Creating a new identity in the performing arts

The title of this post is my vision statement. My 5 year goal is to create a new identity for myself as a physical therapist, Andover Educator, flutist, teacher and writer. How did I get on this path and how do I plan to do it all?

Musicians are quite accustomed to wearing many hats. In addition to just loving music and wanting to engage with it for a living, I’m also attracted to how my routine isn’t so routine. I can be doing any number of different things in a normal day, and I love that. It keeps things fresh.

So maybe you’re saying, “OK. I get that you’re a flutist, teacher and writer but what’s an Andover Educator and how is physical therapy related?”

Audience Development Specialists presents Working with Mobile Technology to Develop your Audience

On Friday, March 16 at Noon ET, Audience Development Webinars will present the workshop, Working with Mobile Technology to Develop your Audience.

This is the second webinar in the series. The information is below and feel free to forward this to anyone that you think would be interested. ADS is bringing in David Dombrosky from InstantEncore to give us all a point by point about using mobile technology to build our audience. He knows his stuff!

March 16th – Noon ET
Working with Mobile Technology to Develop Your Audience
With the rapid adoption of web-enabled cell phones, smartphones and tablet computers, what options are available to arts professionals who want to engage their audiences via mobile devices? How can artists and organizations implement these options cost effectively without taking focus away from the art?

If you have any questions, please contact Shoshana Fanizza at sfanizza@buildmyaudience.com. Hope to “see” you there!

Breaking through the Cycle

Alex Ross’s Listen to This is a collection of essays that examines music across multiple genres and seeks to escape the confines of the “classical music” label. The first chapter crosses the border from classical to pop – factors that affect this crossing include societal traditions, values and education. Going from classical to pop is the direction the author took; however, this essay can resonate with anyone that loves music and came to classical music via a different path.

Composers are always paving the path for the future even if they don’t realize it. Beethoven could not have known that his Eroica symphony would still be performed some 200 years later and as we cycle through the stages evident in all musical genres, from youthful rebellion to retrenchment (an excellent point made in this chapter), we can argue the same for popular music and all its sub-genres.

In reading this chapter, I became curious about the cultural values that have encouraged or discouraged the creation of classical music. Mr. Ross states that he feels he would be more at home in the 1930s and 40s, since his listening patterns matched that time more than his own coming of age in the 70s and 80s. So why is there a difference? I feel that our education system and its emphasis on standardization play a large role in answering this question.

Practice like you train

I had a perhaps not so novel idea today. Why should we practice the same things every day? Instead, why shouldn’t we have a larger purpose for every single practice session and take some ideas from runners?

I’m a lapsed runner of sorts. I still run regularly, but I haven’t trained since I was an overly enthusiastic newbie two years ago. I’m in a rut. In this rut I let my subscription to Runner’s World expire, too.

I resubscribed in a hope to get some kind of motivational tip that would spur me back into a crazed training phase. I’ve been reading a few pages here and there and I read today about how and why you should have a purpose before you even begin running. Without a purpose, it’s too easy to get bound up in time contraints, the weather, or any of the million other reasons we usually fail to do what we say we’re going to do.

Yeah, we should have a purpose when we practice. That part is pretty obvious. But have we related our purpose to longer term goals in a meaningful way?

I run about 3 to 4 times a week. One day consists of a long run, which serves to build up endurance and help strengthen the legs and I do speedwork once a week to get faster. The remaining 2 days are easy runs, where I’m letting the work of the harder two workouts settle in.

I hate doing the same thing every day, so I’m not one for making up a routine. Instead, I tend to go with the flow which sometimes sets me up for failure. Translating my running workouts into my flute workouts might help me reach my goals faster. So here’s a quick sketch of how my different training runs relate to my practice sessions:

The Long Run – A longer than average practice session that gives you adequate time to cover all the areas of your playing that need consistent attention. It’s also the time to just enjoy the feeling of being able to play your instrument and not have to watch the clock.

Speedwork – Technical practice. Want to bump up your scales a couple notches on the metronome? Treat this “workout” as speedwork and limit to one or two days a week.

The Recovery Run – Focused, slow practice. Practice what you need to, but let your body assimilate the changes you’re making in your playing. Enjoy the recovery.

The Social Run – Jam session!

The Whatever Run – Play what you want without pressure. Use it as opportunity to explore different areas of your awareness. Or don’t.

