Wellness Check!: Upper Body Stretches

I carry a lot of tension and stress in my upper body (neck, shoulders, and upper spine) and post-babies (three boys 6 and under) I found that I needed to realign myself.  My playing posture had taken a huge hit. I was slumping forward and with how close my head was to the stand, you might think I was blind. But that was not the case at all.  Instead, I had become unaware of my body mapping and it could be heard in my playing. Carrying tension in any part of your body and/or being out of balance can greatly impact your playing.

To address this all too common problem, I decided to make a video introducing a flow of stretches and poses that I use every day to release tension and keep myself aware of my body alignment.  I am excited for you to watch, or even better, participate, in this flow with me. If you are new to these stretches and poses, remember that yoga and even basic stretches are part of a practice that you choose to do.  It takes time and commitment to see improvement. Move at your own pace always. I hope that this flow helps you address tension you may be experiencing and leads to more fruitful practice sessions and performances!  Check it out:

Sight-Reading: Top Five

I know, I know.  I already did a blog on sight-reading.  In my previous post, I quickly listed the various aspects of music to observe prior to playing.  In this post, I am going to make a numbered list of the top five aspects to consider when preparing to sight-read.  This is how I tackle sight-reading for auditions/chair placement.   I find it to be a clear strategy and I hope it will help you too.

1.  Time/Key Signature.  If this isn't the first thing you look at, my goodness, what is?!  The first thing I want to know is what meter I am in and what key I have been gifted.  Meter will impact phrasing and emphasis of a musical line.  The key signature, well, if you know that you will play at least half of the notes correctly.  Furthermore, knowing the key signature will highlight accidentals and may help you analyze the music from a theoretical standpoint more efficiently (if you are a theory nerd and do that regularly).

2. Tempo/Rhythm. This may seem like two things.  It is not.  Often, the tempo you take will be dictated by the most inked-up measure.  Look at the tempo marking, be it a number next to a note value or a musical term.  Acknowledging the written tempo is important as it guides the overall performance due to its relationship to style.  However, you may not end up playing at the written tempo which is okay.  Believe me, as someone who has judged sight-reading and has been judged, a judge would rather hear a slightly slower tempo with perfect rhythm than a hot mess at tempo.  That said, try to stay within ten clicks (I am talking metronome tempos here).  If you slow it down too much, that isn't good either.  When observing rhythm, look for rhythmic patterns/themes, look for tricky or out of place rhythms, and look for the measure that will rhythmically destroy you if you don't slow down (this last one will dictate how fast you should play).

3. Style/Articulation.  Again, looks like two things - sorry.  Once you have a mental hand on the notes and rhythms, you should consider the style of the piece.  Look at articulation marks and really try to bring them out. If there are no special markings but you recognize the music to represent a particular musical style, say a march (which has distinctive stylistic practices), make sure your playing demonstrates your knowledge.

4. Expression/dynamics.  I almost hate to list this so low; honestly, I hate prioritizing these items, but having a strategy on how to tackle all the musical elements is helpful.  Anyway, this is somewhat similar to the style idea.  If dynamics or expressive terms are written, it goes without saying that you should observe them when playing.  However, it is possible that dynamics may not be written in, depending on the music.  In this case, use your musical intuition and make smart choices as to how to play the line.  Adding dynamic contrast that demonstrates your understanding of the music can make you stand out from your peers.

5. Phrasing.  I put this one last because in most sight-reading situations, the judge will be thrilled if you have done the first four items well.  This, this is a bonus.  When you are looking through the music, consider where you are going to breathe.  Make sure that your breaths support the musical line and don't interrupt or halt it.  Often, phrases are 4 or 8 measures.  If it is helpful to you, and it is not immediately apparent in the music, sing the line in your head while fingering through.  If you were singing, where would you breathe?  That is more than likely the place you should breathe.  Beyond breathing, and still part of phrasing, ask yourself if the phrase is a question or an answer.  Music is a conversation and a lively one at that.  Consider this, how quickly do you zone out when someone is talking in monotone?  If it is not within a sentence or two, you have the attention span of...a person who is really gifted at paying attention.  Well done, you.  Most of us prefer animation and inflection in conversation - this is also true for music.

