Recorder Practice 2/24/10 and Other Thoughts

I had the occasion a week or so ago to have a guess teacher for my lesson; she also conducted our group. It's always nice to get someone else's input, no matter how good your teacher is.

She had some good suggestions for me -

I need to breath more deeply, from the belly and the back, and not constrict my throat or mouth - my usual teacher says I need to relax my mouth and be willing to open it to take in air so as to avoid the slurping sound I otherwise make. Same idea, different take on it - both are helpful.

When working on sections that include rhythmic changes that may be difficult - break them down into smaller notes.

In playing solo pieces where I'm comfortable with the piece, begin to play with varying the rhythms and articulations for expressiveness - do outrageous things and discard the ideas that don't sound good.

When doing ornaments such as trills - use a softer tonguing to enter them - a d instead of a t - ornaments should be light and, well, ornamental.

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Today's practice was not too long - I worked on the two things I'll be playing, one with the group and one as a duet, for the recital in about three weeks. Our group is doing the middles pieces of the Old Bachelor suite by Purcell. I'm still struggling with some of the fingerings in several of the faster movements, and tried to break them down and not just lose heart.

My duet is two Musettes by Chedeville. I'm working on transforming my appoggiaturas into trills whenever the note is at least a quarter note - the eighth note ones will stay as appoggiaturas, and also on speeding things up a bit. Some progress was made.