So i fail a lot and totally forgot that i hadn't posted this yet, i appologize that its late!
Band Written Requirements:
1. What has been your biggest improvement this year as a player?
This year i think that i actually improved a lot simply because i practiced more, however i think that my biggest improvement came in my sightreading skills. Last year when we got a new piece in band i would struggle at first and have to hear the piece before i could play it through howveer this year i found that i was able to play through it just at first glance whcih iw as quite pleased with. I think that a huge part of this came from the fact that i really focussed on getting my scales down this year, especially chromatics, as well as did a lot of rhythm study stuff. Now i am finding that i can easily look at a rhythm and clap/play though it with ease as well that i can identify and play though most of the scales without trouble. I still have some issues with sharps but thats something that im going to focus on and try and improve even more for next year.
2. What is the area you most struggle with?
This year i made a lot of progress as stated before and think that i made good headway on fixing most of my "problem places" from last year however the thing i still consistently struggle with is tempo. I always tend to play things fast/want to speed up whcih only causes me to make mistakes. I did it when practicing band pieces at home and i ALWAYS do it when playing tests. Im not sure why that is but its something that i need to work on possiboly by getting a metronome when practicing so that i keep a consistent tempo and stop fluctuating so much.
3. What was your greatest musical highlight this year and why?
I have 3, first at kiwanis because we played rumble soso well! It was fabulous; one of those performances that you finish and just feel a sense of pride because you know youve played it well. Friends from other schools raved about it to me afterward saying that our band was amazing whcih is always really nice to hear. Second woudl have to be playing at nationals because that was just in general a great experiance, especially doing the sightreading portion which surprised me a lot since it actually sounded decently. Wasn't expecting that at all. I really enjoyed doing nationals though, and was super pleased with the silver(: Finally, the final concert was also a highlight. The ending of rumble just fel like an ending if you knwo what i mean? it got really emotional but in a more happy sort of way and was just a really awesome way to end the year.
4. What areas do you feel the band accels at and what area do we struggle? Give specific examples.
I think the band accels at playing things really musically. We are good at capturing the mood and essence of a piece and conveying that to our audiance. We demonstarted that this year when playing rep such as chillers and thrillers and the light eternal etc, the more performance type pieces which had a story-we were always able to convey that to our audiances be it parents, adjucators etc. I think that we need to work on our technical playing, things such as dynamic contrast and articulation patterns etc. All the small nit-picky stuff that are what really polish a performance we are good at but not great. For example in the holst we were able to play that musically but we didnt consistently play the staccattos vs. regular articulation. Its just a small thing, but something taht we could probably work on.
PS. I practiced on Tuesday for my exam for a solid 3hours, i honestly just played the exam stuff over and over again especially the study becauzse i was having some issues with that befiore hand. I just ran the problem spots over and over again. I had relatively little trouble with the chromatics since I'd been working on them all year so i only had to spend a little bit of time running those and then i moved on to the scale. I had a lot of issues with the D sharp for some reason, i would always p.ay it natural because that seemed like the natural movement for my fingers so i just went up and down over and over again, i still messed that up on my exam but it wasnt a huge thing. The thirds were easy enough and then i just ran through the study which was also relatively easy save for the bars with the high Dsharp in them, they were slightly awkward so i ran them a fair bit too. Overall i think that the exam on wednesday went fairly well, i had a few mishaps here and there but i didnt stop playing and it wasnt a huge mess up so i felt good about it overall(:
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Practice 22, 23, 24
Soo this is going to be a long one since its for the whole weeek;
i woud practice then get really busy and never got around to blogging.
Monday!
monday night i brought my flute home with me and practiced for the band exam requirements; i wasnt aware that we had to play both sections so i wonly practiced bars 43-55 in chillers and thrillers. Then i ran through my usual stuff such as the chromatics and scles etc. as well as the stuff for the chamber ensemble. We had 3 of our 4 songs picked out at that point in time to i ran through those 3 and then went through the rest of the book looking for what other song we could play as our fourth. That was about it; priacticed for a total of 15-20minutes on monday.
