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Lesson with Melissa Keeling

10/22/2016

I had a lesson with the rockin’ Melissa Keeling. I saw her perform her own transcription of a Val Halen solo at NFA using glissando headjoint and effects (see video below), so when I found out she’s based in the area, I emailed her. I just want to soak up as much as I can during my time at NYC. So, we had a lesson.

NFA 2016. Melissa tore. it. up.

Going in, I knew I wanted to focus on improvising since it’s an area I’m definitely still learning about. One of Robert’s great tactics for first beginning to improvise is the “two note, thirty seconds” method. It’s exactly what it sounds like. You pick two notes, and improvise using them for thirty seconds. It’s best to have an idea, theme, or emotion as the subject you’re striving to convey with those two notes. Thirty seconds is a nice goal because it’s easy to imagine thirty seconds from now (rather than thirty minutes), and that can help with deciding on a musical structure to play within that time. After the first round of improvising for thirty seconds, consider how it could be better. Then play it again. Repeat this process about five times. After a while, you can start to add in other notes and go for longer periods of time.

Robert is a fantastic improviser and we get great ideas like this from him, but I also want to practice improvisation with other flutists. So that’s what Melissa and I did. We played three sessions of improv together, varying the scale with each session (pentatonic, blues, ocatatonic, in case you were wondering). I was really trying to work on listening and picking up on her ideas that she would present, as I feel that can be difficult for me. It also turns out that I prefer more a lyrical style while improvising and assigning a beat or playing over a beat makes me instantly self-conscious and nervous. Yay for knowing what to work on!

Melissa had some great ideas for practicing improv. The base was to be comfortable with a variety of scales and modes outside of the standard major and minor. This week I’ve added major and minor pentatonic scales to my warm-ups as a way of incorporating that flexibility. Like with most techniques on our instruments, being comfortable with fingering patterns and such can allow you to be more free musically; this is a great place to be when it comes to improv. One of my more long term goals is to play scales using multiphonics. That will certainly be adventure for me. It will also be an adventure for anyone who gets to hear me practicing that :)

Some of her other suggestions were to use Garage Band to make drum beat loops and to even add a harmonic progression. Don’t get me wrong, drones are my absolute favorite and I would improv over them all day if given the chance. But flexibility is good too (or so I hear), so varying the harmony you’re playing over is definitely a good way to practice that mental and musical adaptability. Playing with pop or rock songs (or any music with a relatively straight forward harmonic progression) can also achieve this same idea, though there is the added challenge of figuring out the key and chord changes, rather than assigning them. If you have suggestions for fun songs to improv over, please share it in a comment!

Another of her ideas was to improvise with non-flutists, especially to better train yourself to listen. (Improv date soon, Sarah?) This makes sense to me to also improve your playing as a flutist because if could inspire you to find non-traditional ways to approach and play the flute to imitate sounds that other instruments make. Plus, engaging with other people musically can be a nice break from just alone time in a practice session.

Other things:
- There’s a body painting competition show on Netflix called “Skin Wars.” Sarah and I may be #1 fans.

Until next time!

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“What comes in goes out.”

10/20/2016

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I believe this quote was something the saxophonist Steve Lacy said when asked why he didn’t take certain studio gigs. Important to consider.

Anyway.

Jenn and I were both curious about repertoire for the final recital we’ll be giving in December, so we started class by talking about some possibilities. That discussion led to the decision to include improvisation sessions in the rest of our meetings. So we did a few rounds of improv as a group. After each bout, we would talk about the music we just made, as many times the discussion can be just as beneficial as actually improvising.

Then it was Sequenza time. One of Robert’s practice suggestions was to play the piece as if we were in Bizarro World, exploring opposite ideas of dynamics and overall feeling. Through this process, your interpretation of the piece in real life may be better informed and your musical ideas for the piece may be strengthened. Of course, Robert also had suggestions for when playing the piece as written. For the crazy tonguing part (you know, at the end of page 2 onto page 3), if you roll the flute in, you are essentially transitioning to a hard reed by shortening the air stream, resulting in a more powerful sound.

I’ve only really worked on the first few pages of Sequenza, but looking ahead shows that there are a few techniques that I can be preparing now. There is a multiphonic on page 5 based on a natural harmonic fingering. To prepare for this moment, it would make sense to practice natural harmonic multiphonics in general. Robert suggested starting with octaves, then fifths, and then the smaller intervals of fourths, thirds, and seconds. Practice these both tongued and slurred; when slurring, you will find some really great potential colors between playing the individual notes of the multiphonic and those notes together. And a tip for the octave multiphonics: start on C and work your way down the chromatic scale, gradually rolling out as you add the right hand fingerings (F-sharp and below). Rolling out lengthens the air stream, which results in reducing the high frequencies.

