2006 Boot Camp Photos (so I'm a little slow with some things)

Class Photo












Front row: Carl, Ann, Kathleen, Ingrid, Peggy, Steve, Ascuncion, Janet.
Middle row: Marie Anne, Ramon, Ron, Rebecca, John (kneeling).
Back row: Pauline, kp, Blaise, Mary Alice.



Rehearsal: David, Bill, Ingrid







Ensemble rehearsal







David, Ron, Janet







Ingrid, kp, Ronnee

Singing helps your flute playing. Really.

More photos from earlier boot camps may be viewed here.

In memoriam: Alan E. Heller

Dear Baroque Boot Camp Participants,

I am very sorry tell you that Alan Heller passed away last month. His wife sent me an e-mail shortly after it happened, saying that they were both looking forward to coming back to Seattle this summer. Flute players will remember Alan as the very enthusiastic player who was equally at ease discussing baroque music and recordings, flutes, woodworking, keyboard instruments, and ballroom dancing. He was one of the few people who didn't cringe at the prospect of learning the tango at last year's workshop. And he always tried to do whatever any of the teachers asked of him, and was eager to learn as much as possible during the week. He will be missed.

Below is the obituary from the local New Jersey newspaper (they unfortunately spelled his name wrong in the heading).


Allen E. Heller
EGG HARBOR TWP., NJ Alan E. Heller, 56, formerly of Gettysburg, passed away on Sunday, April 13, 2008, at Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point, N.J. Born in Gettysburg, he was formerly of Somers Point, N.J., and a resident of Egg Harbor Township, N.J., for three years. Mr. Heller worked as a self employed Cabinet Maker. He was a member of St. Peter's United Methodist Church in Ocean City, N.J., where he was in the Adult Choir and Handbell Choir and was a member of the Organ Historical Society. Mr. Heller enjoyed ballroom dancing and was a talented pipe organ builder and refurbisher. He had built a harpsichord and played the Baroque Flute. Mr. Heller was an accomplished gardener and arborist. Surviving are his parents, Clark and Eleanor Heller; his wife, Kathy Heller of Egg Harbor Township, N.J.; a son, Paul Heller of Marietta; two brothers, Mark Heller and his wife, Dixie of York, and Jesse Heller and his wife, Carol of Landisville; many cousins, nieces, nephews; and his dogs, Sun and Star. A Service of Memory and Love will be offered Saturday at 2 p.m. from St. Peter's United Methodist Church, Eighth St. at Central Ave., Ocean City, N.J., where friends may call from 1:30 p.m. until the time of service. Burial will be private. The family suggests those who desire send memorial contributions to either The American Cancer Society, 626 North Shore Road, Absecon, NJ 08201; or St. Peter's United Methodist Church Organ Fund, 501 E. Eighth St., Ocean City, NJ 08226. To email condolences, visit ww.godfreyfuneralhome.com

What not to do (names changed to protect the guilty)

Three baroque flute players walk into a bar . . .

OK, it wasn't a bar, per se, it was a seafood bar in Seattle's Pike Place Public Market. And I suppose the only beginning more lame, in terms of gripping the reader with a sense that adventure is imminent, would be something like, "we were sitting in a bar drinking chardonnay," unless that is the beginning of people getting the stuffing beaten out of them ["We were sitting in a bar drinking chardonnay. It was a hot summer day and the wine was chilled. We didn't realize it was a biker bar whose local patrons thought classical music dorks would be fun to torment . . . "]. But I digress. There actually is something relevant to performing music and baroque flutes here.

Three baroque flute players step up to a seafood bar. A place well-known and well-loved and the food is well-enjoyed, and well, not often enough. Two of the players order the freshly made clam chowder. It looked and smelled delicious. The third player orders, in retrospect wisely, the grilled salmon sandwich.

The meal was enjoyed by all, and the gang was ready to continue the sightseeing before heading back to watch the finals of a tennis match, and then get ready for the concert. Priorities, you know.

On the way back home to watch said tennis match, player 1 notices that the inside of his upper lip is in distress. It actually hurts. As they get closer to home (and the TV) player 1 begins to panic. "My lip is cut on the inside!!! What will that do to my playing? Am I ruined for life? Will I need plastic surgery to correct this? What am I going to do??? I've got to get in the house and, tennis be darned, play a few notes to see if it has messed up my playing!!!" So the driving gets a little more reckless. Players 2 and 3 exchange glances ("what is he doing? Why is he driving like this??"). They get to their destination, player 1 dashes madly into the house, runs to the bathroom, turns on the light, washes his hands, grabs his upper lip violently, turns it inside out, and leans towards the mirror. *GASP*! He can SEE the cut. A hideous gash (about 2mm long). He runs out of the bathroom grabs a flute, and starts playing . . .

Everything is fine. The cut has absolutely no effect.

