The Two Weeks Have Ended :(

May 31st, 2019:

Even though today is the last day of my senior project, I am definitely not going to stop practicing and playing the flute. I am really thankful for the experience I had and how I was able to train with Ms. Patricia Harper. It was an enjoyable adventure.

So for my last day I went over every skill and way to practice that I knew of: scales, octave intervals, breathing techniques, practicing sharp/flat fingerings, tonguing vs. slurring, and playing actual songs. And although this probably sounds like a lot of work… it was more fun than work for me.

The work part of my day was starting to put together my project presentation for June 3rd. For my presentation I will be playing a few things on my flute and also displaying facts about the flute and my journey through a powerpoint. I can show my progress and explain how someone else may go about learning the flute whether they have previous knowledge of music and instruments or not.

The quote up above is certainly one belief I have; that a life without music would suck. Music is a part of each and every one of my days whether I am listening to it, watching it, playing it, reading it, you name it. There is music that appeals to everyone and that is why it is so great. It is one of the very few things in the world that everyone can enjoy in some way. This is Kayla logging off for now. (Who knows, maybe other instruments will start popping up on here!)

Feeling Like A Flutist

May 30th, 2019:

Today I finally feel as though I can really play the flute. I practiced my scales, octave intervals between notes, and slurring vs. tonguing. Slurring notes is when you cross between notes with no change of air stream or sound other than the actual note pitch. It is like one continuous breath. Slurring is the opposite of tonguing which is using the tongue and the back of your front top teeth to make a “doo” sound before playing each note. Here’s a quick short video of tonguing 4 notes which is most common in music and then slurring 4 notes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJyVGWNgddk

After that, I continued finding songs that I could practice and begin to play. On one of my first days of blogging I mentioned thinking about the song “Morning Mood,” and now I am actually beginning to teach myself that song. It is pretty difficult because the song contains a lot of quick note changes and a lot of sharps that I am not used to yet. Here is a preview into the music for “Morning Mood.” What looks like curved lines to make frowns or smiles are the slurs that I mentioned before. What is in between the ends of the slur are notes that should be connected with little to no breaths in between.

Image result for morning mood flute sheet music — Has parts for not just flute but other instruments I play.

Another song I have been practicing is “Scarborough Fair.” This is an example of a song with all notes tongued. How a musician would know this is by no slurs being written in, therefore making it standard tonguing being used to play each note. The music for “Scarborough Fair” is well known and looks like this (the pdf wasn’t able to be uploaded so I screenshotted it but it is a bit blurry sorry):

Image result for scarborough fair flute sheet music — “Scarborough Fair”

My goal is to be able to play this song with little error for tomorrow. I’m going to need to practice, practice, practice.

Practicing with Actual Songs

May 29th, 2019:

Today I started my practice by playing the same notes in different octaves. For a visual, this is what that looks like:

The left three bars show the notes of C and B in the bass clef or F clef.
The right three bars show the same notes of C and B in the treble clef or G clef.
Each bar read right to left show C and B in a different, higher octave (up an interval of 8 notes back to the same pitch but in a higher key). In order to produce a higher pitch I still hold down the same keys for the note but blow a lot more air to get a higher tone vs. a lower tone. What this exercise would sound like is in the below link: (To hear a short example of this start the video at 1:02)

https://youtu.be/jj45xR8UqiM

After practicing octave training for a while with each note from C1 to C3 (1 and 3 representing the octaves, 1 being the lower and 3 being two octaves higher like going from bar one to bar three in the above photo but playing every note in between) I then tried to play some well known songs using low to high or high to low skips. One song I enjoy playing while practicing this exercise is this famous song:

I still need to continue practicing this song though because it doesn’t sound 100% yet and some of the jumps are still a little hard for me to get on a first try. But I have a lot of fun trying and that is what matters.

My Second Flute Lesson!

May 28th, 2019:

So today I had my second flute lesson which went “Grrreeeaaatttt!” as Tony the Tiger would say. The lesson started with me presenting my progress by showing that I know how to build the instrument properly, that I know the fingerings by playing different scales, playing low and high notes, and holding notes for 10 beats each (which takes a lot of breath out of me). I was really happy because my practice did pay off and my teacher Ms. Harper was very impressed. Because of this, I was able to learn lots of new things in my lesson!

Before my lesson I had already known the C major scale. This means I knew all of the notes in one octave C to C with no sharps or flats.

I learned the notes F#, Bb, G#, C#, and Eb today. Those fingerings are shown above. With these notes I am able to play any scale including a chromatic one. A chromatic scale can also be from C to C, like a C major scale, but includes all sharps/flats in between. A chromatic scale can be seen in the photo on the right.

After learning and practicing the new notes, Ms. Harper showed me some easy songs I could play. We practiced a few together and then she let me sight read some on my own including the ones on the left. These songs allowed me to practice my knowledge of the note’s pitch, the fingerings, different rhythms, and different techniques to produce a song.

After my lesson I went home and pulled up popular songs on today’s charts and practiced sight reading those. It helped that I knew what they should sound like but it was still challenging remembering each fingering and trying to play some fast paced songs for the first time. It was a very fun practice for me. I even tried to teach my mom some flute… I think I was a pretty good teacher because she was able to get out notes on her first few tries. So if anyone wants to learn, even though I am learning, I can always help!

Before My Next Lesson…

May 27th, 2019:

#reviewtime Happy Memorial Day everyone!!! So basically today I practiced EVERYTHING I wanted to get down before my lesson tomorrow. I started like I always do, by building and tuning my instrument. I then practiced some scales and breathing exercises as talked about in previous blog posts. I even tried to sight read a little. Sight reading is just like it sounds, reading music without any previous knowledge of what it looks like or should sound like.

