July 2020 Archives - The Instrumentalist

My Favorite Duets

theinstrumenta — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 19:41:56 +0000

    From the very beginning of my flute life, that is private lesson flute life, I have been inspired by, learned from, and enjoyed playing flute duets. Whether playing them with colleagues, students, or guest artists, duet playing always provides inspiration and information. I frequently program duets on recitals to provide a contrast for the audience, and often my students program a duet with their best flute friend from our studio.
    Duet playing has been part of the pedagogy of flute from the beginning of our history. The repertoire is diverse, varied, and rich. In the Flute Book, Nancy Toff writes, “The Breitkopf Thematic Catalogue, published by that leading Leipzig publisher from 1762-1787, lists some three hundred duets for two flutes.”
   François Devienne (1759-1803), flute professor at the Institut National de Musique, wrote his Nouvelle méthode théorique et pratique pour la flute in 1794. This method was used for over 100 years at the Paris Conservatory and contains his pedagogical approach to teaching through a series of duets. The Six Sonatas are among my favorites. Subsequent methods such as those by Henri Altès and Taffanel & Gaubert contain duets of all levels, teaching everything from dotted eighth and sixteenth notes to different articulation markings, and melodic styles. In the 18th and 19th centuries, before the advent of radio and compact disks, composers arranged duets from their popular operas. If you don’t know these works, you might enjoy exploring the opera duets by Mozart, Rossini, and others.

My first duet book was the Selected Duets, Vol. 1 published by Rubank, edited and selected by Himie Voxman. As a high school student, duets were always at the end of the lesson. In a way duet playing was a reward for being well-prepared with fundamental exercises, scales, etudes, and repertoire. But in reality, this time may have been the most important part of the lesson. I learned both parts of each duet (we often exchanged parts), and I looked forward with great anticipation to making music with my teacher. Sometimes we sightread the next duet in the Voxman book. At the time, I didn’t realize that my listening skills and ensemble playing were improving. I gained so much from this weekly ritual.
   I specifically remember playing the J.B. Loeillet Sonata No. III in the second Voxman book, where I discovered the joy of dissonance or “the spice of life.” For the first time I heard the buzzing of difference tones. A difference tone is a faint tone produced in the inner ear by two simultaneously sounded musical tones. The pitch of the buzzing is calculated by subtracting the vibrations per second of the lower note from the upper note. On the flute these notes are most easily heard with notes in the top of the middle octave on up. For an experiment, have one flutist play a middle octave A, and the other a middle octave F. Each should continue slowly playing up an F Major scale listening for the buzz.
    As my teacher guided me, I learned the concept of tension and release along with artistic vibrato usage, where to breathe, make dynamic nuances, balance with the other part, and matching tone colors. I also learned how and where to conduct, how to adjust to just intonation, match note lengths and of course phrasing style. Learning to read the two lines of score was another benefit from playing duets. All of the skills one needs to perform well in ensembles of all sizes can be learned while playing duets. Modeling from a great player instills fine skills and habits, often without talking through the how.

    Through the years I initiated playing duets with colleagues and friends. One time, two of us ventured out in a canoe on the Connecticut river near Hanover, New Hampshire to a remote island to play duets in nature. Unfortunately, we forgot that mosquitoes might be in abundance. How reckless, but it was fun!! Many an evening was spent with fellow flute students reading all of the Telemann Canonic Duos with each of us trying to outdo the other with tempo and embellishments.
     A memorable evening was spent when the legendary French flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal was in town. Several of us had the chance to play Kuhlau Duos, Op, 80 with him. With delight, he tested us, accelerating faster and faster.
    Each year at The Ohio State University High School Flute Workshop, I include duets on my opening recital as a way of introducing and including a colleague or graduating student. During the workshop sessions, students and counselors play duets as a pedagogical tool. Duets invite cooperation, collaboration and friendship, showcasing the great challenges and joys of musicmaking.
    In teaching, duet playing is a way to motivate students. The purpose may be to improve the flutist’s sightreading skills or developing their musicianship. It is also a way to bring a studio together socially. When working as a team, flutists share practice strategies, how to collaborate and how to be a good colleague. As an entrepreneurial assignment, I have students design a program and then find a performance venue.
    The repertoire for two flutes is varied and substantial. Each era has many works to be studied and performed. In recent times, composers have added to the repertoire by writing duos for two flutes and piano, flute and piccolo, flute and alto flute, etc. In addition, there are all of the duets in the orchestral repertoire, some presented in Great Flute Duos from the Orchestral Repertoire by Jeanne Baxtresser, Renée Siebert and David Cramer. Another option in playing duets is to take Baroque sonatas. Have one flutist play the melody, and the other play the basso continuo. Playing the basso continuo enhances bass clef reading and helps with understanding the nature of the piece. Playing the basso continuo on the bass flute is another option. In the end, duet playing is a great pleasure to be enjoyed regularly, even with physical distancing!

