Blog for Flutists and Composers
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The Radiant, Gradient Way: Color Practice
No one can watch the inside of your mouth when you play the flute, thank goodness. However, when talking to students about color changes, an X-Ray machine might come in handy. You could demonstrate how the position of the tongue, the jaw, and so many things come into play when you change the sound of…
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Contemporary Music: Where’s the Music?
Funny how memories work. I am left with the lingering conviction, no doubt untrue, that the esthetic of Arnold Schönberg and the Second Viennese School was motivated by peevishness. Not that I was there to remember, but it is the sense I got from student reading and listening to hip lecturers. (For example, I enjoyed…
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Polyrthythms IV – Practicing Tempo Modulation
This is a continuation of my previous post, where I use Taffanel/Gaubert’s Exercises Journaliers no. 1 to practice polyrhythms. Check that out before trying these! It will give you the correct placement in the measure for 4:3 and 4:5, which I have not notated here. In these exercises, the metronome stays the same but the…
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Polyrhythm III Exercise with Taffanel/Gaubert
Here is the third of my posts on rhythm. You can read the first post here and the second here. I wouldn’t proceed here unless you can perform the exercises of these previous posts. What I like about using Taffanel/Gaubert no. 1 from Exercices Journaliers is that it is a melodic study. In my first…
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Polyrhythm II
To read my first post on how to figure out polyrhythms, click here. To internalize an unfamilar polyrhythm, I suggest the following steps: 1) clap and tap the rhythm away from your instrument 2) play it on your instrument, using a single pitch (no moving notes yet) 3) if it’s a difficult passage, play it…
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Polyrhythms I
This is the first of a series about practicing complex rhythms related to a pulse, a.k.a. polyrhythms. Why bother practicing polyrhythms? Some of us have been taught that our metronome is our best friend, but how useful is it really? Do we bother to listen to it? If we do, does it ensure us a…
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Bass Flute ins and outs II – for composers
Since my last post about composing for bass flute, I’ve taken note of other questions that pop up with regularity. Q: Should I notate the pitches as sounding or transpose up an octave? A: Please transpose them up an octave. Flutists are not used to reading ledger lines below the staff or reading bass clef.…
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Newsflash for Teachers: Being an Asshole is Ineffective
Every time I pick up a science news magazine or book I end up smacking my head in disbelief that science goes to such lengths to prove what everybody else knows already. So being an Asshole is an ineffective approach to teaching. Really, a Nobel Prizewinning scientist said so! I read it in a random…