Helen Bledsoe

Author: admin

  • Gaudeamus Interpreter’s Competition

    Here are, I hope, some useful ideas for those wanting to make a program for the Gaudeamus Interpreter’s Competition in Holland. Bear in mind I took part in 1996, and things may have changed, but the basis of putting together a successful program remain true for all competitions.

    This competition has a different jury every year. They usually select a combination of composers and instrumentalists (or singers).

    When making a program, you don’t need to make a concert program. Just pick pieces that can be mixed and matched well together. Include only pieces you love and can really pull off. Any piece on your program can end up as a selected piece for the final round. An interesting program shows a variety of styles, and a good mix of traditional and extended techniques. If you are going as a soloist, don’t take an “accompanist”. If you want to do flute and piano music, make it a real partnership. You may be judged along with ensembles of long standing. If you play with electronics make sure they are fool proof. Don’t feel you have to have accompanied pieces, chamber music, or pieces with electronics on your program for it to be accepted. If you want to – that’s great, but remember you are going to be judged as a whole, along with whomever or whatever is on stage with you.

    Here is a database for contemporary flute works http://www.flutexpansions.com . It includes works for piccolo, alto and bass flutes. If you are looking for the latest pieces, I’d also trawl the latest recordings of contemporary flute music on CD and mp3 on the net. New works proliferate so fast that it is difficult to be in touch with ALL the cool stuff out there. Good Luck!

  • Piccolo Pickles

    Here’s a comparison photo of three piccolos: (left) a Pearl Grenadite, (center) a Philipp Hammig with an August Richard Hammig headjoint, and (right) an Anton Braun.

    The photo is pretty bad and overexposed, but you can see the difference in length and taper. Notice that although each piccolo was built to A= 442 specs, that the Braun is shorter and much more tapered at the end. Does anyone have an explanation for that?

    I spent years trying to decide whether to spend over 5,000 Euros for a Braun piccolo. The Hammig hybrid I had been playing on is a very good instrument, but I often play in situations where I needed to play louder. People roll their eyes when I tell them that, but the piccolo is not always a deafening beast. In the low and middle registers, especially articulated passages, I was often struggling to project. It doesn’t help that those registers are used often with E-flat clarinet, trumpet or percussion with hard mallets. Some composers seem to think that the piccolo will always dominate. However, it’s only the third octave that really penetrates. (Then you get the composers who think you can match a pianissimo third octave note with a violin playing the same dynamic. NOT.)

    I spoke about my dynamic and articulation problems in the middle and low register with Patricia Morris. She asked me what kind of piccolo I had. When I said Hammig, she said that’s likely the problem. Then she allowed me to try her Braun piccolos and I could feel the difference. I could certainly have continued with my Hammig, but we now have a concert series in which our performances are recorded live for CD, warts and all. So I decided to take the plunge.

    When my piccolo came from Herr Braun (photo left, with daughter Antonia), I asked him for some guidelines to break in, or rather play in the instrument. Everyone has their theory about new wooden instruments. He gives his general guidelines here but added the following information by telephone. He told me to give it a good 4 to 6 weeks to play in. I was bummed about that as I had a Xenakis program with Thallein and Jalons in 2 weeks, but I took his advice to heart. He said to start with the low register for the first week or so, then move to the middle and only then up to the high register. He said to not let anyone else play it (of course someone trying the piccolo for a few minutes is ok), that the instrument needed to get used to the way I blow on it. And most importantly he said, that I should try to blow more like on the flute than a typical piccolo, that he had made his instruments expressly so, that they could be played more flute-like. It should be a quite relaxed approach. By the way, if you can read German, here is his story, it is amazing!

    Herr Braun’s advice turns out to be crucial because the instrument can easily go sharp. I expected trouble as I played on my own with a tuner, but when I got with the ensemble, I was so happy that I could just blow and relax, and not have to reach up for any of the notes. I play pulled out a few millimeters. In short, this is a completely different animal from the Hammig! I am liking it very much, though.

    I’ll put in a good word also for the Hammig and the Pearl. For about 9 years I played on the Hammig with a Werner Fischer head. These are very colorful, flexible and light head joints. Easy to play and very dolce. They are good for non picc specialists or specialists for whom projection is not an issue. I then heard the A. R. Hammig was making very good heads, and ordered a grenadilla one. It gave me an improvement in depth for the middle and low register, and I really liked the overall sound. The Pearl grenadite is the best cheap piccolo on the market, in my opinion. I couldn’t believe how well it played compared to Yamaha and the others. For me, anyway.