Some of My Favorite Duets
Twenty-first Century
Nicole Chamberlain: Chatter for two C flutes ()
Ian Clarke: Maya for two flutes and piano (Ian Clarke)
Daniel Dorff: Folk Song Suite (Presser)
Miklós Kocsár: Tone-colour Games (Edition Budapest)
Michael Lösch: Klezmer Duets (Universal)
Liz Sharma: Dances (Forton)

Twentieth Century
Richard Rodney Bennett: Conversations (Universal Edition, UE 14154)
Ingolf Dahl: Variations on a Swedish Folksong (flute and alto flute)
Jindrich Feld: Cinq Inventions (Leduc)
Thom Ritter George: Six Canonic Sonatas (Southern)
Paul Hindemith: Kanonische Sonata (Schott)
Charles Koechlin: Sonata, Opus 75 (Salabert)
Robert Muczynski: Duets, Opus 34 (G.S.)
Goffredo Petrassi: Dialogo Angelico (Zerboni)
Shulamit Ran: Sonatina (Presser)
Nicolas Roussakis: Six Short Pieces (American Composers Alliance)
Roman Ryterband: Dialogue (Hug)
Gary Schocker: Traditional Korean Melodies, Traditional Taiwanese Melodies; Little Helpers;
Over the Moat; Spelunking, Syllogisms (Presser)
Harvey Sollberger: Two Pieces (McGinnis & Marx)

Nineteenth Century
Franz Doppler: Opéras Favors (Billaudot)
Louis Hugues: School of the Flute, Opus 51, Divided into 4 grades (Ricordi)
Friedrich Kuhlau: Opus 10, 39, 80, 81, 87, 102 (various)
Camille Saint-Saëns: The Carnival of the Animals, arr. Seubel (Barenreiter)
Bedrich Smetana: The Moldau, arr. Seubel (Barenreiter)

Eighteenth Century (multiple editions)
W.F. Bach: Six Duets
Michel Blavet: 15 Duets, Six Sonatas; Variations on a Theme of Corelli
W.A. Mozart: Opera Duets from the Magic Flute, Marriage of Figaro, Six Duets, Opus 75
Joachim Joachim Quantz: Six Duets
Georg Phillip Telemann: Canonic Duets, Opus 2, Series 1 & 2

Collections
Album of Flute Duets, Louis Moyse (G. Schirmer)
Classic Duets, Mary Karen Clardy (Universal)
Duets for Fun, Gefion Landgraf (Schott)
Mozart Operatic Highlights (Universal)
Oeuvres Originaes, Louis Fleury (Leduc)
Selected Duets, Volume 1 & 2, Himie Voxman (Rubank)
Twelve Bite Size Pieces, Mike Mower (Itchy Fingers)

• • •

Teaching Tips
Decide who conducts the beginning of the piece, any accelerandos/diminuendos in the movement, and cues the final cutoff.
Practice stopping and starting.
Practice looking at the other player at the beginning of every phrase.
Trade parts to decide who has the melody and who has the accompaniment.
Explore dynamics and balance issues.
Identify and listen to intervals for tuning.
Listen for difference tones for tuning.
Match tone color and vibrato speeds and widths.
Match note lengths.
Practice with a metronome to be sure both parts are accurate rhythmically.

