I would love to hear back from anyone who participated to see how you changed/morphed/experienced this challenge and weather or not you felt it was helpful to you! Sometimes the idea of simply "doing technique" is daunting so I hope this gave you an idea as to how you can organize that practice in your day to day fluting life.
As a reminder, this week I will be posting in a separate post the next technique challenge for February featuring Ervin Monroe's "Power Exercises for Flute"!
For the final week of this challenge I was in Wisconsin for a Masterworks concert so I purposefully planned for it to be a tad less intense. I found it actually pretty fun and enjoyable (especially EJ14) and I also ended up adding EJ5 to the mix again just for a bit more variety and more time spent on my fingers in general. For EJ4 I extended it to include low B and high C#/D. Next time I do this, I will also probably find a way to take EJ12 up to high D.
Below you will find a detailed daily breakdown of how the week went for me including tempos and articulations. I hope you enjoyed the month as much as I did and I look forward to sharing the technical journey in February as well!
Happy Practicing!
Week 4:
Day 1:
I started with articulation 3 for EJ4 with the intent to get through all the hard articulations during the week. I had stopped over in Chicago the day before and for some reason had a hard time finding my sound this day. I also decided to bump low B/high D up a tempo notch. B, b, C, Db - all went well. c# I had to do twice plus a slow rep at the top to get working properly. D/d were rough...
Tempo - 132 and 104
EJ12 - Each page of this exercise I did a different articulation in the order 1, 2, 3, 4 and found it EASY. I made sure to increase the tempo the next day.
Tempo - 60
EJ14 - Letters A and B done each with articulation 1 and 2. The tempo was good but if they get harder I might need to take the tempo down. This one was fun!
Tempo - eighth note = 100
EJ5 - continuing on this chromatic journey I did letters A and B each with articulations 1 and 2. I also took them both 8va. It went surprisingly well!
Tempo - 92
Day 2:
EJ4 was done with articulation 4 and it went...ok...I found this one oddly tricky. B, b, C, c, Db, d - all went well. c# and D needed to be done slowly as well in order to get the fingers to move correctly at the faster tempo.
Tempo - 132 and 104
EJ12 - Today was done with each page at a different articulation; #'s 5, 6, 7, 8. Again it went REALLY well so I want to speed it up and in order to keep things interesting I will take the articulations backwards the next couple days.
Tempo - 66
EJ14 - Letters C and D with articulations 3 and 4. Kept at 100 and with that tempo it was fast enough to be tricky.
Tempo - Eighth = 100
EJ5 - Letters C and D with articulations 3 and 4. High D wasn't bad! I did have to do it a few times to get it though.
Tempo - 92
Day 3:
EJ4 - went really well with articulation 5 so now it's time to bump up the tempo! The "extras" all went well and even high D happened after I did a half tempo of the turn around at the top!
Tempo - 132
EJ12 - was done with the articulations per page reversed (so page 1 was articulation 8, page 2 articulation 7) 8, 7, 6, 5. Again it's time to take the tempo up!
Tempo - 72
EJ14 - Letters E and F with articulations 5 and 6. This one was a bit tricky and I had to do each letter a couple times with each articulation to make it feel sort of comfy.
Tempo - Eighth = 100
EJ5 - Letters E and F articulations 5 and 6.
Tempo - 92
Day 4:
This day I didn't write as much because I had to go right through in order to get to a morning appointment on time.
EJ4 - Articulation 6 went well but with the hard articulations coming don't get any faster. Every one of the extras went well EXCEPT again high D.
Tempo - 138 and 104
EJ12 - articulations 4, 3, 2, 1. Take up tempo and further mix articulations.
Tempo - 80
EJ14 - Today was HARD! Letters G and H with articulations 7 and 8.
Tempo - Eighth = 100
EJ5 - G and H, articulations 7 and 8
Tempo - 92
Day 5:
I spent day 6 driving home so this was the last day of this challenge for me (although I will probably do the official day 6 today).
EJ4 - Articulation 7 was SO HARD. I found it near impossible at the tempo. I had to pause every two measures or so to re-group and also let like 8 metronome clicks to in between each key to keep my tongue from getting too tied. The extra extensions though surprised me today! Articulation 7 made high D possible with doing it twice and I oddly enough had trouble most with b minor.
Tempo - 138 and 104
EJ12 - Today I mixed the articulations by page as follows; 1, 3, 5, 7 and also decided again that tomorrow I can take the tempo up.
Tempo - 92
EJ14 - Letters I and J were done with articulations 1 and 2. This went well! Given the rest of the articulations though, don't take tempo up.
Tempo - Eighth = 100
EJ5 - Letters I and J with articulations 1 and 2...next time I do EJ5 I need to reverse the articulations so I'm not always doing the same ones on the same letters.
Tempo - 92
**Don't forget that I am also participating in the Etude of the week group on Facebook. This week was Altes number 4.
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