes), Martha Argerich (sometimes), and Stephen Hough (most of the time). Flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal always played his recitals with the score. However, Rampal always gave the impression that he was playing from memory because his music stand was situated quite low, like a discreet teleprompter. He certainly did his Mozart concertos and some other standards by memory, but everything else was always with the score. As a result, he amassed an incredibly large repertoire. His discography lists 773 albums, probably the largest repertoire of any solo artist, past or present. All of his recordings are listed in Jean-Pierre Rampal: A Half-Century of Recordings compiled by Denis Verroust and published by La Flûte Traversière, Salvatore Faulisi, Paris.
    Now back to my original question – why memorize? I firmly believe that my earlier experiences in memorization laid an important foundation for my growth as a musician. Neverthe-less, my overall philosophy did shift over the years. I was especially influenced by Leinsdorf’s history (I had always considered him as a mentor), and of course the Rampal and Solti examples. Thus when I started out as a young flute professor at Northwestern University in 1962, I began to realize the importance of developing a greatly expanded teaching repertoire as well as a larger recital and chamber music resource. For an average memorizer like me, however, such a goal could only be accomplished by cutting back on excessive hours for memorization – and that is what I did.
    Nonetheless, it is still a very satisfying feeling to be able to revisit most of my favorite oldies without having to retrieve the scores, and I remain convinced that it is important for students to memorize much of their solo repertoire. The benefits are indisputable. As a final piece of advice, when performing by memory, don’t get in the habit of keeping your eyes closed. Instead, direct your eyes just a little above the audience. Then they will know you are sincerely sharing with them your love for the music!

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An Unusual Rescue
    A bizarre incident occurred on May 29, 1999 at the Chicago Symphony’s Thursday night concert. Gennady Rozhdestvensky was our guest conductor, and his wife, Viktoria Postnikova, was the piano soloist in the Richard Strauss Burleske. About halfway through the Burleske we suddenly began to hear a string of wrong notes from the piano, and a few seconds later Rozhdestvensky dropped his baton and began to act faint as if he were suffering some sort of a seizure. His wife immediately stopped playing, ran to her husband, took his arm and escorted him slowly off the stage. Both the orchestra and the audience were stunned, and then we saw someone, presumably a doctor, rushing from the audience to the backstage dressing room area to offer emergency assistance. Meanwhile, we in the orchestra had quickly realized that Rozhdestvensky’s seizure was only a ruse to rescue his wife from the embarrassment of what was about to become a disastrous memory failure and a complete shutdown. The Strauss, after all, was not the kind of piece that could be easily revived after the kinds of errors Postnikova had already fallen into.
    After an extended intermission, a spokesman came on stage and announced to the audience that maestro Rozhdestvensky had sufficiently recovered from a minor fainting spell, and was now well enough to return and conduct the second half of the program without the Strauss. So the concert ended with works by John Alden Carpenter and Alfred Schnittke. Happily, Postnikova’s next two repeat performances of the Strauss on Friday and Saturday went without a hitch.
    Rozhdestvensky had guest conducted the CSO many times previously, and was especially admired for his Shostakovich and Prokofiev interpretations. However, there was one thing that always baffled us and created a sense of discomfort, his insistence on doing away with the conductor’s podium. He felt it was more democratic for him to be on the same level with the musicians of the orchestra. The problem with that was that while conducting, he had a habit of wandering around within that fairly large vacant space in front of the orchestra, sometimes making it hard for the players in the back stands to keep track of his beat – but somehow they always did.

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    Teachers hope to prepare the next generation to carry the baton of art and creativity.  However, many students “hit the wall” during the middle school years and quit. Strong students often are the children who excel in many areas of life and face many pressures and choices, but they likely will regret quitting music later. By understanding the challenges middle school flutists face and developing a plan to keep their interest high, teachers can increase their student retention rate and help students develop a lifelong love of music and playing the flute.

Get the Parents Involved
    Students with strong parental support have the best chance for success. Take active steps to involve parents. After a student’s lesson, mention a concept such as a practice strategy that was covered in the lesson and explain how the student has used this information to improve a specific technique. Share with parents when a student has prepared and played something well at a lesson. Occasionally send an email to praise a positive character trait such as  preparedness, curiosity, respectfulness, or concentration. Whenever possible, attend students’ concerts and musical events. Observe what is important in their lives besides music lessons and show interest in their other pursuits.

