Blog for Flutists and Composers
-
Crowd-Source Question, What Are the Difficulties Performing Mircotonal Music?
This is a bit unusual for me, but I would like to informally survey performer’s thoughts on performing mircotonal music. Not thoughts about microtonal music in general, but the issues, problems, difficulties or joys of actually playing or singing the stuff. Which notations are best? Are the difficulties worth the acoustic result? Are the acoustic…
-
Notating New Sounds – Rewrite?
I love it when a composer takes the flute in hand and explores its sounds while writing for flute. It shows more dedication and curiosity than just looking up techniques in a book (not to disparage the good books about writing for flute). Sometimes, it can produce an original sound, but sometimes it re-invents the…
-
Are intervals born of air or lips? Let the leopard decide.
On forums and in masterclasses there has been a lot of discussion about which element plays a more important role in producing intervals on the flute. Aside from the change of fingering, do we change more with the lips, with the air speed, or with air volume? Take the fingering element out of the equation…
-
Scale Practice – Superlocrian!
If you are a diligent scale and arpeggio practicer, you might get tired of the major-minor-chromatic (and seconds, thirds, fourths, etc) routine. I want to share my enthusiasm for my scale of choice this week: the Superlocrian. If you have studied jazz, it won’t be new to you. This scale goes my many names. I…
-
Inharmonicity of hearing
In a previous post on flutonation I admitted my tendency to play melodic octaves too wide. Re-reading Doris Geller‘s super book Praktische Intonationslehre I realize this is a universal phenomenon, which she describes as the “inharmonicity of hearing” or perhaps “inharmonicity of the ear”. (original: Inharmonizität des Gehörs). Here is my paraphrased translation of what…
-
You can’t escape yourself
I made myself laugh while doing Moon Salutations (yoga exercises similar to the Sun Salutations) last night. The thought came to me: if I were to suddenly become an enlightened being, I would frighten myself. The thought really amused me and I got to thinking about the idea of self, escape, and whether there is…
-
Harry Partch’s Yankee Doodle, and my tin oboe doodlings
Harry Partch’s Yankee Doodle Fantasy is scored for soprano, flex-a-tones, tin flute(s), tin oboe and chromelodeon. The tin flutes were easy enough to aquire, thanks to the folks at www.tinwhistle.de. For the tin flute, I played a Tony Dixon in E (transposing the part). For the two whistles part, I added a Clarke in D,…
-
Effective Use (or not) of percussive sounds
I have already written a lot on the subject of percussive sounds, but here I would like to add a few subtleties of usage. We will be performing Grisey’s Talea soon, and preparing the score, I am struck by how fantastic the piece is, yet how awkwardly some of the percussive effects are used. My…