May 2020 Archives - The Instrumentalist

How to Get IT Back

theinstrumenta — Tue, 05 May 2020 19:41:13 +0000

Originally printed in January 2007 Flute Talk

Anyone who has ever put the flute away for a period of time knows that the embouchure dissipates quickly. Even a two-week vacation can wreak havoc with the skills we take for granted. Coming back to the flute after years of neglect, however, is an entirely different matter.

   A snippet of personal history will explain why I lost it, how I got it back and some of the struggles I faced. As a teenager I was a West Coast whiz kid, winning every competition I entered with lightening-fast fingers and a tight, smiley embouchure. My first flute teacher was a doubler, who said, "Smile. It is just like playing on a Coke bottle." He was well-meaning, but the die was cast and habit set.
   During college I attempted an embouchure change, which was successful on the right side of the mouth but not on the left. Throughout a 35-year career, my tone has been inconsistent, mainly because the embouchure was asymmetrical. Some days the left side was tighter than others. Playing those first few long tones each day was a dreaded activity because I never knew what was going to come out of the instrument. I began to spend much more energy and time on the embouchure and air direction than on the music I was attempting to play.
   A career change in 2001 brought me to Flute Talk as its editor, while continuing to teach and hold a church organ and choral position. I was working a full-time job in a field I knew little about. I knew about the flute, of course, but magazine production and editing were another matter. There was a lot to learn, and I embraced the challenge. However, by the end of that year it was clear that something had to go. After finding teachers for my private students and resigning from the church position, I put the flute away. I was just too tired at the end of a work day to practice. I didn’t even miss playing very much.
   In 2005 at the N.F.A. convention in San Diego, a fire began to smolder inside me. After not touching the instrument for almost five years. I passionately wanted to play again. I didn’t know if the ability to do so would come back. My 96-year old father likes to remind me that I am no spring chicken anymore. After all, what is technically possible in one’s 20s and 30s is often less possible in one’s 50s and 60s.
   One year later I am happy to report that It is back, and every flutist reading this knows what It is – a beautiful, flowing, rich sound with depth. The fluid fingers have also returned for the most part. Clear articulation in all forms will take a while longer.
   There is an advantage to learning, or in this case re-learning, a skill as an adult. I believe that the average fifthgrader starting a musical instrument has not yet become a totally conscious human being. They learn instinctively, often without much thought about what they are trying to accomplish. Their mindset is often finger the right notes and put them in approximately the right places.
   Adults, on the other hand, have a lifetime of knowledge and experience upon which to draw. Not playing for so many years made it possible for me to approach the flute from square one, but with all of the musical experiences that I had amassed during my career.
   The first day was wonderful! My embouchure was relaxed because the left corner of my mouth had forgotten to be tight. The tightness came back with a vengeance on the second day, which was therefore a disaster. Aware of this old tightening habit, I played long tones for just five minutes each day, puffing the left cheek to establish a new relaxed habit. This activity continued for several weeks.
   Although I had tried to accomplish a relaxed left side throughout my previous playing career, the habit had been too strong to break, but now after a five-year break, the tight embouchure was less entrenched. With attention to relaxing the left side while warming up with long tones, creating the new embouchure was easier than at any other time in my flute-playing life.
   When I was confident that the embouchure was ready, I added slow movements from Handel sonatas. Because their range is mostly limited to the staff, my embouchure was not taxed to jump into extreme highs or lows as I continued to reinforce the new approach with simple melodies.
   My fingers were sluggish and not always synchronized, but they had always been a strength, and I knew they would return with time. I added slurred, slow one-octave scales, followed by Soussmann’s Progressive Studies, Op. 53. These easy etudes use a limited range and are proceeded by a matching scale study. Playing slowly to listen for finger baubles, I added articulation and discovered tonguing was a problem, although it had also been a strength before.
   After several months, I switched to Trevor Wye’s Complete Daily Exercises for the Flute – Essential Practice Material for all intermediate to advanced flautists (Novello, 1999). It became my workbook for the next six months. In fact, I still use it every day. The beauty of this little gem is its organization. With sticky notes to mark the pages, I practice one thing from each of the six sections each day for a week: tone exercises, warm-ups and vocalize; scales and scale exercises; arpeggios; chromatic exercises; the third octave; and daily exercises.

Tone
Aware of my tendency to obsess about the embouchure, warming up with melodies has been helpful. I can concentrate on phrasing, color, and musicality instead. Choose one melody each day or week- whatever works for you, or create a collection of tunes that you like. Using songs and melodies to start the day redirects the mind toward the music and its expressiveness, something that is quickly lost when you fret about the workings of the anatomy. Students can easily lose contact with the emotions that brought them to music in the first place, when they are urged to think on a physical level. I believe that happened to me.

Scales and Scales Exercises
Wye included 11 ways to play scales in this section, and many are closely related to similar patterns found in books by Moyse, Taffanel, and Gaubert. Those returning to the flute after a long absence should start with easy patterns. When playing begins to feel comfortable, move to a a new scale study to keep the practicing fresh. Also, avoid articulation -just slur while listening for smooth connected intervals. Players must be able to connect notes smoothly before interjecting the tongue into the situation. Besides, articulation can camouflage numerous problems.

Arpeggios
Twenty arpeggio studies are included in Wye’s compendium, so enjoy the variety. I worked # 1 with a metronome set on a slow tempo. Those arpeggios that were not clean and smooth received brackets to indicate uncoordinated fingers, which I practiced in rhythms to bring them up to the metronome speed. I continue to revisit # 1 in the arpeggio section, increasing the tempo in small increments each time. I probably don’t play them as well as I did 20 years ago, but they are much better than they were a year ago.

Chromatic Exercises
Chromatic passages under the best of circumstances present performers with numerous opportunities for uneven fingers. These six chromatic studies provide enough variety to avoid boredom while players practice slowly. Avoid what I call pa-doos – note connections that are not quite coordinated.

The Third Octave
On returning to the flute, the high register was and still is my biggest technical challenge. I find the numerous cross-fingerings in the flute’s stratosphere less secure than they used to be, and 20 years ago they were a piece of cake. Practice third octave passages slowly and deliberately with various rhythms, or work them in tempo in small segments. Patricia George calls this chunking. I still need more work here.
In the final analysis and one year later, my sound is better and more secure than it was before I stopped playing. My finger technique is approximately 90% of what it used to be although articulation speed is considerably less than that. Both of these skills require muscle coordination that is established more easily at a younger age. It seems that there is some truth to that old adage about old dogs and new tricks. That said, I will continue to work to improve. Goal setting has been a life-long motivational tool for me, so a few notches higher on the metronome is the order for the foreseeable future.

