by Katharine Rawdon
 |
| Katharine Rawdon |
We flutists have been
taught to organize our daily practice into categories such as sound,
technique, studies, and repertoire. This is a great starting point, as it keeps
us from concentrating too much in one area at the expense of another. The
famous classic books from the French School, such as Moyse’s De la
Sonorité and Tone Development Through
Interpretation or the Exercices Journaliers of Taffanel and Gaubert,
contain exercises for sound or technique, respectively, suggesting that these
are separate issues.
But does this separation lead us to
the integrated, organic performance we hope to share with our audience? Do
they experience our playing separated
into categories, or is it the integration of these aspects that can either
move them or leave them flat? Perhaps we could prepare
more thoroughly by being aware of the overlap, rather than the separation of
these categories, aiming to
integrate all elements into an expressive whole, a highly communicative musical
experience that will reach the audience and touch them to the core?
My suggestion is that
there is a lot to be gained from integrating your work on sound and technique
to the greatest extent possible. While keeping the basic structure of the
practice session, you can enlarge your awareness, bringing attention to technical issues
while “practicing sound”, and inversely, bringing attention to sound and expression while “practicing
technique”.
While ostensibly working
on sound, and using the classic materials mentioned above or other more recent
books, you can simultaneously pay attention to “technical” elements,
such as the use of your body, an easy balancing of the weight of the flute,
articulation, and efficient finger movements. While playing slowly and working
on sound, expand your attention to include an awareness of these elements—it is much easier to attend to these issues while practicing long tones or lyrical passages, than
while zipping
through scales. Slow work will lead to fast scales before
long! Use a large mirror to observe yourself, since what we think we are doing
and what we actually are doing can often be quite different! Additionally, slow
work on “sound” in patterns moving through all keys will eventually lead to greater
fluency at faster speeds, better sight-reading, memorization and improvisation.
A rather good return on your investment of time and practice energy!
Likewise, when practicing
scales and so forth, it is essential to listen carefully to the tone quality
and to play expressively, since the ultimate goal of all our work is to perform
music expressively!
According to brain
research, if you learn a musical figure, let’s say a D Major scale,
robotically, without any emotional meaning or expression involved, your brain
will not even recognize that figure when you come across it in an expressive
context such as the delightful opening gesture of the Mozart D major Concerto:
So avoid practicing scales
and technical patterns mechanically, and don’t wait for your
solo pieces to “turn on” the musicality! Be creative with
your “technical practicing”, inventing a variety of dynamic patterns to challenge yourself,
perhaps starting with the pattern
of rising crescendo—falling diminuendo, which
is natural for the flute, and
advancing (during the practice session and over time) to its less natural opposite, to
other more complex dynamic patterns, and to playing with different colors or
color changes.
Practicing in this
integrated way, with musical goals first on your list of priorities, will make
your practice sessions not only more productive and efficient, but far more
entertaining and creative. Considering
the many hours we flutists devote to practice, why not
make them as fulfilling as possible? Our increased pleasure in playing and our
more integrated musicality will surely pass into our performances, connecting
more deeply to the musical pleasure of our audiences.
© Katharine Rawdon, 2014
