We had a really lovely course at Woldingham just before Easter. We only had 15 children but we had 11 staff! Everyone worked so hard and we had so much fun. The photos should tell the story, click on the photo below and keep clicking, there are lots!
The count down is on for all of those lucky flute players who are coming to our Flutewise course at Woldingham next week. What a Flutewise Adventure we are going to have! I've got a course planned which is packed with incredible activities. There are so many amazing staff involved I think our course members are going to learn so much and experience some fantastic music making.
The house staff (people who are there all the time) will be myself, Abbie Burrows, Lorna Brown and Simon Williams. We'll settle everyone in on Monday and we'll play some ensemble music, Abbie is bound to come up with an amazing musical activity and we'll have our favourite bedtime concert at the end of the evening.
On Tuesday morning we will be joined by flute player and pianist, Carolyn Kelly, who along with Vicki Hodges, will be working on solos and how to perform them really well. Vicki is now an opera singer (she's been attending Flutewise courses since she was 6!) and really brings a new dimension on how to perform. Her warm ups are also pretty awesome. Clare Jefferis will also be with us on Tuesday and she'll be helping everyone to explore the piccolo. Janina Byrne will also be coming along to see what we get up to and joining in.
On Wednesday Emma Halnan and Ian Judson will be with us. I'm sure we will be treated to Emma performing for us as well as enjoying her workshop on how to get the best out of practice. Ian is going to be concentrating on how to be brilliant in grade exams. He has some really good tips to share.
On Thursday we've got Gareth McLearnon. We all love Gareth's endless energy and enthusiasm. He'll almost certainly bring along a huge collection of flutes including his stunning contra bass. Also on Thursday we are hoping to see Jonathan Myall from Just Flutes.
As well as all of our guest staff giving workshops, the house staff have lots of activities planned. I've heard whispers about the scale game, a sight reading game, a bit of beatboxing and lots more. I can't wait and neither can the staff. We are so lucky so many people want to share their skills and be involved in our Flutewise Adventure.
If you are feeling jealous because you aren't coming, why not hurry and book a place on our Abbotsholme summer course?
... well sort of. After the postman bringing some lovely copies of music this week, I've just discovered a bit of a pile waiting for me to tell all of our Flutewise friends about. Sorry everyone, I'm a bit behind what with all the website challenges and organising so many events for this year. So here is a round up of new music. I'll be giving to all away! Maybe you'll be lucky enough to receive one of them.
First of all publications from Schott. I really like Schott publications, the printing and presentation is always of a really high standard and the contents great. The publications are available in print or pdf download with downloadable MP3 Play-along tracks.
I really enjoyed playing through Wilhelm Popp (1828-1902) 3 Concert Pieces for flute and piano. Suitable for players of around Grade 4 to 5 standard they would make a lovely concert item, my favourite being the 3rd one, Pompadour - Gavotte.
Also in the same series are
Again these are for flute and piano and would make great concert items for flute players of over Grade 6 standard.
This album contains 6 pieces for flute and piano for beginner flute players. Each piece concentrates on a different aspect of playing. Really good stuff. Kronke (1865 - 1938) was a German composer who wrote quite a bit of flute repertoire, worth exploring.
Also from Schott
This book contains 54 traditional pieces edited by Vicki Swann. It's suitable for players from Grade 3 standard and has an accompanying CD
This is a collection of easy duets covering from Baroque to Modern repertoire
This book contains 52 tunes that beginners will enjoy from all around the world. There is a backing CD and the piano parts are available as a free PDF download.
For more information visit the Schott website
I don't know if you know, but as well as publishing it's own music, Spartan Press distribute music for a lot of other publishers. They always seem very supportive of us flute players and offer a huge library of publications.
That Wilhelm Popp is getting around a lot at the moment. These two gems for flute and piano have been edited by Susan Milan, one of the UK's leading flute players and respected teacher. They are perfect for players over Grade 6 standard as recital items. Really so flutey!
Tim Knight is quite a prolific composer. I especially like Winterscape for Flute and Piano. It is beautiful. His Beside Still Waters is subtitled 5 Reflections on Psalm 23 for C instrument and piano. Players over Grade 5/6 standard will enjoy these.