There they are, my top five for sight-reading.  This may seem like a lot to consider in a short span of time (usually a minute or less).  The best way to become efficient at any skill is to practice it.  I like having my students sight-read in the last five minutes of a lesson.  The more you do it, the better you get.  You will learn from mistakes such as not spending enough time in one of these five areas.  In my previous post, I listed ways to get music to sight-read.  Those are still valid.  You can also always ask your director or lesson teacher for appropriate music to sight-read.  Believe me, they will not turn you away.  You will make their day.  Besides, those people will have a good idea of what excerpts are commonly seen in auditions.  The more literature you see, the better; you may even walk into sight-reading to find that you don't have to sight-read at all.

What I Am Listening To/Working On: Nicole Chamberlain Music

As promised in a previous post, I would like to take the time in this post to highlight the work of flutist-composer Nicole Chamberlain. I discovered her music about a year and a half ago.  It all started with Percolate (and this specific recording!):

After that, I scrambled to find where I could purchase this music - everything is on her website (click Nicole's name above) and many of her pieces are also sold through Flute World.  Once on her website, I got lost in an array of music I wanted to own and learn how to play immediately!  I loved her use of extended techniques and the sounds/moods of her pieces.  Did you catch the quote of Mission Impossible in Percolate?

At this point, I have performed Percolate, conducted Railroaded, recorded Chatter, worked on In Cahoots and Asphyxia, and am currently working on Acrophobia.  Clearly, I am obsessed.  But seriously, this music is challenging and so much fun to play.  The use of pizzicato tonguing, beatboxing, jet whistles, multiphonics, and stomps is a delightful workout (no, really, my abs hurt when I am first learning a piece and building up endurance).

Chamberlain seems to be a fountain of new music at the moment and she is writing for a variety of flute ensembles.  Her CD Three-Nine Line, featuring her compositions, was released earlier this year.  That said, recordings of her pieces can be found on her website along with videos posted by the composer or other experts demonstrating the extended techniques in each piece.

You should definitely check out Chamberlain's website and music.  Then find some friends who want to step out of the traditional realm of playing to play these pieces.  You will be glad you did.

Here is the recording of Chatter I mentioned earlier.  I am playing with my good friend Elaine.

Musician's Yoga, Body Mapping, and the Alexander Technique: Awareness

Let's jump right in, shall we.  Physically, I struggle to "work out" because as a young person, I was constantly engaged in physical activity such as ballet and other dance forms, soccer, tennis, gymnastics, etc.  I never had to "work out".  Now that I am older, and I am not getting any younger (no body is, get it?), I feel my body ache doing things I was once able to do without a second thought.  Mentally, in short, I have responsibilities (kids will do that) that I have not had before.  I often find myself stressed.  So this summer, I decided to do some reading that would, hopefully, make me more knowledgeable about my overall well-being, both physical and mental. My reading included the following books: Musician's Yoga: A Gude to Practice, Performance, and Inspiration by Mia Olson; Body Mapping for Flutists: What Every Flute Teacher Needs to Know About the Body by Lea Pearson; and Simple Step-by-Step Alexander Technique by Michèle Macdonnell.

After reading these books, I by no means am an expert on these topics, however I do feel enlightened and inspired to learn more and improve myself. The first two books are written by flutists, which is awesome because, hey, I am a flutist.  Here is what all of the books seem to agree on, emphatically: 1) awareness of your body and its responses to everyday activity is extremely important and 2) we carry stress around in our body through misuse and tension both of which can inhibit our ability to perform mundane tasks and/or perform musically.  All three also provide many pictures which demonstrate proper balance and poise and conversely imbalance in the structure of the body.