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Why Teach

theinstrumenta — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 16:45:06 +0000

   Why teach? The question makes perfect sense when you think that for every lesson, the teacher is getting worse and the student is getting better. The teacher could be practicing – something he doesn’t have much time to do.
   Is there an alternative to teaching? Perhaps not, but I think Roger Stevens [principal of the Los Angeles Philharmonic] made a good suggestion when he said, "Teach the student to teach himself." How do you teach a student to teach himself? The simplest way is one that Marcel Moyse stumbled on. Take something that you play well and something you play poorly and compare the two.
   You don’t need a teacher to tell you that your E is bad and your A is good. You can hear it. So you play E-A, E-A, and compare the sound yourself playing the E until it sounds as good as the A. You don’t need a teacher to tell you that your D trill is poor and your C trill is fantastic. So you practice by comparing the trills. You always find something you can improve.
   This can be done with keys as well. You play a piece in one key you know well, then play it in a key you don’t know so well. You know immediately yourself how it should and could sound. You don’t need a teacher. We teachers spend most of our time being policemen. We should give out traffic tickets; or perhaps if we collected fines for every wrong fingering ….
   Teaching yourself goes further than this idea which leads me to class teaching. Class teaching is marvelous. Not only can the teacher get results much faster, but there are two things that can only be taught in a class – intonation and ensemble. (Actually intonation can be taught alone, but it’s better taught in a class.) As far as ensemble is concerned, here’s an example. Two people play duets, but they don’t try to play together. Instead they decide who’s going to take the lead. One of them says, "O.K., you change the tempo any way you like, now fast, now slow. I’m going to stay right with you all the way." Then the other person takes the lead – plays completely out of time and the partner tries to stay with him. After that they just play the way the music is written. If you try this you’ll be amazed how well your ensemble becomes. Most of the time you’re not giving your ear enough of a challenge. Experimenting with this procedure does.
   So, a good teacher will teach the student to teach himself. In the end, the best teachers produce students better than themselves.

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Keeping the Dream Alive

theinstrumenta — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 22:11:59 +0000

Every day on social media platforms flutists are writing about how sad they are to not be performing in orchestras, bands, and in flute choirs. So far there is no safe way to return to the normal of last January and February before everything closed down. Several reputable organizations are conducting research about the safety of playing together again, but it will be months before the results are tallied.
In the meantime, programs like a cappella have provided amusement for some to put together tracks of multiple musicians playing different parts of the same composition. While the end product seems like an ensemble experience, basically each musician is still playing alone. Others have turned to playing small ensembles outside while socially distanced. This is less than ideal because playing chamber music is about sitting close together and sharing slight nuances or movement of facial cues with the other musicians. Another downside of this is the issue of playing an expensive instrument outside. The wind and the sun can do major damage to an instrument.

   Flute teachers are looking for ways to bond a studio, and flute choir directors are trying to keep their groups together and practicing. When the first signs of covid-19 came to my attention around March 1, I consulted with the church where our flute choir rehearses. At that time, they had not considered shutting down the in-person services and move to an online format. I knew that my flute choir would need to take a break because of the ages and health issues of the group. When I wrote the members about taking a break, I sent along some practice ideas to keep them improving during the pause.
   For the first 30 minutes of every 90-minute rehearsal, we practice in unison playing warmups, embouchure flexibility exercises, scales with lots of different articulations and rhythms, tone and articulation exercises plus etudes. This past fall we started Advanced Flute Studies: The Art of Chunking as a group. Each week we warmed up and then worked on one lesson. Since we were about 33% through the book, I suggested they continue working one lesson per week until we met again.
   Since it looks like it may be another six to nine months before we can return to our in-person rehearsals. We need a plan to go into this next phase. We need a way to be connected and share our art.

Be People First
   After staying in for such a while, we all long for the human connection. I am going to assign each member a studio/flute choir partner to contact each week. Contact could mean having a phone conversation, lunch on Skype or zoom, or socially distanced duets. Each week there will be a new partner assignment, so we get to know each other better. Already some of the younger members have volunteered to pick up groceries or prescriptions for older members. One even volunteered to help weed my garden.

Flute Fridays
   For several years our flute choir has issued an open invitation for any flutist (whether in the flute choir or not) to join other flutists from the area Friday at noon for lunch at a local restaurant. Sometimes there may be only four or so, but other weeks maybe a dozen flutists. With the pandemic, our sandwich/ice cream shop closed, so the luncheons were cancelled. Now, we are going online with Zoom lunches. Having something to look forward to during the week keeps all of our spirits higher. Talking with other flutists inspires each of us to keep practicing until we can perform as a group again.

