Practice Routines?

[est]

I wonder what most folks’ practice sessions work out to be.

I’m a software developer by trade, so I have zero plans to become a professional, but I did study music back in college before changing majors a few times As a result of those years, I did pick up a few good tips which I’ve been trying to enforce as I relearn to play the flute after a nearly 20 year break.

Recently, my routine has been to grab the flute after my workday finishes (working from home means no commute! Woohoo!) I try to stick with it at least an hour, but there is still embouchure fatigue that creeps in that sometimes cuts it shorter than I’d like.

I spend some of that time trying to work out a tune (not always a new one). This is usually from written music, but sometimes from a recording (or a tune that I’ve listened to so many times I can hear it in my head) After a while, I pick up a tune I’m generally able to play by memory and work through any sticking points. Usually, at some point in the second part, I find an issue with a single note and may spend 10 minutes or so just focusing on tone or trying to get a richer quality (either sweet or woody, depending on what I was playing with before).

I also try to play some airs or really slow versions of a tune after a while with the objective of listing to my tone and focusing very carefully on my embouchure. Sadly, I don’t have a lot of those in my foggy memory and recordings, so that’s on my TODO list…find a good “CD” and learn a few more of those.

The flute tunes I’m trying to learn by ear (with the occasional cheat by way of the interwebs) are various Bothy Band (obviously), Touchstone and Malcom Dalglish. I find Grey Larsen’s concertina stuff translates very nicely to the flute (probably because he plays flute as well) and the rhythms from the hammered dulcimer can help clarify what sort of rhythm that needs to be hit with the rolls and crans. It can sometimes be clearer than the pipes. There are a bunch of other groups too, but these are the ones in my recent rotation.

I’ve got a LONG way to go to be able to keep up with any of the folks above for the fast stuff, but I’m getting there slowly.

[Conical_bore]

I’m retired, which has both pros and cons for flute practice. The pro is near-unlimited time, only having to work around daily chores or other hobbies. The con is that there is no excuse for lack of progress. I really should be much better at this, given the time I have.

Anyway, the usual routine is to brew a cup of tea and take it to our library/practice room and play for an hour, sometimes two hours. Not continuously. I take breaks, and also occasionally pick up my mandolin, octave mandolin, or guitar so I don’t forget how to play them while working mostly on flute these days.

I’m too lazy to work on technique alone like scales or long tones. I just play tunes, starting with ones I know well to get limbered up. Then somewhere in the middle I’ll work on learning a new tune, or keep working on difficult tunes that require more use of the flute keys than the session standards. Towards the end of the hour or two of daily practice, I’ll finish with something I know fairly well and can just have fun with.

That’s about it. I’m not very organized about this, and I have an instinctive aversion to hard work so your mileage may vary.

[Jeggy]

I didn’t have a musical education Est, but like you, I had a near enough 20 year break from playing - though it’s worth noting that for the 5 years that I played before my break, I wasn’t ever that good.

I started again a little over a year ago. One of the things I did after a couple of months of desultory progress was get a tutor for the first time, which has helped me immensely. You may not need that.

So bearing that in mind, this is not advice - I remain very much a novice - just sharing my own experience and what has helped me.

Working on embouchure/tone - long notes, loud and soft, working up and down the octaves, many ways to do this, but dedicating time to getting tone and strengthening embouchure seems to me to be extremely important

Working on various techniques - crans, rolls, slides, etc, especially the harder ones. I used to practice the things that I was good at because they sounded good to me. But in doing so I neglected the areas of technique that I found difficult.

Short warm up routine - having 3 or 4 drills which support embouchure and technique development has helped me. I can do them 2 or 3 times each at the start of practicing, or when making a coffee.

Getting a Delrin keyless flute - or any sort of practice flute. I know you just bought a lovely antique cocus flute, but it’s great to have a flute ‘ready to go’ all day long which requires minimum maintenance, coffee breaks, lunch, mini breaks, making dinner etc become 5 - 15 minute flute sessions for me - often pretty unstructured. So, as you work from home, this is a real force multiplier. Personally, I’d recommend a Rudall as it’s more economical with air, once the embouchure is well built up, something larger holed becomes more sensible if preferred.

Recording/ watching myself - I record myself quite a bit to play back, spot issues, and track progress. I also used a mirror to watch my embouchure. Playing facing a wall or a corner also helps amplifying your sound so you can get a very clear understanding of tone

Have a tune list - paper or whatever, mine is excel, but it organises what you play, you can work through all of it, some of it, etc. Also, begin to add sets to that tune list - I think it is important to be able to flow from one tune to the next and also, obviously, playing longer is more difficult and therefore good practice

I use Audiostretch - there are other apps I’m sure and it has it’s drawbacks, but I like being able to record a tune or set, in person, from a CD, from youtube, wherever, and then slow it down etc. I’ll often grab what I want to learn, and then play it on loop for several hours after that I tend to whistle it and then playing it on the flute is easy, or easier. As an added benefit, and for really tricky tunes, I can slow it down and change the pitch to play along with the tune, then eventually speed up with practice

Have a realistic goal - it helps to define what you’re trying to achieve. This helps bound your practice with context. For me, my goal is to be able to go to session and join in, while simultaneously not ruining it for everyone else I used to want to be the next Matt Molloy despite starting in my early 20’s, not having a background in music or Irish Trad or anyone to play with or learn from, and practicing infrequently and in a very unstructured way (on 3 instruments). I now realise this was nonsense and contributed, at least partially, to my 20 year break.

Lastly, I think, having fun is the key. As soon as this begins to feel like ‘work’ rather than practicing something you enjoy, you’re on to a loser. That’s my view.

[Gromit]

I’ve played for some time but last year stopped completely because of illness, which has left me with a numbness in my left cheek and left side of my mouth. I’m having to start from scratch and relearn my embourchure as I couldn’t get a note out a couple of months ago.

So I’m doing all the slow long note stuff, tone and embouchure exercises again, not bothering with tunes or techniques as I haven’t forgotten that side of playing.

What I’ve found useful in the past are the youtube videos of flute players and the likes of Shannon Heaton Tune of the Month. Listening a lot and recording your progress is good.

Good luck

[est]

Some nice tips here, Jeggy! Thanks for sharing them.

I started a directory on my computer desktop called “Flute Work” where I keep links to mp3s and copies of tunes from thesession.org but it’s gotten messy and I haven’t been using it much lately. Having a spreadsheet is probably a much better option, especially since I’m spending more time with the comhaltas books and CDs to learn new songs.

I haven’t tried recording myself, but that makes good sense, especially as a way to recognize progress. I’ll have to see if I have something other than this headset mic to record with.

I definitely agree with the idea of having a flute that you can leave assembled and ready to play. My little practice flute sits by my computer desk, and I love being able to just grab it for short little sessions, but the more time I spend with the wooden flute, the less I enjoy playing the plastic one. So I’ll probably end up buying a delrin for that very reason.

Conical bore, your routine sounds great! And these tunes, if you slow them down enough, that works similarly to the boring stuff and gives you the chance to get the muscle memory of these weird hops worked out.

Gromit, I’m sorry to hear about the illness and then to lose all the work you’d put into building up your embouchure, that’s just awful. I stumbled onto one of Shannon’s videos a few weeks ago, she’s a great player. I’ll have to have look at what all she has available.