Musician's Yoga offers meditations and yoga routines, as well as individual poses, to help a flutist find inner calm and balance.  The varying routines, each including multiple poses, to focus the energy of the body, increase flexibility, and implement the balance found in all aspects of flute playing (from practice to performance) will help you become more aware of your posture as you play.

Body Mapping goes into great detail about how each part of the body works and how the whole structure is connected.  What I got out of it, based on the aches I have felt of late, is that the tension in my neck is hindering my ability to breathe fully/quietly/effectively, to feel flexible and relaxed in my playing stance, tongue faster, and even use the maximum mobility of my fingers.  It seems crazy yet also so obvious that tension in one area of my body spreads throughout and impacts my playing.

Finally, Alexander Technique,  offers a brief but clear introduction to the technique which focuses on the primary control (the alignment and relationship between the head, neck, and back).  It suggests that we study the way babies/toddlers move, their stature, to realize what natural poise looks like.  It is often suggested, by the way, to watch babies breathe to understand the proper/natural/most efficient breathing technique.

Again, I am not an expert, but rather an intrigued student who has only just begun this journey.  I plan to slowly teach myself how to implement the finer points of all of these books into my everyday life and, of course, into my playing.  In the last few weeks I have started to do yoga, via DVD.  I can already feel a difference in the way I carry myself and stand.  I feel less tension while I play.  However, I am far from mastering yoga and I can only imagine how much better I will feel as I continue to practice yoga.  In the near future, I would love to make up my own routines, with guidance from Olson's book and other experts, that I can use daily for myself or teach my studio students.  These routines could be an overall experience or singularly focused to release tension and improve flexibility in a particular area of the body.  It is my hope that as I learn my own body map, I can help my students learn and correct, as needed, their own.  Furthermore, taking note of how I complete everyday tasks will only prolong my body's ability to perform music without falling prey to tendinitis or other painful aches.  It starts with how I stand, how I sit, how I bend over to pick something up, how I write on my computer or on a piece of paper at a desk; all of these positions we put our bodies in and forget to consider, to be aware of, how our body feels.  Awareness is paramount.  As discussed in both Olson's and Pearson's book, inclusive awareness, taking in all around you, is part of the musical experience.  Macdonnell discusses this type of awareness too when she talks about being in the present, in the now.

It is so easy to get lost in the music, to only see the music.  Yet, if we are not mentally and physically healthy and aware, then it is all for naught.

Let's Talk About the Alabama All-State Band Flute Audition Etudes

Welcome to my studio!  Here are my videos on how to practice, think, and prepare the etudes for the Alabama All State Band Auditions for 2019 (auditions music/requirements).  For anyone considering auditioning for all-state, let me first say that I think that is great!  It is a good short term goal that, as proper motivation, will allow you the opportunity to grow as a musician regardless of the audition outcome.  Practicing scales regularly leads to higher technical ability and also strengthens your theoretical understanding of music.  A good etude will push and engage you as a musician.  Remember that all music should be played musically, even scales.  An etude may be labeled as a technical etude, but it should still be played expressively.  Just some food for thought.

In my videos, I will suggest ways to practice these specific etudes.  You may have other ideas or know methods that work for you, but I wanted to share my strategies too.  Something I don't say in my videos that I would like to share now is that the technical exercise (as I call it) is one of the best, if not the best, ways to learn notes in relation to fingerings/muscle memory.  The technical exercise means playing a passage (never the whole piece, maybe 8 measures at a time or less as needed) in varied rhythms.  Straight eighths or sixteenths can be practiced in dotted rhythms, triplets, eighth and two sixteenths, etc. You can practice your scales this way too.

So, without further ado, here are the videos!  I sincerely hope that you find them helpful and that they inspire you in your practice sessions.  Good luck, happy practicing, excelsior!