* * *

A Personal Melody Book
The following list is my present melody collection:
Amazing Grace
Canzone by Samuel Barber
"Sarabande" from J.S. Bach’s Partita in A Minor
The Swan by Saint-Saens Shostakovich Symphony #5, end of 1st mvt.
Marceau de Concourse, Pavane, Berceuse, Op. 16, and Sicilienne by Gabriel Faure
Ave Maria, Bach-Gounod arr.
"Bali Ha’i," South Pacific, Richard Rodgers
Greensleeves
Londonderry Air or Danny Boy
"Over the Rainbow," The Wizard of Oz, Harold Arlen
"Summertime," Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin
"Going Home," Dvorak’s New World Symphony

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From the Publishers

theinstrumenta — Tue, 05 May 2020 19:09:45 +0000

We hope you and your loved ones are staying safe in these uncertain times. Given the crisis, we have made the difficult choice to put the May/June issue online only. No password is necessary to read the online issue. No matter where you are, we hope music remains a comfort.

Cover image provided by Alice K. Dade.

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Conducting from the Flutist’s Chair

theinstrumenta — Tue, 05 May 2020 18:50:09 +0000

Originally printed in October 2007 Flute Talk

   Among the myriad tools critical to professional success is the development of a repertoire of conducting gestures for playing chamber music. Giving a good cue to an ensemble while trying to blow through a difficult passage can be somewhat akin to rubbing your tummy and patting your head simultaneously. However, with practice, help from colleagues, and a little study, these difficult maneuvers can become second nature.
   In chamber music, flutists often find themselves playing the role of musician and conductor at the same time. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the instrument’s high, baton-like perch ideally suits the flute to bringing ensembles in and out of pieces. The difficulty is that doing so is simply much more difficult than it looks, and musical pitfalls abound. If cues are vague or in the wrong tempo, they can send ensembles tortuously spiraling out of control. Even a wanton twitch on the flutist’s part can cause problems.
   Compounding the difficulty is that flutists should not be content simply bringing ensembles in and out of a piece, but should enthusiastically shoulder the additional obligation of communicating music through gesture. In short, good cuing is simultaneously functional and artistic.
   Although there are a wide variety of skills worth mastering within each category, cuing can be divided into two fundamental steps – preparation and execution. Each step should be practiced separately and then together.

The Preparation
   A cue’s preparation involves so many critical elements, that to the uninitiated, trying to play, gesture in a comfortable, confident fashion, and show the music’s mood simultaneously can turn terrific playing into the ordinary. It is best to work on the basics and add more as comfort and fluidity grows.
   On its most basic level, a cue should communicate tempo. Before pieces start, the cue giver should look at the metronome marking and find a key passage from which to reliably draw a good tempo. Next be certain that everyone is watching before starting. I hate to think of how many times horn players have been caught with their crooks out, building a reservoir beside their seat, or clarinetists have been frantically trying to extricate a swab from their instrument when a flutist gave a cue.
   When giving a cue, a slouched posture and casual facial expression communicates a lack of energy and can dramatically affect an ensemble’s performance. Musicians subconsciously match the energy of the person giving the cue. Sit up straight, comfortably seated on the edge of the chair, with the music stand lowered to a height where your shoulders and head are easily visible to the rest of the ensemble. Within the limits of embouchure and instrument, the intensity of expression and body position subtly communicate a wide range of emotions, from energy and pathos to a dolce character.

The Execution
   An ictus is a visual example of a recurring stress or beat and is a vital part of cuing music. While conductors are quite comfortable using batons to show an ictus as they beat metric patterns before an orchestra, unpracticed flutists may feel an incipient implosion as they play while cuing.
   A flutist’s cue should have two bounces, or ictuses. The first is a beginning, upward bounce, followed by a bounce that comes at the conclusion of the downward gesture. Unless the opening entrance is on the upbeat, the ensemble enters with the second ictus. Each of the two bounces should strike the same, invisible horizontal plane. The amount of motion behind the gestures depends on tempo and the piece’s character. However, a clear ictus is most successfully shown on the flute by simultaneously using the arms to raise and lower the end of the flute, and accompanying this with a slight flick of the right wrist (not unlike what a conductor does with a baton.)
   The wrist motion is critical to giving a clear ictus to the ensemble. Simply using arms to show the beat inevitably results in an indeterminate ictus point. This can slow down the cue and often makes entrances difficult to line up.
   The cue should also include a subtle, but audible breath that matches the tempo of the ictus. All members of the chamber ensemble should breathe together and have their eyes up, out of the music, with bodies and in truments in position.
   After becoming comfortable with the rudiments of executing a good cue, flutists can add more expressive elements. The size of the cue’s gesture and its speed communicate vast amounts of musical information. A large gesture denotes a grand, big opening note, while the converse is true for smaller gestures. A fast, sharp breath can signal energy or passion, while a soft, barely visible or audible one communicates a placid character to ensemble and audience.

Cut-Offs and Beat Patterns
   Cutting an ensemble off is an entirely different musical issue, but uses many of the same skills. All of the ensemble members’ eyes should be up. As with bringing an ensemble in, giving a clear ictus is critical for cut-offs. The preparation for a cut-off should be a simple raising and lowering of the instrument in the tempo of the piece. Giving two clear ictuses (preparation and cut-off) can sometimes confuse a group, so the only clear ictus in a cut-off should come with the note’s resolution.
   When raising and lowering the end of the flute in a cut-off, there are two basic expressive gestures available to flutists. The first is the standard forward circle. When preparing the cutoff, the end of the flute goes up, forward and then down to the original starting position. This is useful for piece endings that have a sharp or distinct concluding note. For pieces where the last note should taper and waft away, scribing a backward circle encourages a wonderful lifted sound from the ensemble. The return to the starting point with the flute’s end should not be aggressive, but rather have a gentle flick of the wrist as it continues the circular motion beyond the note’s conclusion.
   Inevitably, even the best ensembles encounter trouble, where one or more members of the group get lost during performance. For moments such as these, knowledge of the score is critical. You should also mark rehearsal numbers with a large cue, and be able to beat in two, three, or four metric patterns to help right a foundering ensemble. As with all cuing elements, this requires practice, communication, and experience, but it can salvage even the most precarious musical moments.
   Finally, practice all cuing in front of a mirror, video camera, and your peers. Look for stiffness and superfluous motion. As you practice, ask yourself as objectively as possible whether the motion is clear and natural. Take care to keep the flute securely anchored to your lip, and try to keep the air stream uninterrupted by the physical gesture. Great chamber music performance is a symbiotic experience, where no individual’s responsibility is greater than another’s. All musicians should breathe, move, and play together.

