We did have fun at our Flutewise Club on Saturday 27 April. We are hatching lots of fun plans! Bookings are open for the May one.
Thanks for the music Schott Music Publishing
Flutewise at Woldingham 2019 - to photocopy or not to photocopy
We had a great time on our course at Woldingham. Everyone really enjoyed themselves and worked exceedingly hard.
For one workshop we looked at music publishing and photocopying. You can see what we learnt in the video below. The lovely people at Schott publishing kindly donated a piece of music for everyone. It did make everyone very happy!
On our course at Woldingham in April 2019 we learnt all about publishing, buying music and why we should think twice about photocopying music
Flutewise at Woldingham 2019
We’ve started!
Everyone is so pleased to be back at Woldingham. I provide to try and post a few updates for parents when I can. No need to worry, everyone is having a lovely time. It was great to see how well everyone eats at dinner last night, the food here is excellent, lots of choice and good to see many going back for seconds.
The single bedrooms have not proved to be an issue at all (yet!). The only problem we’ve had is I broke my shower door this morning and got stuck in the shower. I managed to get out or I couldn’t post this :)
All of the staff are wonderful. Currently we are having a warm up and workshop with Vicki Hodges. Everyone is happy and busy and we’ve got a full day planned.
More when I can.
We’ve had a bit of an eventful day. There has been lots of great playing going on, fantastic friendships developing, more lovely food and input and support from exceptional staff.
We had a workshop with Roderick Seed this afternoon and he also brought Just Flutes travelling shop. I’m not convinced my ears enjoyed all of the flute and piccolo trying! The workshop went down very well, so thanks for everything Rod.
Currently there is a great deal of giggling going on due to a creative piece we are constructing all around the idea of my cat, JJ.
I hope I can report more tomorrow.
Update Wednesday
A peaceful night was had by all. Single rooms seem to work well.
We’ve had a lovely busy morning. The warm up was all to do with earning Easter Eggs (Thanks Alexandra and parents for so many eggs). They all thought we’d be having an Easter Egg hunt but the staff decided we needed to make them work hard instead rotating around to staff members to do various activities to warm up. It was so much fun. Then flute choir. Then working on their graphic scores, which everyone is loving.
Now we are working on solos with piano. Everyone will perform them later today.
The food continues to be outstanding and the sun is shining. What more could we want? Oh yes, we all had yummy cakes this morning thanks to Sophie, Max and Tomoko.
Flutewise in Brentwood with Ian Clarke
On Saturday 23 March we had a wonderful Flutewise day in Brentwood thanks to Carolyn Wheadon, an extremely experienced and talented flute teacher who has lots of students in the area. Ian was joined by Simon Williams who started the day off with his Grand Old Duke of York warm up. It was great fun. Ian took over and worked with everyone on various sounds in preparation for Walk Like This and Zig Zag Zoo which we learnt, rehearsed and played in the concert at the end of the day. Ian also worked on two of his pieces, Sunstreams and Hypnosis.
Younger players arrived in the afternoon and while Ian worked with them, another local teacher, Sue Hughes gave a class on performance nerves to the older people.
Tim from Just Flutes was with us with the travelling flute shop.
After lots of playing we realised we had a short amount of time to fill so we all learnt Erich’s Game or piccolo. It’s a firm favourite.
The church was packed for the end concert. Ian and Simon played Mia, Ian played Deep Blue and Great Train Race and then everyone played Zig Zag Zoo and Walk Like This. It was a lovely concert.
If you click on this link you will find lost of photos.
Flutewise Club
I’m really pleased to say we’ve found a new home to run our Flutewise Club. We tried it out last Saturday and it is fine. We all enjoyed ourselves and learnt a great deal - especially learning the degrees of the scale by playing ‘What time is it Mr Wolf’! You had to be there! Having a go on the bass flute, alto flute and piccolo was also very popular. It’s an easy place to get to if you don’t live too far away. We had flute players join us from Brighton, Ashford and Caterham, so it’s good to know people are willing to travel. There will be a session every month. More details and dates can be found here. I’ve some very exciting plans for the future, so I hope lots of you can join us. We are aiming to make it very social so parents and family can come and join us for a cup of tea and cake or biscuits at the end of each session.
Big thanks to Music for All for helping us to make this possible.
Happy Half Term
I hope you have been enjoying the half term holiday. It is lovely to feel spring in the air. I’ve spent a bit of time doing some work on the website and planning events. I’m really looking forward to seeing lots of you soon at our various events. Woldingham is looking particularly exciting this year. I’ve just been looking at the plans for the bedroom accommodation, either single rooms or twin rooms all en-suite. That strikes me as absolute luxury! The content we are planning is also very exciting. There is still time to book your place if you haven’t done so already.
I’m also very pleased that we will be able to run our Flutewise Club in Portslade, Brighton once a month (thanks to Music for All). The dates for the rest of this year will be available soon.
We’ve also got our great weekends coming up with Marko Zupan and Ian Clarke. Don’t miss out on those, book your places soon if you haven’t already.
I popped up to Just Flutes on Monday and met up with my lovely friend Helga who is from Norway. I also brought some things back for JJFox to inspect. Any idea what they are?
Music for All
I had some brilliant news this week. I applied for some funding from Music for All last year and we’ve been awarded some of it! This means I can develop Flutewise Clubs in the area where I live. It will give local flute players the chance to meet regularly and I will also be able to have a few new Flutewise Apprentices coming on board. If you are interested let me know.
