In January 2005 I moved from Florida to Dublin, Ireland to take a position lecturing in flute at the Conservatory of Music and Drama at Technological University Dublin. The position began as a temporary one as I was teaching for a flute lecturer who was on a two-year sabbatical. As it turned out, fourteen years later, I have remained in Dublin, am happily married to an amazing traditional Irish musician, and am still lecturing in flute at TU Dublin. 

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Answer: Developing a more beautiful tone is a complex matter with many variables that include air speed, air pressure, air direction, aperture size, aperture shape, embouchure flexibility, the attack you use, and posture. The goal is to single out each of these variables and work to make them efficient and productive. This will lead to long-lasting improvements in your tone quality.
    In gym workouts training is divided between muscle groups, and the same should be true in flute practice. The following are exercises for each area. Each exercise should have a clear target and should be as simple as possible. The most useful exercises are the ones that focus on only one area at a time, so you can find what works best for you. 

Air Speed 
    Play slurred arpeggios for two octaves, ascending and descending smoothly. This teaches air speed control. Because the intervals between each note are rather small, try adding the seventh for a major or minor 7th chord or a full diminished chord. You should be able to play these with only micro changes in the embouchure and you can focus on slightly increasing the air speed as you play up the chord and decreasing the air speed as you descend. 
    Think about playing these arpeggios as climbing the stairs with each stair representing a note. As you climb each step, increase the air speed slightly. Since this exercise is about the air, try to keep lip movement at a minimum and use no vibrato. 

Air Pressure 
    The best way I have found to explore air pressure is to lean against a wall with the left elbow only. Play a note as you slowly push the wall with your elbow. If you do it correctly, you will be able to notice what happens inside you, especially around your chest. In order to push the wall away, you have to increase the pressure of the air inside you. Then try to create the same feeling away from the wall. 

Air Direction 
    The lips are responsible for controlling the direction of the air. Put your hand in front of your mouth (about a quarter of an inch away). Slowly direct the air upwards towards the fingertips and then back down to your wrist. Practice this a few times and then repeat this movement with the flute.

Aperture Shape, Size and Position 
    Play a long tone on a first octave B or Bb. Experiment with changing the shape of the aperture. Use a mirror to enhance your success. Explore making a horizontal elliptical shape to a vertical elliptical shape. Also experiment with the depth of the aperture by pushing the lips forward and then back. You might find a better position for the lips than what you have been using.  

Embouchure Flexibility 
    Octaves are the ideal workout for developing embouchure flexibility. Play octaves in various controlled rhythms and make sure to change the notes with your lips only, while keeping your air stream unchanged. (See Flute Talk, February 2018 for more ideas about this.)

Attacks 
    There are four main ways to attack notes – with your tongue behind your teeth, with your tongue between the lips, with your lips only (pa, pa) and a with breath attack (no tongue). Practice passages with each of these ways. Practice these attacks with scales and arpeggios. Vary the dynamics, exploring from forte to pianissimo. 

    As a final word, I recommend that instead of practicing tone quality or aiming at improving your tone quality, focus instead on improving each of these variables. Work on each one separately. You will be surprised to find how much your tone quality improves in this way.   

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1 Make friends and practice in small groups. Some of the instrumentalists you meet at music camp just may turn into life-long colleagues. Creating these connections while you are working on shared goals at camp opens the door to future collaborations down the road. The friends I made during my summer at the Interlochen Summer Arts Camp eventually became some of my closest connections and, thanks to social media, remain very much part of my musical life to this day. A great way to establish these relationships during the short time spent at music camp is to practice in small groups. This promotes a strong sense of community  while strengthening budding ensembles skills in both large and small group contexts. These are two critical elements in musical development that are often taken for granted. 

2 Determine your most productive practice times. Some musicians prefer to drill scales early in the morning while others rely on the energy of the evening to inspire concentrated work on repertoire. Music camp is a good time to experiment by practicing at different times of the day. When I was a young student attending the Lionel Hampton Summer Music Camp at the University of Idaho, I often practiced in the morning and late afternoons to free up evening hours to attend recitals and spend time with family. I soon realized that my energy was naturally low in the morning hours, and my focus was less on the music and more on the impending activities of the day. That fall I pushed my practice sessions to later in the afternoon after school. This worked well for memorization work, but my energy would dwindle as soon as dinner time rolled around. In high school I attended the Interlochen Summer Arts Camp and began to practice in the evening. The day was done, and I could set everything else aside to focus on the music. To this day, I tend to practice between the hours of 8:00-10:00 pm. The freedom from your regular schedule allows you to experiment with different practice times while at camp. Understanding what works best for you will help energize practice sessions throughout your career. 

3 Classical flutists are often stereotyped as being overly competitive. With contests for chair placement and solo opportunities, it is easy to fall into the “me vs. them” mentality with fellow musicians. Camp offers an opportunity to temporarily change your attitude (especially if you find yourself stressed about getting ahead). Rather than trying to outplay everybody around you to get that coveted first chair position, use the time to improve your playing  and encourage your new flute friends to improve their own playing without trying to beat them. This positive attitude will promote a strong sense of camaraderie and strengthen both your networking skills and general musicianship. In the end, you will be a better flutist and will likely establish important connections with other flutists. 