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Dawn Carol by Margaret Lowe

theinstrumenta — Tue, 05 May 2020 18:42:40 +0000

Originally printed in October 2001 Flute Talk

    Composer Margaret Lowe wrote Dawn Carol as a gift for Carol Kniebusch Noe and the James Madison University flute choir in Harrisonburg, Virginia and should be performed by many flutists scattered around the hall and among the audience. Each player enters canonically when the previous player reaches the asterisk.
   The piece should be played with some flexibility of rhythms so the phrases do not coincide but overlap with varying pauses. The result should be continuing sound with players dropping out as they reach the end of the first section. After a short break the second section begins in similar fashion and dynamics are indicated only as a guide.
   Dawn Carol has been performed throughout the United States and the composer put the rights to the piece in the public domain. "I have no desire to make financial profit. After all, it is based on a simple chord, which is common property to all musicians. I am happy for it to be photocopied but I usually suggest a donation to a fund known as the Birmingham Flute Commission which commissions new compositions for flute."
   Retired flutist and composer, Lowe lives in Birmingham, England and studied composition at University of Birmingham and flute at Birmingham Conservatoire with Geoffrey Gilbert.

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The First Half Hour

theinstrumenta — Tue, 05 May 2020 17:33:39 +0000

Attitude, Alpha and Omega
   When you practice, turn your brain to the on setting. Approach the ﬂute with a positive attitude, care, and respect. What emerges from it is a reﬂection of yourself.
   In the ﬁrst half hour of practice, we form and maintain the basic elements of success: Comfort and Consistency. Comfort is the Alpha of ﬂute playing. It is poised relaxation, growing from good position, posture, and breathing. Consistency is the Omega. To be consistent, you must feel comfortable. Consistency is the doorway to artistry, which is a state of sustained balance and strength, allowing for creativity and ease with the fundamentals. Keep these goals in your mind every day when starting out.
   Comfort is about the Now. To be comfortable is to feel natural: a state of mental clarity, physical balance and relaxation. The mental and the physical work together in an energy loop. The body talks to the mind, and vice-versa. Your job is to be aware of that conversation, in the moment. This requires Honesty.
   Consistency is about the Future. This requires Gumption. (dictionary.com: gumption: noun, informal. 1. initiative; aggressiveness; resourcefulness. 2. courage; spunk; guts. 3. Common sense; shrewdness.) Get comfortable, stay positive, address tone and technique fundamentals with the same basic approach every day when starting, and the door to consistency will open.

Mental and Physical
Start by observing either the Mental (…what’s bugging you?) or the Physical (…ouch that hurts!) It is good to feel mentally okay, and this is usually a lifetime goal. Of course, life can interfere, and the show must go on. We persevere.
Alas, it is the body which must actually play the notes. A few simple stretches may help with this or perhaps an exercise or Yoga routine that encourages balance and strength. I like to cycle and often stretch for that activity, which helps with ﬂute playing as well.

Posture, Breathing, Blowing, and Embouchure
I focus on tone and technique in the ﬁrst half hour of work. I start with tone and find it helps to have a little checklist. With proﬁciency, the checklist only takes a few minutes to complete.
Tone: Play a few easy notes and ask yourself about posture. Is your head balanced on your spine? Is your pelvis balanced? This has a direct effect on head position. Ask yourself about pain (maybe you need a bit more attention to those stretches!)
Breathe fully and expand the ribcage. The abdomen expands and contracts naturally, without interference. After sleep, sometimes opening the ribcage in the morning is a bit like opening a clamshell. Stand up straight and don’t force it.
Some basic questions about air are in order.
1. Air Volume (Q: How much air you are blowing? A: Usually, as with butter and biscuits, the more the better, up to a point.)
2. Air Velocity (Q: How large is the embouchure aperture? A: No larger than needed.)
3. Air Direction (Q: Where are you blowing? A: Generally down, and bisecting the blowhole as accurately as possible.)

   I have a little mirror nearby and, cautiously avoiding my general appearance early in the morning, I periodically check my embouchure to see if I am actually blowing at the ﬂute, Southwest, Southeast, or off into the great beyond.
   Take note of your embouchure. It should be natural and relaxed, but ﬁrm, without any pulling down, up or to the sides. The upper lip sort of ﬂoats on a cushion of air. Only gentle pressure with the ﬂute against the lower lip; this is generally relaxing (especially for the jaw) and avoids pancake lip in which the lip plate mashes the lower lip ﬂat. The flute should be at a proper right angle to the nose.
   Having established these things in the ﬁrst ﬁve minutes, I move on to technique. I play some basic exercises to ﬁll the remainder of the time. You can work on technique and tone separately or together if time is tight.

Melody and Warmup
Often, I work on tone separately for about 10 minutes. Moyse’s De la Sonorite covers most bases for pure, non-applied development. Cycle through the exercises, judging what you need most. Legato with intervals, especially descending skips, deserve special attention. Incorporate good vibrato habits, practicing them every day. Sometimes, if things feel natural, you can apply these characteristics directly to melody. Make sure you have a good stock of great melodies from the operatic, solo, and orchestral repertoire to keep you inspired. Incorporate good phrasing and intonation habits. Assuming you can recover from the initial horror of hearing your tone, a recorder is most useful. I frequently like to start the day with a good melody.

No Notes, No Music
A beautiful tone is not enough by itself. Technical ease and consistency are necessary for artistry. Good technique does rely on good tone production, but the development of technique is mostly nose to the grindstone stuﬀ. Embrace the spiny bits and enjoy the work. Stay relaxed.

Technique: Cycle through a number of exercises that cover the basics and help you regularly establish relaxed, even technique. I mostly work through traditional exercises. I like Maquarre and Reichert for efficiently covering basics. With Maquarre be sure to vary articulations in the exercises. I also like Paula Robison’s jolly and useful Flute Warmups Book, and Geoffrey Gilbert’s (rather difficult) Sequences: Twelve Sets of Daily Exercises Based on Scales and Chords. I also always have my Taffanel and Gaubert handy. There are many great technique and warmup books out there. Explore and ﬁnd the ones which really get you going in the morning.

Etudes: Some players are real etude fanatics, and others cannot stand them. If you are well trained, you will have been force-fed an entire smorgasbord in school. The great Thomas Nyfenger often went back to basics by working on his Andersen. I like to apply technique and phrasing in etudes now and then when I have the time, sometimes going to an etude after an abbreviated warmup. Occasionally I make a project of learning a new etude and trying to play it perfectly by week’s end. There are so many to choose from. Sometimes, it is best to just go directly to the musical promised land and work on some Bach. I enjoy Stallman’s transcription of 66 Pieces by J.S. Bach, and keep my volume within reach.