Enormous thanks to the lovely people at Music for All
There are lots of events open for booking now. Some are selling very fast, so hurry to book your place.
I hope you appreciate this photo of the very musical JJ!
Happy New Flutewise Year
Meet the latest addition to our family …
This is JJ Quantz (JJ for short) and he loves the flute - well he would have to living in our house
I hope you’ve had a lovely Christmas and New Year holiday. We have, made all the more special having JJ arriving just before Christmas. He is a Maine coon and he is very, very friendly.
The New Year promises to be exciting for everyone involved in Flutewise. Things just seem to get better every year.
I’m very pleased about our residential course at Woldingham which will take place between 8 and 11 April. We will be in different bedroom accommodation this year due to plumbing work going on in the Main House where we usually stay. This time we will have twin rooms all with ensuite bathrooms! That is luxury. We will also have use of two enormous common rooms as well as having the amazing Millennium Centre to work in as usual. If you are thinking of coming, hurry up and book your place as places are limited and there are quite a lot of bookings in already. I know it is going to be an excellent course.
There are plenty of other things going on before that. We had a lovely Flutewise Club in December. I’ve just decided on the date for the next one, Saturday 16 February. Places are extremely limited for this one as it will probably be at my house - with JJ watching over us :)
March is a very exciting month with events with Ian Clarke and Marko Zupan. I think we all know Ian Clarke, even if you haven’t met him you might have played or heard his music - Walk Like This, Zoom Tube, Great Train Race etc. Ian will be doing a full day event in Brentwood on Saturday 23 March from 10.00 am until 6.00 pm. The morning session will be for players over Grade 5 standard and the afternoon for players of all standards (8 to 18 year olds only at this one). Family, friends and anyone else interested will be able to come along to hear the music we’ve worked on and Ian perform some of his own pieces at about 5.00 pm. Full details will be available soon.
The weekend before this will be very busy. Marko Zupan will be coming to the UK with his pianist, Minka Popovic for some very exciting events. This is what is planned:
Friday 15 March - individual lessons will be available with Marko at Just Flutes
Friday 15 March - Flutewise workshop at Just Flutes 4.30 - 6.30
Saturday 16 March - Flutewise workshop at St Michael and All Angels in Brighton 1.00 - 4.00
Saturday 16 March - evening recital at St Michael and All Angels in Brighton 7.00 pm
Sunday 17 March - Flutewise workshop at the Schools at Somerhill, Tonbridge starting at 10.00 am
Sunday 17 March - lunchtime recital at the Schools at Somerhill, Tonbridge 1.30
Sunday 17 March - workshop and masterclass for adults at the Schools at Somerhill, Tonbridge starting at 2.45
Bookings for all of these events will be open very soon.
I hope to see you at at least one of them.
Flutewise Club and reviews
Last week we had our first Flutewise Club here in not very sunny Portslade. It was quite a small affair as I hadn’t really advertised it, but it was extremely pleasant. The cake and biscuits were particularly good :) No, seriously, so was the flute playing.
After a scale warm up game everyone had a go on playing the alto and bass flute and the piccolos as well as my black grenadite flute made by Guo. To get a feel for these flutes we played through an arrangement of Greensleeves several times.
We had a go at some yoga breathing exercises that are illustrated on Practice Room Yoga. The videos on that site are worth checking out.
SmartMusic is something else we had a look at. If you don’t know this product I urge you to have a look. It is extremely popular it the US but although it has been around for years, it has never really taken off in the UK. I’d love to know why. It’s an excellent practice tool.
I often get sent music for review and I thought this was an excellent opportunity to do this from a different angle - get young flute players to tell us what they think of new publications. You can see their responses at the end of this post.
We finished the session by having a go at Pink Panther and then some rounds from Eight Rounds by Johow, published by De Haske. They are excellent.
I’ll be announcing new dates for 2019. Maybe you would like to join us. We had one girl planning to come all the way from Bulgaria but unfortunately her parents couldn’t arrange suitable flights. I think she’ll be coming along sometime soon and local families have offered to do some social activities with her, so if you have a little way to travel we can include you!
Reviews
Thanks to all of our young reviewers, they got to take the music home forever. Photos of the covers of the books mentioned and others can be found at the bottom of the post.
Curtain Up! Buhne Frei Duos 2 Magic Flute on Stage Series
Published by Universal Edition
I like it because:
There are lots of good songs in one book
We found it easy to get into the music
The 2nd part is interesting as well as the first
Flute Rocks by Theo Richens
Published by Con Moto Publications, Spartan Press
I like it because:
Fun songs
Very catchy
Good printing
Using lots of ties and quavers so more interesting to read.
It would be nice to have an accompaniment CD or download
Twenty Four Five Flute Studies by Lynne Williams
Published by Forton Music
I like it because:
Lots of short and interesting songs
Really clear target
Different time signatures
Play It Again Flute Duet by Liz Sharma
Published by Forton Music
I like it because
• Composer’s first name
I’m not sure about:
All songs are a bit dull
Why a student part and teachers? Student should be able to play as well or student part is not as good as teachers.
Flutewise at Whigift
To have a parent email me to say her daughter had said the our event at Whigift School was ‘The best day of her life” makes all the effort that goes into Flutewise worthwhile.
Enormous thanks to everyone one who made it possible, Fiona Myall from Whigift, Abbie Burrows, Gareth McLearnon, Carolyn Kelly and Tomoko Watson, but more importantly all the lovely young flute players.
Click on the link below to see the photos.