*Originally published on The Sensible Flutist, August 2011

© Alexis Del Palazzo 2011

A Flutist’s Self-Worth

A thread on the FLUTE list popped up that saddened me. The question of the distinction between amateur and professional players came up, and I read the thread with dismay. The original poster’s intent was to ask the valid question why we flutists don’t support each other more, but the resulting discussion didn’t answer this question.

A certain flutist wrote who said that she is a “nobody in the flute world” because even though she leads a fulfilling musical life, the fact that no one knows her outside her own circle and she doesn’t hold an orchestra or teaching position doesn’t hold value in her eyes.

An unfortunate stereotype of flutists is that we’re all catty, uber competitive, and self-centered. When I meet a new flutist, I always gauge the person to figure out their attitude. By the end of my time with them, I know whether they share the same philosophy of music making I do (if you’ve read the rest of my blog, you know how I feel about music) or whether they are purely career focused (i.e. constantly focusing on the orchestra audition circuit or teaching positions). When I pick up on the latter attitude, I usually come away a little deflated and questioning my own worth.

Seeking approval from others is a struggle for me. When I was in college, I constantly wanted the approval of my flute teacher. She was hard on me, and it took me years to realize that it was because she wanted the BEST for me. I wasn’t in her studio to be told how good I was. I was in her studio to progress and become a better flutist…to better my chances of becoming a successful musician.

So what does “successful” mean? For a lot of flutists, this only means winning an orchestra or teaching job at a major school. Orchestra jobs are diminishing. The Philly Orchestra has declared bankruptcy, the Louisville Orchestra is no longer employing their musicians. Now, more than ever, flutists (and musicians everywhere) must be flexible and open to creating their own opportunities.

Your self-worth as a musician and as an individual should not be tied to what others are doing. We are musicians, with creative impulses and the ability to create opportunities for ourselves. This is what creative entrepreneurship is about. It’s about taking control of your life and your destiny. It’s about creating opportunities for yourself where none seemingly exist.

Do I struggle with self-doubt? Yes. But I struggle more with self-doubt when I find myself worrying about what others think especially those who have won those types of jobs we dream about in music school. My self-doubt dissipates when I stop worrying, and I start focusing on my own goals again.

If you have an idea for something great, pursue it. Don’t let entrenched attitudes stop you. Winning orchestra and teaching jobs is the old way of thinking. Now, more than ever before is the time to seize on opportunities. The power of the internet and social media can take you from obscurity into something more.

Unfortunately, a lot of musicians don’t know how to seize on these new opportunities. Instead, I meet a lot of flutists who had big dreams shattered by the harsh reality of the real world. Life often gets in the way of what we would like to have, but it doesn’t mean that we should give up just because we can’t win an orchestra audition or a teaching job.

Be flexible, adaptable, and true to yourself. Your musical career might take a path you didn’t expect, but the path least travelled leads to the most fulfilling work.

Go out and create! Here are a few resources to help you get past self-doubt and start or rejuvenate your career:

Jade Simmons’ Emerge Already Blog

Beyond Talent by Angela Myles Beeching

The Savvy Musician by David Cutler

*Originally published on The Sensible Flutist, June 2011

© Alexis Del Palazzo 2011

Flutronix: Review

Through a chance meeting on myspace, a unique duo was born. Brooklyn based Flutronix is a classically trained pair of outstanding flutists that have made the crossover into a widely appealing electroacoustic fusion. Allison Loggins-Hull and Nathalie Joachim are combining their passion for the flute and composition and forging a new way, creating more accessible pathways for people that may not otherwise know about classical music and engaging new audiences as a result.

I was pleased to receive a copy of their Kickstarter funded debut album. Mesmerized from the onset by the layers of sound in Joachim’s piece “Crazy,” the album delivers a diversity of styles in each track from electronica to hip-hop to reggae. As a fan of Steve Reich, I particularly enjoyed the loops in “Stacked” which is reminiscent of Reich’s “Vermont Counterpoint.”

This album was arranged to showcase the duo’s multiple influences without tiring the listener. The vocals in “Aware” and “Wander” further showcase the duo’s compositional and multimedia abilities to produce two intriguing duets between flute and voice. I also enjoyed the more virtuosic flute pieces, “Bit of Everything” and “Pray.” For flutists, the licks sound so familiar (like Taffanel and Gaubert familiar) but made cool by pairing with electronica.