Bits and Pieces
Whatever the ﬂavor of the month is regarding basic technical work, vary your process. Choose whatever feels right for the day. These processes consist of 3 primary categories:
1. Basic Metronome: This is traditional woodshedding. Work on small groups from slow to fast, increasing the metronome speed gradually. Layer the work, adding groups. Always start slower rather than faster. This can be tedious, but it is totally necessary.
2. Small Fragments: Organize bits of the scales, arpeggios, or technical passages into groups for comprehension and comfort. This can be done with or without the metronome. Amounts of time between fragments can be varied, rhythmically, or arrhythmically.
3. Partitions: Hold certain notes as placeholders in a group. Again, this can be subtle, as if creating a small tenuto, or you can go freestyle without the metronome, lengthening notes for comprehensive and comfort. Comfort is important here, and requires honesty. Tone work can also be incorporated nicely. Follow-up always has to be done to mold the groups back into the rhythm.
Always test your work in tempo, without the metronome. If it still needs more study, either move on and live to ﬁght again tomorrow, or go right back to the drawing-board and sort out where you went amiss.

In a Hurry
Remember that time is easily wasted, and exercises can be used either more, or less intelligently. One of the hardest things about starting practice every day is patience. Doing the slow work saves you time in the long run because less repetition is required. This is probably the greatest challenge of practicing. We are often in a hurry to get to the repertoire. Schedules need to be met, and programs must be played. It is hard to work on the things which need hard work, but we are selling ourselves short by rushing.
Take a little breather after the ﬁrst half hour. Chill out. Stay off your phone. The tortoise wins this race.

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Art and Folklore in the Compositions of Katherine Hoover

theinstrumenta — Mon, 04 May 2020 17:01:28 +0000

Originally printed in the January 2002 issue of Flute Talk

(1937-2018)

Flutist Katherine Hoover is known to many as the composer of Kokopeli, although her numerous compositions include the traditional as well as contemporary forms. She was born in West Virginia in 1937 and majored in theory and flute at the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Joseph Mariano; she studied later with William Kincaid in Philadelphia, and at the Manhattan School of Music. She lives in New York City, freelances with ballet and opera companies, and continues an active career as a composer and conductor.

How much does your background with Joseph Mariano and William Kincaid, who stressed the importance of strong liquid intervals and crossbarline phrasing, influence the style of music you compose?
One of the foundations of music is moving from a weak beat to a strong beat, a lesson I learned from Mariano and Kincaid. The big disadvantage of notation is that people generally give more importance to what they see than to what they hear. Big stop signs in the form of barlines are written into the music before every downbeat, and they send a very strong visual signal to stop the forward motion.

Was Kokopeli written without barlines for that reason?
It occurred to me to write Kokopeli without barlines after playing facsimiles of Medieval and Renaissance duets that were written without barlines. I wanted long flowing phrases to be performed freely without the walls that barlines create. With freedom from barlines musicians respond to the sounds of the piece, as well as the acoustics of the hall, which should influence the tempo, interpretation, and length of rests and fermatas.

When I listen to Kokopeli I find myself thinking of the Grand Canyon. What is it about the southwestern part of the country that prompts you to refer to it in several compositions?
Because of the quiet spirituality, the colors of the sky, and the unusual topography I find the southwest a most interesting place to visit. Being in that part of the country is like landing in a foreign place. There are more similarities between Philadelphia or New York and London or Vienna than there are to Arizona or New Mexico. Several of my works have been influenced by this magic place, and by the native American cultures there.

It is relatively easy for performers today to communicate with composers, but does this become a burden when musicians call you with performance questions?
Composers jump up and down and celebrate when someone calls because those calls are proof that our music is being played. I appreciate it when performers ask about an ambiguity in the printed music. It may have cropped up in the publishing process, which is a tremendous, picky, job and some errors do occur. It helps to correct these mistakes if performers raise questions about possible errors.

It would be hard for me to pour my heart and soul into a composition and then have no control over the final product? How do you cope with that?
When I was a neophyte composer it probably wasn’t much fun sitting next to me at the premiere of a new piece because I got so anxious with the piece out of my hands. Now this is much easier because I have gained confidence in the performers who play my music.

After hearing performances of your works, have you ever wanted to change the notation to make it clearer?
I have learned that even performing composers misread music at times. When I recorded Winter Spirits I left out a rest. Only later did I discover that I had recorded it incorrectly for posterity; but I played it at the end of a long day when I wasn’t fresh. Probably some flutists will think that the printed music is incorrect because the composer played it differently on a recording.

Why haven’t you written a flute concerto?
Simply because I have not received a commission for this, but I am definitely interested in the project. It will happen when the time is right.

In writing a composition, can you hear the music in your head and do composers really jot notes down on napkins in cafes?
I have done a little jotting in the middle of the night, but it’s not my habit. Research is the first thing I do after receiving a commission, and I adore that part of the project. If the piece is not to be for. flute, I will listen to much of the existing repertoire for that instrument and fill my head with the sounds and capabilities of it. I listen for inherently weak and strong notes or particular characteristics, and then I just wait for an imaginative idea that fits this instrument. For the orchestral work I am writing now the inspiration came from a museum painting. I studied and looked at it from many different angles, then began to write. I use myths and references to art to inspire new sounds because I don’t want a new composition to sound like others I have written.

It is said that Paul Hindemith could play all the instruments for which he wrote, but how strong is your knowledge of instruments other than flute?
I am not Hindemith, although it would certainly be to my advantage to be able to play a string instrument. While playing a Broadway show, I worked on the violin during every intermission, but I believe that the process of assimilating the sounds of an instrument has taken me much further in the compositional process.

Do you work with the commissioner or make changes during the compositional process?
My research is usually thorough enough that only minimal changes are in order, but I always reassure performers that an awkward or difficult passage can usually be rewritten. A lyrical section should never sound awkward, but I probably would not change an extremely difficult passage that should sound a little stressed.

What is your opinion about using the extended techniques that are so prevalent in contemporary compositions?
I only use extended techniques when they fit into the emotion I want to express. Frankly, I think that double stops sound a little odd on the flute, which is why I have used them only once, in the clown movement of Masks. In Canyon Echoes I used extended techniques for waifs of grief and sounds of wind. Some composers use extended techniques for the sake of exploring them, but that type of composition is entirely different from the style in which I write.