Tuesday!
my flute was at home still since i was on a field trip during the day; i went through what i had rehersed the day before and finally decidecd on a fourth song with my group so i practiced that as well. i went over the band requirements again and then i wasnt relly in the mood to do scales and such so i played through a few ofthem but then i went back and played through some of our older band rep for fun since we dont have tuesday and thursday for that anymore. I also began rehersing some of the class exam stuff too; i find that i am having some difficulty with the study in the red book because it has a lot of awkwadr rhythms; and im not sure of the tempo. im hoping that we will ply it together as a class once so that we can hear it and feel the speed you want it to go at. I also ran though the chromatics and dont find them too hard its just keeping a consistent flow from scale to scale that can be somewhat tricky. After that i stopped for the night practicing a total of about 40mins.
Wednesday!
Wednesday we had coffee house so i didnt get a chance to do any extensive practice. For the record, i thought coffee house went really well despite the length i think it was a nice way to end the year.
Ps. played the band exam today; unaware that we had to play both sections so i was really prepared for the first part but not so much for the second part. The rhythms in the second section are really easy except for the one bar which i cant play to save my life no matter how many times i tried it. Overall, i think it went decently though.
Thursday!
So for thursday i mainly focussed on playing the stuff for our class exam. I started out doing the E minor scale in thirds and learning that ascending and descending which i find to be fairly easy aside from the D sharp which i sometimes miss; im going to work some more on that until its really solid. Then i moved onto the chromatic stuff, i find most of the patterns really easy to play aside from the odd 1 such as ascending number 3 which i stumble over sometimes. Then i moved onto the study which i still have trouble with because of the awkward patterns//im not sure if im playing it right? ill ask you on monday to play it as a class just to ensure things such as the tempo etc. Aside from that im feeling fairly comftorable for the class exam; i dont think it will be too bad never theless im still going to continue practicing all this weekend//next week to be sure that everything is solid when i go to play. Total of about 40minutes thursday night.
i woud practice then get really busy and never got around to blogging.
Monday!
monday night i brought my flute home with me and practiced for the band exam requirements; i wasnt aware that we had to play both sections so i wonly practiced bars 43-55 in chillers and thrillers. Then i ran through my usual stuff such as the chromatics and scles etc. as well as the stuff for the chamber ensemble. We had 3 of our 4 songs picked out at that point in time to i ran through those 3 and then went through the rest of the book looking for what other song we could play as our fourth. That was about it; priacticed for a total of 15-20minutes on monday.
Tuesday!
my flute was at home still since i was on a field trip during the day; i went through what i had rehersed the day before and finally decidecd on a fourth song with my group so i practiced that as well. i went over the band requirements again and then i wasnt relly in the mood to do scales and such so i played through a few ofthem but then i went back and played through some of our older band rep for fun since we dont have tuesday and thursday for that anymore. I also began rehersing some of the class exam stuff too; i find that i am having some difficulty with the study in the red book because it has a lot of awkwadr rhythms; and im not sure of the tempo. im hoping that we will ply it together as a class once so that we can hear it and feel the speed you want it to go at. I also ran though the chromatics and dont find them too hard its just keeping a consistent flow from scale to scale that can be somewhat tricky. After that i stopped for the night practicing a total of about 40mins.
Wednesday!
Wednesday we had coffee house so i didnt get a chance to do any extensive practice. For the record, i thought coffee house went really well despite the length i think it was a nice way to end the year.
Ps. played the band exam today; unaware that we had to play both sections so i was really prepared for the first part but not so much for the second part. The rhythms in the second section are really easy except for the one bar which i cant play to save my life no matter how many times i tried it. Overall, i think it went decently though.
Thursday!
So for thursday i mainly focussed on playing the stuff for our class exam. I started out doing the E minor scale in thirds and learning that ascending and descending which i find to be fairly easy aside from the D sharp which i sometimes miss; im going to work some more on that until its really solid. Then i moved onto the chromatic stuff, i find most of the patterns really easy to play aside from the odd 1 such as ascending number 3 which i stumble over sometimes. Then i moved onto the study which i still have trouble with because of the awkward patterns//im not sure if im playing it right? ill ask you on monday to play it as a class just to ensure things such as the tempo etc. Aside from that im feeling fairly comftorable for the class exam; i dont think it will be too bad never theless im still going to continue practicing all this weekend//next week to be sure that everything is solid when i go to play. Total of about 40minutes thursday night.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Practice schudule #21
So i practiced breifly just before i came in to work here tonight,
Started out with some scales and stuff just as a warm up and then played through their relative minors still working on being able to ID key signatures with relative ease; especially in prep for doing orchestrations next year.