Middle School Technical Etude

Middle School Lyrical Etude

High School Technical Etude

High School Lyrical Etude

Etude of the Week

In the last year, I joined a Facebook group called Etude of the Week.  Initially, I just listened to everyone as they finished up an etude book (I joined mid-book).  I enjoyed seeing flutists of all levels participating and offering each other support.  Flutists as young as 11 played at their own tempo, working on the aspects of flute playing relevant to their own personal growth.  College students shared their recordings too.  Professional flutists including Amy Porter and Nicole Esposito also posted their renditions and included tips on how to practice or what to focus on.  What an amazing opportunity presented by social media.  I should give credit where it is due, the group was created by a flutist from Flutistry Boston, Katy Wherry.


At this point, I have already participated in a full round (Köhler's Romantic Etudes) and am in the midst of another (featuring Moyse's Melodic Studies and Paganini's 24 Caprices).  This group gives me accountability.  I practice nearly every day and have personal goals, but having to record myself and post it makes it harder for me to neglect my potential to grow as a musician.  Think about it, I am out of school and don't have a professor/teacher to check in with once a week.  This is how I make up for it.  An added bonus is that my sight-reading skills are vastly improving as I only have a week, sometimes less, to learn an etude.  I am learning new music I might not have had reason to explore prior to this experience.  I have an amazing support system via the other flutists in the group; furthermore, each recording gives me a new perspective or interpretation of an etude with which I am now familiar.  There are so many positives to being in this group.

That said, I will be the first to say that I am not an overly big fan of social media.  I participate in it, but I also see that it can create, and has created, a negative environment.  I have watched videos on YouTube and read nasty comments.  When a musician is trying to improve, recording themselves and receiving feedback is key.  But the goal as compassionate human beings should be to provide constructive and supportive feedback.  No one is perfect and there is always something to improve.  But only pointing out the negatives, or just being plain mean, benefits no one and it could do serious damage to a person's self-confidence.

The nice thing about Etude of the Week is that when people comment, as far as I have seen, it is always positive.  They offer praise, words of encouragement, and constructively suggest ways to improve. It is a healthy learning environment.  I am proud to be a member of this group.  In addition to learning my etudes, it is now my goal to contribute positively to the learning environment I admire.

If you had not heard of this group before, you should absolutely check it out! Consider joining - you can be an observer until you are ready to join the fun yourself.  There you go, that is my plug for an inspiring group.  Hope to hear you playing etudes alongside me soon!

My Journey into Beatboxing

While earning my first master’s degree I met a truly inspiring flutist.  This student helped me to loosen up, chill out (if you will), in rehearsals and as a musician.  This same student introduced me to a whole new world of flute playing.  He shook up the whole studio by learning Greg Pattillo’s Three Beats for Beatbox Flute.  It was so cool!  And secretly, I wanted to be able to beatbox too.  But as with all new things, I was extremely hesitant to even try.  For years, I pushed it away, making excuses for why I couldn’t learn how to do it.  Did you catch that?  Couldn’t.  I thought I did not possess the ability to learn what my friend had.  Why?  Well, it is despairingly simple.  I was scared.  There was nothing to stop me from learning.  I could have asked my friend to give me pointers, but I didn’t.  I wasted a perfectly good opportunity.  Furthermore, I wasted five years of growth potential on fear.  I was so scared of failure and embarrassment.   There are so many quotes I can throw in here about how people who are successful weren’t afraid to fail because it would lead to success or how the only difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is the willingness to prepare, to put in the hard work.  But I don’t need to, because undoubtably you have heard them all before. 

And here’s the thing, once I decided that I was going to do it, that I was going to learn how to beatbox, I took off.  I watched countless instructional videos about how to beatbox (I will share some of my favorites at the bottom of this post), and they helped a little bit.  But at the end of the day, I learn by experience.  I started incorporating beatboxing syllables into my warm-ups, for example scales, and I purchased beatboxing etude books and pieces.  Now I know what you are thinking – there are beatboxing etudes?!  Yes, yes there are.  I will share the books I purchased with you in the following paragraphs as I compare them and detail what worked for me.  Let me say this, I don’t think I am as good of a beatboxer as my friend who so inspired me, but I do hope to have the opportunity to jam with him in the future.  I was so honored and, yes, inspired (theme of the post much?) watching my friend grow as a flutist and I can only hope that if he heard me beatboxing he would be proud of me. 