Although flutists have a chance to meet and talk at national conventions, how do composers communicate with each other?
Contemporary composers are all very hungry for performance opportunities. The limited number of performers who like to play new works are much like a life raft to keep composers’ hope afloat. The simple fact is that most composers do not welcome other composers aboard the raft. Each of us works quite alone in a virtual vacuum, and our world is very competitive. Although there are organizations for composers, most composers are not helpful to colleagues though there are a few blessed exceptions. I am very lucky that one of my close friends is a composer. We talk about music and enjoy each other,· but friendships between composers are not common.

Does this vacuum limit the extent to which the compositional styles of composers influence others?
To some extent it may, though we all have access to C.D.s and tapes. There are several compositional styles at the present and composers are free to choose any style, but generally composers favor others who write in the same style and are more likely to recommend them for jobs and competitions.

I am surprised to learn that political connections are an important factor in the composer’s world.
Politics affect who will receive awards, grants, and performance opportunities. I am thrilled about a future performance at Carnegie Hall because I am not accepted as a composer by the New York musical establishment. My works are played all over the rest of the country but not at home. I am not one of the uptown or downtown people, and I was not trained at Juilliard. Because I played as a freelance flutist for years before I started to compose, in the eyes of the New York composition community this somehow makes me a less serious composer. Someone told me that if I wanted to be taken seriously as a New York composer I should not perform on the flute.

In the recent Flute Talk interviews with Francis Blaisdell and Patricia George neither was aware that their musical activities were clearing the way for future generations, and I believe the same could be said about you as well.
It didn’t occur to me at the time that I was moving into uncharted territory, but at Eastman I was the only female in my undergraduate composition classes. I wrote little bits and pieces but nobody looked at my work. Women who chose an unexpected career like composition were not taken seriously. "Who do you think you are? Beethoven?" was the institutional response. It seems incomprehensible now because during the late 1970s students, male and female, began writing compositions as a normal part of theory assignments. Today student-written pieces are often included on student recitals and everyone is encouraged to explore the field of composition.

What are your future compositional goals?
My main goal is to write music to the very best of my ability, and expanding into composition for all types of chamber groups is secondary. I am crazy about writing for strings and orchestras, and recently I have composed some works that include voice. All of these areas interest and inspire me.
I was trained in flute and theory, not composition, so I feel particularly lucky and very grateful to those flutists who have taken an interest in my music. Since I started composing I have always remembered that much of my success is attributable to the flute community.

* * *

   Katherine Hoover’s Kokopeli offers performers many opportunities for varied color effects and mood changes. It is based on the flute-playing folk character with a hump back and uses melodic fragments of native American music. The piece is carefully notated with precise rhythmic and dynamic markings. There are no bar lines and, according to the composer, "accidentals carry through the line but do not transfer to another octave."
    Kokopeli has become a staple in the flute performer’s solo repertoire since its composition in 1990. For a complete performance guide to the work see Flute Talk, January 1997, "A Performance Guide to Katherine Hoover’s Kokopeli" by Lillian Santiago-Caballero.
    The Anasazi first carved Kokopelli images on cliff walls over 3,000 years ago. A symbol seen throughout the American southwest the hump-backed flute player has become an icon of the flute playing world more recently and is depicted as a wandering trickster with magical powers. In traditional lore Kokopelli, sometimes spelled Kokopeli, is a multi-purpose deity depicted as a rain priest and a fertility god as well as a symbol of joy and happiness. According to Hopi legend, Kokopelli visits villages playing his flute and carrying seeds in a backpack; everyone sings and dances all night but when the people awake the next morning they find full grown corn, pregnant young women, and the prankster is gone. When Kokopelli plays his flute the sun comes out, the snow melts, the grass grows, the birds sing, and all the animals gather around to hear the music. The flute invokes the supernatural and carries messages from earth to god while Kokopelli’s hump carries gifts of life from the supernatural to man.
    Ekkehart Malotki, a professor of languages at Northern Arizona University writes that the mythical figure we call Kokopelli is really a combination of Kookopolo, a prominently hump-backed promiscuous robber fly who scatters food from his hump but has no flute, and Kookopolmana, the female counterpart, a flute playing cicada that the Hopi call Maahu. The cicada is the emblem of the Hopi flute societies. Malotki considers the modern Kokopelli to be mythographically inauthentic but harmless and writes in his book Kokopelli: The Making of an Icon, Kokopelli is "an intercultural wanderer, revealing not only the derivativeness and lack of taste and cultural respect in our world but also the innovative potential inherent in any meeting of cultures."
    Mythological tales have inspired composers for centuries, and the flute repertoire includes "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" from Orfeo by Christoph Willibald Von Gluck, Undine Sonate by Carl Reinecke, Chant du Linos by Andre Jolivet, La Flute de Pan by Jules Mouquet, Syrinx by Claude Debussy, Afternoon of a Faun by Claude Debussy, Chansons de Bilitis by Claude Debussy, Les Joueurs de flute by Albert Roussell, Kokopeli and Winter Sprits by Katherine Hoover, Narcissus by Thea Musgrave, "Sicilienne" from Pelleas et Melisande by Gabriel Faure, Pan by Johannes Donjon, and Danse de la Chevre by Arthur Honegger.

Works for Flute by Katherine Hoover
Flute Alone
Kokopeli (1990); Reflections (1982); Winter Spirits (1997)
Multiple Flutes
Kyrie, 12 flutes (1998); Sound Bytes (1990); Suite for Two Flutes, Boelke-Bomart; Three for Eight, 8 flutes (1996); Trio for Flutes (1974)
Flute and Other Instruments
Canyon Echos, guitar (1991 ); Caprice, guitar (2000); Dances & Variations, harp (199 5); Homage to Bartok, wind quintet (1975); Lyric Trio, cello, piano (1982); Masks, piano (1998); Medieval Suite, piano or orchestra; Theodore Presser Co.; Qwindtet, wind quintet (1987)
Except where noted all works are published by Papagena Press.

The post Art and Folklore in the Compositions of Katherine Hoover appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

The Secrets of Practicing

theinstrumenta — Fri, 01 May 2020 23:01:12 +0000

Originally Published in Flute Talk, February 2002

By Michel Debost

Before attempting to elaborate on practicing, It is necessary to accept the fact that many young flutists are not pursuing the flute as their life-long raison d’etre. This is a mixed blessing because it is a very crowded road already. This is not to imply that practicing does not apply to them. It is perfectly legitimate to aspire to become a Tiger Woods, but however great the passion, the average weekend golfer does not practice the same way. Being an old professional and teacher, my thoughts naturally tum to the future artist, to the budding flute dreamer, to the ambitious student of any age, and to my sister and brother, the flute player.