Then i ran through study #4 in the red book just as a refresher, and to work on getting quick articulation going.
Then i rna through the band pieces specifically focussing on counting the 5/4 section in chillers and thriller because i find that i always come in a beat eraly or a beat late. Then i looked at the monotonous section in Carmina Burana and just worked out counting out how many times we repeat because i find myself either falling inot a pattern and not counting at all or just simply getting lost in the music; either way it always comes as a surprise to me when we switch over to the other secion. I played them through once each and then i had to leave for work.
about a half hour overall.
planning on practicing some more this long weekend!
:)
PS. really pleased with nationals. It was lots of fun even though i was dead tired by today haha, im really glad we took the opportunity and did it though!
Started out with some scales and stuff just as a warm up and then played through their relative minors still working on being able to ID key signatures with relative ease; especially in prep for doing orchestrations next year.
Then i ran through study #4 in the red book just as a refresher, and to work on getting quick articulation going.
Then i rna through the band pieces specifically focussing on counting the 5/4 section in chillers and thriller because i find that i always come in a beat eraly or a beat late. Then i looked at the monotonous section in Carmina Burana and just worked out counting out how many times we repeat because i find myself either falling inot a pattern and not counting at all or just simply getting lost in the music; either way it always comes as a surprise to me when we switch over to the other secion. I played them through once each and then i had to leave for work.
about a half hour overall.
planning on practicing some more this long weekend!
:)
PS. really pleased with nationals. It was lots of fun even though i was dead tired by today haha, im really glad we took the opportunity and did it though!
Monday, May 11, 2009
lalala.
Ps. im going to appologize in advance as i know that i wont be doing too much practicing this week since i have 2tests, an essay due, a report due and a presentation on top of all the nationals craziness and usual rehersals! im really excited for this week but im not sure how much extra time im going to have..
Practice schudule 20!
Came home today with the flute.
did a couple of the studies from the red and purple book as warm up, mainly the nes that we did in class. I tried doing the exercse that we began in class a couple days ago and it was actually a challenge and i found that i really had to count out what i was doing.
then i moved on to band rep for nationals tomorrow
i ran through the light eternal, rumble, and breifly rhosymedre. I can sufficiently play these in my sleep now:) haha. but i still enjoy playing them.
i then worked on our current band rep, playing through chillers and thrillers and working specifically on therhythms and accidentals. I find that this is a fairly easy song to play,
finally i played through usion just bevause i like it and its fun.
Overall about 25minutes.
did a couple of the studies from the red and purple book as warm up, mainly the nes that we did in class. I tried doing the exercse that we began in class a couple days ago and it was actually a challenge and i found that i really had to count out what i was doing.
then i moved on to band rep for nationals tomorrow
i ran through the light eternal, rumble, and breifly rhosymedre. I can sufficiently play these in my sleep now:) haha. but i still enjoy playing them.
i then worked on our current band rep, playing through chillers and thrillers and working specifically on therhythms and accidentals. I find that this is a fairly easy song to play,
finally i played through usion just bevause i like it and its fun.
Overall about 25minutes.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Practice Blog 18, 19
So this is the blog for all of last week(:
Starting with Tuesday night, i brought home my flute after choir rehersal and ran through the D flat study for the test that we had on firday, i found that i waas having some difficulties with the articulation pattern of the study getting the slurred articulation and then staccatto, however the scale itself if comftorable to play. I foudn that the more difficult part was the descend so i started there and began playing each bar slowly and repeatedly, building upon the last one. I found that this helped but it still wasnt where i wanted it. After that i decided to practice fusion just becauseit is a really fun piece to play and i lovelovelove the melody, especuially in the fourth movement. It kinda sucks that we didnt get the chance to play that this year, i think if we had the time it would have sounded awesome full ensemble. After that i ran some of the other band rep in preparation for nationals in a few weeks, and then finally rna some of the class stuff like Carmina Burana and pirates of the carribean. I specifically worked on some of the rhythm stuff in Carmina Burana especially the sixteenth note riffs because they go very fast and are just technical. In total i believe that this was about a half hours worth of practice.