Virtual Rehearsals
   Like many groups, we take the summer off. In September it looks like flute choir rehearsals (and lessons) will not be in person; so, each Monday night at our regular rehearsal time, I am going to host an hourlong online Zoom masterclass. Attendance will be optional. As the class begins and ends, everyone’s mic will be unmuted, so members may easily share what they have been doing. During the instruction, all will be muted and will play along with me. Materials will come from The Flute Scale Book and The Art of Chunking plus free downloads from
   Flute studios could also use the Taffanel et Gaubert 17 Big Daily Exercises. No. 4 is especially good with Michel Debost’s Scale Game which goes through various articulation and rhythm patterns. Vocalise books like D.S. Wood (free on ) are especially worthwhile in building technique in the top octave.
   Check out Daily Exercises by Andre Maquarre, John Wummer, and Reichert (also free on ) for working in all major and minor keys.
   In the back of The Art of Chunking there are several solos (Telemann Fantasia in F# minor, J. S. Bach Partita and K. P. E. Bach Solo Sonata in A Minor). We will work on these compositions as a group. If flutists wants to share their playing, they can unmute and share with the group. We will also work on solos that are appropriate for church services, since many flutists are pre-recording performances that can be inserted into a church service. Being socially distanced from an organist is usually not an issue so many can play in person.
   In using Zoom for a group meeting (rehearsal), each member needs to download the free app. Before the appointed rehearsal time, the host sends out an invitation to each member of the flute choir or flute studio. In this invitation is a link to click on. After clicking on the link, you are welcomed to the meeting. We will do practice sessions for Zoom before the first session to be sure all are comfortable with the medium. When playing unmuted, it is best to have the end of the flute pointed away from the mic and the camera. Sit with the left shoulder perpendicular to the camera, so the sound is better. There is a chat room where participants can write questions and make comments during a Zoom class.

Sample Rehearsal/Masterclass Curriculum (Host-unmuted, Participants-muted)

1. Moving the Air
To warm the embouchure and move the air, place the right-hand on the barrel and play the following exercise with three vibrato cycles per note.

Placing the right hand on the barrel stabilizes the embouchure plate in the chin. This concept was advocated by long-time Flute Talk columnist and master teacher Michel Debost.

2. Moving the Fingers
Play eight-counts of trills on the following middle octave pitches:

D to E, E to F, F to G, G to A, A to B, B to C

Plus: D to D#, G to G# and B to C#

Play on one even blow of air. Move the fingers evenly. If eight counts is easy, try for 16 counts.

3. Top Octave
The notes below offer special fingering and intonation issues. The more these notes are practiced, the easier they become. All these notes require fast air and a smaller aperture. Some ideas:

Tongue each note 4 times, then 3 times, and 2 times.

Tongue using T for each note, then K, then HAH, and finally TK or TKT

Place 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 vibrato cycles for each note.

Slur by 2s, 3s, 4s, or 6s.

Play in dotted rhythms: long, short and short, long

Play each note with a fermata beginning at mf and tapering to pp.

4. Octaves
The more you practice octaves, the better the pitch. Use a tuner. Create practice plans such as low, high, low, high, low using each of the following notes as the fundamental. Practice first tongued, then slurred.

5. Scales (All major and melodic minors, two-octaves slurred, up and down two times in one breath.)
See for a Scale template.

6. Scales in Thirds (All major and melodic minors slurred in one breath.)

7. Arpeggios (Major, minor, diminished, augmented)
See for Arpeggios 1 and 2. Slur and TK, both fast and slow.

8. Vibrato and Intervals
See for Michel Debost’s interval exercises. Eleven pages. Do one interval a week with counted or measured vibrato cycles with a tuner.

9. Melody Practice
Select a slow movement of a Bach Flute Sonata. (Free on ) Mark the phrases for breathing. Look at each phrase for contour or shape. Find the non-chord tones and label. The non-chord tones will be notes you wish to bring out or color. When playing, listen for seamless slurs and the ungluing of articulated notes. Record yourself. Listen and ask “What could I play better?” Other choices might be a slow etude, a movement of a Mozart Concerto, the second movement of the Poulenc Flute Sonata, the second movement of the Hindemith Flute Sonate or an expressive excerpt.

