On music

[likethebeer]

Had flute on Tuesday, and finally played a Cadenza from Mozart's Concerto in G major for the last time (a cadenza is an improvised solo. The cadenza I played was actually written down from the late king of flutists, Jean-Pierre Rampal.) It was fun, but my old fingers can't move that fast. Which is why I often scream while practicing (since what I really want to do it bang the flute against the wall--if I did that everytime I wanted to, I'd be on flute #406 by now). Well, I also scream after practicing some tricky spot over and over and over... and then when I play the piece again, I make the same damned mistakes. Buther.

I'm really good at vibrato, though (that fluttery sound that "real" flutists make). Since vibrato is about the one thing I really excel at (aside from a low D), I play it for all it's worth.

I also worked on a "Canonic Sonata" (trying saying that 3 x really fast) by Tellemann (a contemporary of Bach's). A canonic sonata is like "Row, row, row your boat": one line starts, then the next singer sings the same thing a little bit later. The only problem is that when I'm playing it with my flute teacher and I get lost, it's really hard to figure out where we have to start again.

Now if I can just get myself to practice today...

Comments

[kitchenwitch.livejournal.com]

I used to play flute. Well, I s'pose I can STILL play it, but I lost whatever skill I had. Where do you take lessons?

And where do you live? (Man, I'm nosy *grin*). I noticed your reply in coconuthead's journal where you mentioned previously living in Mineral Point. My husband's originally from South Wayne (near Monroe, and he went to school in Fennimore), and I'm from Stoddard (south of La Crosse) so it's always neat to run into people from "the area", especially since we'd like to move back there someday (soon, I hope - I'm so sick of the city).

Nice to make your acquaintance. :)

[likethebeer.livejournal.com]

Hi : >

I took flute at 12-13, then carried it around for 20 years before taking it up again. I had totally lost any knowledge I'd had about playing the notes or even reading music on a rudimentary level (and this was after piano lessons for 9 years--my poor family). My teacher is a 25 year old farm girl/flute phenom who kicks my ass, which I why I'm willing to drive over an hour for our lessons. I used to take lessons from her in the very town where your husband went to high school. Now I go to Lancaster, which is 10 minutes south of that. I live north & west. I'm learning to be world wide webby savvy, so I won't write the name of the town at the moment (um, yeah, like there's lots of deranged guys out there trolling the web for ME, but anyway), uh, it's not that far from the WI River, south of Baraboo, north of Mineral Point & Dodgeville (which spell check suggests as "Tocqueville" and "Defile" among others).