Player 1 says to the others: "I cut my lip with the plastic spoon at the seafood bar. I was completely panicked, especially after I saw the huge, enormous gash in the mirror. But once I played a few notes, I realized that everything was fine. Sorry to disrupt the tennis match."

Player 2 says, "I cut my lip too. But I just figured that if it was damaged, there was nothing I could do about it, so I stopped worrying."

Player 3 said, "the sandwich was excellent."

The moral of the story: watch what you put in your mouth. Protect your investment, especially on the day of a concert.

Smoke & Mirrors

Practice tip of the day: using a mirror.

1. Practicing in front of a full-length mirror will give you a good idea of what you look like when performing. It will also help you identify any "parasitic motion," that is, motions that you make while playing that hinder your performance. You may or may not be aware of these parasitic motions, and you may or may not realize that these motions hinder or disrupt your playing. But once you identify and address them, you'll discover that, for example, the little head bob or shoulder twitch you've been doing for years actually disrupts your flow of air, and you can stop blaming your lung capacity for not making it to the end of phrases.

2. Practicing in front of a wall-mounted mirror (bathroom, hallway, anywhere you find one) will enable you to examine what your embouchure is doing while you are playing. You may not realize that you are making more tension than you need, or that you are doing exactly the opposite of what you thought you were doing.

For both of these mirror experiences it will be helpful for you to memorize a short passage, or some exercises that take you through all the registers (slow or fast; doesn't matter), or a passage or exercise in which you have to articulate quickly, as in a Presto in 3/4 or something. You'll also notice just how efficient your finger technique is (if your fingers are moving too high above the instrument, you'll have to have a chat with them and convince them to move less, thereby making you more efficient, and therefore more relaxed, and thus able to play faster with less effort).

Practicing in front of a mirror gives you the added benefit of playing music with someone standing right in front of you. And that person in front of you just cannot stand still. This will help your concentration. And when you step in front of an audience, you'll be relieved that everyone in front of you is both sitting down and not right in your face.

Long Tone Exercises

From Janet See

Moderate(ly slow), steady 4/4 tempo

4/4 d’-a’-d’’--- d’-d’’----- d#’-a#’-d#’--- d#’-d#’’----- …etc…

Each measure is slurred. Inhale through nose before each two-measure group. At the double bar, wait before proceeding. Continue the exercise up to the G’s above the staff.

From Janet See

Slow tempo

4/4 d’’-d#’’-d’’--- d’’-e’’-d’’--- d’’-f’’-d’’--- d’’-f#’’-d’’--- d’’-g’’-d’’--- …etc…

(continue to high A), then…

4/4 d’’-c#’’-d’’--- d’’-c’’-d’’--- d’’-b’-d’’--- d’’-bb’-d’’--- d’’-a’-d’’--- …etc…

(continue to low D)

Each measure is slurred. Hold the last tone of each 3-note group. Slowly take in a nose breath after each measure.

From Janet Beazley

d’ – a’ – d’’ – a’’ – d’’’ – a’’ – d’’ – a’ – d’

d’ – g’ – d’’ – g’’ – d’’’ – g’’ – d’’ – g’ – d’

d’ – f#’ – d’’ – f#’’ – d’’’ – f#’’ – d’’ – f#’ – d’

d’ – b’ – d’’ – b’’ – d’’’ – b’’ – d’’ – b’ – d’

d’ – e’ – d’’ – e’’ – d’’’ – e’’ – d’’ – e’ – d’

d’ – c#’ – d’’ – c#’’ – d’’’ – c#’’ – d’’ – c#’ – d’

Each line is slurred; pick a tempo that would enable you to play each line in one full breath. This doesn’t take up that much time, so perhaps add a transposed version of this exercise—in the key of the piece you are currently practicing, or any other key that is more challenging. If you have a tuner, have it sound a drone on the tonic.

Variations on Kim’s ten-second long tones (See “Twenty-Minute Workout”)

1) diminuendo towards the end of each tone

2) crescendo towards the end of each tone

3) start soft, crescendo to halfway point, then diminuendo to end

4) paired instead of single notes, slurring to the second note; hold the second note of each pair (d’’-eb’’; eb’’-e’’; e’’-f’’; f’’’-f#’’…..etc…. to highest playable note; then…d’’-c#’’; c#’’-c’’; c’’-b’ ….. etc…. to low d’) (This is from Marcel Moyse’s de la Sonorité, and it is forever imprinted in the brains of modern flutists all over the world.)

5) (from Ingrid Crozman) – with each tone that is held, experiment with the shape of the mouth (e.g., “ooh” vowel sound vs. “aah”) and how that affects the sound, tone color, resonance

Sons filés – from some French flutist whose name I can’t recall

d’-d’’-d’’’-d’’-a’’ (each note lasts 2 seconds; hold the last tone of each set)

a’’-a’-a’’-a’’’-e’’’

e’’’-e’’-e’-e’’-b’’

b’’-b’-b’’-b’-f#’’

f#’’-f#’’’-f#’’-f#’-c#’’

continue through the circle of fifths

Twenty Minute Workout Testimonial

Kim’s Twenty-Minute Workout

I love this!! This is a great prescription for many of us who couldn’t seem to find practice time. One might think he/she needs at least an hour, but then if that magical hour fails to present itself in the course of the day, the flute ends up sitting in the closet!

