Arugula
  
   The opening of the first movement, is quite challenging. The repetitive themes seem endless, and you have to avoid cracking the middle Es. Try to adapt the air speed to these middle-register notes (but think one octave higher) without pushing too much. You should be able to play this passage by memory before your first piano rehearsal. Good intonation is crucial in order to obtain the perfect colors. I practiced by playing chords on the piano with the sostenuto pedal down, while playing the piccolo part slowly to hear the colors created by the blending of piano and piccolo together.
   In measure 70, Huylebroeck refers to Stravinsky’s Petrouchka. Listen to recordings of this masterwork for inspiration on how to perform the passage. A strong low register is needed for the Andante passage that begins in measure 76. Don’t worry about a fuzzy, airy, sound, as all noises will disappear when accompanied by the piano.

   From measure 87 you get the opportunity to show your creativity by playing the same combination of notes six times in a row. No dynamic markings are added here, but use your imagination in changing volume and color. A little tenuto on some notes might be a good idea as well. Pay as much attention as possible to the pitches that change slightly in bars 92 and 93.

   Just before the cadenza in bar 99, the pianist has arpeggios that include all the harmonic material used in the cadenza itself. Listen carefully to this to match the piano’s intonation precisely.
   The cadenza passage can be quite free, but try to bring out the correct rhythms: don’t confuse the triplet figures in measure 105 with the dotted rhythms two beats later. The third-octave D trill in measure 110 should be a tremolo obtained by fingering low D to low F and overblowing.
   The repeated Presto measure in 118 is played without the piano the first time through and is a real tongue-twister. I personally get the best results by combining double and triple staccato in order to stay flexible. At concerts, I try to switch to double tonguing in measure 132.

Burrito
   The opening of the second movement is a citation from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and is marked molto legato en sempre p. Instead of using your tongue, articulate the quarters with the letter P in measure 19, being careful not to disturb the legato line between the E, D, and C in measure 20. Note this section is marked Bluesy. I suggest using the thumb B flat fingering for the A# in measure 24.
   Avoid a crescendo in the ascending lines in measures 31 and 32. You can get a special color by lifting your pinky finger on the high E in 32. In these long melodic lines, experiment with vibrato. I find that vibrato should be relatively fast and small in comparison to vibrato on flute in similar settings. By keeping a yawning feeling in the throat, you can find the right color for the low notes in  51 and 52.

   The music changes from a bluesy character to more of a dancing atmosphere in measure 56. Try to keep a singing feeling in your throat when playing the high notes at the end of bar 57 to avoid a squeaky sound. Measure 58 requires a smart combination of single, double, and triple tonguing. Don’t move in the two last bars of this movement; keep the bluesy feeling and only drop your head after the pianist releases the pedal.

Enchilada

   The third movement is fun to play and comes as a reward for all brave piccolo players after the previous two difficult movements. Take a fast tempo and try to get the most out of the accents in the first three bars of the movement. Measures 66 and 68 should sound like explosions!
   Measures 70-100 always remind me of cartoon music. Play the ornaments as loud and large as you can, and exaggerate the dynamics. Don’t forget to lift your right-hand pinky on high B.

   Ensemble between piccolo and piano gets a little tricky after the double bar at 100. It is a good idea to write some piano cues into your piccolo part before the first rehearsal with piano.
   Quotes from Stravinsky return at measure 147 at pp and ppp levels. Take a risk, even if nothing comes out, and you will create a thrilling atmosphere for your audience.
   At the end of the movement, as in the second movement, the composer gives the last word (or note) to the piano. Perfect timing and ensemble feeling is very important at this moment.
   I had a lot of fun preparing this piece for recording together with Stefan. At concerts, Kay El’LeM has proved to be a perfect piece to convince a large audience that the piccolo is a respectable recital instrument. I hope you will all enjoy performing this wonderful piccolo sonata.

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Don’t (Over) Prepare
   As someone who still battles a fair amount of performance anxiety, I sometimes think myself into a corner while performing as I worry about the notes that already have passed. I also worry about difficult passages on the pages ahead. The most crippling effect of all of the worry is that I spend no time focusing on the music I am playing and that should be flowing through me. This is what I am attempting to communicate with the audience. The principle of don’t prepare does not mean don’t practice, it means simply to not dwell on thoughts and worries of the past or future. To over prepare is to deny the spontaneity and joy of the moment. Working with improvisational exercises helps musicians be more attentive to the present. You have spent time practicing and learning the music carefully. To not be open to enjoying and sharing the performance can feel like a real disappointment, both to listeners and the performer.

