This issue: April 2006 (Issue 6)

The French School


Michel Debost

Being a former professor at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique (1981-1990) and graduate in 1954 of that noble institution, I am often asked about the French school. As if being a FFFF (Former French Foreign Flautist), I would hold the magic secret of something that, by nature, is difficult to define. Fickle as most flutists are, precious few will concur on what the French school might be. Many will say: Ah! The French school of yesteryears! You can't find it in France anymore, but here or there, (usually where they operate themselves). It is well known, especially in the USA where I live, that France is just not what it used to be (shake your head sadly). Everything good comes only from America: wine, cooking, music, fluting, movies, sex, etc… Subscribe to read the full article

Ta Ke Ti Na


Justine Bristow

My daily practice over the last twenty years had become very rigid and I found it almost impossible to keep it alive and fulfilling. I was perfecting the notes, sound and phrasing for hours. It was an endless chase for perfection. Playing it over and over in different ways to get to know it in order to free it up. But yet, the more I approached it in this way, the more I contracted and less the music came.

Little did I know at the time but the motivation to practise so many hours on end was due to my fear of not getting it right in the performance. I was holding onto the music and perfect execution of the pieces. This placed an enormous pressure on myself and took the life out of the music I was playing. It became structure with no essence, precision with no flexibility. Because I wasn¹t aware of all this, the pressure was in my subconscious poisoning my experience. Stress and desperateness was colouring all I did. After many years something in me said 'No more!' It all seemed meaningless. Subscribe to read the full article

THE GLISSANDO HEADJOINT®


Robert Dick

One of my longstanding dreams for evolving the flute has been to give the flute a musical equivalent of the electric guitar's tremolo bar, usually called the 'whammy bar'. This dream has come true and it's a fantastic feeling. The Glissando Headjoint® is here, and it's available to everyone.

The flutist can now be fully expressive in styles that call for a flexible, liquid approach to pitch. Watching films of Jimi Hendrix working magic with the tremolo bar, I was inspired (indeed, was outright jealous!) and became determined to find a way for the flute to become a full partner in blues, rock, jazz, world musics you name it. Over my career, I've devoted a lot of energy to transcending perceived limits in the flute and flutists' potential. There are a lot of glissandi that can be made on an open hole flute as it is -- see my piece Fish Are Jumping, for example. But with the Glissando Headjoint® the possibilities leap further open by magnitudes.…Subscribe to read the full article

Other features & columns

More on our main topics plus:

Teaching notes - Helen M Colthart
Jim on jazz - Jim Langabeer
Irish flute - Brendyn Montgomery
Maori Flutes - Richard Nunns
Dear Ingrid - Ingrid Culliford
Piccolo notes - Rosamund Plummer
Warm Ups - James Kortum

Junior section
Recent CD & Book reviews
What's on in the world

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