10. Etude Practice
Select an etude book on for each member to download. Work through the book together with one or two etudes per week. Composers to check out are Andersen, Berbiguier, Kohler, Kummer, etc.

11. Duet
For this I will play the second part while each member plays the first part. Then we will switch. Or, someone in the flute choir or studio will record both parts separately and send the members an mp3 file for practice during the week. This will put each member in the spotlight for one session.

While Zoom masterclasses are not as good as being in person, they do offer a way for individual improvement. This gift of time can be used wisely.

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Tchaikovsky’s 4th

theinstrumenta — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 19:10:01 +0000

   Playing the treacherous piccolo solo in the Scherzo movement of Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony typifies the old adage that orchestra musicians spend 90% of their time bored to death and 10% scared to death. Many piccoloists have learned to cope with this enigmatic solo, but not without tribulations.
   Although Jan Gippo has found many alternate fingerings for piccolo, he has never found a special fingering for the treacherous piccolo solo in the Scherzo of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony #4. Trembling piccoloists will be relieved to know one has been discovered that works well for most players.
   The thumb Bb is indicated; the first trill key symbol is ‘ and the second trill key is *. The graphic keeps a space for every key.

   When playing this passage, articulate with a soft legato tongue. Although this unusual fingering for the F3 is quite flat, the note goes by so quickly that the pitch is unnoticeable. One advantage of this fingering is that keeping the G# key open for the first ten notes stabilizes the instrument so it does not roll while playing all the open Bbs. It also sounds at the true piano dynamic that Tchaikovsky indicated.
   Many piccoloists perform the solo on Db piccolo, including Jan Gippo of the St. Louis Symphony and Walfrid Kujala, of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Kujala is comfortable playing the Db piccolo, which he has played since high school. Performing the solo on Db piccolo means transposing down one-half step to the key of G major. Former piccoloist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Clement Barone prefers the C piccolo sound for the solo and prepared for performances by concentrating on placing the first of the 32nd notes directly on the beat rather than too early. He first practices just the first three notes, then successively adds one more note until completing the entire passage.
   Lawrence Trott of the Buffalo Philharmonic recommends practicing the solo at various tempos because from one conductor’s slowest interpretation to another’s fastest tempo, the pace can vary as much as 100%. Lois Schaefer, now retired from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, copes ingeniously with unexpected tempos: after the Tempo I section begins, she plays the passage silently three times, fingering the notes without blowing. She feels it is important to end the silent playing before the clarinet solo in order to have enough time to actually play the solo.
   Kujala recalls his first performance of the Tchaikovsky with the Chicago Symphony at the outdoor Ravinia concert series. Although he joined the orchestra in 1954 as assistant principal flute, he switched to piccolo in 1957 when the piccoloist died. The following summer Tchaikovsky’s 4th was scheduled to be performed with C.S.O. music director Fritz Reiner, who hated outdoor concerts and during the rehearsal went through only the first few measures of each movement, and left with a "see you tonight." Fortunately Reiner took a good tempo, all went well, and the maestro saluted Kujala after the solo. Despite his success, Kujala says the initiation was stressful because in those days there was no job protection.
   When on tour with the Houston Symphony Clement Barone remembers leaving his swab in the piccolo and nothing came out when he reached the solo. Bonnie Lake, long time piccoloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, remembers Leonard Bernstein sitting next to her during a rehearsal of the Tchaikovsky at Tanglewood. The moment she began playing the famous solo, Bernstein stuck a lighted cigarillo in the end of her piccolo. During a concert tour in Greece, Jan Gippo was surprised when conductor Jerzy Semkow decided to use the Tchaikovsky Scherzo as an encore, but he did not have his Db piccolo on stage. Although he hadn’t played the solo on a C piccolo for over three years, all went well despite the shock.
   Many conductors know this solo challenges even veteran performers. During a four week tour Lukas Foss commented to Lawrence Trott, "You play this very well. I take a different tempo every night, but I can’t seem to throw you." Zubin Mehta once told Miles Zentner of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, "Don’t say ‘*#!@#!’ after you play the solo; someone in the audience might read your lips!" Several years ago conductor Sergiu Comissiona congratulated Ethan Stang, formerly of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, on his performance. Stang remarked that he found the tempo to be unusually fast. Comissiona asked, "Don’t you have to catch a train by midnight?" On different occasions conductors Fritz Reiner, William Steinberg, and Vladimir Bakaleinakoff told Stang that Tchaikovsky· explained the meaning of this solo in some of his notes and letters as representing a drunken sailor stumbling out of a bar and then relieving himself over a fence.
   Kyril Magg of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and George Hambrecht, retired principal flutist of that orchestra, recall that William Hebert discovered that transposing the Scherzo solo down a minor third to F major fits perfectly in the last four measures of the same movement. During a rehearsal Hebert played the usual solo and surprised the orchestra and George Szell by adding the transposed solo at the end. Even the usually tyrannical and humorless Szell smiled, but Hebert claims this was only because the conductor had gas. Hebert confirmed all of this and added that Szell had himself cremated so that he wouldn’t spin in his grave every time someone in the orchestra told a story about him. When I experimented with Hebert’s innovation during a youth concert, the orchestra’s personnel manager was not pleased. When I protested that it was funny, he countered dryly, "I never said it wasn’t funny." The alternate fingerings for this tricky solo are recommended, but improvised endings are not.