Make Mistakes
   In your practice, take risks. Play with intention. If you make mistakes, make them with flair. Madsen writes, “When I say, ‘Make mistakes, please,’ what I really want is for you to do something risky or challenging, something out of your comfort zone, where mistakes are possible (and likely), and to proceed boldly.” Embrace the mistakes. Whether or not they lead you to new ideas for expression (more vibrato here, a new way of phrasing, or a different tone color there) or just point out a soft spot in your physical connection to the instrument, they are always instructive.
   William Westney’s book The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self devotes an entire chapter to the “Juicy Mistake.” He states that, through ignoring mistakes, through “over-controlling the body” in an attempt to suppress them, or through simply explaining them away, we stifle the creative process. For your practice sessions, find an environment where you feel comfortable making mistakes. This will help you find a more effortless and artistic flow in your performances.

The End Result
   The benefit of comedic improvisational classes, has been enormous. I began to focus on how to use creative improvisational exercises in my practice as well as with my students. I eventually developed a series of group workshops that transferred theatrical improv exercises into musical improv games. Some exercises are corny and fun. While many of the exercises serve as icebreakers, others directly lead to musical improvement and exploration. Musicians Jeffrey Agrell and Tom Hall have also produced excellent, innovative collections of musical improvistation games. Many of the solo and group games I adapted are based on Viola Spolin’s book Improvisation for the Theater.

Solo Improvisation Exercises
   In addition to Robert Dick’s Thirty Creative Seconds, I ask students to explore a techinque called Magnification, that is adapted from Spolin’s theatrical exercise. The flutist plays a passage several times. It may be improvised or from the flute repertoire. With each repeated play, he increases the intensity of emotion. As an acting exercise, the emotions might run from affection to love to adoration; suspicion to fear to terror; or irritation to anger to rage. It is easier to portray these emotions verbally, but when students try to change the mood of the music, it changes how they think about the passage and gives new insight and intention in their performance.
   Creating improvised passages of varying intensities, moods, colors, and shapes is a great way to expand the boundaries of expression. For some people envisioning a color progression or a set of images is helpful. Can a listener objectively hear that you imagined a passage with an inflection of pink and a dash of light blue in the middle? No, but it might give you (or your students) new ideas and paths of musical exploration.
   A teacher friend developed a game in which she writes scenarios, moods, or characters on a few scraps of paper that she folds and places on the stand. The student chooses one and performs a phrase from his repertoire in the selected style. The process repeats, with the student portraying these various styles, until all of the selections have been explored. While the student performs, the teacher tries to guess which interpretation the student is performing. This exercise is especially effective with intermediate level students, as it is engaging and gets the student to think more creatively.
   Spolin’s Mirror Sound exercise may also be adapted for the flute studio. Either the teacher or the student begins by improvising anything from one note to a short passage. Then the other flutist responds mirroring the passage back, matching pitch, vibrato, color, dynamics and emotion. Optimally, this should be done almost simultaneously, with the mirroring partner following immediately after the creator has finished. For younger students this exercise might be adapted as an ear training exercise with the creator playing one note and the mirroring partner finding that pitch.  

   Practicing improvisationally is a technique that both Robert Dick and Wissam Boustany teach. In your practice, take a section of a work and improvise in the same character as that passage. If you are working with a pianist for a recital or are preparing for a chamber music performance, you might convince your cohorts to try it with you.

Group Exercises
   Echoing is a group improv exercise that I adapted from Spolin’s book. The group stands in a circle. The first musician plays a note and then one by one the note is played by the next person in the circle. Each player’s goal is to match the intensity of vibrato, tone color, pitch, dynamic level, intensity and emotion of the note before. Echoing sometimes works like a game of telephone, as the sound that starts around the circle changes. A variation of this exercise is to have each player slightly change the note in some way as it is passed around the circle. As the group becomes more proficient, the passing of one note may evolve into passing a phrase. Echoing is based on the comedic improv game Pass the Action, which is a physical version of telephone. In Pass the Action the participants pass a gesture (a bunny hop, a tip of the hat, a strange facial expression) around the room. This is a great game to play without instruments with a group of students to enliven the atmosphere if they are low on energy.
   Musical Machine is a fun rhythmic improvisation game. One person creates an idea for a machine, and then the groups acts it out. Each person chooses a sound to represent his mechanical task to make the machine work. The musical machine might build singing mechanical frogs. Ask students to imagine what musical sounds could represent the processes for building such a creature. Players perform their musical tasks in a line, and learn to listen carefully to come in at their cue. The game is goofy, but encourages good listening skills. Fun variations include a slow-motion musical machine, or a musical machine operating at hyper speed.

   A more straightforward improvisatory group game is based on Paint Your Mammoth, a flute ensemble composition by Robert Dick. Three small groups participate: one group serves as a drone, one is rhythmic accompaniment, and the third is the melodic component. The drones select a tonality or specific small set of pitches and provide harmonic accompaniment. The rhythm section keeps pace through key clicks, tongue pizzicato (or other percussive flute sounds), clapping, or snapping. The melody group can either use a pre-written melody or improvise within the chosen tonality. This exercise can be a bit more complex than some of the others, but it is a great way to introduce the idea of form in improvisation. When trying this with students, assign one group to be the leader of momentum – perhaps for one turn, the rhythmic component driving the motion of a piece, and deciding when to ramp up the energy to a peak and when to end. On the next turn, the leadership role shifts to the harmonizers, and so on. Give the leading group a time frame to work within to help the students think about how to structure and lead the improvisation.
   Improvisation is a tool that helps musicians find greater nuance in our playing. It teaches us to take risks,  embrace the moment and run with it. Finding the wonderful improviser that lives within can help to silence the negative, judgmental ghosts that so often plague musicians. None of us are perfect performers, but the world of creative improvisation serves as a useful method for uncovering the playful, artistic spirit that makes for the most inspirational performances.

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Body alignment
•    Stance – Was it consciously chosen through instruction or is it happenstance?
Tone quality
•    Does the student understand the relationship of the blowing angle of the air onto the wall of the embouchure hole?
•    How does the student move the air stream?
•    Vibrato production – Is vibrato used artistically?
Phrase shaping
•    Does the student change tone colors to enhance melodic phrasing?
Rhythm
•    Use of ritard and tempo markings
Musical style
•    Does the student listen harmonically or just play melodically?
•    Basic elements of music – the form, and overall pacing
Accuracy
•    Intonation
•    Is the technique well-formed?

   I suggest jotting down short notes to help you design a course of study.
Arnold Jacobs, the legendary tuba professor and breathing expert, organized his lessons in a novel and brilliant way. He would say, “Let’s fix your most obvious problem first and then when that is fixed, we’ll move on to your next most obvious problem.” This is great advice for us all. After looking at your notes, use Jacobs’ advice and proceed with the flutist’s first most obvious problem such as tone production. Define the problem and then offer several ways to solve the problem.
 
The Teacher’s Lesson Notebook
   A typical university professor teaches approximately 20 flute (or music education) majors each week in addition to a woodwind methods class, flute choir or chamber ensembles. To keep tabs on each student, many professors have expanded the grade and attendance book into a lesson notebook. Set up this lesson book during the first lesson.

   For my lesson book I use a loose leaf notebook. It is separated into chapters with one for each student. Each chapter begins with a page of contact information for the student (name, school and home addresses, email address, and phone numbers) and his class schedule. The next page lists my playing assessment of the student. I also include a few words about long and short term goals and a curriculum guide charting the way to attain the goals. Each of the following pages represents one of the lessons for the term. If there are 12 lessons per term, there will be 12 pages. On each lesson page, I list three categories representing the areas of focus: foundation work (sound and technique), etudes, and solos. Under each category I make notes on what I have heard each week, what suggestions I have made to ensure progress in these areas, and a list of new assignments. This may seem like a lot of writing, but it is possible to develop a type of short hand so it only takes moments to make the entries. At each lesson, the student is graded on his progress from one week to the next. At the end of the term, it is very easy to clarify exactly what the grade for the term should be because you have excellent documentation of the term’s work.
   As one student leaves the studio and the next enters, I quickly scan the lesson notebook entry and proceed with the lesson where we left off last week. When a student graduates, I take the chapters from each year and place them in another folder. This folder is helpful for writing more meaningful letters of recommendation in the future.
 
The Student’s Lesson and Practice Notebook
   Setting up the student’s lesson and practice notebook is also completed at the first lesson. On the first page of the book, write your name and contact information. My contact information includes the studio phone number and the personal phone number I wish students to use, email address and office hours. The next page is required course syllabus from the university followed by a page outlining the personal goals of the student for the semester. These goals are set after evaluating the student at the first lesson. These goals are of two varieties: those for improving flute performance and others to satisfy graduation requirements such as juries, competitions, or recitals. I also include what music is to be covered during the term, listing technique and etude books plus solo assignments. If the student does not own the music, then I write the exact name of the composition, the publisher’s name, approximate price, and suggestions on where to purchase the music. For returning students this page is updated at the end of the previous term so the student has the correct music to begin the next term of lessons. The next pages are for each lesson. At the top of the page is the lesson assignment for the next week. I always include five to ten ways to practice each etude and solo. After the lesson, the student uses the lesson book as a diary noting what he has learned that day. During the practice week the student writes practice methods and the results he has used to accomplish preset goals along with the date and length of time spent practicing. He also notes any questions that arise during his practice for us to discuss at his next lesson.
   The student’s notebook also holds the handouts that I share during the term. I suggest the student place the handouts in vinyl pages to keep them clean and tattered free. If these handouts are in a logical order and are clean and tatter free, then the student has masters that can be copied for his students once he is out in the field teaching. Most of my students leave university studies with a stack of handouts that are several inches high. Many of these handouts may be downloaded from www.flutetalkmagazine.com. (Patricia George’s extras)

Fine
   It should take about one hour to ask the questions above, listen to the student play, construct a curriculum plan, and set up the notebooks. Ask the student if he has any questions about what is expected from his flute studies. Many professors set up a big brother/sister program matching an upperclassman with an entering freshman. Setting up a mentoring program can be helpful in nurturing students in their first semester of study. Following these suggestions ensures the semester of lessons is off to a good, healthy, productive start. These ideas, especially the teacher and student notebooks, can be adapted to use with younger students of various levels.   

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Education
   Arnone got her first experience playing flute at age eight. At the private school she attended, all the students played in band. “I wanted to play the clarinet because a friend of mine played it. My parents, however, bought me a used flute for $50. It took me two weeks to get a sound, but I stuck with it. One day it clicked, and I finally figured out how to aim the air stream.”
   A year later Arnone was playing in Port Charlotte’s community band where she sat alongside seasoned musician Harry Collette, a retired jazz and big band saxophonist from Detroit. Collette happened to be in the process of learning the flute and gave Francesca her first private lessons. “We were basically learning together. He also had me play in the community pops orchestra beside him.”
   As a senior in high school she studied with Kenneth Scutt, who had just retired from the Associate Principal position in the Philadelphia Orchestra. “Mr. Scutt was very intimidating to me. He had studied at Curtis with Kincaid and Tabuteau. I wanted to pursue music, but he thought that, although I had potential, I was starting too late. I think he was frustrated with how much work had to be done. It was palpable to me as a young student how far behind I was, and this created a lot of difficulty for me.” Scutt suggested that Arnone consider Florida State instead of Oberlin, the school on which she had set her sights. “Just to be difficult, I didn’t even apply to Florida State. I’m sure I would have gotten tons out of Charles Delaney, but in my immature way, I was drawing a line in the sand as well as challenging myself.”
   Arnone auditioned at Oberlin, was accepted, and studied flute with Robert Willoughby and Julia Bogorad-Kogan, and traverso with Michael Lynn. “Of primary importance to Mr. Willoughby, was that he wanted us to be thinking musicians. He said, ‘I don’t care what you do, just do something and be able to tell me why.’ It was a powerful lesson. He taught me to always be musical and think about the phrase. I remember he often said that many times the most musical solution addresses the technical issues.”
   After Oberlin Arnone was making plans to start work on her master’s degree at the San Francisco Conservatory with Timothy Day when she was in a serious car accident, hit by a drunk driver. “I was generally okay, but my left arm was shredded and my jaw hit the steering wheel – this was before airbags. I had to learn how to play again from square one, which is not how one wants to start a master’s degree. I was terrified to take time off from school. I wish I had done so though, so that I could have healed well instead of putting myself under extra pressure. It worked out in the end, but it was a lot of pressure and work.”

Playing Abroad
   After graduating from the San Francisco Conservatory, Arnone stayed in town for about a year to freelance, build a teaching studio, and work as an administrative assistant for a chamber orchestra. An opportunity to make a rather large change came when a friend called her from Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands with the news that the orchestra needed a piccolo player. Arnone accepted the invitation, and with two years of high school Spanish under her belt, toured with the orchestra for four months. “I was so excited by this opportunity to learn new cultures and meet people through music.”
   It wasn’t long before another opportunity arrived when she heard about an opening for second flute in a symphony in Mexico where she ended up living for almost four years. “I initially went to Mexico to play with the Philarmónica del Bajío, but that job only lasted three months because shortly after I arrived, there was an election and a complete reversal of government leadership that affected the orchestra. Afterwards, I played co-principal in the Orquesta Sinfónica de la Universidade de Guanajuato. It’s hard to believe that there are so many government-run orchestras in Mexico. We think of it as a third-world country, but in many ways Mexico is a leader in terms of orchestras and supporting the arts. I spent most of my four years at my last job, a tenured position at the Universidad de Guanajuato, which funded a full-time orchestra. The symphony was very good. We played concerts a couple times a week, performing huge repertoire, much of which I may never play again. It was a terrific experience.”
   After several years Arnone moved to Florida where she started a private studio, and played in the Southwest Florida Symphony in Fort Myers. She also returned to school and received a doctorate at the University of Miami, studying with Christine Nield.

Teaching At West Virginia
   After graduating from the University of Miami, Arnone went to Boise, Idaho where she played principal in the Boise Philharmonic for four seasons and taught at Boise State University and Idaho State University in Pocatello. In 2006 she took the position of Assistant Professor of Flute at West Virginia University, where she has a private studio of both undergraduate and graduate students.
   “I believe that students have to get the mechanics down because this leads to freedom. I did it backwards when I was a student. I focused on the music first, and then later I finally accepted that my technique was a liability. If I had myself as a young student, I would probably think that she is just not ready to see the light and accept that this is the path that has to be taken to find success. Now I can truly understand my own teachers’ dilemmas! It is sad to hear a student play the repertoire’s largest and most important works without musical awareness and technical development united.”
   For students who might not be ready to accept a program that includes diligent work on preparing the basics, Arnone has subtle ways of helping them into the process. “Sometimes, if they are really serious, I think the best thing to help those students is to surround them with their peers from other places or have them go to festivals so they can see what’s out there.
   “Having a strong technical foundation is just the start, however. I try to give my students direction in finding their musical personalities and let them know that everyone is distinctly different. Through music they should learn how to solve problems and about themselves, instead of focusing on meeting a required level or others’ expectations.
   “Without getting too philosophical, my concern for students today is that they seem too focused on pursuing a degree in order to get a job and not on enriching themselves. Certainly paying the bills is critical, but I feel students are often missing the point of what we do as musicians.
   “I try to ask students leading questions to solve problems at lessons. I don’t believe in giving them the answers. I want them to walk me through it. In their practice they should have a game plan instead of going through random acts of seeing what will happen when they practice. One way I do this is by having them write private, on-line journals on Blackboard [an online virtual classroom supported by various academic institutions] that I review. Weekly, I write a question that they have to address in written form. For example, I might use the prompt: ‘If I play with the metronome on off-beats instead of on the beat, I feel this helps me notice…”

Introducing Students to Teaching
   “I try to keep my students interested in the flute by having lots of activities for the studio. We have different topics in weekly studio classes; I have them teach each other. It is informative for me too, to see them in action. Last year, for example, everyone was assigned two lyrical etudes to prepare and one to teach. Prior to the class, I hadn’t worked on them with anyone. They had to analyze and figure out what should be addressed and write a lesson plan. It was interesting to watch them teach and respond to each other. I also encourage students to transfer what they are learning in their music education classes to their flute playing, and then to connect all classes in the music curriculum. It should all come back in one happy circle.”
   Students working with Arnone also have the opportunity to work at the high school flute camp that Arnone started in 2007. “At the camp, my students teach alongside me. It’s a lot of work for them, but it is so satisfying to see the studio come together and grow in this way. I try to make sure my students have plenty of opportunities. I believe that anyone who is a music major will be teaching in some capacity, so it is just smart to have them doing that in their college years.”
   Each summer, Arnone invites noted guest artists to work with her students. Trevor Wye and Julia Bogorad-Kogan were visiting instructors over the past several summers. Masterclass artists during the school year have included Walfrid Kujala, Bernie Goldberg, Lorna McGhee, Aaron Goldman, and Jennifer Connor. “It was really fascinating to have Julia come back to do a seminar. It was very satisfying for me to see her work with my students. I think my students could see where I inherited a lot of my ideas, especially my tone-based ideas of having a more open sound. ‘Drop the jaw’ and ‘air in the cheeks’ have always been hot buttons for some people.
   In general, she works with a much lower top lip, more open inside of the mouth, and focuses the airstream down a lot more.
   “I also worked a lot with Trevor Wye. For two summer sessions I was a participant at his masterclasses, and then he offered two summer seminars at my school. I feel that he helped me fill in a lot of holes that I had accumulated in my playing, and some that I didn’t know were there. I hated practicing technique because it seemed like a repetitive, mindless activity. One of his ideas was to never play the same thing two days in a row. To me it’s like working out with weights, alternating muscle groups and not doing the same exercises daily. Many times I just come up with an exercise off the top of my head and do it in different keys, thanks to Trevor. 

Final Thoughts
   “I thought many times that I wouldn’t be a flutist. I loved playing, but I hadn’t tapped into what I thought I could do best or be the most useful to people. I love all the different hats I can wear in academia – teacher, performer, mentor, writer, idea-person, and so on. I enjoy playing and performing, but working with others to help them create music and find meaning in music is for me a far more important musical experience than being on a stage. I guess the key is to stay passionate about what music means to you and never lose sight of that.”

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   In the orchestral setting of the Minuet the flute plays continually for 94 bars; Bizet casts the flutist in four different roles – as a soloist, as an equal unison partner, as a chamber player, and as a tutti player. From bars 3 to 30 the flute plays the famous limpid melody accompanied only by the harp. At bar 31 the oboe joins the flute in unison, adding more intensity and color to the line. At bar 43 the full orchestral tutti takes over, the character of the music now becoming much more forceful, and though the flute is still playing the melody, so is most of the rest of the orchestra, and the flute no longer dominates. At the return of the opening theme at bar 56 the flutist becomes a chamber player, balancing with the alto saxophone’s poignantly beautiful countermelody. Finally, at bar 76 the flute and harp are alone once again, and the piece gradually dies away in a slow ascent to the final angelic high E flat.
   Compared to the flute-piano transcription, the original orchestral version gives the flutist several advantages. The most important is in the relinquishing of his soloist role in the tutti section (bars 43-55) where he can coast with the orchestra and save his energy and concentration for the more critical last 30 bars of the piece. And in the earlier oboe unison section (bars 31-42) where there are no natural breathing places, the flutist can sneak in a number of quick breaths under the cover of the oboe line.
   In the flute-piano version, you as the soloist are faced with a formidable challenge in building the long line without the aid of the orchestra. Although the piano is “replacing” the orchestra, you must maintain a strong and assertive presence in the sempre forte bars of the tutti section without being overpowered by your pianist. This does not mean that your tone has to be forced or brassy. On the contrary, if you strive for a full, round, well-centered tone, it will take actually less physical effort, and you will be better able to maintain your endurance and control in the more delicate recapitulation.
   Here are some hints for proper handling of the tutti section. The accents on the quarter notes (and the eighths in bar 49) should not be made with stabbing tongue strokes. Rather, begin each one with a firm attack, follow through with a  full, vibrant sound, then at the last moment execute a slight tapering, or lifting, of the tone – in other words, like a bell tone. It is usually better not to separate the quarters, although some flutists can do that with good effect. The descending 16th note scales should be played with a  solid tenuto feeling, clearly tongued, but not short. Unfortunately some editions have staccato dots over these notes; none are indicated in the original. Most importantly, you must think crescendo on these scales; otherwise, they will sound weak and flabby on the third beat. Pay special attention to the placement of the Db (in bar 44 and similar places), keeping the intensity up and the pitch down.
   Now, let’s take a close look at the most crucial part of the Minuet – the opening 16 bars. Your main goal here is to produce a beautifully transparent and delicate pianissimo in bars 3-10. This depends a great deal on how accurately you prepare your embouchure for placing the opening G. For most flutists that G is the dividing line between the low and high registers; that is, if you play a complete three-octave C-major scale, the middle G would be the point at which the most noticeable change of embouchure position would occur. We often assume that our embouchure changes at an equal rate during a long scale, and that it is so gradual as to be imperceptible from one note to the next. However, there is a deceptive aspect to this assumption that can cause problems if not fully understood, expecially in pianissimo playing. There should be a perceptible adjustment of embouchure when going from F5 to G5 in a pp ascending scale. (For some flutists it might be G5 to A5). This adjustment is mainly a matter of bringing the lips forward more, combined with a slight raising of the lower jaw, possibly reinforced by a discreet lifting of the head. In an case be sure that you are balancing the flute flexibly enough so that the instrument is free to move up with the jaw elevation, yet at the same time allowing the flute to maintain a firm enough support to permit the forward “traveling” of the lower lip for covering more of the embouchure hole.
   As a warm-up exercise for finding the best focus for your G5, practice Exercise 1 sempre pp, avoiding the temptation of making a crescendo to the top note. After quickly memorizing this exercise, play it before a mirror, observing closely your embouchure position throughout, but with special attention to the G5. Then practice the triad exercise (No. 2) in the same way, still referring to the mirror. You are now relying on three of your senses – seeing, hearing, and feeling – to help you retain a stronger mental picture of a more perfectly controlled pp G and its satellite notes.

   A third warm-up exercise could be an extension of the first two exercises: practicing a series of smooth quarter note G5s, concentrating on the delicacy of your soft tonguing strokes and making sure that you keep a consistently good tone quality. If you use vibrato, listen for an even  and smooth pulsation; start your vibrato on each note without any delay.
   Now let’s look at some other important considerations in this opening section. The watchword here is “legato,” and Bizet’s notation unmistakably conveys the legato message. Every one of the first six phrases is written under one long slur. Regrettably in most edited versions shorter slurs are indicated. The first phrase, for example, is often printed with a six note slur beginning with the second beat and a separate slur for the second bar. No doubt this is done partly to make it clear that the repeated G5 should be tongued (one edition even has an accent over it!), but the original slur shows us much more graphically the need for thinking legato on the second note even though we are lightly tonguing it “on the breath” – likewise at the beginning of bars 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15. Another edit that can backfire is the insertion of a diminuendo in the second bar of the first phrase. A conscientious player, thinking that is the composer’s marking, will take it too seriously, and likely end up with an unnecessarily pinched and thin sound on the high G. The essence of Bizet’s pp marking is such that the same thoughtful musician would certainly play the second bar softly enough and with a nice tapered release on the high G without having to be prodded by an editor.
   Smooth air flow coordinated with supersensitive embouchure changes are essential ingredients for artistic legato style, but careless fingers can easily sabotage your best intentions. The very first changing interval in the Minuet, G to F, can be dangerous. I have seen too many flutists whose right hand first finger, seemingly grown itchy from having to wait for the first two Gs to finish up, suddenly rears back with a quick windup, then slams down with a percussive, non-traditional flute sound often requested in contemporary pieces such as Varese’s Density 21.5. The first finger is a naturally strong finger, but it is also a very controllable finger, so you must teach yourself to move it down in a fast squeezing motion. The same is true, of course, for all the other intervals where fingers are going down.
   A few words about intonation: take especially good care of your high Ebs. They can be terribly sharp, even in pp. We don’t always realize this because it is a good, stable sounding note, and our ear easily gets conditioned to its high pitch. One surefire way to retrain your ear for hearing this note properly (and others, too) is to practice with a strobe or electronic tuner. You may be shocked to discover that your Eb 6 can be as much as 20 cents sharp (there are 100 cents in a half-step). You can learn to correct the Eb in bar 4 quite easily, but bar 12 will take some extra effort, being twice as fast.
   Finally, I suggest that you look at the upper staff of the piano score between bars 56 and 76. This is the alto sax line, and you should practice it occassionally in order to become more familiar with its countermelodic function. Ask your teacher or a friend to play the flute line while you do the sax part.      

The post F.T. Classic Minuet from L’Arlesienne Suite No. 2 appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

Check out the Flute Talk Classic from 1982 – with some further suggestions on the Minuet for more advanced players by Walfrid Kujala. 

The post Minuet from L’Arlesienne Suite No. 2 appeared first on The Instrumentalist.