4 Seize the opportunity to completely immerse yourself in music. With camp lasting for only a set duration of time, you can push yourself to the edge of your ability and practice beyond your current playing level. Is there a piece of music that you would love to learn but do not think is within your capabilities? Use camp as a chance to try it out. What techniques can camp instructors suggest to make your music not so intimidating? Try them out. Try to absorb everything and learn something new from all the music created around you. I used to keep an observation journal for this purpose. I could record the names of pieces I liked, practice suggestions from instructors, ideas for different types sounds I would like to emulate, and anything else that inspired me. Keep these notes and use them to challenge yourself once you are back home. 

5 Chamber music groups are valuable and fun. Really listen to the instruments around you. How can you melt seamlessly into the sound of an oboe or a French horn? Listen to your intonation and think about the natural tendencies of the instruments around you. Practice using eye contact and body language for cues and tutti playing. Identify places where you function as melody versus passages where you are part of the accompaniment. Think about how you should adjust your playing during these passages to make room for the melody. This is a great opportunity to practice how effectively you communicate musically and non-musically with your colleagues. 

6 Ask the experts questions. Attending music camp provides a valuable opportunity to get advice from a wide variety of teachers with a vast array of ideas and experience. Make sure to schedule a private lesson or two with the primary flute instructor. Confront all of your musical demons no matter how big or small. How would you like your sound to change? Do you struggle with some of the fingerings in the high register? How is your sightreading? How is your intonation? The experts are there to help you improve, but in order to take advantage of their advice, you must be a bit vulnerable about your flute playing and open to new ideas. Take advantage of the unique opportunity to study with the best of the best. 

7 Remember that first chair is not everything. Try to learn new skills no matter what your chair placement and work hard to improve with every passing day. Performing second flute is often more difficult than playing principal. If you are given a second flute role, you may sometimes feel that the conductor does not believe that you capable of playing principal. This is not necessarily true. The reality is that you were likely selected for that position because you have the potential to be a gifted chameleon. Blending, listening, matching, and supporting is often more challenging than projecting beautiful melodies. Take every chair placement as an opportunity to learn new approaches and add to the ensemble. A good principal flute should be able to play all of the parts from third or fourth flute to piccolo. Your position in regular school ensembles may be relatively set, so camp is a great place to experience a greater variety of roles. 

8 Attend performances. Part of immersing yourself in your music is learning through watching and listening to others. Keep an observation journal to make notes about things you want to bring into your own playing. I still have some of the observation journals that I used in high school and college and consult them whenever I am looking for new ideas. Listen critically and if possible bring a score and discretely follow along with the music. Write down anything that you hear or see that seems particularity effective or inspiring. Consider how you might translate these performance elements into your own practice or build upon them to create something new. 

9 Explore new repertoire. You may love it, or it may not work out, but music camp is a good time to give it a go. I was lucky in my youth to attend a high school with a strong music program and a fierce-as-nails flute section. It was considered taboo to practice a piece that another flutist was preparing for competition season, so opportunities to check out one of the beloved pieces in the flute studio were generally restricted to at-home practice or summer studies. I listened intently to all of the pieces played in flute studio and took notes on works I heard other flutists perform at competitions. By the time I went to summer music camp, I had a good list of pieces I wanted to read through. I took some of my favorites to the assigned flute teacher and began to work on fundamental concepts for each work. By the conclusion of music camp, I knew which pieces I wanted to program for the upcoming school year, and what elements I would need to master to play them. 

10 Bring everything you have learned back to your practice room at home. Music camp is the best time to act as an informational sponge. Learn as many new techniques as possible, experiment with new pieces, postures, articulations, crazy extended techniques, and connect with new flute friends far and wide. The time you spend at summer camp provides a lifetime of memories and valuable lessons. I cherish the summers I spent at music camp and still draw upon many of these experiences in my adult flute career.     

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    The topic of music memorization is one that is often left to the individual, as each musician develops his or her own style and method. Music notation is just black ink on white paper. Memorization allows musicians to raise their heads out of the page to express the emotions intended by the composer. When a musician steps away from the written notes there are endless options to convey emotions, atmosphere, and expressions. There are certain principles that help guide purposeful memorization. This is different from simply memorizing for the sake of a performance or competition. Purposeful memorization means to deliberately commit music into the long-term memory.
    While music memorization for most musicians is an added benefit to improve performance, for flutist Sheryl Goodnight, it is a necessity because she is legally blind. At age six she was formally diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disorder that causes nighttime blindness, no peripheral vision, and nearsightedness. Her vision gradually worsened over time. At first, she could manage with music enlargements, but by age 26, the contrast of black notes against white paper became indistinguishable. It was at this time that she was faced with the challenge of committing all pieces of music in her current and future repertoire to memory. Today, with more than 40 years of experience memorizing music and over 100 major works committed to memory, she is considered an expert on the topic. 
    When I began studying flute with Sheryl in 2013, I was amazed by not only the sheer amount of works in her memory bank, but also the many details and nuances in her playing. True memorization of a musical work is more than inscribing the notes on the page into one’s head. The following tips for music memorization can be utilized by both experienced musicians and students as a starting point for long-term memorization. 