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The Basics of Flute Playing

theinstrumenta — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 17:57:43 +0000

   Editor’s note: At the time of this article (1987), Geoffrey Gilbert lived in DeLand, Florida and throughout the year taught a class of about 12 students. In the fall of 1986, Gilbert visited Evansville, Indiana to teach a masterclass for the newly formed Evansville Flute Society. The ages and abilities of the participants were greatly varied – from young players with poor playing habits to advanced players of professional ability. Gilbert gave his undivided attention to all of them. Although he did not normally teach beginning students, on this occasion he shared his thoughts on teaching the basics and the ground rules for good flute playing.
   Gilbert was not an easy teacher. James Galway said in a Flute Talk interview around this time, "We can only raise the standard of flute playing by people teaching more intensely and refusing to have bad students." As one of Gilbert’s former students himself, perhaps Galway learned this philosophy in part from Gilbert. In the Evansville masterclass, Gilbert was patient, but unrelenting when it came to upholding the standards.
   As each player came up on stage, Gilbert asked them to announce their name, piece, and what kind of flute they played. What follows here are his instructions to the young players, edited to read as though they were given to one student.

Blowing and Breath Support
   The reason I made her repeat her announcement is because I knew pretty well from hearing her speak how she was going to play. There is no way you can get anything out of the instrument unless you put energy into it. You have to use breath pressure and keep it constant. You didn’t do it in your speech and you don’t do it in your playing either. That’s why your sound fades all of the time; you run out of energy. When you’re playing it’s an announcement, isn’t it? It’s just a communication in music instead of in words.
   [The student plays again.] How long can you hold that note? You must time yourself. Take a breath and do that again. Nine seconds. You should be able to get to 50 – at your age! Every day try to go longer; but don’t try to go from nine seconds to 50; try to go from nine seconds to 11, or 10 seconds to 12. Just add a few seconds every day, then gradually you’ll develop greater breath capacity.
   I’ve never thought that the ability to hold a long note depends on your physical size. It is the control that you exercise over your breath that is important. Have you got the Trevor Wye books? They are called Practice Books for Flute. I suggest that you get at least number one; there are a lot of tone studies in there that you need very badly.

Breathing Exercise
Play the following exercise without vibrato. Do this starting on C, then B, Bb A, Ab, and G, until you get down to Db and C. You can’t play it too slowly.

Scales
This piece [Mozart’s Concerto in G Major] is too advanced for you. The first objective is to learn to play the flute before you start to play the music; then you won’t waste so much time. Almost all music that we play is built on the simple, basic elements of music: scales, thirds, and arpeggios. If you had learned to play these before you started working on the piece then there would be only limited portions of it you would have to practice.
So first of all I would like to hear you play a scale. Because this concerto is in the key of G, let’s play a complete scale in G, legato, which means slurred. The best scale system is in Marcel Moyse’s Daily Exercises. You should practice them all the time.

