Wow, what a week it has been! A heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who came out to our Grand Opening event last Thursday with George Pope. I hope you all got as much out of it as I did. It was so good to see him interact with everyone at such a high level, and he had so much valuable information!
Pope began the clinic with a session on stretching and breathing, which as you all know is very near and dear to my heart! I was just visiting some middle schools last week to talk all things flute, and I always take a few minutes to show the flute players some easy stretches that they can do anytime, particularly after sitting in a cramped desk for so long. You can always hear the sighs of relief after those brief exercises! Pope talked about the less-than-ideal playing position of the flute, how important it is to bring the instrument to you (as opposed to craning your neck or adjusting the body to the instrument, which often causes discomfort), and breathing everywhere from the bottom of your ribs all the way up into the collarbones. Did you know that you have ribs all the way up there? We often talk about breathing deep into the belly, but we don’t think about breathing that high, or around to the back, nearly as much.
After a ton of information on breathing, playing position, and posture, we moved on to an extensive study of the first three of Marcel Moyse’s 24 Little Melodies for the Flute. Aside from being one of the cornerstones of flute study and development, these studies aim to develop the capacities of interpretation of each flautist, from beginners to advanced level players. Written with almost no guidance on how to interpret each study, Marcel Moyse deliberately left the choice to the flautist to pick their own rhythm / tempo and to write their own annotations on the book. Members of the University of Indianapolis flute studio, led by Tamara Thweatt, performed the first three excerpts from this study book, and Pope helped them through interpretation, expression, and again, the importance of breathing.
Attendees of the clinic, remember your special offer for our upcoming super sale, which starts Thursday!