I also practiced Thursday nighht in preparation for the test on friday. I spent a bulk of time working on the study as it still wasnt where i wanted it in terms of comfort level. I broke it down again and then ran it a few times. I have no clue what happened in that test: i was really dissappointed in myself actually, because i was plating it fine and then randomly i made really stupid mistakes. I think i need to do some owrk on pacing, because sometimes especially in test situations i will find myself planning on playing it one tempo and then taking off and doing it twice as fast. That could have been what threw me on friday because i wasn't planning on playing it anywhere near that speed; and ended up rushing. After working on the study for a bit i went through and did some scale stuff kinda testing myself because i want to become really quick with my keysignatures so i would figure out what was in the key before i played it. Then after that i was bored and found some sheet music on the internet and played through those for a while. Did some band rep work, specifically Carmina Burana and that was everything. I think it was about 45minutes in total.
Starting with Tuesday night, i brought home my flute after choir rehersal and ran through the D flat study for the test that we had on firday, i found that i waas having some difficulties with the articulation pattern of the study getting the slurred articulation and then staccatto, however the scale itself if comftorable to play. I foudn that the more difficult part was the descend so i started there and began playing each bar slowly and repeatedly, building upon the last one. I found that this helped but it still wasnt where i wanted it. After that i decided to practice fusion just becauseit is a really fun piece to play and i lovelovelove the melody, especuially in the fourth movement. It kinda sucks that we didnt get the chance to play that this year, i think if we had the time it would have sounded awesome full ensemble. After that i ran some of the other band rep in preparation for nationals in a few weeks, and then finally rna some of the class stuff like Carmina Burana and pirates of the carribean. I specifically worked on some of the rhythm stuff in Carmina Burana especially the sixteenth note riffs because they go very fast and are just technical. In total i believe that this was about a half hours worth of practice.
I also practiced Thursday nighht in preparation for the test on friday. I spent a bulk of time working on the study as it still wasnt where i wanted it in terms of comfort level. I broke it down again and then ran it a few times. I have no clue what happened in that test: i was really dissappointed in myself actually, because i was plating it fine and then randomly i made really stupid mistakes. I think i need to do some owrk on pacing, because sometimes especially in test situations i will find myself planning on playing it one tempo and then taking off and doing it twice as fast. That could have been what threw me on friday because i wasn't planning on playing it anywhere near that speed; and ended up rushing. After working on the study for a bit i went through and did some scale stuff kinda testing myself because i want to become really quick with my keysignatures so i would figure out what was in the key before i played it. Then after that i was bored and found some sheet music on the internet and played through those for a while. Did some band rep work, specifically Carmina Burana and that was everything. I think it was about 45minutes in total.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
blahh.
keh so i practiced last night and i was planning on blogging about it tonight but im slowly dying of sleep deprivation and we have band tomorrow, so im gonna go to sleep blog about it tomorrow imstead when i can actually put my full effort into it and can think haha
Sorry!
Sorry!
Blogging assignment #1
For this assignment i chose to do Greg Patillo, the world renound beatboxing flautist. Greg is a professional flautist hailing from Brooklyn New York and is recognized as "the best in the world at what he does."
He went to school at the cleveland institute of music earning both his bacelors and masters degree there. He was taught his superior technique by one of the very best, Joshua Smith, the lead flautist in the cleveland Orchestra. after perfecting his playing technique through extensive schooling he moved to san fransisco, for a period, and was one of the founding members of the collaborative arts insurgency, a place where they have open mic once a week for upand coming artists or groups to perform in front of an audiance and start a fan base for themselves as well as get performing experiance. They opened in May of 2006 and have been successful and growing ever since. Currently Greg lives as a freelancing soloist as well as beng the lead flautist in groups such as PROJECT and the lalo quintet. Quite often Patillo is also a featured performer at The Box in NYC.
