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Starting
Scales & Technique as an Intermediate
Question: My previous
'less-than-perfectionist' flute teachers have
left me with an incredible amount of work to do -
technical finger-work - it is baffling me. My sound has always been pretty good and very
versitile. Do you have any tips with the
finger-work? And any teachers, please take note -
I'm gona be pretty tough on my students from now
on as it will be far easier for them in the
future.
______________
Jen replies:
I know exactly
what you're talking about.
You may want to read this fascinating report of Suzanne
Lord's about the teaching of "technical
facility" by Peter Lloyd.
I also have answered this
question for myself, my students, and lots of
folks on the net who've hit the same workload.
The thing is to make it FUN!!!
For example: Once you've learned a scale,
memorized it, played it for tone, made it
perfectly even at faster and faster tempi, then
you just have to break into an improvisational
*passion* and play freely for a few minutes (or
until the passion morphs :>), so that you've
really incorporated all the levels of finger and
lip dexterity, while making MUSIC.
It's a short recipe that takes a lifetime.
Trevor Wye has written a series of books that
will "walk you through it".
Start with "Practice Books for the Flute
(vol. 1 through 5 all one volume)" in the
OMNIBUS edition. It's about $40 but it's
fabulous.
Walfrid Kujala has a
great book (with facilitating fingerings, which
can make your finger work TRULY smooth) called
"The Flutist's Vade Mecum", which I
think is really worth owning.
There's also 17 Daily Exercises by Taffenal &
Gaubert, the stock material that all conservatory
students have used since the 1900s :>) and my
fave book for older students who need to find
speed and accuracy in their hands after freeing
their bodies into better balanced positions:
Fiona Wilkinson's "The Physical Flute".
All books are given a thumbnail sketch of uses
and how to order on my Fave Repertoire page.
For advanced students,
the fabulous advice on how to practice scales and
technical facility that are given in the
following books is very useful and interesting:
The Gilbert
Legacy by Angelita Floyd
Kincaidiana by John Krell
The
Flutist's Vade Mecum by Walfrid
Kujala
Gammes et
Arpegge by Marcel Moyse
You can look up the
publishers and how to buy these books here. You can also find them at www.fluteworld.com
Additionally, online you
can download a whole scale workbook with many
scale patterns and ideas of how to vary your
work. See:
Download
a great scale workbook:
Herbert
Lindholm's full bookof exercises, warmups,
fingerings, scales, trills and technical practice
ideas are in his FLUTE BASICS manual. This is
the rectangle second from the bottom when you
scroll down on his "free flute
sheetmusic" webpage.
Go to:
http://www.kuopionkonservatorio.fi/henkilokunta/hlindhol/
Lindholms
manual is in four parts. The first has one octave
and two octave scales, Blues scale, chromatic
scale etc. Part two has patterns to use as daily
scale exercises (uses your brain and trains your
fingers!) lip flexibility exercises, and Parts
three has tone exercises, octave and third
patterns, tonguing, multiple tonguing and
vibrato. Part four has both trill and basic
fingering charts. All four parts print out as 41
pages that can be hole punched and put in a
binder. Help yourself: Lindholm is a smart flute
teacher and very generous. :>)
Part One ~ Part Two ~ Part Three ~ Part Four
Flute
Teacher's Scale Help:
Here's a point to be
made:
How you and your teacher
approach this aspect of your technical
development is key. You want feedback and input
that keeps you engaged and excited about your
progress.
Ask your private flute
teacher to coach and help with strategies for
your practicing of tone, technique, intonation,
articulation, etc. etc.---and to help focus your
attention on which exercises to learn first, and
how to develop your own creative listening to
your technique.
As a teacher, I also
have found that it's more fun in lessons to play
technical exercises in harmony (I just make up
the harmony--usually playing in third, sixes or
holding drones while the student plays the
prepared material. My new book will be all about
these patterns, but meanwhile, just see if your
teacher is willing to perform in thirds with you,
or use a tape recorder to play in harmony with
yourself, too. Very fun.)
As far as order of
learning skills, you simply start at the basics,
and move forward in a daily pattern of learning
and practicing each skill:
For my students I teach
in roughly this order;
- Tone, longtones, Bell's Warmup, breathing,
posture etc.
Then always all slurred,
all two octave (unless student needs one
octave at first, and some younger or less
balanced ones do.)
- 2 Octave Chromatic
scales for tone (Paula Robison's Orange Juice
Warmup)
- Chromatic scales done for evenness
(metronome)
- Major scales done for tone (lower octave, then
higher octave, then finally two octave plus
expressive arpeggio---all slurred, dynamics,
pauses added as required to keep tone pure etc.)
- Major scales done for evenness 9in triplets,
groups of four, using metronome, chunking into
one-inch chunks, using metronome to create new
rhythmic groupings, add pauses, and change
accents etc.)