Shall we get down to it?  The book that helped me, hands down, the most in learning beatboxing was  Flute Beatboxing: Studies& Pieces by Tilmann Dehnhard.  Dehnhard has another amazing extended technique book that I may have to do an entire entry on in the future called The New Flute: Workbook & DVD.  In his beatboxing book, Dehnhard explains how to make each sound and then goes on to give focused etudes on each individual sound in progressively more challenging levels.  Level 1 is Bronze followed by Silver, Gold, and Platinum.  In the first three levels, the Ts, K, and B sound are taught on their own.  Then, in the Platinum level, the final etude is a mix of K and B.  Furthermore, there are concert studies which integrate all three sounds. Finally, he gives students “Beatbox Classics” which are familiar tunes with added beatbox sounds.  I should note that Dehnhard notates the B (bass drum) sound as P in his music and Ts as T.  You will see in this blog that composers notate beatboxing differently.  Isolating each sound and placing them in a more traditional learning setting solidified my ability to process and master each sound.  Technology is great and I loved listening to Pattillo demonstrate each sound, but this book gave me a physical goal.  I guess I am truly old school. 

I had also previously purchased The Art of Beatboxing by Brandy Hudelson which is also an etude book.  I bought it because I was working on her piece Wild Nightingale.  Wild Nightingale was my first goal in beatboxing.  I was staying clear of Three Beats, again due to fear, and wanted a piece that I could perform.  For the record, I have since worked on, although not performed, Three Beats.  Hudelson’s book was not accessible to me when I was in the beginning stages of learning to beatbox.  She introduces a lot of beatboxing syllables, each with a detailed description on how to produce the sound, and incorporates them with complex rhythms and sometimes compounds them with other extended techniques.  Having worked through Dehnhard’s book and worked on/performed Wild Nightingale, I think this book is more accessible to me now.  I would not recommend this book to learn the basics.  What this book does do that is fantastic is in the chapters leading up to the etudes, Hudelson discusses how to improvise with beatboxing and how to compose with the technique.  I arrange music for my students and for flute ensemble often and I think it would be fun to incorporate beatboxing into a future project. Below the sample notation is a recording of my dress rehearsal for a performance of Wild Nightingale (consider it proof that an old dog can learn new tricks).

The final etude book that I had purchased early on was Four Etudes for Beatbox Flute by Greg Pattillo.  This book was also a bit much for me, personally, in the beginning.  I felt like I was just thrown into the deep end.  To be fair, remember that Pattillo has multiple videos and a summer camp in which you can learn to beatbox from the pro himself.  For me, the videos didn’t engage me the way I need in order to learn.  Physical etudes hold me accountable.  Pattillo, like every composer I have encountered who uses beatboxing, provides instructions in the book on how to produce the sound.  You will see, again, that Pattillo notates differently than the previous two composers.  What is neat about this book is that the tunes are not only familiar to a musician, but also to those who do not study music.  The tunes are from popular culture and are transcriptions of some of Pattillo’s popular videos.  Again, I think I would be more successful with this book now than I was a year ago when I started this venture.

In a future post, I plan to discuss a super neat flute composer whose compositions I have been obsessed with of late: Nicole Chamberlain.  Chamberlain is a composer who has given the flute literature world a plethora of cool pieces for solo flute, duets, trios, flute choir, and mixed chamber ensembles incorporating beatboxing and other techniques.  No surprise here, Chamberlain notates the beatboxing technique differently from the aforementioned flutist-composers.   For now, I will leave you with a couple of the instructional beatboxing YouTube videos: