Band Festival Reflection 3/17

This year at festival, I personally feel like I have improved a lot since last year's performance and I think that our band in general sounds much better. Still, there are many aspects that we need to improve on and imperfections in all of the three pieces.

Mad Anthony March:

After listening to the recording, I think that we needed more balance in some areas. The band was not listening through to other sections and sometimes the low voices or high voices that need to be heard were buried. We also were not always together, even though the performance was much cleaner than the first concert we played it in. We also could have used more dynamic contrast; even though I could hear a difference, it would have been more interesting and musical if there was a bigger difference. I thought that our tone in this piece seemed pretty strong and confident, and it was much more accurate technically with right notes.

Old Irish Tune:

In general, we were not together and need to subdivide more, especially during the long notes to ensure cleaner releases. It also just seemed to get boring and repetitive, so I think we should have had more dynamic contrast and phrasing. There were also some intonation issues and again I think we could have had better balance overall. In one section, I heard the clarinets play with a choppy articulation, instead of smooth and connected. I'm sure the band as a whole could have worked on this as well. We definitely needed to look up more, to make the tempo changes, crescendos and decrescendos much more pronounced, because the piece was pretty flat without these major aspects.

Three Folk Miniatures:

All three movements as a whole had tempo problems and we were not always together, or looking up. There was a lot of improvement and some good aspects but those were the major issues.

First Movement:

I think we had a really confident and loud start, which was a good first impression for the piece. Then we sped up and it was much, much faster than we had rehearsed. There were some wrong notes or instruments were going flat/sharp towards the middle of the piece. Also, some parts were nat as grand or epic because we were going so fast and rushing through these moments. It took away from the musicality of the piece. However, I thought that the flute and oboe solos sounded very nice and there were no mess-ups.

Second Movement:

Another tempo problem: this time we were really slow. We all expected this to happen and planned for it not to, but of course it still happened anyways, and I found myself looking up and worrying because nothing could really speed us up. Also, the trumpets needed to be faster at all times. I thought that the flutes had really nice tone and managed to breath in the right places, though there were some intonation problems when we had to jump octaves. I heard a clarinet squeak and some of the low voices had a shaky, rough tone. I think that we needed to be more connected sometimes and just stay together.

Third Movement:

I think that we had another confident start but the low voices had some tone troubles at the beginning. The trumpets also had a shaky tone towards the middle and the end. I heard some dynamic contrast, which sounded good but the piece was not clean overall. The ending did not sound good at all; none of us were together and our tone and intonation did not sound right. We also needed to play more accented notes and sharper articulation and the end.

Improvements for the future- reflection

For the band as a whole, I think we should make it a goal to look up more, because if we could do this it would solve many other problems. During festival, we had many problems with tempo and dynamics, so I think that if we just payed more attention to the conductor, it would solve both of these problems. I also think that we all need to keep working on building a strong tone, as we have improved on it since the beginning of the year. In addition to these aspects, we should also just try to listen more to other sections to become more balanced and know what other people's parts are.

For me personally, there are also many things that I can improve on. I want to be a better player musically by having a better tone, vibrato and intonation. If I can do this, it will help make the flute section sound better and then the band as a whole. During festival, I believe that I played confidently despite the change in setting, and actually looked up a lot more than I do during rehearsal, so the improvements that I make are purely about improving my sound.
To do this, I am going to practice more long tones and sit down with a tuner whenever I practice. I will also practice using my vibrato at different speeds.

Festival Pieces: FINAL BEFORE FESTIVAL!! (3/13)

This is my last blog post before festival. I still stuck with the same excerpts as before and have made a lot of improvements.

Old Irish Tune:

I did not improve on this piece as much as I'd hoped because I focused on the other one more, but after watching the first post, this one seems much better. I am really happy about the way that my tone improved, as well as the intonation. The sectional really helped me with this and I was able to change my embouchure to make it sound much better. I also was much more confident about my accuracy and did not need to pause like in the first blog. Because I became better with my air and embouchure, I was able to have more dynamic changes as well, but I still need to work on phrasing and breathing. I think that this piece shows that I have come a long way with the technical aspects of the flute, but I need to work on the musical aspects to improve up till the end of this year.

Isabeau s'y promène (Movement 2):

I really liked the amount of improvements I made on this piece, and there is a noticeable difference since the first blog post. Looking back at it, I realize that I did a much better job at connecting the notes, and one note ended when the next one began. I could do this because I can breathe at the right places and take deeper breaths. There were specific areas in the piece where I wrote "Don't Breath" and I initially had difficulties following my own directions and need to breathe much earlier, but now I can control my air better. My tone sounds much better and I am more in tune than before. I think that my phrasing is much better than the Old Irish Tune excerpt, but there still are some aspects that I need to work on. Earlier in the year, my vibrato was too fast, so I tried making it slower; now I believe it is not exaggerated enough.

Festival Pieces: Blog 3

We recently had a sectional with a professional flute player, and that was what really got me into practicing what I did during this section. I decided not to post the videos because they are literally of me playing long tones and scales and practicing taking deeper breaths before playing, etc.. The main thing that we talked about during the session was air and how it affects every other aspect of our playing. I thought it would be especially helpful information to use for the connected style of music that I chose.

After practicing these simple technical activities, noticed that many of the aspects of my playing got much better. For example, my tone is much, much clearer because I've practiced pushing most of the air into the flute instead of letting it escape out. This reduces the fuzzy sound that I keep hearing. Also, I am better at changing dynamics and octaves without completely going out of tune by just slightly changing my embouchure.

I played the pieces one more time, and I noticed that I am much better with the aspects that I described. I am also much faster while staying playing accurately. I still have problems with trying not to breathe in between phrases. This one problem is what causes many others to occur. Because of it, the end of some notes sound really strained, quiet or out of tune and my tone is unclear again. If I can fix this, then I will be able to sound much better for the next concert cycle.