Glory is only bestowed upon those who have dreamed of her. ¹

For most of us, the dream goes through practice.
   Why do we practice? Sometimes it is to come to terms with our guilt. Often it is just to play the pieces we like. Always it is because we just love to blow the thing. Those with professional ambitions practice to get better: more efficient instrumentally, more beautiful tonally, more relevant intellectually, and more touching musically.
   When we should practice depends on individual schedules and preferences. I have always practiced better in the morning, but others prefer the night. It would be ideal to practice every day, or six days a week. Even God decreed that we rest one day a week. If obligations intervene, even four or five days a week can be very productive. I don’t think cramming practice into one or two days is a good idea, for reasons I will try to explain.
   How much time we should practice on any given day is a matter of preference. Pianists and violinists clock upwards of six or eight hours, while singers and high brass players stay closer to two. I think flutists can go a long way with three, if it is done intelligently and consistently over the week.
   Practice is an acquired skill that builds endurance and memory. Look at Olympic swimmers for whom training improves speed and endurance, but the start and the turn are skills that gain precious hundredths of a second.   These are repeated over and over, decomposed, analyzed, and finally can be performed under stress without thinking.

Without technique, a gift is just a dirty habit.²

The flute is comparable. Intricate finger combinations can be mastered in the peace of the practice room and finally can be played under stress without thinking. The only place where mediocrity and sloppy playing are inexcusable is in the practice room. Sometimes licks that have been well practiced still fall apart at the wrong moment, and they certainly will if they have not been cleaned up in practice.
The great question is what to practice. When we have to get a piece ready for a lesson or a performance, the first temptation is to play only that, over and over again. However, I think that regular practice should always include basics:

Long tones in moderation, played with technical care, i.e. checked in the mirror; good posture, good hand placement (especially right hand) and attention to finger movements.
Always scales, not the perfunctory two-octave kind, but full length, such as Taffanel-Gaubert #4, and played with attention to tone, smoothness, and pitch. There are many others.
Arpeggios, tonal studies, such as Moyse 24 Petites Melodiques and Reichert Daily Exercises.

   If you succeed in becoming a member of an orchestra or a professional group, what with traffic and delays, you might not have time to warm up. In school the schedules are so tight that many students barely have time to put the flute together at the beginning of the rehearsal. Practicing the basics regularly certainly improves performance in the long term. Practice is next year’s warm-ups. The basics should be practiced on familiar things that can be played with ease and, above all, with a musical feeling. These should not be finger twisters that are played with pain in the body and hate in the soul but relatively simple patterns that can be played perfectly and beautifully.
   Work on basics should take up a third or half of the practice session. These exercises become daily companions, and it is through them that we improve the fastest. Play everything technical with a full beautiful tone; play musical passages with a smooth and easy technique.
   Once well memorized the basics can be played at any speed. For instance, scales can be played in fast bursts interrupted by rests or with changed dynamics, or played so fast that they take only one breath, or so slow that each note sings. I am not a lover of the metronome, which is a stupid machine. Of course, it is useful to check a tempo, but the darn thing can’t be running all the time. If you must use it, don’t play with the metronome but against it. The essence of phrasing is a "struggle between time and space."³ Certain subdivisions of time must be stretched to produce tension. Then the stretched space must be compensated for by a return to tempo.
   The worst possible way to practice is with the metronome increased by notches. I will try to explain the reasons for my opinion. My old professor in France⁴ always said to practice a technical difficulty "with very slow broken rhythms" and then to leave it alone, to sleep on it until the next day. I did as I was told (sometimes) without understanding. The logical and medical reasons were given to me in an article⁵ about, precisely, the acquisition of skills. When a skill is practiced, it is stored in the frontal area of the brain which holds recent and temporary data. After approximately six hours this data is moved to the back of the brain, to the cortex or gray matter. This is where permanent data or skills are stored. If the skill is tested in less than these six-hour digestive processes, the effectiveness of the storage process is hampered, and a lot of good work thrown away. This is why cramming for a lesson or for a term paper is really not the best way to learn.
   An unfortunate consequence of this storage process is that our memory of skills is stored indifferently, the good with the bad and the ugly. If a wrong note or a bad hand position becomes ingrained, the chances are that it will be very difficult to eradicate.
   This is why I implore my fellow teachers to be wary of posture and position very early and not to assign the great pieces of our poor repertoire too soon. When young players tackle the Mozart concertos, the Bach Partita, and the Prokofiev Sonata before they are ready, they often develop bad habits in tone, technique, breathing, and interpretation that will be very hard to correct. I give them pieces from the French book, ⁶ which are short, a bit technical, and have color, and students learn a lot with them. It takes weeks to learn Enesco; it takes years to learn Mozart (even without bad habits).
   Finally, half of our practice problems come from misread notes (and articulations, rhythms, and dynamics). Difficulties can be purely technical (finger twisters with antagonistic actions between fingers). These need breaking down and patience because many are just optical and psychological problems. For no reason A# minor is harder than Bb minor, and B major is easier than Cb major. Again scales fix that.
   What’s the use of practicing something before reading it? Learn how to read music. Read as much as you can, whether duets or etudes. Learn to read ahead and don’t ever stop. Stopping only shows that students are thinking with guilt of the recent past when they should be looking to the very near future. Reading and thinking, looking at the full score, using a pencil: isn’t this practicing?
—————————–
¹Charles de Gaulle
²Georges Brassens
³Marcel Tabuteau, former principal oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
⁴Gasron Crunelle, professor, Paris Conservatoire, 1941-1969.
⁵Science, August 1995.
⁶Flute Music by French Composers, Schirmer.

Bio from 2002:
Michel Debost, professor of flute at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio, is a world-renowned solost, and consulting editor and regular contributor to Flute Talk.

The post The Secrets of Practicing appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

During the Pause

theinstrumenta — Fri, 01 May 2020 22:14:21 +0000

This pause has given us time to focus on the basic fundamentals of flute performance. If there is one thing that improves the sound and embouchure facility, it is practicing harmonics. Harmonics are produced by fingering a fundamental note and then overblowing and/or changing the angle of the air with the embouchure to produce a higher note.

Headjoint First
Take the headjoint and hold it at each end with the thumb and index finger. Keeping the embouchure hole level, blow a low A. Take a breath and then increase the air speed to play an upper A (it will be out of tune). Practice this several times to build confidence in producing either the lower or upper A successfully on demand.

Agility
Practice the following exercises to gain agility and flexibility using the TU attack. Repeat each measure 4 to 10 times. Notice the aperture (opening in the lips) gets smaller for the upper A and larger for the lower A. Use a mirror to check this. Create more exercises utilizing less familiar rhythmic patterns. If you have a book of rhythms, practice playing them using the headjoint notes.