  • Non vibrato and the Book of Disquiet

    Still from the film projection “Book of Disquiet”
    Michel van der Aa

    On the first of August this year (2010) I had the privilege of performing Michel van der Aa’s “Book of Disquiet” , a multi-media work based on texts of Fernando Pessoa’s “factless autobiography”. We even shared the stage with Klaus-Maria Brandauer , who gave a powerful if impulsive performance. In addition, since this was a film festival and not a hole-in-the-wall contemporary music festival, we were put up in a 5 star hotel and had our concert in the stunning opera house in Wroclaw. Every once in a while, the perks percolate to our level!

    I wanted to use this as a platform for my thoughts about non vibrato, because, well, playing without vibrato for many flutists is a disquieting prospect. It is no longer a novel concept – the Early Music movement has seen to that. However, I’ve run across a number of contemporary composers who use it as their esthetic, not only for flutists, but for the whole ensemble. It was also the contemporary music trend for ensembles in the 20th century, especially in the Netherlands. I’m not sure if Michel van der Aa is an heir to this tradition, or if his non-vibrato esthetic stems from the sound world of electronically produced sounds.

    In any case, the challenge for me was to blend with three violins (also playing non vibrato) and with the other winds (clarinet, bassoon and trumpet). The violins and the flute are often in unison in the high register. No place to hide. The other challenge was the transparency of texture – this is music that has to sound, hmm, nice, for lack of a better word. Not pretty or sugary, but clear and listen-to-able. When a flutist thinks of sounding nice, they will add a shimmer or shine to the sound (i.e. vibrato), just as a person naturally smiles when trying to be nice. Vibrato is our smile, so to say. Without it, we are in danger of a death-like grimace.

    I encounter this mortal danger in my studio, too. My students are pretty well behaved when it comes to preparing Baroque pieces. They do their homework, listen to traverso recordings, read Quantz, and sometimes dutifully stifle their vibrato. Stifle. That is the initial reaction to non vibrato. The sound is dead and flat, not only in intonation but in color. What is the trick to playing with a good, healthy, in-tune sound without vibrato? The dilemma of disquiet.

    Now, the question of whether one should play Baroque music without vibrato on modern flute is a separate one. My answer to that is: one should played with a modified vibrato (which includes the possibility of non vibrato). If one is performing with a modern piano, I downright discourage complete non vibrato. (read why here)

    To avoid death and poor intonation while playing non vibrato

    • practice Moyse’s de la Sonorite first with vibrato, then repeat non vibrato (B-A# with vibrato; B-A# without vibrato; etc…). The exercises “pour les sons graves” can be practiced in the same way. Make sure the tone quality and intonation of the non vibrato sound matches the sound with vibrato.
    • anything that helps you to build support, such as harmonic exercises (those by Trevor Wye, Robert Dick, Peter Lukas Graf, and many more), or using the “Ha Ha Ha” (abdominal accents without tongue) articulation on scales or arpeggios.
    • anything that will improve the resonance of your sound, such as singing and playing. The reason behind this: if you can manage to get all overtones of a note lined up, in tune and ringing freely, you should have a nice sound without having to add any wobble.

    Easier said than done. I’m all ears for other ideas.

  • Small-Interval Multiphonics

    On the occasion of the publication of my article on Kazuo Fukushima’s Shun-San in Flute Talk May/June 2010 and Robert Dick’s upcoming masterclass in Bremen (July 6, 2010), I’d like to elucidate some ideas about multiphonics.

    Working on Shun-San got me thinking about small-interval multiphonics (those with an interval of an augmented second or less). The first line of advice on how to produce these comes from Robert himself, and can be viewed here. His advice is fantastic, spot-on and humorful, I recommend viewing it.*
    *Although I don’t agree with what Robert says in regard to offset G flutes or doing sit-ups, but that’s another story.

    In my Flute Talk article, I touch on the subject of small-interval multiphonics. This passage has elicited some raised eyebrows and questions. To begin, I’ll site the passage:

    Flutists often encounter difficulty with small-interval multiphonics because they are hung up on trying to produce a focus immediately. That is difficult to do when you are blowing in two directions at once. The irony of these small-interval multiphonics is, at first, you have to unfocus to get the sense of focus. Open up the embouchure hole and let both notes in. Initially there will be a lot of air, but with practice you can refine them. They will sound focused and rich because of the very low difference tone caused by a close interval. When you get the hang of playing these small intervals, it may help to focus on producing this difference tone rather than the individual notes themselves. That may seem strange but sometimes it works.