[The student has some difficulty playing the scale.] You can see now, can’t you, the futility of playing the Mozart Concerto when you haven’t yet learned the scale of G. That’s putting the cart before the horse, isn’t it? lf you play your scales every day and use all the notes on your instrument, up to the top and down to the bottom, you’ll develop your technique in the areas that need it. It’s the bottom register which is difficult to develop. The top register is supposed to be difficult, but it really isn’t. When you practice complete scales you become familiar with all of the notes in all of the registers, and there won’t be any problems. G4 is a very high note for you isn’t it? Get used to it. After all we can go up to D4, E4, or F4 at the top. There are many notes on the instrument that you are not using.

Rhythm
Now the next thing to do is to play in a time frame. You lost a lot of 16th notes playing the Mozart. Let’s play a scale in C and accent every fifth note. (He demonstrates vocally.) TA da de da DE da de da DE da de da DA. Blow a bit harder. Accent!
That’s better; but if you were playing with a metronome you wouldn’t agree with it, would you? That’s what happens throughout the piece. You’re playing the notes, but you’re playing without rhythm. Your pianist had a very difficult time following you – hurrying when you were hurrying and dragging when you were dragging. If you were playing this with an orchestra they wouldn’t do that. First thing you’ll have to do is learn to play in time. Do you have a metronome? (Student nods.) Do you use the metronome? (Student nods again.) What do you use it with, or for? You haven’t practiced the Mozart with the metronome have you?

Posture and Position
   I haven’t said anything about your position, which is also very important. Now let’s just see if I can help you a little bit. Your position is very cramped. Your flute is too close to the right shoulder. You must get the flute away from the shoulder so that you are free. Also, your thumb sticks out beyond the flute so that it isn’t really holding the instrument up. That’s the reason you are having difficulty moving your fingers. You need to get your thumb underneath where it will do you some good.
   Also keep your wrists underneath the instrument, not out here. Otherwise your little finger is very far away from the G# and C# keys, so every time you need to use them you have to bring your hand in, which is very awkward. Keep your hands tilted towards the right, not to the left, so that the little finger is long enough to reach these keys. You should be coming down on the keys, not reaching for them. It’s also always a danger signal to me if I see the mechanism turning in towards the player. The mechanism should be on top.
   Stand well away from the music. Get the music stand as low as you possibly can. Unless you have eye problems, you should be able to do this. You’re supposed to look down with your eyes, not put your head down. All right? You’re bending forward. That’s not very good for breathing. Lean back a little more. That’s right.

Vibrato
We all have a natural vibrato; some people have a slow vibrato and some have a quick one. Whichever one you don’t have you must practice. My vibrato is naturally slow, so I have to practice all of the time to make it faster. People with really quick vibratos have to practice to make it slower; but you must practice vibrato because it’s not going to happen by itself. Otherwise you’re completely at the mercy of the instrument and do whatever it wants to do. You’re not really playing the instrument; the instrument is playing you.
Above all, listen to string quartets and to very, very good singers, preferably lieder singers, not opera singers. Listen to what they do and then copy that on the flute. You’ll find that in expression they are much better than we are. We very often model ourselves after wind players or other flute players, which is not always the best thing to do.

Intonation
If you find yourself playing sharp cover with the top lip, but don’t turn the flute in to make the pitch flatter; that’s the worst thing you can do. You lose half your sound and the pitch varies a great deal. When I say cover, I mean get the top lip more over the tone hole, then blow slightly more downward. Don’t make any mistake about that. Keep the key mechanism facing toward the ceiling; relax the jaw and get more space between your teeth. That in itself will flatten the sound without destroying the body of the tone.

Summary
   You have to learn to handle the instrument. If you’re going to be a painter, for example, it’s not sufficient to have a row of paints and a brush; you have to learn to mix them all before you can create. It’s the same in playing a flute – you must learn all the basics.
   It sounds rather formidable at the beginning, but it isn’t really if you think about it. You have a major scale and a minor scale in two forms; you have major and minor arpeggios, a diminished chord, a dominant chord, and an augmented chord. That is the whole of music in a nut shell. Everything you’re going to play is based on those few things. You can make a set of exercises that will cover the whole lot of them in 20 minutes once you get the technique down.
   This routine goes on the whole of your life. I’ve been playing for 190 years and I still practice this routine every day; I never miss because it doesn’t take very long. That’s the reason why even in my advanced age I’ve still got a reasonable technique. Once you learn these things it’s like riding a bicycle or swimming, you never forget how to do it; but you must learn the basic techniques first. You’re trying to play the concerto before you’ve learned the steps you have to take to approach it.
   I suggest that for the next few months or perhaps the next year you concentrate on these basic elements. Every day play scales, some tone studies, some technical studies, and then whatever else you have to do. The pieces must come at the end of your practice, not at the beginning.
   The difficulty of the flute is to play it in tune and to play it with the right expression. To play the notes is not a great problem. If you spend enough hours practicing the right things you will acquire a technique.

