New logo design by @kathryn.grace3! It's good to have an artist in the family
The new logo is a small but important part of a larger project--fully launching my flute duet arrangements of traditional repertoire. These are designed for flute teachers who may not have strong piano skills or lack access to a piano during lessons. I often found myself trying to fumble through the accompaniment on my flute, jumping octaves at strange times and forgetting to read bass clef. These arrangements help alleviate those issues and allow students to experience the piece more fully. You can learn more about my Bach sonata arrangement on my website at www.michelle8va.weebly.com/shop. Another piece is coming soon! Special thanks to Rosalind McPhail for her wonderful guidance and support in getting this project off the ground. Flute teachers: what pieces would you like to see arranged?
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Last night was our my spring flute ensemble concert at Lebanon Valley. It was made extra special because my college flute teacher, Dr. Carl Adams, and my best college friend Kathy came to hear it. My students performed wonderfully. Days like these remind me how fortunate I am.
I have a new venture!
Hard truth: while I think I'm a very capable flutist and teacher, I am not a strong pianist. I like the piano and wish I could play better, but let's be honest--my often limited practice time must be directed to my flute things. I've often wished I could accompany my students much better than I do. In lessons I often play the piano parts as best I can on my flute. This is somewhat helpful--the student could hear certain moments in the accompaniment that I wanted them to understand. It also had its limits, most notably my brain's ability to read bass clef accurately while sight reading and staying within the range of the flute. My solution is to start creating flute duet versions of standard flute repertoire solos that I often teach to my students. My aim was to keep the beauty of the original piece while making the accompaniment work well within the flute range (and no more transposing bass clef on the fly!) I started off with an arrangement of the Bach E flat major sonata, a piece that I teach often for auditions and as standard repertoire. And yes, I have my next arrangement already in mind! This was a HUGE learning process for me, with many more tweaks to come in future arrangements. I had to update my website, figure out a way to sell the arrangement, make financial arrangements, etc.. I did a lot of reading and research on the business end of this, and still have more to learn. Ironically, my bass clef reading skills improved a lot while I was creating this, as well as my knowledge of using Musescore (knowing the keyboard shortcuts is LIFE!) I also wish I'd had this idea during the summer when I have more time and not at the start of a busy semester of college teaching! I never thought of myself as a composer or arranger before this, but I encourage others to jump in and try it! You will learn so much about the music itself. Taking risks is a part of growing as a musician, as I tell students. It was good to model that myself. I hope you will be interested in giving my arrangements a try! You can find more information on my Shop page or go to Sheet Music Plus to purchase. New headshots! I don't generally love getting my photo taken, but Marc made me feel comfortable and was awesome to work with. Please check him out on IG @HSGuy
Coming soon--website redesign! www.thatheadshotguy.com Congratulations to Jonah and all participants at PMEA District 7 Band South on a great concert. He's moving on to Regionals! Some of my students and I brought some flute holiday cheer to Masonic Village today! They learned this music very quickly and put it together pretty much on the spot. So proud of them!
Today I wrapped up my semester at Elizabethtown College, where I filled in for Dr. Paula Nelson this semester. The students, faculty, and staff were so welcoming, kind,and supportive. I will miss them but look forward to attending some spring concerts to see their progress. Fortunately, I'm just down the road! Thank you for making me a part of the flock. Blue Jays, always!
Congratulations
to Alydia on her terrific recital on Thursday. She performed works by Schubert, Telemann, Ganne, and Bolling. LVC flutes represent! September is in full swing for me, and brought some unexpected twists. I was asked in mid-August to fill in at Elizabethtown College for the flute teacher there. I was happy to pitch in, which meant taking on seven additional college students. They have all been open minded and receptive to me, and it’s a pleasure getting to know them and help on their musical journey. This meant that my ideas about instructional videos for the PMEA District 7 flute audition piece are being readjusted a bit. This is something I still want to create--but I need to find the time to do it. Thanks for bearing with me while I figure this out! This month in college auditions: making contact with the school/professor and asking for a lesson! If you are a prospective music major, you may have a lot of questions about your future teacher. It’s important that you click with this person. Your lesson teacher is the person you will spend the most time with in your college years. If you’re happy with your teacher, you will thrive and learn a lot. If you’re not happy, well...you can probably imagine how that will turn out. Here are some tips for making contact with your future teacher. Send them a message Many colleges list their faculty and their respective email addresses on their websites. You may also see their bios and pictures. It’s fine to send an email to introduce yourself and express your interest in the school. I enjoy hearing from prospective students and am happy to present information about myself, my studio, and opportunities our department offers. This contact should come from you, the student--not your parent. Tell me a bit about yourself, which major interests you, and what intrigues you about this college. Use good grammar, spelling, and address the professor properly, using Professor or Doctor (if that degree applies). Your message is my first impression of you--make it count! Have a friend, teacher, or parent proofread your message before you send it if you are unsure about your writing. Take note of the reply you receive. Is it a standard reply or is there some personalization? What is your impression of me when you read my reply? Professors are very busy people. We often teach all day and then perform, teach, or grade papers in the evenings. Be patient for a reply but take note if you don’t receive a reasonably prompt one. Should I take a lesson? Many prospective students wonder if they should take a lesson, and when they should try to schedule it. I encourage folks to consider taking a lesson if the school and teacher really interests them (remember my comment above about spending a lot of quality time with this teacher). A few expectations here:
I am fortunate to have studied with wonderful teachers whom I respect and admire greatly. I hope these tips will help you find your perfect school and teacher! Stay tuned for next month’s blog on choosing and preparing a good audition repertoire. Happy fluting! Welcome to my blog! I’m making a commitment to posting once a month starting in August 2021. I admit I’m not sure what direction this will take or if there will be a theme to my posts. In the past, it’s just my musings, so maybe a theme is in order? Any suggestions? One announcement before my actual blog post--I’m venturing into the world of online videos! I’m hearing from a number of public school music teachers that fewer students are taking private lessons for various reasons. School music teachers are still trying to generate student interest in festivals, but in my neck of the woods admission (by audition) to the district, regional, and state festivals is very challenging for flutes, especially if you have never had any private lessons. So (drumroll please!): I’m creating a series of short videos that will guide students through this year's PA Music Educators Association (PMEA) District 7 flute audition solo! These videos will be available for a fee, which will be less than the cost of a few private lessons. I’m not trying to replace private lessons--no video can really do that. But this gives students a different opportunity to try. I hope they will be helpful! This is a completely new venture for me, so please be patient as I get all of the systems set up. I hope to have videos available by the beginning of September. On to this month’s post! I am an Olympics junkie. I will watch every single evening of primetime coverage for the full two weeks. I like seeing the lesser known sports get their day in the sun, and am always inspired by the athletes and their personal stories of perseverance and determination. I identified with them this year especially (thanks, COVID). I felt a kinship watching videos of the Filipino powerlifter Hidilyn Diaz practicing with a bamboo pole with water jugs strapped to it (check out her Instagram @hildilyndiaz) and seeing the sport climbers literally climbing their kitchen cabinets and walls. Musicians too were still getting work done in isolation without much attention and fanfare. We are all just continuing to hack away at our sport or craft. I saw that these athletes also had to create ways to stay motivated and to practice without knowing what the future would hold. Italian rock climber Stefano Ghisolfi climbs his kitchen table during lockdown. These stories of perseverance made me think about the habits of successful people. I also recently read Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin, which covers this topic. In this case, I am defining success as ‘high achievement in an activity’ (but I think we individually determine what success means and looks like to us). Successful people:
These made an impression on me. I think I’m good at daily work but not always at clearly defining goals. That’s something I’m going to try to refine for myself and encourage my students too! All of this talk of success, perseverance, goals, and visualization sounded great and I was ready to spout all kinds of wisdom to you and to my students on this topic...and then Simone Biles withdrew from the gymnastics team and all-around competition. At the time of this writing, I don’t know if she will compete in the individual events yet (Update: it looks like she will compete in the balance beam individual event). First, I want to say what Biles did was huge for this sport and for mental health awareness. Bravo to her. I’m happy so many folks are supporting her and that mental health is getting well-deserved attention. This turn of events caused me question: what’s the price of success? How much pressure do we put on ourselves and our students with these goals? When does it all go too far? When do we know when a student is being pushed too far (or have pushed themselves too far)? I have not always done a great job of recognizing this in my own students, so what can I do better? I think it starts with listening and talking to them regularly. Are they happy to be playing the flute? Are they learning something or do they feel stagnant? What would help them move forward--taking on more challenges or stepping back? After stepping back, when is it time to move forward again, and at what pace? I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I hope to be more aware of creating balance. Simone Biles teaches all of us about balance.
Certainly there must be a way to have more balance in my own life and in my students’ lives. Listening to them and still holding them accountable is key. See also--well defined goals again (Ok, maybe I did have a theme to this blog post after all!) Do you have ideas about achieving goals, success, and balance? Please share them! I hope we can all look for more ways to find balance for ourselves and for our students. See you next month, and keep fluting! PS: speaking of pressure and mental health, I recommend “Sports & Mental Health: A Conversation with Michael Phelps” on Peacock TV. (I don’t get any money from them or anything for this recommendation). He says a lot of things that I related to as a musician. Also recommended: this story on the double gold medal in high jumping. |
I Write too!I write about flute, classical music, college auditions, positive mindset, and music advocacy. Archives
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