Whisper/whistle tones are another technique to practice for Sequenza, especially the ability to play a whisper tone immediately after playing the normal note (which is what appears in the piece). For this, you can trick the listener’s ear by playing a resonate normal note, and then actually having a small gap between the note and it’s whistle echo. As long as the normal note’s sound carries, you can use that carrying time to set up for the whistle tone.

With these techniques, it is important to practice them in ways outside of how they appear in the piece. For example, practice multiple whisper tones, not just the B-flat that’s written. Having a broader level of control over a technique will help with the ease of execution in context.

We also had the chance to play on a Gazzelloni headjoint, which is basically a C-flute headjoint with an alto flute embouchure hole. This is the type of headjoint that Gazzelloni played Sequenza on, so it’s interesting to see the different challenges and ease this change in embouchure hole can bring about. But let’s just say I’ll be sticking with my normal headjoint/embouchure hole combo.

Other things:
- Robert was talking about 72 bpm being common in human music because it is closely related to the tempo of our heartbeat. Well, guess what? An elephant's heart beats around 28 times a minute, and when given the chance to make music, elephants tend to hover around 28 bmp. So, yes, the Thai Elephant Orchestra is a real thing. You’re welcome.
- I ended up on the same train, on the same car even, as Robert on the way to class. Small world, even in NYC.
- Sarah and I saw a performance and talk with composer Meredith Monk and poet Anne Waldman. Everything about it was amazing. The venue was Housing Works Bookstore, an awesome organization committed to ending homelessness and AIDS. After being introduced, Meredith and Anne performed two pieces, and then just talked to each other, inviting one another to share their thoughts and experiences. There was a question and answer session to conclude the talk. The last question regarded a prediction that in the near future, 80% of the world’s population will be older and will be women. Meredith’s response was a hope that that will be a time of kindness. #amen. Sarah and I waited in some very confused lines, but then WE GOT TO TALK TO MEREDITH. Sarah asked her about femininity informing music, specifically in rhythm (we were thinking of Janika Vandervelde and cyclical rhythms here #ThanksDrWallace), and Meredith said she thinks her femininity informs everything. She shared that she believes women have a direct connection to The Source (which can be threatening for some men…but that’s a different subject..) and that this connection can be responsible for some wonderful things. Overall, this event was the definition of womanpower. It was inspiring. It was beautiful. It was empowering. It rocked.

Until next time!

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“Sometimes you just need to cry.”

10/18/2016

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This quote is actually something I said to Robert. He commented that it sounded almost like a lyric John Lennon would write; I thought that made it blog-title worthy.

With singing and playing being a constant goal, we’re always looking for ways to practice that without repeating the same scales and exercises. So, we worked with major and minor blues scales, focusing on hearing the intervals and pitches before singing and/or playing them. We also sightread no. 17 of the Karg-Elert op. 107 Studies with singing and playing. (Admittedly, I had played this particular study before, heh heh.) We covered the topic of grouping notes musically, which may differ from how they are grouped via notation. For example, in m. 3 of no. 17, it appears that the notes are clumped together in groups of 6 (4+2); however, musically it makes more sense to group them with the sixth note in the group belonging to the next set of notes (the first E-flat better groups with the following C, and so on).

In no. 18 of the Studies, the big take-away was to make a distinction between the melodic line and the harmonic “blurbles.” This can be done in a multitude of ways: adding vibrato to the melody, changing the dynamics between the two lines, or playing with different tone colors for each line. Related to that, Robert shared some teaching advice he’d heard to “play the unimportant notes like they’re unimportant.” About this study specifically, taking time, especially to breathe, is totally allowed since it is described as “quasi cadenza.” A change for me to make in this piece concerned the teeny-tiny notes in m. 7, after the fermatas. I was putting emphasis on the beginnings of the groupings (E, F-double-sharp, A-sharp, etc.), BUT the chord being outlined is best represented by the top/last note in the groupings (B, D, F, G-sharp, etc). This means I needed to shift my thinking from using the first notes in the groupings as a “downbeat”, seeing them instead as pickup notes into the anchor top notes. This approach can also help with the overall feeling of building momentum to the high G-sharp/following A.