If any of you would like to try learning literally any instrument I would recommend buying a book in this series. (You may need some basic knowledge of how to read music notes first though.) But these books have fingering charts, scales, beginner songs, rhythm practices, and articulation practices. By having this book not only is it super easy to learn the basics of an instrument but it is also easy to know what to practice.

Here are some pages I used for my basic training:

“The Beat Goes On”

May 23rd, 2019 and May 24th, 2019:

I focused a lot on breathing today and yesterday. Like my teacher showed me to do, I lit a candle and put my mouth in embouchure form.

A basic chart for a flutist’s embouchure while playing different parts of the register. (Meaning low, medium, and high notes)

I then blew air slowly outwards at the candle flame. I blew air lightly, just enough to make it flicker, and a little harder almost to the point of putting the flame out. Another challenge to not only having good form and proper air streams to graze the top of the mouthpiece, is that I need to be able to hold it for 10 beats. The flute is a challenging instrument for almost everyone for this one reason; it takes a ton of air out of you when playing. A giant tuba actually takes just as much air as the flute does! You may be wondering how that is when a flute is so small and a tuba is so big? It is because when playing the flute your air stream goes half into the instrument and half across the mouthpiece. The slicing of air creates the flute’s sound. All other instruments, brass and woodwinds alike, have the air go straight into the instrument. Therefore it does not matter the size of the instrument but rather the technique needed to play it to determine the air stream and sound.

Another technique I practiced was playing a high note and then a low note or a low note and then a high note. I tried to make it so I was comfortable switching between octaves by changing the way my mouth and breaths were. By now, my memorization of the notes and their fingerings has become much better and I am able to read basic music and play it with some practice.

Enjoyed Life and Practiced the Flute Some More

May 22nd, 2019:

Today I didn’t practice the flute as much as I have been, if I am being completely honest. With events like senior night, Halos, and commencement, I need to start thinking about planning what I am going to do those days and what I am going to wear… so I did some of that. BUT, I did of course relax and practice the flute for some time. Once again I built the instrument and tuned. I started by playing scales to get each note at any range to come out clearly and strongly. I would practice tonguing 3 note riffs kind of like the well known song Hot Cross Buns. I would go up or down by 3 notes each time and speed it up or slow it down to practice different rhythms and tonguing patterns.

This is an example of what I am reading as I play different scales.

“Practice Makes Perfect”

May 21st, 2019:

Now to go along with the above statement is another; “Patience is a virtue.” I am not the most patient person so the stage of practicing something over and over again can be challenging for me. With that said… I practiced a lot today. I started my morning by waking up and immediately humming flute tunes “William Tell Overture” and “Morning Mood.” Both of these songs are famous and beautiful so I have tagged links to each song at the bottom of the post as well as under here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46rsiPJAp30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAu4TajHYLk

“William Tell Overture” is sort of a back and forth song from reeds to flute to reeds to flute mimicking nature and the patterns in it. “Morning Mood” is a representation of how I feel on a good day when waking up. It is also very common to hear it at the beginning of a cartoon when a character wakes up peacefully before the chaos begins. But anyways, to the practicing. I began by building the flute and tuning it. I then practiced scales; going up by one whole step each time so C to D, D to E, E to F, and so on and then coming back down by that same amount. After I did some scales and practiced getting really low notes and really high notes out, I played some beginner songs: London Bridge, Money Money Money, Ode to Joy, and Country Roads. I practiced each multiple times to make sure the notes were clear and articulated properly.

The music would look like this: (short and sweet)

Once I figure out how to upload recordings I will add them to this post and future posts so you guys can hear what I sound like when practicing and what the songs and scales sound like on a flute.

First Flute Lesson!

May 20th, 2019:

Today I had my first flute lesson with Patricia Harper!

Background on Patricia Harper: She is the Adjunct Professor of Music at Connecticut College and has been working there since 1975. Ms. Harper teaches the flute in summer courses as well as at the college during the year. To gain her music degrees she attended Smith College and later went on to Yale University School of Music. Patricia Harper has been playing the flute for many years and definitely knows her way around the instrument.

Details about my first lesson: I learned how to build my flute properly so I will not damage it over time. Flutes, well specifically the metal they’re made out of, can bend easily with slight movements so it is very important to know how to put it together properly. Many flutes are made to be naturally sharp when building them and pushing the head piece all the way in. My flute fit this description exactly so Ms. Harper dabbed nail polish on where I should stop when putting the head joint on. (A neat trick I think)

These are the parts of the flute. Where we put nail polish for tuning purposes was on the headjoint and part of the barrel; the two parts that connect to each other.

Before testing how I sound when trying to produce a note on the flute we took a bottle and I blew over the top to make a deep noise from it. She also gave me a straw and made me hold it in my mouth without any hands to show what the structure of my mouth (The embouchure) would look and feel like. Other fun methods she used was making me spit rice off the tip of my tongue on her deck and having me breathe so that I made a candle flame flicker steadily but not blow out. After making sure I had the right techniques down we played notes together and went up and down on the c major scale. She had me start from the middle (the easiest notes to produce because it takes a normal amount of air just like if we were to blow on a candle steadily.) We went down to lower C which needs less and less air to produce notes the lower you go. And then we went back up to the middle and continued to go higher blowing more air while increasing in range. The higher notes were much harder for me. (They also made me realize I probably need to pump my inhaler before trying those haha.) Overall it was a great lesson and I learned a lot. I learned proper skills and techniques, fingerings for notes, methods for producing notes, and most importantly, what I need to work on.

The Basics…

May 19th, 2019:

Today I looked at the book I got called “Elementary Method Flute or Piccolo Edition.” I learned how to put together the flute and how to produce a clear sound. I needed to practice restarting how to play the note “B” so I became more comfortable with getting out a clear noise each time.