Advanced players of both flute and piano will enjoy exploring Alan Bullard's Duologues. There are 3 movements
Then for absolute beginners there is an excellent publication, First Flute, which has solos, duets, improvisation and ensemble pieces. Really good material to enhance any lesson.
Now this does look exciting! It was attributed to Richard Strauss and Phylloscopus Publications (distributed by Spartan Press) have brought out two versions - for flute, bassoon and chamber orchestra and one for flute and bassoon with piano reduction. they have been edited by Chris and Frances Nex. Let me know if you would like to try this!
Mark Tanner has transcribed these superb pieces - Pastorale, Polka and Valse by Russian composer, Alexander Glazunoz (1865 - 1936), for flute and piano. Really enjoyable for the more advanced flute player to tackle and enjoy.
For more information on all of these visit the Spartan Press website
These two pieces are both published by Emerson Edition, another excellent publisher of flute music. Zinging is for solo flute and Unzipped is for flute duet. They both use extended techniques, a bit of beat boxing and singing and playing. Great fun for players around Grade 5 to 6 standard.
It is worth having a look at the June Emerson website.
There are four books in my pile from Forton Music.
Some great material here, written, obviously by flute teachers who know just what young flute players can do! The Flute Duets is suitable for very beginners. The other two books by Lynne Williams are progressive study books for solo flute, starting from beginner standard to about Grade 3/4. Karen Gourlay's High Five is a collection of ten original easy pieces for flute and piano. Good stuff.
Look at the Forton Music website to see what else they have available.
Finally, there are 4 books published by Lemoine which are well worth sharing.
These are original compositions by this Albanian composer. They are for solo flute, one piece is for 2 flutes and they have chords. Very interesting.
This album is great fun. For the beginner flute player up to Grade 3, these are for flute and piano and the book comes with a CD.
This is described as a musical trip around the world - France, Africa, Japan, India, Balkans). Tricky stuff, with some extended techniques well worth exploring. It is for solo flute with accompanying CD which uses an interesting variety of instruments Cor Anglais, Harp, Glockenspiel etc.
For more information check out Lemoine Editions website
Thanks for reading this far. I wonder if you might be the lucky recipient of one of the books above!
How would you like to win a Flutewise Goody bag? It will contain all sorts of Flutewise Goodies - books of music, recordings, a pencil and more. There are currently two ways to be a proud owner of one:
1. If you are a flute teacher have one of your students come to our Woldingham or Abbotsholme course.
2. Sign up for our Flutewise newsletter and have your name put into the prize draw.
People who are connected with the flute are really, really nice people. I know that as a fact as I've come across thousands of flute players in my life. We really seem to be friendly and want to help one another. That's how we've got organisations like Flutewise and the British Flute Society and specialist flute shops like All Flutes Plus, Just Flutes and Top Wind.
Yesterday I made a new friend connected with the flute world, Kyle Bennett who lives in the US. I don't know much about Kyle yet apart from what a great person he is and, in some way, he is connected to the flute as he has built this great flute fingering chart which is available for free. You can find it here. I'm impressed as it is very easy to use and has a nice smooth feel to it. Anyone learning to play the flute will find this very useful and it's useful for more advanced players as well as it has trill fingerings - don't you just hate it when you forget a trill fingering for the 3rd octave?!
The other reason I know Kyle is a really good person is connected to our website and domain names. Last week we suffered a huge attack on our main website, the Flutewise dot com site. It was hacked and if anyone searched for it they were directed to shockingly inappropriate sites. Fortunately this was picked up very quickly by our hosting company, but for awhile I thought I'd lost all of the data from the website. I was totally devastated as that is work going back almost 30 years! Friends and family were being very supportive and helpful during this crisis and during a search for 'Flutewise' one of them found a site with the domain name flutewise dot org. It had Flutewise information from 2009. I thought we owned this domain but it turns out there was an administrative error at our end and it went onto the market and Kyle acquired it.
I contact him and asked if he could remove the content. I was totally bowled over by his response - he offered me the domain name back for free! Isn't that wonderful? So a huge thanks to Kyle and I wish him all the best with his Flute Fingering Chart. Do go and check it out.
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