Blog for Flutists and Composers
-
Electronic Music, Tape vs. Live Electronics, Click Tracks. Q and A
[Taken with permission from an interview with Cássia Carrascoza Bomfim, in preparation for her doctoral dissertation] Do you feel a lot of difference between playing works with a pre-recorded tape and computer processing in real time (Max/msp)? Both ways present various issues of playing with a microphone. With a tape piece, I am concerned that the live…
-
No More Tears – Breath as a Leit Motif
For the past year, my colleagues and I have been working with a wonderful vocal coach, Martin Lindsay. His sessions are structured in a way that got me thinking. We start with light stretching and breathing exercises, just enough to activate the abdominal muscles and diaphragm. I won’t go into detail about what these exercises…
-
Composing Articulation for Winds – Tell Me What To Say
This is an imaginary passage I have composed that has annoying and confusing articulation marks. If you are not a wind player, the fact that this is annoying may puzzle you. It’s like this: as a wind player, from the very beginning you receive strict instructions on the use of the tongue. If there is…
-
Wish List
Things I wish I had spent more time on as a student: Sight reading Scales in intervals of a sixth – and sevenths and ninths! There are too many of those intervals flying around in contemporary music. Improving my writing skills Yoga or sports Learning acoustics. I wasted a lot of time trying to blow,…
-
Looking Inward
Here are some notes from a tabla workshop I attended, given by Samir Chatterjee. Like my former teacher, Chatterjee is one of the few Indian musicians who has a clear understanding of the Western education system and is able to teach non-Indians by verbal communication, i.e., someone who can explain his music in a way…
-
Harmonic Exercises, with Articulation too!
When playing through the harmonic series, the second overtone (a twelth above the fundamental) is a great check point. When students begin learning harmonics, this one often proves elusive because of the tendency to cover too much of the embouchure hole. By rolling out a bit and blowing down, it usually speaks. The following exercise…
-
Composing Dynamics
In composition workshops, the question sometimes arises: in an ensemble or orchestral situation, how does one write dynamics for individual instruments? For example, if you want a balanced forte among winds and brass, does one write forte for the winds (assuming they are not playing in the altissimo register) but mezzo forte for the brass?…
-
Thoughts on Improvisation: Confessions of Cardew and Tolstoy
In preparation for a masterclass at the St. Petersburg School of Improvisation, I have been re-reading Cornelius Cardew‘s Treatise Handbook and Towards an Ethic of Improvisation. So many of his words tie in to what has been going on in the background of my life: the press and forum debates over the recent Geneva Competition…