Constructive Rest

Greetings,

On Sunday I participated in an Alexander Technique Workshop sponsored by the Raleigh Area Flute Association in North Carolina. The event was capably led by certified Alexander Technique teacher, Rachel Niketopoulos, and Alexander Technique trainee, flutist Pam Nelson.

I came away with a renewed commitment to "constructive rest," a dependable way to widen my shoulders, lengthen my spine, and deepen my breathing.

I now have a dedicated space for students to practice Constructive Rest before their lessons. I am looking forward to the heightened awareness and learning of my more relaxed and better balanced flute students! Thanks Rachel and Pam!

Here is a great blog article about Constructive Rest by musician and Alexander Technique teacher, Bill Plake.

Bill writes a blog for musicians, Bill Plake Music: Helping Musicians Improve and Stay Healthy. Check it out!

There is a video demonstrating Constructive Rest made by Michael Hanko, another certified Alexander Technique teacher.

To learn more about the Alexander Technique, please visit:

http://www.alexandercenter.com/
http://www.alexandertechnique.com/at.htm
http://www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a884.full.

Time to rest now!
Catherine

Summer Jammin': Adventures in Improvisation

In a May post I encouraged you to try out new activities and approaches this summer. Several of you expressed the desire to work on improvisation or to learn how to play jazz.

Here are some great resources to help you along your way:

Flutist and composer Nathan Zalman has published a free online tutorial for improvisation entitled Unleash Your Inner Flutist! which encourages us to use patterns we already know and put them together in new and interesting ways to express a palette of emotional qualities. He identifies improvisation as a simple three-step process: feel; choose; and, play.

1. Identify a feeling you wish to express—happy, sad, meditative, lonely, peaceful, curious, mischievous, surprised, etc.
2. Choose a vocabulary to embody the feeling—scales, keys, rhythms, or a non-musical inspiration such as a poem or story.
3. Play, allowing the music to come out. When you improvise, there are no mistakes, only ideas, intention and creation.

I attended the workshop Nathan presented for the Raleigh Area Flute Association in November, 2006, and truly enjoyed his creative and well-thought-out presentation. He is living his passion, as he says--a model to us all. You can learn more about Nathan, his interesting life and music at his website.

A good improvisation resource for learning jazz is the Hal Crook Play-Alongs page from the Stan Getz Library at Berklee College of Music. Entries, listed in ascending order of difficulty, include a pdf leadsheet and mp3 accompaniment track . I like "Taught 'em keys" --usually known as "Autumn Leaves."

I am gradually working my way through the DVD teaching series, "this is the Way i do it" by amazingly fluid guitarist John McLaughlin (of Mahavishnu Orchestra fame). I encourage you to visit John's official (and highly creative) new website to search for this boxed set while exploring and enjoying his virtual territory.I encourage you to include improvisation in your daily practice. I enjoy beginning my practice day with an improvisation, acknowledging and expressing my feelings before turning my attention to advancing the art of recreating music created by others.

Try something new every day! Life is waiting to be discovered.
Happy exploring...

Catherine

Patricia George's "Flute Spa"

On Sunday, April 15, at Meredith College, Raleigh Area Flute Association hosted Patricia George, Professor of Flute at Brigham Young University, to present her workshop , "Flute Spa," 3 solid hours of teaching jam packed with useful exercises, thoughts to ponder, and stories about the legacy and icons of flute playing.

I found almost everything she said meshed with my experiences as both flutist and teacher, and ignited my own creative thought process. She provided us with a useful booklet from the clinic with:

• Warm up exercises and routines
• Body Mapping Check List and images reprinted with permission from Barbara Conable's Book, What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body, published by Andover Press (Amazon Link in Library).
• "Octave Variations" (quick thoughts to remember high note fingerings)
• "Short Scales" (a quick tour of the high octave of the flute moving through scales in the circle of fifths)-SUPER!
• Useful pattern variations for practicing scales, including advocacy of "chunking" groups of notes in order to learn patterns faster (less practice time) in short, manageable sections. (I call these "bursts of notes".)
• The "Flute Spa" menu concludes with Patricia's 2-page "Ideas on Phrasing 2007" which simplifies the vast, comprehensive subjects of phrasing and expression into well-explained individual elements.

Thanks for reminding us that practicing is a joyful process, one in which we can experience and celebrate measurable improvement!

I highly recommend attending a class with Patricia George. If you are using any of her materials, please credit her with their creation. I removed the document from the Library at my website after Patricia reported her materials had been plagiarized.

Also, check out the article:
"Using the 17 Big Daily Exercises for Flute by Taffanel and Gaubert, Published by Leduc" By Patricia George

Happy Practicing!
Catherine