Slurring
Repeat the first six measures above slurring from the low A to high A or the opposite. Keep the headjoint still and do not roll in or out. Let the embouchure do the work. The embouchure hole remains level throughout the exercises.

Even Air
Play the low A with the tuner, not worrying about the pitch, but concentrating on keeping the needle still. Once you can keep the needle still without quivering for eight or more seconds, you are gaining control of the air stream. Playing with even air is the basis for developing a beautiful sound. Repeat using the high A. If the tone lacks focus, standing with the left foot in front and the right foot in back in the 12:00 and 2:30 position, aim the air towards your left big toe. Do not roll the flute in or lower the head. The head should be positioned at the bottom of a very small nod.

Articulation
With the tuner, play a lower A beginning the note with TU. Watch to see if the beginning of the note goes shaper and then settles into the needle being still. Most flutists see a spike of sharpness at the beginning of the note. The goal is to be perfectly in tune without the spike. If there is a spike, practice starting the note with a breath attack (tongueless attack). It is easier to control the pitch with the breath attack than with the TU attack. Practice until there is no spike in the HAH attack and then apply what you have learned to the TU attack. And eventually to the K attack.
Once the pitch is under control, practice for tonguing endurance and speed. Play four sixteenth notes as fast as you can. Then take a breath and tongue eight sixteenth notes as fast as you can. Each time add four sixteenth notes until you can tongue a string of 16 sixteenth notes fast. The goal for single tonguing should be about four sixteenth notes to 144 on the metronome. Repeat with the K syllable and then TK.

Vibrato
Vibrato is produced in the vocal folds. Play HAH, HAH, HAH, rest on the low A as softly as possible. These are called throat staccatos or breath attacks. Do not move your jaw, chest or abdomen. Once you can play a string of the throat staccatos, simply slur the HAH, HAH, HAH, followed by a rest many times. Repeat on the upper A. Now alternate slurring from low A to high A, placing 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 vibrato cycles on each note.

Add the Body to the Headjoint
Align the headjoint carefully. The center of the embouchure hole aligns with the center of the right-hand keys. Place the right hand on the barrel and play the following three notes from a low G fingering. Notice that a circle is placed above the note that to indicate that the note is played with a harmonic fingering. Take a sip breath between each note, holding the last note as long as possible. If you can taper on the last note, bravo.

Once you have mastered finding these pitches, slur each grouping of three notes. The first note is the fundamental or partial one. The next is partial two and the last is partial three. Eventually make up different patterns to slur such as: 3, 2, 1; 2, 3, 2, 3; 1, 3, 2 etc. Play with vibrato when doing this exercise. (See for several pages of melodies to be played with the right-hand on the barrel.)

Add the Footjoint
The harmonic series is a group of pitches that may be produced from a fundamental. When playing low C, it is possible to produce six to eight pitches above the fundamental. Exactly how many can be produced will depend on the individual flute. The intervallic (distance between two notes) relationship from one note or partial to the next is in this order: Perfect Octave, Perfect Fifth, Perfect Fourth, Major Third, Minor Third, Minor Third, and Major Second.

Play low C and then overblow to find the second octave C. Continue on with the G, C, E, G, Bb, and C tonguing each with a small rest in between each note. The goal of this first exercise is to find all the notes. It is rather like playing a bugle. Repeat on low C#, D, Eb, E, F, and F#. As the fundamental gets higher there will be fewer of the upper partials to sound.

Next practice slurring from one partial to the next as in the following exercise.

Work on each group of two notes making the slur sound as easy as possible. When practicing this exercise, the aperture will get smaller with each higher note. Some of these pairings respond better than others. Learning where the challenging places are helps you to learn about the idiosyncrasies of your individual flute.

To apply what you have achieved add in the regularly fingered note after the harmonic note. This will help develop ring in your sound. Once again, practicing harmonics with vibrato offers a huge payoff in tone work.

    Like the exercise above, practice playing the harmonics in different orders. Any work you do with this exercise offers huge benefits for the future.
    The goal is to memorize the harmonic series starting on any fundamental note. This will take some time but is worth the effort.
    For fun play simple melodies using the third harmonic partial. (See for several more melodies.)

There is no one way to practice harmonics. Be creative and explore the possibilities. Incorporate harmonic work into your daily warmup. Playing them only takes a few minutes but the results save you many hours of practice.

The post During the Pause appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

Julius Baker on Tone and Technique

theinstrumenta — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 00:11:46 +0000

This article originally appeared in the April 1976 issue of The Instrumentalist.

     During five days of master classes in Burlington, at the University of Vermont’s Mozart Festival, Julius Baker worked with 29 flutists, some Juilliard graduates, some still in college, and some housewives, to improve their playing. A great deal of time was devoted to the most obvious shortcoming of many flutists — a lack of fully projected, dead-center sound supported by a solid and steady air flow. Baker continually stressed the importance of playing long, high tones to achieve a fuller, better sound. Us-ing full vibrato, the students were told to play four descending chromatic high notes, holding each note four counts.
   For three days I listened to students diligently practice this high tone study and the results were astounding. Those who formerly were a half tone flat and couldn’t be heard beyond the first row definitely had acquired a more confident, in-tune sound. The exercise will help the flutist when he plays Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, for example, where he seldom moves off high E or F for the entire work.
    A "big round tone" is advocated by Baker, who has been with the New York Philharmonic for 11 years. Most flutists who have had any orchestral experience are well aware that the flute solo in the first movement of Dvorak’s "New World" Symphony, for example, will never be heard above the first violin section if the sound is not only supported but projected.
    Another daily study which Baker recommends for tone is playing long notes at p < f > p for nine counts. Baker also pointed out that the student should not take a breath when his lungs are still half full, but must release all the air before inhaling again.
    As for technique, he suggests the Taffanel and Gaubert arpeggios and scales (Exercises 1, 2, and 12 of the Grands Exercices Journaliers). These are to be memorized and practiced full-tone, all gears ahead, with the metronome set at 104. He also encourages the grouping and regrouping of scales to emphasize the importance of phrasing. Baker urges students to phrase over the bar line, the way one normally plays a Bach sonata, or for that matter, most music.
    Naturally, a great part of tone quality is related to intonation and pitch. During the course of the master classes, tuning was the first rather difficult step to performance because of the efficient air conditioning system. Nevertheless, Baker encouraged the student (at the beginning of his performance) to play with the head joint pulled out so the flutist had the option to push it in if need be.
    Baker’s technique for tuning no doubt comes from many years of adjusting to orchestral oboists. First he hits the note, somewhat like a string player would pluck a string when tuning. After he has established the pitch, he extends the note into a long tone. Baker is adamant about starting low and working the pitch up. His embouchure, then, acts like the fine tuner on a string instrument.