Since graduating school, Patillo has had a steadily growing fanbase both on and off of the nternet. His performance videos on youtube all have over 20 million hits and his myspace page has had a steadily growing number of friend requests from fans all eager to hear him perform. He has also been recognized for his amazing talents eing asked to appear in shows such as iCarly, on nickelodian and Lilly Alen and friends on BBC three in the UK. Last year he was one of 21 winners to recieve the the metropolitan transit authority's "Music Under New York" program which in essecnce gives him a permit to play in the subway and continue to extend his fan base all over NYC.
The piece i chose to look at by Greg Patillo is actually his rendition of the super mario brothers theme aka the ground theme. This theme is legendary and has been used in video games since the very beginning of super mario brothers over 2 decades ago all over the world. Prsonally i love super mario brothers and it is one of my favourite themes to a video game which i why i chose it. Greg Patillo takes the theme and places his own twist on it. First off, the piece is simple enough with a fairly simplistic melody but patillo adds in melodic scoops and riffs to make the melody more coomplex and intriguing. On top of this he adds in the beatboxing which blows my mind. He plays the piece in a manner where there is a consistent balance of the beatboxing and melody so that both are able to be heard equally and creates a texture to the piece that isnt heard in the original; more "rough", so to speak. That being said the essence of the game still comes across even with the beatboxing. I really like his use of accents throughout the piece to ephasize certain notes, as well as his use of dynamics throughout the different sections. Someties his tone suffered slightly and sounded slightly airy, however im sure that this is due to the beatboxing which would take a ridiculous amount of air on top of the aount already needed. I would really like to know how he trained his lungs to be able to hold such an amount of air, and be able to phrase so nicely with the beatboxing. His videos are thoroughly entertaining and as a flute player, his skill blows my mind.
Heres the link, enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crfrKqFp0Zg
He went to school at the cleveland institute of music earning both his bacelors and masters degree there. He was taught his superior technique by one of the very best, Joshua Smith, the lead flautist in the cleveland Orchestra. after perfecting his playing technique through extensive schooling he moved to san fransisco, for a period, and was one of the founding members of the collaborative arts insurgency, a place where they have open mic once a week for upand coming artists or groups to perform in front of an audiance and start a fan base for themselves as well as get performing experiance. They opened in May of 2006 and have been successful and growing ever since. Currently Greg lives as a freelancing soloist as well as beng the lead flautist in groups such as PROJECT and the lalo quintet. Quite often Patillo is also a featured performer at The Box in NYC.
Since graduating school, Patillo has had a steadily growing fanbase both on and off of the nternet. His performance videos on youtube all have over 20 million hits and his myspace page has had a steadily growing number of friend requests from fans all eager to hear him perform. He has also been recognized for his amazing talents eing asked to appear in shows such as iCarly, on nickelodian and Lilly Alen and friends on BBC three in the UK. Last year he was one of 21 winners to recieve the the metropolitan transit authority's "Music Under New York" program which in essecnce gives him a permit to play in the subway and continue to extend his fan base all over NYC.
The piece i chose to look at by Greg Patillo is actually his rendition of the super mario brothers theme aka the ground theme. This theme is legendary and has been used in video games since the very beginning of super mario brothers over 2 decades ago all over the world. Prsonally i love super mario brothers and it is one of my favourite themes to a video game which i why i chose it. Greg Patillo takes the theme and places his own twist on it. First off, the piece is simple enough with a fairly simplistic melody but patillo adds in melodic scoops and riffs to make the melody more coomplex and intriguing. On top of this he adds in the beatboxing which blows my mind. He plays the piece in a manner where there is a consistent balance of the beatboxing and melody so that both are able to be heard equally and creates a texture to the piece that isnt heard in the original; more "rough", so to speak. That being said the essence of the game still comes across even with the beatboxing. I really like his use of accents throughout the piece to ephasize certain notes, as well as his use of dynamics throughout the different sections. Someties his tone suffered slightly and sounded slightly airy, however im sure that this is due to the beatboxing which would take a ridiculous amount of air on top of the aount already needed. I would really like to know how he trained his lungs to be able to hold such an amount of air, and be able to phrase so nicely with the beatboxing. His videos are thoroughly entertaining and as a flute player, his skill blows my mind.
