Teaching
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Taffanel’s Andante Pastoral et Scherzettino: A practice guide
Taffanel’s Andante Pastoral et Scherzettino is a gem in the French flute repertoire and one of my favourites. Indeed, I played this piece for my entrance exam at the Royal Academy of Music and I fortunately got in! It’s a piece full of technical challenges, written as a test piece for the concours at the…
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“What Should I be Practising?”
Learning the flute (or any musical instrument) is not always a smooth process of steady improvement. We all learn in different ways with our own strengths and weaknesses, so there will be times when things can get frustrating if one feels they are not improving as much as they would like. Other factors also affect…
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Tips on Andersen Etudes: Op15, No. 3
This is probably everyone’s favourite étude – it is certainly the one that gets performed the most outside of the practice room. It’s a triplet tour de force without any breaks, but it also has a very beautiful melodic quality. Find the Skeleton If we take away all the decoration and leave the “skeleton” of…
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Starting a Beginner Flute Choir
Whether you are starting out in teaching, in charge of your first flute choir, or you are a veteran and have run many ensembles, choosing music for that all-important first rehearsal is a daunting task at any level – hit the ground running with these easy books for flute choir.
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Exploring the new ABRSM flute syllabus 2018: Grade 7
Blog snapshot – my recommendations at a glance! Giuseppe Rabboni: Sonata No 4 in D major from Sonatas for Flute and Piano Telemann: Sonata in G major Frederick the Great: Allegro from Sonata in B flat Spitta No 76. Serini: Andantino grazioso and Allegro assai from Sonata No 1 in D major Gluck arr Boehm: …
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Exploring the 2018 ABRSM Flute Syllabus: Grades 1 and 2
So here we are again! Astonishingly it’s 8 years since ABRSM introduced a selection of the music for each grade in one book. This seemed such a big event back then, but now we are all used to the format, like it or not! The marketing of the ABRSM volumes has been even more targeted…