Learning Styles
    Each student learns differently. Whether students are visual, aural or tactile learners, how local schools teach may affect their expectations for private music lessons. In some school systems, students are encouraged to interact in class, so they become eager, engaged learners in the music studio. Other classrooms may not allow for much student discussion, resulting in students who are unsure how much freedom they have to interact with a music instructor.
    Recently, two of my students were in this second category of learners. I contacted the parents of each, and we came up with several solutions. With one student, I explained that music, because of its creative nature, was something that allowed a wide range of ideas for expression and that the music studio did not share the same rules as her school classroom. Since then she has blossomed into a perceptive person who is not afraid to share ideas.
    The other student is naturally shy but responds well to open-ended questions. Asking questions is a great way to find out what students know and what their perspectives are. After students play an exercise or piece, instead of telling them what is wrong or needs improvement, ask, “What do you think would make this sound even better?” or “What do you think it would sound like if you played it faster, slower, louder, softer?” If I get a blank look, I say, “Let’s find out.”

Develop a Curriculum
    Keep the lesson material fresh and engaging. Observe what a student likes and find ways to include it in lessons, such as studying video game music or watching YouTube videos of professional flutists playing the student’s repertoire. Acquire a collection of world flutes and use them to demonstrate various areas of the curriculum. For example, when a student plays the panpipes or Syrinx flute, he quickly learns that the longer pipes are lower pitched in sound than the shorter pipes. After he plays quickly from one end of the panpipes to the other, explain that this run of notes is frequently used in flute music when the composer is writing symbolically about Pan. Having students play a passage on a fife, crystal flute, penny whistle, traverso, piccolo, alto or bass flute, will open their ears to new coloring possibilities.
    Listening projects not only teach them how to follow a full score, but can instill a desire to learn new, more advanced repertoire. Listening to Jean-Pierre Rampal playing the Bach Partita in A Minor opens many discussion topics such as what Bach’s life was like, stylistic concerns of the Baroque era, who Rampal was, what a recording session is like, or why Rampal played a C foot and a gold flute?
    Using books and flute magazines in lessons creates other topics for discussion such as practice strategies, what the bass and contrabass flutes look like, who the current high-profile flutists are, good CDs to study, and new music to perform, besides offering listings of competitions and summer masterclass programs.  

Teaching Themselves
    Teach students a process for learning and practicing. For example, one of the early steps in learning the rhythm in a piece is to write in the counts, clap the rhythm, play the rhythm on one note, and then play the passage. Make sure students thoroughly understand the process before leaving the lesson. If students can learn to solve musical difficulties by applying proper practice techniques, they can teach themselves between lessons.

Performance Anxiety
    Even after practicing well, some students have difficulties when auditioning. Anxiety may be so severe that students wish to quit band and music lessons rather than confront playing alone in a stressful situation. In such cases teachers should help students practice auditioning and demonstrate relaxation habits to use when playing alone. Students learn in three ways: exposure and instruction to the subject, repetition (practice drills), and performance. Playing by oneself is part of learning to do something well.

Praise Accomplishment
    In each lesson, look for things the student genuinely does well. It could be playing a correct rhythm or counting, attention to detail such as dynamics or finger synchronization, or something that you know the student accomplished on purpose. Especially praise diligence and the focus it took to meet practice goals. When a teacher praises a student in this way, it reinforces the priorities the teacher has set, and the verbal reward provides knowledge of exactly what is expected and a marker of when a goal has been reached.
    Be careful when congratulating a student who has achieved a status of a chair ranking or placement in a prestigious band group as it could be counterproductive. It may cause students to think that the result of a particular judged event is a reflection of their overall abilities.
    Sometimes worthy students are not chosen for promotion, and sometimes unworthy students are. Focus on praising students for following instructions and meeting goals because personal preparation is the real reward, and eventually the cream will rise to the top. Students should understand that certain achievements or the loss of a ranking will not permanently categorize them; they can expect their hard work to eventually pay off.

Provide Opportunities
    If your private flute studio is too small to host its own recital, ask another teacher to share an event. Join a music teachers’ association to provide opportunities for your students to participate in festivals, competitions, recitals, and scholarship auditions. Send students links to articles or music videos that illustrate concepts you are currently teaching. When possible, take students to concerts, flute fairs, or even non-flute performance events. All of these experiences build a foundation for arts appreciation. Guiding middle school students through this time of development is a worthwhile investment.