Heres the link, enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crfrKqFp0Zg
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Practice Blog #17
So after kiwanis last night i came home and did a bit of parcticing.
I started off doing some of the scale tudies from the purple book. I worked on the chorales in minor key signatures and then did some work on the chromatic scale at the back of the book and ran through the chromatic scale study on page 9.
then i moved on to teh red book and did some of the studies from there starting with 4.2 and working up from there, looking specificlly at studies with more difficult rhythms working on my sightreading skills.
after that i moved on to the blue book working through some of the songs at the back of the book as well as revisiting the rhythm study at the back. I found that this was somewhat difficult at frst because i hadn't done it in a while and had to think through the timing of some of the bars first.
After that i ran though the light eternal and rumble on the high plains in preparation for wednesdays challenge class. I didn't really feel like running the holst since we just played it haha, i thought that we deserved at least a silver in A class since i thought we played the suite better than Beal did but thats okay. I was also expecting medway to get a gold but...
anyway thats about it, prcticed for a total of about 40mins.
I started off doing some of the scale tudies from the purple book. I worked on the chorales in minor key signatures and then did some work on the chromatic scale at the back of the book and ran through the chromatic scale study on page 9.
then i moved on to teh red book and did some of the studies from there starting with 4.2 and working up from there, looking specificlly at studies with more difficult rhythms working on my sightreading skills.
after that i moved on to the blue book working through some of the songs at the back of the book as well as revisiting the rhythm study at the back. I found that this was somewhat difficult at frst because i hadn't done it in a while and had to think through the timing of some of the bars first.
After that i ran though the light eternal and rumble on the high plains in preparation for wednesdays challenge class. I didn't really feel like running the holst since we just played it haha, i thought that we deserved at least a silver in A class since i thought we played the suite better than Beal did but thats okay. I was also expecting medway to get a gold but...
anyway thats about it, prcticed for a total of about 40mins.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Pactice schudule 16
So tonight i started out by running through the chromatic scales as a warm up, i can now comftroably play almost the whole page; just a few minor problem places here and there but its much better than the beginning of the semester.
after that i ran thorugh some of the chorales from the purple book, some from class some not as well as some of the studies from the red book we have specifically looking at study number 4 from class and its accompanyment.
Then i ran through the holst suite for the test tomorrow.
i as planning on playing section 2 ofthe first movement as my difficult 8 bars but praciced them and can now play thme fine since i was only having trouble with the high Aflat, however im stull not wuite getting the articluation pattern with the slurs, so i can still do some work there and ran through the set of good 8 bars a couple times. Then i played the whole suite with the recording. I enjoyed this as a nice challenge because they have a quicker tempo and it forces me to really focus on the articluation paterns as well as work on quick finger movements which will help when we take it at a bit of a slower tempo with band.
Following that i ran through the other band rep before band tomorrow morning just as a refresher and something fun to do. I find that all of the trouble spots i had at the beginning of the semester with light eternal and rumble are gone now and that i am quite comftorable playing the whole thing.
I finished off the night running through my chamber choir rep. for tomorrow, going through the memory work etc. and that was it for my practicing:)
after that i ran thorugh some of the chorales from the purple book, some from class some not as well as some of the studies from the red book we have specifically looking at study number 4 from class and its accompanyment.
Then i ran through the holst suite for the test tomorrow.
i as planning on playing section 2 ofthe first movement as my difficult 8 bars but praciced them and can now play thme fine since i was only having trouble with the high Aflat, however im stull not wuite getting the articluation pattern with the slurs, so i can still do some work there and ran through the set of good 8 bars a couple times. Then i played the whole suite with the recording. I enjoyed this as a nice challenge because they have a quicker tempo and it forces me to really focus on the articluation paterns as well as work on quick finger movements which will help when we take it at a bit of a slower tempo with band.
Following that i ran through the other band rep before band tomorrow morning just as a refresher and something fun to do. I find that all of the trouble spots i had at the beginning of the semester with light eternal and rumble are gone now and that i am quite comftorable playing the whole thing.
I finished off the night running through my chamber choir rep. for tomorrow, going through the memory work etc. and that was it for my practicing:)
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