The following are useful instructional quotes from various music, etudes and books published for flute instruction. Many of these words are now incorporated into how we learn to play the flute. These methods are available for purchase from www.sheetmusicplus.com.
Daily Exercises for the Flute
André Maquarre; G. Schirmer, 1899 Edition
Solo Flute, Boston Symphony (1893 – 1918)
[Mine cost $2.50 and is time tattered.]
I think this is a great book for exercises and very approachable for most students. Be sure to check out the Introductory Note on the first page and the General Rules for practicing these exercises on page 3. Of the four “rules” I think that some still seem valid but others may have changed over time, for example the direction to not use “fake fingerings”. I think today we all use “alternate fingerings” for speed, pitch and clean technique. This just gives you an insight into how flute playing was taught in this period of time and into where we have come from in our flute learning. I do like the following from the Introductory Note:
- “By “clean technique” we do not mean a rapid fire of notes, but an even, slow passing-over from one tone to another without a blur. Evenness and beauty of tone will improve with the strengthening of the action of the lips while playing these passages. After a while you will be able to forget the difficulties of the flute and to think only how the music should be phrased; then you will have entered the path leading to finished artistry.”
- “In case a passage does not sound clean, change the rhythm. For example, “reverse to sixteenth and dotted eighth.”
As I use this last technique for working out hard parts, and teach that to students. Iit is very interesting that is was being taught in 1899!!
17 Big Daily Finger Exercises for the Flute
Paul Taffanel – Phillipe Gaubert
Alphonse Leduc 1923, 1927, 1958
Notes on Practicing
- “Practice slowly at first with a metronome, not only to indicate the tempo, but to keep a steady beat throughout the exercise. Do not pass to a quicker tempo until the exercise has been played faultlessly.”
- “ Purity of tone and intonation must be carefully noticed. These qualities are of the utmost importance.”
- They also include directions for practice with multiple articulations, shown at the start of each different exercise and all dynamic levels.
Daily Exercises for the Flute
Marcel Moyse
Alphonse Leduc – Paris, 1923
It was the comment from Marcel Moyse in the Preliminary Note, that the low and high registers were practiced less than the middle register and that studies reflected that short coming.
- “It is the present author’s intention to fill this gap. …he adopted an approach which requires the performer to use the entire range of the flute each time. In this way, the lowest and highest extremities, where the chief difficulties are to be found are not neglected and are practiced just as much as the rest.”
- “All exercises in this book should be practiced with both single tonguing and double tonguing.”
- In the Planning Schedule on page III, there was quite the daily practice schedule set out so that the book was covered in one month.
Tone Development Through Extended Techniques
Robert Dick, Multiple Breath Music Company; Revised Edition 1986;
At this time, in 1986, Robert Dick was talking about how composers were including new ideas into new flute music which would be covered in this book. He goes on to say:
- “Another important – and not well enough known – reason for flutists to work with new sonorities is that this will greatly benefit traditional playing. This work develops the strength, flexibility and sensitivity of the embouchure and breath support, increasing the player’s range of color, dynamics and projection”.
- “The ear is strengthened, too: one must hear the desired pitch clearly before playing it when familiar fingerings are not used, and quarter tones and microtones sharpen the sense of pitch as well.
- On page 9 he talks about Throat Tuning. You will find his video lessons about this subject on YouTube.
BONA Rhythmical Articulation
Pasqual Bona, Professor in the Royal Conservatory of Milan
G. Schirmer. New York. 1897/ 1925
INTRODUCTION – Importance of accurate rhythm
This is quoted from Bona himself. The language is not of today but the kernel on note length, its placement as a component of a rhythm in a theme or phrase and the ability to be able to read and perform rhythms accurately, are basics.
“It is unnecessary to dilate on the advantages flowing from a good method of rhythmical articulation, whether for recognizing the relationships subsisting between the notes forming a musical beat, or for recognizing their individual character; – for enabling the executants to tell at a glance the time–values of the notes, which are sometimes grouped in such a manner as not to be readily distinguished by the eye, or for recognizing the different times (measures) in music, on the energy and precision of which depends the correct execution of the theme, which pupils find very difficult; – and, finally, for accustoming the pupil to effect with precision changes of time, a very hard thing to accomplish if he has not been thoroughly drilled in the study of rhythmical articulation.”
Pasqual Bona