We’re also moving forward with circular breathing! A next step is to start with the familiar (the embouchure for high notes) and transition to the unfamiliar (maintaining the pressure of the top lip while storing air in the cheeks). Previously, I was trying to go from the puffed cheeks to the puffed cheeks with an engaged top lip. This proved difficult because I was going from a somewhat unfamiliar sensation to an even more unfamiliar sensation. So, we just altered the process. Boom. Another exercise is to practice consistently blowing bubbles into water through a straw while circular breathing. I am still working on this, but I think it’s improving! One key aspect is to understand tongue placement during the inhalation stage; say the word “gong” but stop on the “ng” with the tongue blocking the airway. While this is happening, you push out the air being held in the cheeks while inhaling through your nose. To help understand the motion and feeling of pushing the air out of the cheeks, one can blow water out of the mouth using the same muscles.

The Berio Sequenza was worked on too. Octave accuracy is one area for me to work on. We listened to recordings of the piece by two different flutists, Severino Gazzelloni and Harvey Sollberger, and we discussed their strengths and weaknesses. One of the comments that most stood out to me was that in some cases, musicians might be unsuccessful with pieces like the Sequenza because they’re using a 19th c. approach to 20th c. music.

The view while apple picking at Rose Hill Farm

Other things:
- Sarah and I spent the weekend with our friends Tyson and Jennifer (and their pup Brady!) away from the city, where sirens and people aren’t constantly bombarding you. We went to the farmer’s market, picked apples, and hiked through some beautiful foliage THAT ACTUALLY SHOWS IT’S FALL! It was wonderful to get away for a bit.
- Robert had a show of free improvisation with a bassist and bass clarinetist at Spectrum. Robert played on a variety of flutes, and it was interesting to hear how the different registers from each flute instrument still blended and worked with the other low bass instruments.
- We went to a talk/performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of Paul Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler symphony by The Orchestra Now in conjunction with the artwork of Max Beckmann; both Hindemith and Beckmann were inspired by the artist Matthias Grünewald. The set up for the performance was great, starting with an explanation of the piece and artists (including excerpts), the performance of the piece, and a Q&A session to wrap it all up. And the weather was perfect to walk through Central Park on the way back to the subway :)

Until next time!

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"Burn the house down"

10/16/2016

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We mixed things up with our singing and playing routine by doing arpeggios instead of straight scales. #gettingcray Then Robert played three of his pieces for us and talked through them a bit: Fish are Jumping, Air is the Heaviest Metal, and Lookout! They can easily fit together as a set, though Robert did not mean to write a set initially. Distinct rock, jazz, and blues characteristics are shown in each piece. Related to blues, we also discussed 12-bar blues and the harmonic patterns that are usually found in them. Robert encouraged listening to old school blues (like Bessie Smith) in layers in order to figure out the chart and to better inform improvisation. We also talked about the different scales that are great for improvisation. Robert suggested the octatonic (alternating whole and half steps) or a major scale with a lowered seventh.

Within the Karg-Elert op. 107 Studies, we focused on nos. 14 and 16. Articulation (read “French style tonguing”) was of course a key point with these two studies, but my biggest takeaway personally was the need to look ahead more in the music. This is something that’s very true for me overall, as I tend to fixate on each note/moment as it’s happening, rather than doing that while also anticipating what’s to come. Robert’s elegant method of executing this practice of looking ahead was to block off a measure at a time with his thumb while I was playing. It was effective, though admittedly somewhat clumsy on my part. Specifically with no. 14, we talked about the illusion of time and the practical ways we can manipulate its perception.

#ArrestedDevelopment

For example, for the chromatic scale in m. 4, we can alter the articulation style gradually throughout the measure to give the appearance of either speeding up or slowing down, depending on your preference, while still remaining in tempo. In this case, gradually using a more legato articulation will give the illusion of slowing down, while using more separation will seem to be speeding up. Yay for using subtlety effectively!

We reviewed Flying Lessons 3 once more, and Robert lent us disconnected lip plates to practice tongue stops with a mirror to make sure we’re getting the tongue position right to completely seal the hole. We started on Flying Lessons 4, going over a few techniques found there, such as the residual tone. To achieve a residual tone, one should roll the flute out enough that the back of the lip plate is more exposed while also “snarling” with the front lip to bring it up and over. It’s almost like the goal is to hit the back ridge of the tone hole with the air.

Other things:
- Robert has (and played) a nose flute; I had no idea that was a real thing
- Joe fixed my window! It was slightly open at the top, but now it is not. And it makes things SO MUCH QUIETER
- I went to see the band Re:Groove and they were kickin’

Until next time!

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Lesson with Melissa Keeling

“What comes in goes out.”

“Sometimes you just need to cry.”

"Burn the house down"

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