Vibrato and Tone Color

    During the question and answer periods many students expressed a preoccupation with vibrato and tone color, although few of them were ready for work on the latter. Julius Baker is an artist at both. He had no easy advice on either topic. When teaching vibrato he sets the metronome and has the student release a quarter of the air on each beat, while sustaining a four-count long tone. The tempo is then doubled so that four impulses eventually become eight, and so on.
    Baker can instantly spot a vibrato with a "tight throat" and recommends eliminating vibrato from the throat by having the student go back to playing without vibrato until it comes naturally. Indeed, he remarked that many of his students were never taught vibrato, it just happened. (Considering the concentrated high note studies that he recommends, I can see how muscular control could eventually evolve into a natural vibrato.)
    Baker’s solution for achieving tone color was not as precise as his answers on vibrato. After all, tone color is a highly developed skill which includes a number of variables — timing, dynamics, width of vibrato, phrasing, breath control, and articulation. The best illustration of superb tone color can be found in Julius Baker’s own playing. When playing one particular passage over and over again for different students, he never once played it the same way. The changing nuances were not in the structure of the music, but in the color and poetry of Baker’s playing.
    Perhaps we can see how this skill is acquired by watching Baker work with his students. Although one of the more advanced students seemed to be playing the second movement from Handel’s Sonata in G Major very well, Baker stopped her at a particular passage (see Ex. 1). The lower B, an up-beat to the high B, sounded dead. Baker wanted vibrato on that eighth note — not too much, or it would become a dotted eighth, but enough for the note to come alive. At first the player overcompensated, and just as Baker forewarned, the eighth note was too long. So he asked her to forget that he had ever mentioned the problem, and she played the note exactly right.

Bach

From 1947-1965 Julius Baker was a member of the Bach Aria Group and is renowned for his knowledge of ornamentation. Thus, although the Vermont Festival centered around Mozart, many of us chose to play Bach sonatas. The opening measures of the Bach Sonata No. 1 in B Minor took up an entire morning (see Ex. 2).

    Half of the students played the 32nd and 16th note figure like a triplet, while the other half simply could not make the proper contact with the accompanist for a harmonious entrance. (The entrance is tricky because the pianist relies on the downbeat given by the flutist during the piano’s 16th rest.)
    Baker, demonstrating his solution several times, suggested a slight bow forward and back on the eighth rest, prior to the beginning pickup. He neither looked at the pianist furtively nor raised his elbows like a bird taking off in flight. Though hardly noticeable, this slight body movement always brought the accompanist in with precision.
    The third problem encountered in the same two measures came with the first F#, which the flutists invariably jumped on and then left hanging. Baker explained that were this string music, both eighth notes (B and F#) would be played with an up-bow. Since the up-bow is usually weaker, it follows that the F# quarter notes on the down-bow are more important, and stronger.
    The first movement of Bach’s Sonata No. 6 in E Major presented problems of a different nature. At least ten different editions of the sonatas are available to the student. Baker recommends the Boosey & Hawkes edition because it more closely reproduces the ornamentation printed in the Bach Ge-sellschaft than any other edition.
    One brief example is typical of the discrepancies in many editions. The Bach Gesellschaft shows it as

while one of the other editions shows it as

There is an extreme difference of opinion here. Bach obviously wanted the emphasis on the trilled low F# of the third beat and not the E. A mordent on the E followed by a breath mark shifts this emphasis. Such discrepancies warrant careful evaluation by teachers in suggesting the right edition of the Bach sonatas to their students.

Fingerings

Fingerings were not first priority in the class, although Baker demands correct finger placement with the thumb pad of the right hand centered between the first two keys. Like most professionals, his fingers stick magically close to the flute. Many of us were astounded by one girl who played the entire Doppler Fantasie Pastorale Hongroise with her fingers raised at least two inches off the keys. The handicap in no way fettered her determination to keep up the tempo, but her job would have been so much easier had she relaxed her fingers on the keys.
Baker also mentioned that he does not believe in fake fingerings, but later qualified his statement by saying that their use is a matter of personal discretion. In the faster orchestral passages, some fake fingerings are practical. Baker suggests that the middle finger F# is to be played only in E-F# (or vice versa) trills and rapid passages.

Instruments

    Julius Baker plays a Powell, Haynes, and Muramatsu flute, interchanging head joints from time to time. One of his flutes has what is called a split E key, a bridging device which pulls down the lower half of the G key when high E is fingered. The effect is the same as an open G and is especially helpful in slurs (such as high E-A) that tend to break.
    Many of the students were playing the Cooper-Powell flute. Cooper is a flute maker in London who has been working on corrections for the existing Boehm system for many years. His scale is much more precise and eliminates tacky intonation problems of the standard flute, such as the flat low E-B register. The Cooper flute is an eighth of an inch shorter than the traditional Powell. Richard Jerome of the Powell Flute Company in Boston informs me that in a year’s time, the Cooper flute became as popular as the standard Powell model.
    When trying out another student’s Louis Lot flute, Baker stopped several times to remark on the absence of the Bb lever key, the one depressed by the side of the first finger of the right hand. On fast runs this key is extremely useful.
    Perhaps the most unforgettable experience of those five days was hearing Julius Baker pick up his flute and play a scale, whiz through Chaminade, or produce the most beautiful A in the world. A twentieth century person, he believes in the cassette recorder as the flutist’s tool for bio-feedback. "Listen to yourself," he says. "You can’t buy talent. You can’t add to it. You can develop it."

Recommended Readings

Boehm, Theobald. The Flute and Flute Playing. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

Chapman, F.B. Flute Technique. New York: Oxford University Press.

Quantz, Joachim. On Playing the Flute. Translated by Reilly. New York: The Free Press.

Recommended Studies

Bitsch, Marcel. Twelve Etudes for Flute. Paris: Leduc.

Bozza, Eugene. Fourteen Arabesques. Paris: Leduc. Casterede, Jacques. Twelve Studies. Paris: Leduc.

De Lorenzo, Leonardo. Nine Grand Concert Etudes. Frankfurt: Zimmermann.

Genzmer, Harold. Twelve Neuzeitliche Etuden. Vol. 1 and Vol. II (13-24). London: Schott.

Taffanel & Gaubert. Grands Exercices Jounaliers. Paris: Leduc.

Scores

Bach, J.S. Bach Gesellschaft. Lea Pocket Score No. 10, Bryn Mawr, Pa.: Theodore Presser, Co.

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