So, I followed through and didn’t practice today. And I have some goals for when I pick up my horn tomorrow. I had originally planned to discuss my approach to setting goals in this post, but as I started writing, the post started turning into an article, so watch for an article on setting goals on my website shortly. (I’ll link to it as soon as it’s done.)
Since my article discusses the importance of setting long-range, mid-range, and short-range goals, I’ll preface this by sharing that I had long and mid-range goals (the next year and the next few months) in mind as I developed the short-range goals I’m writing out here. I’ll touch on those later. I’m currently working on four primary pieces: Alois Haba’s Partita, Victor Morosco’s Blue Caprice, Ryo Noda’s Mai and Joan Tower’s Wings. I’m at very different places with each of these pieces. I’ve performed the Haba, Noda and Morosco at different points in the past, and the Morosco and Noda are in fairly decent shape. Haba … well, I played it on my first doctoral recital somewhat less than what I considered successfully about 10 years ago. I’ve avoided it since! I have a good aural concept of the piece, but the technique isn’t there. The Tower piece is new to me. I’ve never heard it performed, and I actually just received the piece about 4 days ago. In addition to these pieces, I’m working on regaining the consistency in my technique — it’s there, but not consistent or as clean as it should be. With that said, here are the goals I have set for the next few weeks.
Technique: focus on one key center per practice session, moving chromatically starting on B-flat. Since I’m relearning everything as I go, my technical development time will focus on major and harmonic minor scales by step and by third. As time permits, I will be including the corresponding keys from Larry Teal’s “Daily Exercises” and as needed, I will also include exercises from Trevor Wye’s flute technique books (primarily book 6 – Advanced Practice). Starting tempo mm 96-100 with a goal of at least 120 by this time in June.
Morosco: since this is in pretty good shape, I will focus on maintenance and cleaning details. Entire piece needs to be played daily. In addition, about 10 minutes of focus on one page each day.
Noda: also in fairly good shape, so again, focus on maintenance. For those familiar with the piece, I’ll be using the glissandi as tone exercises daily and spending about 5 minutes on page 2. Days my kids aren’t in bed yet when I practice, the multiphonics and altissimo sections on page 3 will need about 5-10 minutes of attention. When the kids are asleep, I’ll have to leave these alone.
Haba: focus on the first movement for the next 2 weeks with a goal of playing the movement cleanly at a minimum of 80% of performance tempo. Movements 2-4 identify the problematic sections and revisit appropriate goals for these movements in 2 weeks (by May 21).
Tower: page one and the first 4 lines of page 2 to minimum of 80% of performance tempo. Read at least one additional page per day to develop an aural concept of the piece.
There is a method and a logic to these goals that I won’t get into right now — have to save something to write about for tomorrow! More to come….