- Major scale swoops, cadenzas, improv. and
dynamics/expression....all the creative things
you can think of......
- Major Arpeggios wih stabilizing fingerings as
needed.
- Trills. basic
low-fingered, controlled, gentle trills
- Minor scales (how to create them--theory.)
- Melodic minor scales done for tone, done for
evenness
- Melodic minors
by memory - Melodic minorscale swoops, cadenzas,
improv. and dynamics/expression
- Arpeggios major/minor
- Etudes in major and minor keys
- Harmonic minor scales done for tone
- Harmonic minor scales done for evenness then
memorized, then scale swoops, cadenzas, improv.
and dynamics/expression
- Scales in thirds, all slurred, then add
articulations.
- Dominant Seventh chords, all slurred then add
articulations.
- Arpeggios in various forms (closed form, open,
intervallic patterns)
- Scales & - Arpeggios done in articulations
- Trills with and without terminations and
anticipations
- Intervals, all slurred, gradually getting wider
and wider. [4ths, 5ths, 6ths etc.]
You'll find quite a bit of information on the
books I use, and the manner in which I teach
technique and technical praciticing in the
articles section of my website (see novice levels
as well as intermediate levels, to get the whole
picture).
Go to the following list of articles and look for novice and
intermediate articles on scales, technique,
arpeggios, tone development, high register etc:
I wouldn't worry too much or be TOO hard on
*your* flute students. I think it's important
that you teach only what you already know (or at
least have a clear idea of.)
You can burn a child out if you teach them
technique in a punitive way. I know that I've
subconsciously made a face when I've spoken in the
past to students about scales, and I've just
propagated my own teenaged-year negative attitude
and ambivalence. So I realize that I had to grow
in my own way, develop a creative way to approach
scales, and make it into something I could believe in. :>)
I avoided pure technique
for a reason---when I was a teen; I thought it
sounded boring and un-musical. And I meet tons of
flutists every year who agree.
The teacher needs to convey the creativity and
freedom and LIBERATION that clean, fast technique
gives you. There should always be a musical prize
for all those cumunlative hours of chunking
scales, longtoning tricky arpeggios,
experimenting with airspeeds in overblown
harmonics, and all the other bits that go into
making a great "technique".
It is indeed, NOT all fingers! :>)
Alot of it is embouchure poise, fast airspeed and
flute stability in the hands.
The trick for any intelligent young flutist who
needs technique is to start at the simple end
(chromatic scales, major/minor scales and
arpegg), incorperate it into your daily practice,
gradually expand outwards, and be sure and let
yourself develop musically EVERY second of your
practice.
Always break away and improvise, and add passion
and spark to what you're doing.
Always vary the "voice" you're singing
in.
Always vary the emotion you're depicting.
No one wants to hear a machine in
micro-increments like a Swiss watch unless the
piece that's being performed is supposed to be
mechanical sounding. :>)
If you're learning scales, and it sounds wooden
and boring, then burst into improvisation and
create your own compositions in mid-air with the
pattern you're working on.
Slow down, enliven, enrichen.
That's what it's really all about.
Hope this helps, and ask more questions as you
get farther ahead in
your practice.
Jen At-43-can-finally-have-fun-with-scales
:>)
--------------
P.S. The most FUN reason to learn scales that
I've used recently, in order to take a break
every 15-20 minutes, is to play J.S. Bach 24
Concert Studies, Cello Suites, and excerpts from
Bach Oratorios.
Now THAT'S what a genius
can do with SCALES! :>D
Scale
links for intermediates:
Lindholm manual of basic flute technique:
Part One:
http://www.kuopionkonservatorio.fi/henkilokunta/hlindhol/peruskuviot1.pdf
Part
Two: http://www.kuopionkonservatorio.fi/henkilokunta/hlindhol/peruskuviot2.pdf
Part
Three: http://www.kuopionkonservatorio.fi/henkilokunta/hlindhol/peruskuviot3.pdf
Part
Four: http://www.kuopionkonservatorio.fi/henkilokunta/hlindhol/peruskuviot4.pdf
Nathan
Zalman's scale/arpeggio exercises for
advanced intermediates::
http://zalmanstudios.com/downloads.html
Scroll down for all two octave scales in
PDF, and James Galway's exercises when
you get to: http://www.christianflute.com/16307.html
Two
octave Harmonic Minor scales:
http://www.triumph-owners-club.co.uk/flute/New_Harmonic_Minor_Scales.pdf
Two
octave Melodic Minor Scales:
http://www.triumph-owners-club.co.uk/flute/New_Melodic_Minor_Scales.pdf
Minor
scale theory for beginners:
http://www.8notes.com/school/theory/the_minor_scales.asp
Minor
cale theory for intermediates:
http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory10.htm
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