The post Teaching Middle School Flutists appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

    Emily Beynon, principal flute of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, studied at the Royal College of Music (junior department) with Margaret Ogonovsky and at the Royal Academy of Music with William Bennett. She continued her studies in Paris with Alain Marion. Besides her orchestral position, Beynon is active as a concerto soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. Beynon and Suzanne Wolff, a business woman and amateur flutist, founded the Netherlands Flute Academy in 2009.

What was your audition for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra like?
    My audition was in February 1995. It was terrifying, and yet I enjoyed the fact that no one knew me, so I felt if I fell flat on my face, my failure would mean nothing to anyone except myself. I started in June of 1995 so I will soon be celebrating 20 years in the orchestra. With my hand on my heart, I can say that I enjoy it just as much and perhaps even more than my first days. It’s a wonderful orchestra, and there is a great atmosphere.
    The audition procedure at the Concertgebouw is similar to most European orchestras. The core jury of 6-8 players is sent copies of all the applications to look through individually. Then they meet to discuss the 150 or so applications. In selecting whom to invite, very roughly speaking, it’s an equation of experience related to age.
    Younger, less experienced players, or players from less well-known orchestras are invited to a first round (or in the case of players who live on another continent, a tape might be requested instead of a first round), and perhaps 12 players in an equivalent position in another top orchestra might be invited to the second round. Both first and second rounds are held behind a curtain, and the tape round is completely anonymous. The core jury listens to the first round and the tape round. For the later rounds, there is usually a larger jury of 25-35 players, depending on the position. Most often there are three to six finalists in the final round, and that is usually held (without curtain) in the recital hall of the Concertgebouw. There is no interaction with the jury, so it feels a little like a bizarre recital in a beautiful hall with no applause. Afterwards the jury votes anonymously (one person, one vote – including the chief conductor) and based on the outcome of the votes, an appointment could be made, or there might be a discussion which could result in a re-vote which might result in an appointment, or there will be no appointment made and we are back to the drawing board. Once an appointment is made, that player receives a contract for one year after which it might be extended indefinitely; the trial might be extended by a second year; or the contract will be terminated.

What was it like moving to Amsterdam?
    As a child, I lived abroad in several different countries so I was not afraid of the idea of moving away from the UK. I knew that if I didn’t like it, I could come back. I did a teach-yourself-Dutch course after winning the audition, but as soon as I arrived, I realized that almost everyone speaks English. So for the first two years I just focused on the job, and then during the summer holiday between my second and third years, I set my mind to learning Dutch. I promised myself that after the holidays, I would speak Dutch at work. By that time, I had heard Dutch on a daily basis for two years, so it was quite easy to pick up enough to start speaking. Once you get to that stage and learn from making mistakes, then language learning accelerates hugely. These days my spoken Dutch is pretty much fluent, but I still prefer reading and writing in English.

How many flutists are in the Concertgebouw flute section?
    There are five. We have two solo flutes, Kersten McCall and myself, a piccolo specialist, Vincent Cortvrint, an alto specialist, Julie Moulin, who also plays piccolo, and Mariya Semotyuk, who also plays piccolo. We actually play a lot of repertoire with four flutes, so they take it in turns playing 2nd and 3rd (depending partly on which has the bigger part for piccolo or alto).

Do you ever play the auxiliary flutes?
    I have a large collection of instruments including 5 C flutes, a piccolo, an alto (one very bad alto which I want to turn into a lamp), a bass and a baroque flute. In the orchestra I am not contractually obliged to play piccolo, although if it is a fun part (rather than a tricky or exposed one), I do quite enjoy playing it. A Mahler symphony when all four of us switch to piccolos, for example, is great fun. Otherwise we do a bit of swapping round the parts, and I leave the tricky stuff to the expert, Vincent Cortvrint. I like playing piccolo parts in chamber music pieces like Maurice Ravel’s Chansons Madécasses. I only play the alto flute for Takemitsu’s Towards the Sea and other contemporary chamber music. I only get to play bass flute once in a while such as in the flute orchestra at the Netherlands Flute Academy concert. I do enjoy playing the bass line and have even been known to play contrabass on occasion.