Musical Structure & Form 
    The first step is to look at the overall form – sonata, binary, ternary, theme and variations, etc. Next, label the tonal centers and where the keys change and modulate. However, writing too much information on the page can be counterproductive. Rather than marking up the part, one technique that is helpful is to have a separate sheet of paper on which you can write out the form, using rehearsal letters and numbers as landmarks, filling in the space between with any pertinent information. This creates a visual template on which you can see the work as a whole and look at the macro picture of memorization. 
    Sheryl recommends examining how the composer develops the melodies. Is he extending the melodies in terms of the new key areas or just using fragments of them in the development? She teaches that part of understanding structure and form is the ability to recognize patterns, both harmonically and melodically. Listening to and analyzing the harmonic progressions in a piece is an inseparable part of understanding the harmonic form and how the melody layers in. Look for scales, arpeggios, and thirds as well as the use of contrary motion, oblique motion, parallel motion and so on. After studying the overall structure of the work, go through and ask what is different about particular passages or phrases. How is the recapitulation different from the initial exposition, or how are the A and B themes used throughout the recapitulation? Even if it is something as small as a dynamic or note change, find what is different in the music and commit those turning points to memory. 

Rehearsal Numbers and Phrasing 
    It has been Sheryl’s experience that rehearsal letters and numbers hold more use than merely indicating where to stop and start in rehearsals. They often are helpful in discerning sections in the overall layout of the piece. For instance, in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture, the work follows more of a free form, or multi-structure layout, than a single form such as a rondo. This makes the rehearsal letters important signposts. The Allegro gusto section of this overture, from rehearsal letter D through F, is very rhythmic, and is similar to the section from M to O. Finding the relationship of rehearsal markings to form can be helpful in tying smaller sections together. The more contextual tips one remembers about the music, such as the form, tonal centers, and rehearsal markings, the more avenues the brain has available to later access the information. Utilize these markings to connect micro ideas in the music to the macro analysis and understanding of the piece. 

Understanding Rests 
    Know what is going on in the rests of the music, whether playing with a large symphony, wind ensemble, or pianist. From her experience as an orchestral flutist, Sheryl says that knowing what is happening when you are not playing will help you understand the phrase structure without the gaps and is a crucial part of memorization. Going back to Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture, there is a melodic passage in the flute part that is proceeded by a section of rests, during which the cello leads into and sets up the flute passage with similar melodic ideas. Knowing what to listen for before and after an entrance helps players understand how that part fits into the piece. While listening to a piece of music in its entirety before a rehearsal is expected, having a full score to study while listening is even better.  
    In Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf understanding the other parts in the ensemble and how they interact is the only way to hold the open dialogue this piece requires of its players. This understanding helps players organize the melodic and harmonic material and vertical and horizontal alignment much better than just counting large groups of rests alone. Thinking and listening to other parts, both in rests and while playing, improves ensemble awareness and plays an important role in musicianship and memorization. 

Breathing and Ensemble Awareness 
    Music begins, is sustained, and ultimately concludes with a breath, making it a vital part of ensemble communication. Listening to ensemble breathing is crucial for timing. Sheryl says that listening for breaths helps with entrances, especially when the entire ensemble has a rest together. She goes on to say that you must enter and exit a phrase or line of music together as a unit, and not as individuals. One way to incorporate ensemble listening in your practice is to record the rehearsal and then listen to the recording during practice sessions. Sheryl recommends recording, with the permission of the director, some if not all rehearsals. They often catch the things players are too busy to notice. 
    Listening to those around you and reacting to each other helps create a unified ambiance. Long-term comprehensive memorization is far more than knowing and understanding one’s own part; it is about connecting, understanding, and feeling together with others through collaboration.

Practice 
    While repetition is key in memorization, be careful to avoid practicing and consequently memorizing mistakes. It is important to practice at a tempo in which you can achieve complete success, slowing down to whatever tempo will allow your muscles to memorize correct notes and rhythms. In order to play fast passages, you must practice perfection not tempo. Practice playing from one section to another freely and with a flowing quality because the expectation at the first rehearsal of an orchestra is that all parts are learned and ready to be molded together. Practicing this will also help the brain compartmentalize micro sections into a macro idea, helping to aid the mind in long-term memory of large works. This is not to say that practice cannot include working sectionally or in small chunks, as isolation has its benefits. When practicing at letter C, make sure to go back and combine that section with playing from letter B-D to connect the sections. Making the connection fluidly from one section to another is crucial for memorization. 
    Music memorization is an inevitable and important part of being a performing musician today. These tips are a starting point to aid in the development of personal strategies.      Œ.

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