As a classical flutist with a non-musician spouse, I am constantly searching for music that will appeal to my husband while also being able to appreciate it for its artistic value. He enjoyed Flutronix’s offerings as did my brother-in-law. I was excited to share this with them if for no other reason than to give them an example of great flute playing within a context they could appreciate.

I hope that Flutronix will continue this project, and that their creativity will inspire others to pursue their unique projects. You can purchase Flutronix’s album from their website in addition to iTunes and Amazon.

Check out these other links:

Flutronix on Facebook , myspace , and youtube

Brooklyn’s Darmstadt: Flutronix, a great article about the duo

*Originally posted on The Sensible Flutist, January 2011

© Alexis Del Palazzo, 2011

Retake: Musical Perception – Developing Artistry within Technique

This article is about playing with intention. Even with our best intentions, sometimes we lose sight of why we play. My goal as a flutist is to become an artist. I want to rise above the instrumental connection, and have a purely musical connection to what I do. This process takes much time and dedication, but we must instill this perspective in our students. There’s so much to cover in a half hour lesson with a student, but never let them lose sight of the big picture. This is the type of lesson our students will never forget.

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Our musical perception is crucial to how we shape our performances. A student will often focus only on the details alone because they haven’t yet developed the musical intuition that often takes years to coax out. In my reading and listening, I come across many wonderful players that always seem to focus only on the technical part of playing the flute. Some may be so talented that their musical intuition has always been there, and they don’t know how to express what it is that they do. Others are so focused on the instrument that they become consumed with technical details.

We’re all here to play music regardless of our focus; however, I think musicality is a skill that must be taught from the very first lesson in order to develop a student’s intuition. Helping a student develop his musical self is the best step you can take to develop his or her musical competence and independence – the ultimate goal of music study.

We practice the flute to develop advanced skills as they relate to tone, technique, articulation, dynamics, rhythm, style, and vibrato. Michel Debost wrote an interesting article in the November 2010 issue of Flute Talk (“The Artist as Technician”) that discusses how the farther along we advance in the flute, the more all the technical elements of the instrument begin to overlap to produce the ultimate musical product. He writes, “We should put technique into our music, and put music into our technique.”

The previous articles I have written on intention and our own inhibitions and our personalities as musicians discuss musicality primarily because I think it’s a topic that does not get discussed enough in the flute world. Great intonation, fast fingers, and connectivity of sound all go far to offer the flute as a musical offering, but how do we combine conscious artistry with conscious technique?

To play musically, we must be in touch with ourselves. Musicians are communicators, and whatever message we are conveying will always speak through us wrapped in our individual life experiences. This is what makes live performances so important and critical to the development of young musicians. Require or encourage your young students to attend local concerts and recitals. If they don’t have the sound of a good musician in their ear, they will never have a higher goal to strive for.

This is a difficult skill to teach, which is why more tangible skills are taught in favor of opening up a student’s awareness to the ultimate power of music as a vehicle they can communicate through. Recital attendance, regular practice, and drawing attention to music as a whole package instead of a series of notes and rhythms on the page will begin to open up a student’s musical world for the better.

Play with intention and your artistry will emerge.

*Originally published on The Sensible Flutist on November 10, 2010

Alexis Del Palazzo ©2010

Rethinking the Breath

Flutists are athletes. It isn’t uncommon to see flutists on stage impressing the audience with their huge sound or distracting physical movements as they try to take large enough breaths to sustain the musical phrase. Flute playing can be approached not as a physical task that must be conquered, but instead a physically freeing MUSICAL experience. Play music, not the flute.

Here are a couple of tips to free yourself from the physical ideas of “supporting” and “bracing:”

1) Focus on your spine when inhaling and exhaling the breath. The spine GATHERS on the inhale and LENGTHENS on the exhale. This isn’t how most flutists think about their spine. What happens when you start running out of air? You start squeezing the torso. If you play in opposition to the way your body naturally works, it will be harder to play.

2) Improve the quality of your inhalation. Picture yourself taking a sip of hot cocoa, and how you try to cool the warmth of the drink by sucking air in through your lips. This is how the breath should feel when you inhale. The lungs naturally expand, and energy is conserved because you aren’t forcing air into the belly. Practice this type of inhalation with slow scales such as Taffanel and Gaubert E.J. 4.

3) Tongue position really does matter. Most are taught to keep the tongue low in the mouth to allow the air to move freely. What happens when you place the tongue high, wide, and forward in the mouth and then play? If you do it correctly, you should feel that you use less air to get the volume and quality of sound that you want. Experimenting with this French style of tongue position really gives a remarkable ease to playing extremely soft.

