flute practice – To Infinity & Beyond Forever

One of the issues I face is TIME. It takes time to work up and then keep repertoire perform-able, and, never knowing what I’m going to be asked to play, I have to keep them all in the pipe (quite literally when one plays the flute). Added to that is all the foot switching required when you use electronic effects, and that’s the part that I usually skimp on — always a mistake. Invariably, it’s the stuff I skimp on that comes back to bite me, because that’s sure to be the piece or pieces that Forrest will decide he wants us to work on, or even record and video. And, of COURSE, if he wants to do a live recording session, it’s guaranteed that I’ll have neglected to cut my hair and look something of a disheveled urchin. (Of course.)

It takes a lot of time and meticulous attention to the electronics to set up for a live recording session. Because of Forrest’s driving schedule this winter, which has been as brutal, the roads having been the worst winter driving ever in Alberta and, especially, British Columbia, we just haven’t had the time to do any more live recording/video sessions. I know that it’s coming, though, so, below, I’ve pasted the list of my daily repertoire practice.

Some of these are really simple to play …until you add in messing about with the stomp boxes. Some of them, of course, are rhythmic nightmares for me, some just a torture of finger snarls. But all of it is tough when trying to keep my eyes on both music and the switches I have to hit just a millisecond before the effect(s) is or are is supposed to kick in.

In classical playing, one keeps a goodly amount of pieces worked up — about a hundred-and-fifty or so. With the stuff we play, though, I’m lucky it’s only about fifty-some, right now. Here’s my daily task: (And, yes, some of these are already recorded and videoed, but I didn’t feel like editing the list, because, honestly, I still have to keep up the ones we’ve already recorded.)

1. Alone Again Or
2. Another Brick in the Wall/Goodbye Blue Sky
3. Aqualung
4. Baby I Love Your Way
5. Beth
6. Black Hole Sun
7. Black Magic Woman
8. Bungle in the Jungle
9. Carry On Wayward Son
10. Cheap Sunglasses
11. Closer to the Heart
12. Cross-Eyed Mary
13. Dog Breath Variations
14. Duetto
15. Dust in the Wind
16. Eye of the Tiger
17. FM
18. Fooling Yourself
19. Hold Your Head Up
20. Hotel California
21. Icarus
22. Idiot Bastard Son
23. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed
24. JS Tull Medley
25. Lazy
26. Let’s Make the Water Turn Black
27. Let’s Move to Cleveland
28. Light My Fire
29. Living in the Past
30. Locomotive Breah
31. Long Distance Run Around
32. Marqueson’s Chicken
33. Mission Impossible
34. Money
35. More Than a Feeling
36. My Favorite Things
37. Never Been Any Reason
38. Norwegian Wood
39. Nothing Else Matters
40. Oh No
41. Oye Como Va
42. Peaches in Regalia
43. Porgy & Bess
44. Roundabout
45. Roxanne
46. Scarborough Fair/Sounds of Silence
47. She’s Not There
48. Siciliano
49. Sing or the Day
50. Summertime
51. Time of the Season
52. Uncle Meat
53. Waltz in A Minor
54. Walking on the Moon
55. Watermelon in Easter Hay
56. What’s New in Baltimore
57. Woman in Love

So, husband texts, asking which pieces I’d like to rehearse when he gets home. I give him a rather extensive list of well over a dozen difficult pieces. An hour-and-a-half later, when I’m working through number four on the list, he texts to tell me that he’s hit all of them, so we’re good to go, and he’s heading out …which means he’s starting his assigned heavy-haul KW semi- and heading toward customs to get back into the U.S.

I sit there staring at that text, thinking, ‘You hit that entire list? In an hour-and-a-half? Wow!’ Then comes my sigh of frustration.

Music is so totally in his hand, and so is his instrument. What I have to work weeks at, he manages in a few minutes, or, at most, a few run-throughs during his practice sessions.

Laughter strikes me. It’s only fitting, I think, that me, who spent decades in formal study, grilled and drilled, has to work very hard to come up to speed, while he, who had no formal education in music or his instrument, can toss off really, really intricate, difficult riffs like it’s nothing and hit them every time.

I used to be that good, but with a qualifier: only after years and years of determined practice and only by continuing daily practice, practicing every day, at least four hours a day, could I be that adept and agile, my sight-reading top-notch, my ability to toss off brand new pieces superb, and my repertoire flawless — four hours of practice a day. And that, my friends, is the difference between a virtuoso musician (him) and somebody who’s just talented.

Tag: flute practice

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