Long Tones

This has long been a staple of my modern flute practicing, and I’ve had to make it part of my baroque flute practicing since that instrument is a completely different beast (an elaboration on my struggles with this will be the subject of a future blog entry). I’ve picked up several ways of practicing long tones over the years; I play a different exercise at each practice session. Each day at Boot Camp starts out with a “note of the day” session---there’s one long-tone exercise right there! Kim has us play/sustain/tune/focus/beautify the note du jour in all the playable registers of the instrument, then we go on to build triads over that note. It wakes up one’s “abs” and really gets the support going. Who needs Pilates core training when one can get it at BFVdGBC?!? We’ve also gotten other long tone exercises from all three of our instructors (Kim, Janet and Ingrid), and I can post those upon readers’ requests.

Technique

Every teacher I've studied with insists on including the following in every practice session: scales, arpeggios, articulation. Aaaarrrrggghhhh!! It sounds like a lot of work, but there must be a way to include all this in that twenty-minute workout. If time won’t allow us to practice every scale and arpeggio every day, then how about if we just focus on the scale(s) and arpeggio(s) that are in the piece we’re working on at the moment? There’s the main key and one or two others that it might modulate to; not too bad. The articulation practice is built in to the scale/arpeggio/technical passage work. This topic alone could take up many MB’s of space. (Kim----please consider this a request for you to post your words of wisdom on this.) It is something I’m working on a lot this year, and I am open to anything anyone has to offer on the subject. Here’s a cool exercise I recently got from early winds player Adam Gilbert. Its objective is to keep the air stream constant and not let it be too obstructed by the motions of the tongue. Turn your head joint so that the finger holes are not lined up with the embouchure hole. Hold up the instrument with the hands in playing position (not on the finger holes since they are now facing the wrong way), and practice your technical passage with the articulation AND the fingering motions. The articulation is being practiced on that single tone, but at the same time, you’re still working on coordinating that with the fingers. After practicing this a few times, turn the instrument back to its normal setting and play the same passage. Did it make a difference?

Happy practicing!! --Asuncion

The 20-Minute Workout

20 Minute Practice Regime for Recorder and Transverse Flute Players

1) 5 minutes: Long tones (About 10 seconds per note)
Start on a mid-range note, go up an octave, then return to the beginning note and go down to your lowest note, chromatically.

2) 3 minutes: Trills for each finger
RH little finger
LH thumb (recorders only)
LH ring finger
RH ring finger
LH middle finger
RH middle finger
LH index finger
RH index finger

3) 2 minutes: Specific trills
Flutes
bb'-c''
bb'-a'
a-g# in both octaves

Recorders:
C recorders
e''-d''
bb'-ab'
c'-bb'

F recorders
a''-g''
f''-eb''
eb''-db''

4) 5 minutes
Play through your piece(s)/movement at tempo a couple of times, identify technical (fingering) issues.

5) 5 minutes
From the technical issues identified above, adress one (1) of them. If you do one per session, they will soon disappear. Practice relevant passages with metronome, SLOWLY, forwards and backwards. When you can play the passage in a relaxed manner and correct notes 3 times in succession, then move to playing it at tempo. When the current relevant passage is played at tempo and without any body tension in the process, and each note is correct 90% of the time, the issue may be considered resolved. You may now move to the next technical issue. If one issue doesn't disappear in one day, go on to the next one and come back to the first one when you've addressed all of the other issues. This will keep your practice from becoming stale and also give you something to which you may look forward.

ADDENDUM (posted 14 July 2008)
This now becomes the 25-Minute Workout.
6) 5 Minutes
Chromatic scales. Slurred. Flutes and f-recorders, begin on the note a' or d", go up and back one (1) octave chromatically. Move up 1/2 tone and do the same thing until your starting note is a perfect fourth above your first note (e.g., flutes, start on a', start last scale up on d"). Do this entire exercise SLOWLY, until you can play the whole scale evenly. Then you may increase your speed. This exercise, believe it or not, actually has a goal: to be able to play the chromatic scale both very slow and very fast.

Then, begin on the note 1/2 tone below your first note (e.g., flutes, start on g#'), go up and back chromatically as above, then continue in a sequence down until you reach your bottom note.

Recorders: you are now done with the chromatic scale practice. Take a big breath.

Flutes, grab one ear plug. Put it in your RIGHT ear. You'll see why in a moment.
Start on d''', and go up and back chromatically to your a''' (if your flute plays Bb''', then go there). Do this SLOWLY for the first few times you practice this exercise, then in ADDITION to playing it slowly, begin to increase your speed.