Blog for Flutists and Composers
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Electro-Flute
Lately I have been more interested in creating and producing sounds than words. It has been difficult to distill my experiences of the last season in to words, so I have not been blogging. Over this blastedly hot summer “vacation”, I decided to take only Anthony Braxton’s Composition no. 133 with me to practice. Having…
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Composing for Flute with Text or Vowel/Consonant Sounds
Here is a tutorial for composers interested in specifying consonant articulations (p, b, k) and vowel colorations (o, a, i) for flute. Or for those who are interested in combining text with flute sounds. There are different contexts that can be applied. In the first few minutes I talk about phonemes and aeolian (air) sounds.…
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Performing Luigi Nono’s Flute Music
I am very honored to have been invited by Daniel Agi and Tempo magazine to contribute my experience of performing Luigi Nono’s music. Our article has been published; here is the abstract: “A performer of Luigi Nono’s late works is often faced with crucial questions regarding interpretation and technical details. An important tradition has evolved…
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Some Practice Ideas
A few thoughts after some days of intensive practice. My focus has been awareness of tension, since I have a few sore points on my hands due to an old injury. One concept from yoga has helped me. According to what I have learned, the arm structure is considered an open system, whereas the legs…
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Flute or Piccolo? Composer’s Little Helper
It is still a work in progress, but here is a flow chart to help composers familiarize themselves with the characteristics of the piccolo. As with most of my advice, it is applicable mostly to ensemble writing – with solo works one has a lot more freedom.
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Getting Back in the Saddle
I noticed a strange thing about getting back in shape after the last winter break. I was frustrated and, to be honest, a little frightened at how long it took to retrieve my “norm”, and wondered if it was a dire sign of things to come. I decided to blog about it, not only because…
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Pierre Boulez Dialogue de l’Ombre Double for flute/bass flute
Adapting, recording and releasing the flute/bass flute version of Boulez’ Dialogue de l’Ombre Double has been a ten year labor of love (and frustration). The mischievous flutist inside me listened to this clarinet piece and thought, why doesn’t Boulez write for flute this way? Not to disparage his wonderful works for flute, but his Dialogue…
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Berio Sequenza Audio Recording and Saunders Bite
Some time ago I posted about recording the Berio Sequenza for Flute. So many other projects have been realized since our session in January 2016 that there has been a large gap between recording and release, but we have made sure the recording is decent. I have only the following reservations: since the idea was…