Even if these tips go against all that you have been taught in your studies, experiment. If you struggle with breathing, what if one of these ideas gives you the “a-ha” moment you’ve been desperately looking for? Happy fluting!

Alexis Del Palazzo ©2011

Retake: Shifting the Focus back to Expression and Creativity

Below is an article I posted on my own blog, The Sensible Flutist.  Since I wrote this piece, I have began working in a more organic fashion to piece together all the elements that create a musical performance full of emotional energy that fulfills the composer’s intent.

Our own self-awareness can either hinder or help our efforts to piece together the musical foundation, technical elements of the instrument we play, and the physical aspects. This is my journey, and I believe that students can benefit from studying a mixture of all three elements. If students have a sense of the holistic big picture by incorporating the physical and intuitive into their music studies, they will go on to to be happier, healthier musicians that are able to more easily let go of the various psychological factors that often creep into our performances as we get older.

Expression and creativity is the essence of what we do, and below are a few ideas of how you can begin working within that expressive framework.

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I’ve been having a conversation on Twitter with @MazzaClarinet otherwise known as Marion Harrington, a professional clarinetist and motivational author (http://marionharringtonclarinet.com/). The conversation began as a discussion of the importance of academia on musical interpretation and the positive or negative impact it has on one’s natural inclinations and this discussion has transformed into one about the sacrificing of musical expression for technical perfection.

Students that enter college to study music must take an assortment of theory and history classes in order to develop a framework for them to become better musicians. It’s critical to a student’s development to have this academic education in order to return to music with a enlightened view of its structure and historical context; however, viewing music in strictly academic terms will render the music void of any expression whatsoever. I discussed this point in an earlier post (http://sensibleflutist.blogspot.com/2010/06/personality-of-musician-deeper-look.html). I would go further than I did in my previous article, and state that having a certain amount of talent paired with a solid musical education will produce a musician with a heightened sensitivity to the music.

From this, the conversation took a turn towards the question of creativity and how so many performances nowadays are technically accurate or “note perfect” but lacking in musical expression. For flutists, the current focus leans toward technical superiority and perfection. My guess is that this focus extends through all woodwinds because of the physically emcompassing requirements of playing a wind instrument. We get so wrapped up in the physical and technical side of playing the instrument that we forget why we committed ourselves to music in the first place. I certainly didn’t start playing the flute because I wanted to learn to control my breathing or have fast fingers. I began playing the flute for the expressive powers and potential it holds.

I attended several masterclasses over the summer, and most of the focus was on technical aspects of flute playing. This approach is ingrained in me so much that I find it incredibly difficult to listen to beautiful flute playing without scrutinzing every detail rather than appreciating the beauty; however, by the same token, it’s difficult to find recordings that give you a glimpse into the whole package. Encouraging young musicians to attend live performances is one of the most important steps we can take to shift the focus from technical playing to free and creative.

So what other ways can we start changing this focus? We’re musicians with a creative urge to find solutions. We are always looking for solutions to improve and do things better. I think that flutists (and any other instrument that falls into this perfection obsessed category) should take the opportunity to listen to vocalists, pianists, and stringed instruments. Attend masterclasses for other instruments than your own – it’s eye opening to see how they approach their music. Take the universal musical ideas you learn from them, and apply it within your own playing. Go to solo recitals of other instruments.

Improvisatory exercises are extremely useful when exploring the bounds of your own creative musical expression. When you take away the visual, your heighten your other senses and the music begins to become a natural, non-thinking extension of who you are. I really enjoy attending jazz concerts to see and hear the freedom of these musicians. I strive for the same freedom in my playing. As David Thomas (@DTClarinet) stated on Twitter, playing a piece of music is a “recreative” process, but also takes imagination. I think that pairing the improvisatory freedom of non-thinking with real imagination will increase your control over a piece of music and bring out expressive qualities in your playing that will engage your audience in a real-time narrative.

The beauty of music lies in its ability to engage the entire realm of human emotion, and express happiness, sorrow, anger, tell a narrative or paint a picture. By engaging the self through creative and imaginative self-exploration, we break the mold and become free-thinking, musical individuals.

*Shifting the Focus back to Expression and Creativity was originally posted on The Sensible Flutist (http://sensibleflutist.blogspot.com) on September 5, 2010

Alexis Del Palazzo ©2010