Brilliant young artists will join the Utah Valley Symphony in concert Wed & Thurs, Feb 23rd & 24th. The soloists will perform works by Rachmaninoff, Handel, Saint- Saëns, Beethoven, and more.
The symphony will also perform Dvořák’s Carnival Overture and The Moldau by Smetena. Great flute parts!
Click here for tickets.
How do you define fear?
Here we are again, another Halloween. We are surrounded by ghosts, skeletons, creepy pumpkins, headstones and scary movies. A strange holiday, but I like the happy side of Halloween: happy pumpkins, happy ghosts, happy costumes and happy decorations.
I’m sure everyone has been afraid of something at some point in your life. How do you define fear?
What are common types of fear? Fear of failure. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of spiders or all types of phobias. Fear of being late. Fear of judgement. Fear of the unknown. Fear of unmet expectations. This list could go on and on. As a flute teacher, I frequently see the fear of performing or the fear of making a mistake in students. But what exactly are they afraid of?
Psychologists and therapists use something called The Feelings Wheel to help identify the root causes of emotions.
This is my copy that has been on my fridge for a while. Here is also a link to another Feelings Wheel developed by Dr. Gloria Willcox of The Gottman Institute.
According to this chart, fearful is a word that can include scared (helpless or frightened), anxious (overwhelmed or worried), insecure (inadequate or inferior), weak (worthless or insignificant) rejected (excluded or persecuted), and threatened (nervous or exposed). Dr. Willcox’s wheel also includes bewildered, confused, discouraged, submissive, foolish and embarrassed. Other wheels also use the words vulnerable, suspicious, apprehensive, concern, worried, susceptible, and terrified.
When I think about conquering fear, the words I just listed above are much more descriptive than just the word fear itself. Once you’ve identified the root of your fear, then it makes it easier to address the thinking process. I am not a trained therapist nor do I claim to be by any means. I just know that thinking through things and adjusting thought processes contributes immensely to emotional health.
Many of these feelings listed on the chart are normal. But when these emotions paralyze you, it’s time to address them and turn them around for your benefit. I encourage you to seek professional help, if necessary.
I love this quote from the movie Princess Diaries:
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all.
Princess Diaries
Recognize that fear exists. What you decide to do about it is the important part. Acknowledge it. Face it. Conquer it everyday.
Also, visit my post from October 29, 2020 called Don’t Be Scared, for specific details on how to address performance anxiety as a flute player or musician.
Dynamics and Intonation go hand in hand.
Dynamics = playing loud or soft, or somewhere in between
Intonation = the art of playing in tune
Changing the volume on a radio or headphones requires changing a button. It takes very little effort to make this change. However, as a flute player, it’s not that simple. Anyone can play one volume. Learning to play various volumes adds to the musicality of your phrases.
Musicality = expressing feeling through the music by adding dynamics and stylistic characteristics. This makes music more interesting to listen to and to play instead of sounding monotone.
Phrase = a musical sentence. This can be any length, but frequently is 2 to 4 or sometimes 8 measures long.
There are many articles and books written on the subject of flute dynamics and more specifically, intonation. My intent here is to do a basic, simple summary for flute players and give you a place to get started. Here is a chart to help explain it.
| Dynamic level | pp | ff | pp |
| Lip shape | oo | Ah | oo |
| Size of lip opening (embouchure) | smaller | bigger | smaller |
| Angle of the air stream | higher | lower | higher |
| Amount of air | less | more | less |
| Abdominal support | always | always | always |
The column on the left describes the elements that affect your dynamic range. The columns on the right describe how those elements should change when you are playing the different dynamic ranges as listed at the top of the chart.
Just as these colors gradually shift from one to another, you must progressively adjust your lips, opening, angle and amount of air. Sometimes the smallest modification can create a big difference in your flute sound.
First, practice moving from the pp column to the ff column. Then start at the ff range and gradually move to the pp range. Practice this on random notes in the low, middle, and high registers. Try to create the widest extremes that you can. For example, play even softer than you think you can and try playing even louder than you think you can. Then, after you are feeling comfortable with this, try going from pp-ff-pp all in one breath. Do this exercise on random notes in different registers as well.
Check back next week for part 2.
Did you Spring Forward with your clocks last Saturday night? I live in the Mountain Daylight Standard Time Zone. We get the pleasure of moving our clocks ahead an hour in the Spring and moving them back an hour in the Fall.
As I was thinking about the Daylight Savings Time Change, I thought about how I could relate that to music and flute playing.
We talk about “Spring Forward”. Take the word “Forward.” Now think about music. We always have to be looking forward to what’s coming up next in music. This leads me to two topics.
First, speed reading. Second, don’t dwell on the past.
Have you ever had to read something faster than usual? For example, maybe you show up to class and suddenly remember that you were supposed to read an article (or a chapter!!) before you came to class. So you take the 3 minutes before class starts and skim through it as quickly as you can so you can gain some small idea of what it’s about. Has that ever happened to you?
Or, as a flute player, have you ever experienced the feeling of panic as you realize that your lesson is today?! Then you quickly look through your music and play through the hard passages so your teacher won’t know you haven’t practiced as much as you should have. Has that ever happened to you?
(Shhh, here’s a secret…Your teacher can always tell whether or not you’ve practiced!)
When playing music, we need to learn to push our eyes forward. This is an essential component when trying to improve your sight reading skills. You must continually be looking forward to the next main beat or the next measure. When you’ve practiced this skill a lot, your sight reading abilities will improve.
I had a teacher who, as I was playing an Andersen Etude, would take a piece of paper and cover up the measure I was currently playing which forced me to look ahead to the next measure. Talk about panic! Over time, this simple act of covering up the measure helped improved my ability to look ahead and to view music as a bigger picture, so to speak.
The other thing looking forward helps us with is not dwelling on the past. This is true in music and in life. When you are practicing, yes, look back, analyze, critique yourself, and decide what needs improvement or what went well that you could apply to something else.
When you are performing, that’s an entirely different story. You can’t look back. You must constantly be moving forward and looking for what’s next. If you don’t do something as well as you hoped, it’s past. What’s gone is gone. Don’t dwell on the past. Don’t go back and fix it, that’s what practice time is for. When performing, look ahead and make the future great.
Practice these “Forward” skills of speed reading and not dwelling on the past. And “Spring” – as in the season? Look ahead. Hopefully, it’s just around the corner for us here in Utah.
Hooray for Summer! Who doesn’t love a change of pace, the warm summer sun, lemonade, swimming pools, ice cream and vacations?
With all the fun and extra events that summer brings, how do you stay motivated to practice during the summer? Commit to keep playing, especially if you are not taking lessons during the summer.
Sight read anything. Pull out old books you’ve previously gone through, flip randomly to a page and see what you can still play.
Go to flutetunes.com and try the Tune of the Day. They have an audio recording along with it.
Summer can be a great time to strengthen your scales and put them to memory.
Play popular music or folk tunes. All local music stores always have popular music or Broadway or Disney music favorites or Irish tunes or folk songs for flute. Try a new one each day as you continue to work on proper breaths, accurate tonguing, solid tone and vibrato.
If you find it hard to motivate yourself to practice, at the very least, listen to exceptional flute players. Maybe that will motivate you to practice.
In any case, enjoy summer and keep music a part of it in some way.
Lynette Lewis Flute Studio 