    The first point of confusion may arise in that I assume the reader is already familiar with Robert Dick’s advice: get to know the dynamic range of each note first. Then, keeping a constant airspeed, use the angle of the air to find both notes. If you don’t research the gamut of air speed for each note, you’ll never find the small range of speed that overlaps and works for both.

    This is what I meant by having to unfocus to get the sense of focus. You need a constant airspeed and a wide angle at first that will let both notes in. LinkLinkPlease forgive my artistic crudeness, and the angles are unrealistic, but here hopefully you can see where the angles overlap. If your focus is too narrow at first, you may miss the range where the angles overlap.

    Now, to explain that bit about the low difference tone. An explanation of difference tones can be found in Wiki. Often is is not an actual, distinct tone that I hear. Rather, it is just a low sort of humming sound, or it’s as if something opens acoustically at the bottom – a feeling rather than a sound.

    I hope this has been of help. Some of those multiphonics in Shun-San are hair-raising! Even someone like me who has been familiar with them for years needs to put in serious practice time on them. It is a good refresher!

    [later edit: here is a video tutorial on the subject.]

  • Paradies Remembered

    It’s been over a month since the marathon premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Klang cycle. I have been wanting to share the experience here, but I survived the project with too many mixed feelings. However if I don’t get it out, my blogging energy may get permanently clogged. Also, Robert Bigio, the editor of Flute (the journal of the British Flute Society) has entrusted me with another project: a feature on Kathinka Pasveer. So it’s time to get my thoughts in order.

    Paradies is an 18-minute work for solo flute with electronics (8-channel tape). It must be played eyes closed, from memory, while wearing a specific shade of pink (HKS31, it’s called in the German textile industry). A shirt in this color, worn with white pants and shoes, is also acceptable. The piece does not require movement on stage or any sort of choreography.

    I have performed this piece 12 times between April 24 and May 29, 2010, and will perform it again in November in England.

    Most of the questions that come my way have to do with how I managed to memorize the work. It is nowhere near as daunting as one might think because:
    1) The piece uses the same series of 24 pitches over and over, mostly in sequence and only occasionally in easily recognizable variations. Analysis of this work is a no-brainer.
    2) The player is involved in the compositional process.

    To begin, I must explain that the work has 24 strophes. Each of these strophes has two parts:
    1) a ritornello in which a melody is given but the dynamics, speed and articulation are decided by the player (this is the “involved in the compositional process” part)
    2) a composed insert. The composed parts are called inserts because they may be inserted at any point during the ritornello. (Theoretically. This piece is fraught with unwritten rules, and the insertion of the composed insert must follow certain guidelines not given in the score.)

    I began work on the piece after New Year’s 2010, so had just over 4 months preparation time. There was no way for me to memorize the piece from the outset, since the ritornelli needed to be worked out and played for Kathinka. I didn’t want to write anything onto hard disk only to have to erase it later. What I did memorize from the beginning was the structure of the piece. That in retrospect was a good idea. By the way, the ritornelli’s dynamics, speed and articulation should be worked out rather than improvized. Whether you write them out or not is up to you. If your memory is at all visual or photographic, as mine partially is, I recommend writing.

    I also realized the sooner I had a good version of the ritornelli, the sooner I could begin memorizing them. So my first order of business was writing the ritornelli. During the first rehearsal with Kathinka (January 25th), I ended up having to erase about two-thirds of what I had written, having trespassed many of the unwritten rules. By the time of the next rehearsal with Kathinka, on April 1st, we had a version that we could both be happy with and I could start the memory work in ernest. At that point it was not difficult. The ritornelli had been worked on for so long that memorizing them came easily, and the structure and the composed inserts had already been memorized.

    I hope readers were not expecting a full discorse on how one memorizes music. For most of us it is an individual combination of visual, analytical and kinesthetic elements. For me, it is perhaps
    Visual = 10%
    Analytical = 10%
    Kinesthetic (muscle memory)= 80%

    Some of my tricks included
    1) Setting a time schedule by working backwards from the date of the performance. Divide and conquer. Don’t try to memorize all at once but set a certain amount for a certain time period.
    2) Going through the piece without the flute in hand or the music in front of me. This I often did in the dark before going to sleep.
    3) Procrastinating as much as legally possible in order to have the peace of mind required for clear intellectual work. This means taxes didn’t get filed, Spring cleaning waited until Summer. Sort of the buy now, pay later strategy. If you can afford it, it does work.

    Photos: Melvyn Poore and Liz Hirst

  • Low Register: Descending to Paradise

    Countdown: just about one month before my performances (8 in two days!) of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s PARADIES for flute and electronic music. Am I panicking? No. But I have been soundly kicked in the butt. This piece allows for absolutely no technical weaknesses. In addition, I’ve been challenged to really expand my stability, dynamics, and coloristic range of the low register.

    PARADIES is composed of 24 stanzas. Each stanza has a group of notes (ritornelli) that may be played freely and repeated, and a composed insert which can be played at any time within the stanza. Each ritornello has a fermata on a low note – that makes a lot of long low notes that need to be varied in terms of length, dynamic, vibrato, or even air sounds, fluttertongue or singing and playing.

    Soft, quiet dynamics are not acoustically viable in PARADIES (even though the flute is miked). They appear at strategic moments when the electronics are not sounding full blip, but these are rare moments. I think this is too bad, but hey, Mr. S didn’t ask my opinion. A quiet dynamic may be played within the ritornelli, but there needs to be a crescendo after it. Therefore, my expansion has been in the direction of forte.

    So I’m finally getting to the point about what I’ve learned about the low register. [By the way, the following can also help with bass flute playing.]
    The number one killer of the low register (for me at this time) is pressing of the flute into the chin. This makes the distance from the exit of the air stream to the edge of the embouchure hole too short. The “air reed” needs space for that register, especially if you want to use a heavy vibrato!

    The whole challenge in playing loud and low is to be able to give more air but to make sure the air is not too fast. Aim it down, move the flute away. These are not original ideas, but just something we all need to be reminded about from time to time. Also, there are two pieces of advice from Michel Debost (The Simple Flute) that I find really work for me:
    1) Play on the middle breath. That sounds strange because if you have a long low note marked ff, the instinct is to take a huge breath and blast away. But if you have a very full tank in your lungs your airstream will me more difficult to manage, it just may come out too fast and crack that low note. I’ve found that with practice, I can play a long, loud, low note without having to take a HUGE breath.
    2) Release a bit of air through the nose a fraction of a second before you play. That also sounds strange, but makes sense if you think of your airstream as a violin bow that is being set in motion before the attack.

    Now to see if this all works even if I’m wearing pink! That’s right, the score specifies what color you have to wear for this piece, regardless of your chromosonal situation. The color for the 21st hour of the KLANG cycle that PARADIES represents falls in the pink spectrum. (If you play Harmonien, you wear blue, Balance, you wear green.) Dynamic expansion and wardrobe expansion, all-in-one!
    Photo: Disney clip-art

  • Just Intonation: Thirds and Sixths, an exercise

    I’d like to take the opportunity to write about the benefits of doing intonation exercises with 3rds and 6ths using just intonation.

    • To refine the ear. These are simple intervals, and the difference tone (or combination tone) is strong enough to easily adjust.
    • Flexibility. To make these adjustments, a flutist must be willing to make minute changes of the angle of the air by manipulating any three points: lips, jaw, or rotating the flute in or out.
    • Accuracy in tuning chords (vertical intonation). The theoretical knowledge that, from the bass note, major thirds are 14 cents flatter and minor thirds 16 cents sharper will cut out some of the fishing around for the right direction. (That’s thinking like a flutist. Objectively stated: major thirds are narrower, minor thirds are wider.)
    • Grasp of microtonality. Seriously. Take the second bar of the exercise in the link below. The G is first played as a just major third to an E-flat (=14 cents flat). Then the bass note changes and it becomes the just minor third to E-natural (=16 cents sharp). The difference you have traveled is 30 cents, almost a sixth-tone! You get a feel for these sixth tones, double that, you’ve got third tones and you’re off!

    But why do these exercises? After all, I do not propose that thirds and sixths should always be tuned justly. There are many times when it makes sense to tune these intervals using equal temperment, such as when playing with any fixed pitch instrument. (I wish conductors would also take this seriously. How many times have you worked on intonation during a wind sectional rehearsal, when your ears will naturally drift to just intonation, only to have it completely different when you add the strings, harp, percussion or piano?) It also makes sense to play more temperately when you have the melodic line or when you want to make other expressive adjustments such as raising the leading tone.

    Another place to avoid just intonation is when tuning minor thirds in minor chords (See Claudio’s comment below). Here, the equally-tempered minor third works better. Remember, if you tune an interval justly, the difference/combination tone you should hear will belong to (or complete) the implied major chord. For example, let’s take the minor chord:
    G
    E-flat
    C

    A justly-played C and E-flat will give you a difference tone A-flat, because A-flat is the major chord that the interval C – E-flat implies. That sounds very nice! But add the G and it’s no longer nice because G and A-flat are causing dissonance. This may be why, historically, those beautiful medieval works in minor keys always ended on major chords. See what you can learn about Early Music by delving into the details of intonation! The practices were practical, not academic.

    While playing this exercise it will also become apparent why, historically, notes with flats were generally played sharper and notes with sharps were generally played flatter.

    Directions for playing with a tuner: during the fermatas, change the pitch of the tuner with the right hand while holding the flute (or piccolo) with the left hand only (use B-flat thumb for Bb and A#). Try not to interrupt playing during this process so you can make the adjustment as finely as possible.

    Click here for the exercise (this is the same one that was previously on my website).

  • Tips for Complex Rhythms à la Ferneyhough’s Superscriptio

    Below is some advice for works by composers (such as Brian Ferneyhough) who use complex rhythms not based on pulse-centered activity. I spoke with Mr. Ferneyhough about this subject and he was very clear that in his music, the measure is a “domain of a certain energy quotient” not related to a pulse.

    In other words, a measure can be interpreted as an “area of activity”. The level of activity can easily be reckoned using the starting tempo. From there we can calculate the length of any measure or individual note through simple mathematics.

    So if the rhythm cannot be felt as a pulse, one can at least memorize the speed in which it is supposed to happen. Surprisingly, it’s sometimes much slower than one thinks!

    Ferneyhough’s Superscriptio for solo piccolo is a good example. The basic tempo is an eighth-note at 56. This means a whole note in 4/4 equals 7, because there are 8 eighth notes in a 4/4 bar, and 8 divided by 56 = 7.

    From this number 7 you can deduce all the “odd” time signatures that are not based on divisions of the eighth note. An eighth note quintuplet (or a “1/10” bar) will equal 70 because there are 10 quintuplets in a 4/4 bar (7 x 10 = 70). To find the length of a 3/10 bar you would divide 70 by 3. If you have a 5/10 bar you would divide 70 by 5. An eighth note triplet (or a “1/12” bar) will equal 84 because there are 12 triplets in a 4/4 bar (7 x 12 = 84). To find the length of a 3/12 bar you would divide 84 by 3, and to find the length of a 5/12 bar you would divide 84 by 5.

    What if the compound rhythms are stacked on top of each other, as in Ferneyhough’s other works? This is an imaginary example:
    Let’s imagine as in Superscriptio the starting tempo is an eighth-note at 56. The last six 16ths (at the end of the bar) roughly equal two 16th-note triplets at 64. The nine 32nds under the 9:5 are roughly equal to three sets of 32nd triplets going at 116.

    It could have been notated thus (among other possibilities):

    Here’s the math:
    From above we know that a 1/10 bar equals 70.
    A 4/10 bar will equal 17.5 (70 divided by 4 = 17.5).
    Each 11-tuplet will be 192.5 (17.5 x 11 = 192.5).
    There are 6 of these 11-tuplets at the end. If we think of them as two 16th-note triplets, divide 192.5 by 3 = ca. 64

    5 of those 11-tuplets equals 38.5 (192.5 divided by 5 = 38.5).
    In the 9:5, if you think of the 9-tuplets as 3 sets of 32nd triplets, those triplets go at ca. 116 (38.5 x 3 = 115.5)

    A click track will ensure accuracy without a doubt. However, if you opt for another approach, try the following: memorize the speed of each bar by practicing related bars together. Keeping Superscriptio as an example, you can practice all the bars based on “1/12” while keeping the metronome at tempo 84. (Yes, you will be jumping from measure to measure, or page to page.) Then do the same for all the “1/10” bars, then “1/8” etc. You are not trying to achieve musical continuity yet, this is just an exercise to help relate all the bars with this tempo, and to keep them consistent. When you finally put the piece together, your “internal conductor” will hopefully have a kinesthetic memory of the pulse of each measure and make the tempo changes accordingly.

    Also see my post Seminar with Brian Ferneyhough.
    Other thoughts?