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Ravel and the Flute

theinstrumenta — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 17:27:29 +0000

    The flute solo in Maurice Ravel’s Second Suite of Daphnis et Chloé is one of the mainstays of flute auditions and a landmark of the whole flute repertoire. Ravel used the flute constantly in his orchestrations. It could be said that it was one of his favorite instruments, so much so that our beloved pipe appears in a prime role throughout his compositions, whether large orchestral works or intimate chamber music. Flute players’ only sorrow is that he did not write a solo work for the flute, either concerto or sonata.
   Maurice Ravel was born in 1875 in southwestern France near the Spanish border. He was fragile looking, small in stature with very fine features. He never married and was said to have been a loner, prone to depression and self-doubt. In 1937 his life ended in the agony of brain illness, which deprived him of his art but not of his consciousness.¹ In one of his last major works, the piano Concerto in G (1931), the second movement starts with a long piano solo introducing a nostalgic English horn. Out of that somber mood rises the radiant flute as if to dispel dark thoughts.
   In the Septet (1905), Introduction et Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet, and string quartet, Ravel uses the color of the flute and clarinet as a contrast to the harp. A light work, it poses delicate problems of intonation between the two winds.
   Ma Mère l’ Oye (1911) (Mother Goose Suite) uses the flute at length, as well as the middle range of the piccolo, illustrating the ingenuous character of these fairy tales.

   Boléro (1928) is the most universally known work of Ravel. Its simple but haunting theme is repeated obsessively by all the instruments in sequence over a rhythmic ostinato. The flute has the honor of being the first to play the theme. It looks simple enough, but to play it very softly amid the quasi silence of the beginning is the challenge because it entails control of the color and of the breath.
   Last but not least we come to Daphnis et Chloé (1912), a ballet with exposed parts for piccolo, flute, and alto flute in G. In the second Suite the flute solo depicts the loves of Pan and Syrinx.
   The line of the solo is not, in my view, really thematic. It is built in fact around very few notes: high G#, C#, B, D#, A#, and finally D. Each note is repeated at least three times, sometimes much more. The intervening notes (scales, connections) are of an almost ornamental nature. They grow from a simple pattern to a florid one.
   To interpret this beautiful page, the flutist should first identify these skeleton notes, as I have tried to do in the following diagram. Each of these three identical notes should have its own dynamic or color to create a sense of progression (or digression). Vibrato should animate this solo throughout, albeit with a great variety of vibrato speed to enhance changes of tone color, timbre, and dynamics, so that, once again, repeated notes of the same name always have a different direction and an unexpected savor. This will underline the pleading and sensual character of the solo. Notes of the same name, as I call them, should always have a direction, in Ravel as in most music.

   The connecting notes should be played with simplicity when there are few and with increasing rubato as the amount of notes increases to return to simplicity when a new skeleton note appears, and so forth.
   The starting dynamic indication is p. It should not be played f, no doubt, but a generous mp seems in order, especially in view of the progressions.
   The tempo is eighth note = 66, definitely not quarter note = 66. This score is full of mistakes, and the famous E or E# question stems from ambiguity. The flute has E# and the score has a blank space in front of the E. When asked about this discrepancy by a flutist, Ravel is said to have answered, "Frankly, I don’t give a darn…."
   I used to play Daphnis in the Orchestre de Paris at least 20 times a year on tour or at home, in different acoustics, and I am sure, or at least I hope, that my interpretations were never the same. I recorded Daphnis many times, with, among others, Andre Cluytens (ca. 1964, EMI), Charles Munch (1968, EMI), Herbert von Karajan (ca. 1972), and Daniel Barenboim (ca. 1975).

¹Factual information for this article was obtained in Ravel: Man and Musician by Arbie Orenstein, Columbia University Press, 1975.

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