Practice Journal #1
Over the past few years I’ve 100% let life take control instead of me taking control of my life. These practice journal entries are my attempt to create a record of things I’ve noticed during my practice in hopes that future students can use these to their advantage.
Berbiguier 18 Etudes #1 -
Surprisingly I never studied these etudes until now. As I get more into practicing I’m trying to play more etudes and books so that I can recommend things to my students. I started off practicing this etude far too fast - Quarter note = 120 - and realized my mistake a few measures in. Note to self - you ALWAYS tell your students to start practicing something slowly - this applies to you, too! I turned my metronome down to m.m. = 100 and was able to pinpoint specific measures that needed my attention. I broke these 2 measures down into chunks of 1-2 beats and started working backwards through these chunks. Focused repetition is the key to progress when it comes to technical passages, so I repeated each chunk perfectly 3 times. Once I fixed each chunk, I started adding them together until I was able to play the entire passage without stopping or feeling panicked. I noticed that my jaw was getting extremely tense and I had a death grip on my flute. I focused on relaxing my upper arms and elbows and the tension released a tiny bit. I then focused on creating a stable airstream and calming my body (not bouncing) and noticed even more relaxation and ease through the difficult passages. I slowly inched my metronome up for each passage until I was at my new goal of m.m. = 112. I found that this new metronome marking felt far more natural and musical than attempting to play the etude at m.m. = 120.
There are very few dynamics written (at least in the edition I’m playing from!). There are 2 sections specifically marked forte, so I’m taking that as a queue to play the rest of the piece at a mp, mf volume. Through the middle section, I leaned a bit more on the first note of every 16th note group to show the changing chord as well as the overlying melody of the etude.
Take aways:
Remember to start slowly. The goal is not to play it quickly, it’s to play it well and with musicality.
Work on smaller chunks of the music instead of always starting at the beginning.
If you feel tense during a technical passage, it will absolutely affect your ability to play the passage smoothly. Release the tension and you will have more dexterity.
Use context clues to figure out dynamics.