What is the typical rehearsal and performance schedule?
    It depends on the type of program. For a classic Brahms/Beethoven type program, we rehearse Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with performances Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings, and then either Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon. The other extreme is a contemporary program, for which we might rehearse all week for one performance on Friday night.

Do you tour frequently?
    The orchestra tours about 45 days each year, and in my almost 20 years, I have played concerts with them in 34 countries (Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States – I may have forgotten a couple). Additionally, as a soloist or teacher I have worked in 9 more countries (Bulgaria, Egypt, Iceland, India, Lichtenstein, Paraguay, Serbia, Singapore and Uruguay). When I get the chance, I love travelling to countries where I’m never likely to play concerts, including Cuba, Ecuador, Indonesia, Morocco and New Zealand. So now I’m up to about 48 countries. Between work commitments, visiting family and my holidays, I am away from home for about 5 months a year. I see it as a huge bonus that doing the job I love, I get to see some of our marvellous world too.

Since the orchestra was one of the early champions of the music of Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, how often do you play new music?
    We have an exciting AAA series “Actueel, Avontuurlijk, Aangrijpend” (New, Adventurous, Gripping) which consists of six mini-festivals in collaboration with other arts organizations and institutes in Amsterdam around a particular topic. This season was The Sublime, including György Ligeti’s Requiem, 1914 – A Century Later, including a new violin concerto by Michel van der Aa with Janine Jansen, It’s about time, China here, Origins – Folk Art as Inspiration, and From Venice via New York to St. Petersburg. The concerts are followed by a Meet the Artists event and a Late Night Café, aimed at younger audience members with related chamber repertoire. Other arts institutions also have events linked to the theme. A new formula this year has been an additional concert with a shorter program, taken from the full AAA program, preceded by an introduction talk in the main hall. We also are programming more contemporary music in the more traditional programs, which I think is very important.

Which composers do you think might be tomorrow’s Mahler and Strauss?
    Perhaps Thomas Adès, Michel van der Aa, Marc-André Dalbavie and Detlev Glanert. Time will tell.

What do you do for daily practice?
    I like to think of it in a somewhat theoretical way. Core skills (tone, articulation & finger agility) are all like books in a library. A skilled player might have a room lined wall-to-wall with bookshelves – all crammed to bursting with books of core skills. There might be a whole shelf on different kinds of beginnings to notes; one for each and every shape for the start of a note and of course, in every dynamic and register. There might be several shelves of books that each have a different tone color or character, such as one for each shade of the rainbow and for every character one might need to express through music. Of course there would also be a whole section of regular finger combinations like scales, arpeggios, and 7th chords (straight and broken). Maintenance practice is the careful sorting, dusting and cataloging of these books. It is not always the most creative work we do, but this invaluable stock-taking and careful adding of new volumes is our technique. Then, when we play a piece of music, all these skills are already there so we can be completely free to be creative and go where the music takes us.

What does that mean in practical terms?
    In the days when I had a whole day to practice, I would divide my practice in two and spend half the time working on my skills library. That half I would then divide into three to work on tone, articulation and fingers. Tone means everything to do with the actual sound. I usually start with harmonics, then some Moyse De la Sonorité, some whistle tones, some vibrato exercises, anything to do with color, legato playing, and intonation. Articulation is the different shapes for starting notes: without tongue, stroked separate notes, dry spiccato, double, triple and also endings. Finger technique (once the sound and articulation departments are up and running) comes last, and here the most important thing is to keep the fingers even and correct, always playing with a metronome. In my opinion, it is better to play scales slowly and exactly than too fast with splashiness and slips. This is the training of the automatic finger combinations needed for playing pieces. What we often do is play the first four times incorrectly and then when the fifth time is correct, we move on thus ensuring that the incorrect version has been practiced four times more often than the correct version. Always play with a good, healthy sound and vary the articulations, dynamics and colors and characters of the sound.
    In addition to this core skills maintenance, fluency with reading and turning this weird black on white code we use into musical phrases that will speak to an audience is of course essential. Geoffrey Gilbert calls them disposable etudes in which you change these every week or every day (depending on the difficulty). Standard studies in this category might be the Moyse 24 Little Melodic Studies, Karg Elert 30 Caprices, Op. 107, Andersen 24 Studies, Op. 15, Boehm 24 Caprices, etc. This might take another quarter of the total practice time. The remaining quarter would be left for the pieces in concert programs coming up. I also always have the J.S. Bach Partita in A Minor on my music stand at home. It grows and develops and never fails to amaze and challenge me. Telemann Twelve Fantasias are also an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Of course, there are days when I am lucky to catch 20 or 30 minutes of quality personal practice time, and then I most often practice harmonics and maybe some Bach.

Because you travel frequently, do you have any tips for travelling with flutes?
    On a daily basis I go everywhere by bike as it is the only way to get around Amsterdam. I really miss biking when I’m away from home. Within the Netherlands, I go by train (they have a superb rail network here, although the Dutch complain about it a lot), or more often, I fly. My little niece was asked when she was about two-and-a-half years old if she knew where her auntie lives. Quick as a flash she replied, “The airport!” And it does often feel like that I must say. If I can, I travel with hand-luggage only as I hate waiting at luggage carousels. A few years ago I splashed out on a little carry-on Rimowa which is just great. I pack it to the gills, and it’s so easy to roll. I’m always looking for regular handbags that fit a flute (or two) and a laptop that I can still lift when it’s full. However, my quest continues.

What are your interests besides music?
    Well, to be honest, pretty much 98% of my life revolves around music in one form or another. I love films and can often be found in a modern art museum or gallery. I am a fairly avid reader and set up a book club a few years ago which meets every six to eight weeks. It’s a wonderful way of catching up with friends and, of course, sharing what is by definition a solitary pastime. I couldn’t survive touring without books. Books make a gift of the longest check-in queue at any airport. Speaking of which, at the moment, coincidentally I am reading The Show Must Go On by Gareth Davies, principal flute of the London Symphony Orchestra. It is a fascinating and often hilarious insight into touring with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1912 (to America when they were meant to sail over on the Titanic!) and 2012. It’s an absolutely wonderful book – thoroughly entertaining for music lovers and musicians of all sorts, but of course especially for flutists, as Gareth describes playing the big solos from major symphonic repertoire with such devastating accuracy. It’s scary.   

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Family and Early Years
    My family lived for a year in Wales when I was a small child and then spent a couple of years in Sweden, four years in Rome, and another year back home in Wales. Then we moved to a village about 25 miles outside London. We are a family of music lovers; I have a sister, Catherine, who plays harp in the Luxembourg Philhar-monic. My parents met as teenagers in a youth orchestra. They love music, but neither studied it beyond school age. Our mum still plays a bit of piano, and when we were young, I used to enjoy sessions when she would play along with whatever we were learning at the time. My sister started with harp at about the same time I began with flute, and since our very first lessons, we have enjoyed playing together. We still do as much as possible, although now that we live in two different countries, it is sadly not a very regular occurrence.
I started music lessons in school around age 9, playing the recorder, and I began flute lessons the following year. My sister and I both went to the junior department of the Royal College of Music which was a Saturday music school where the curriculum included your main instrument, a second instrument, theory, history, aural training, choir/orchestra, ensembles, etc. We loved it.
    Almost as soon as I started flute lessons, I joined a wind band, and then when I was 12, I was thrilled to get a place in the local youth orchestra. From the first moment I played there, I knew that I wanted to do orchestral playing as much as possible. I don’t think I even really realized one could earn a living doing it. I just knew it was what I wanted to do.
    When I was approaching school-leaving age, I applied for universities as well as music colleges as I wasn’t sure I was good enough to try to become professional, but I did know that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t try!

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Tips for playing principal flute
    Be flexible with your dynamics, colors, and vibrato and have a good range of attacks. Always know your function harmonically, and whether you’re leading, following, shadowing, blending or the soloist. Be a musical chameleon.

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On Competitions
    Recently I was the Chairwoman of the jury for the Concours de Genève. Together with the artistic committee, I put together the jury and the program. It was quite a big responsibility. I have also been a judge at Kobe and the Rampal competitions as well as local and national competitions.
    For students it is a wonderful learning experience to take part in a major competition like this. It is a great skill to be able to get the entire repertoire list ready in optimal condition for one short period, and it is fantastic to meet and hear other young flute players from different countries and schools.

The post Playing with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, An Interview with Emily Beynon appeared first on The Instrumentalist.