by Peter J. Bacchus (1954-2016)
Posted with permission.
Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:16:37 +0200
From: Peter John Bacchus
<pbacchus@DINSIC.ES>
Subject: Re: Trevor's components (of practice, that is)
Greetings,
This discussion of practice time is a vital one, how we spend a usually limited time learning and advancing in music. It is a tremendous undertaking and one who undertakes it would be best to follow the indications of such knowledgeable persons as Trevor Wye and Robert Dick, two first class figures in our flute-music world today.
For most of us, our point of entry into music is the flute. If we are serious about it as a profession, then the mark we must set for ourselves is an extremely high and ambitious one.
In my view, what is important is the music that we play. The flute is merely a medium, but a most formidable one, to be sure.
I find Trevor Wye's comments of great interest, he is certainly a person of impeccable knowledge of the flute and how it is learned. Were I a young player, I would seek to heed his words and advice to the letter as I make my way towards mastery of the flute. Robert Dick reminds us just as compellingly that we must become part of the creative process of music, each and every one of us. In a way, it is our birth-right in the same manner as finding the means to mastery of the flute is.
But because there are so many things to learn, to hear and understand, to create in music, and our time is limited, we sometimes need to limit our task at certain moments. It can appear that just learning the instrument and it's repertory is a daunting enough task, and that "optional" tasks such as learning to improvise and getting directly involved in other styles of music can tend to fall by the wayside.
However, what is important in music, or any discipline is to continue to grow and form new horizons for ourselves. It is never too late to start on this. In fact setting new goals and breaking into previously unknown territory can be essential to our growth and well-being.
Picking up on Robert's comments about improvising, as well as those of others on what to practice, I will offer my observations on the matter.
Although I am basically a "classical" flutist (and a composer), jazz has always been an important part of my development as a musician. Good jazz musicians always play with such authority, and it is not anyone else's authority, it is theirs. By definition, they are completely in the chord changes and harmonies and form of the piece.
We classical musicians are seemingly saddled with "interpreting" a piece of music to the highest level of technical perfection we can muster. I put it that way to make a rhetorical point, as we all know that just this task is a wonderful one to aspire to.
Personally, I have problems with the word "interpret". It seems too arbitrary and removed to me, when what we really strive to do is live the music, to be completely in the music. However, the idea behind the word has it's usefulness and interpretation is indeed an important step on the way to living or being the music that we play.
I would suggest the following for our favorite repertory pieces and studies: that we start taking them apart and transposing them just as a jazz musician does. Why can't we learn to improvise convincingly on Syrinx or the Bach Partita, or the cadenza of the Dutilleux Sonatine? Many of us can take "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and create a variation on it on the spur of the moment, even if it's not that good. Why, therefore, can we not do that with other pieces in other styles? I feel it should an essential component of our musicianship.
We should be able to hear the intervals, harmonies and sequences inherent in any piece of music. All those elements there, even though we only play a melodic instrument, in the same fashion as the chord changes are inherent in a jazz standard while the jazzer improvises.
I suggest try playing Syrinx a half-step higher and a half-step lower, try isolating some of the motives and sequences and transposing them. Do the same with the Partita. Take them through all the keys. Treat the piece not as a perfected gem, but as a point of departure for what becomes your own thoughts and ideas on it. What is important is to start to do this. It's not going to sound great right away. If you want it to sound great, keep working on it alot. But if not, go back to Syrinx or the Bach Partita, as written, with a renewed and deeper understanding that what we have been playing for generations now is not written in stone, it was written on paper a long time ago, and it could have gone another way too if Bach or Debussy hadn't been in a rush to get to the post office before it closed.
More often than not, a written piece of music represents just what a composer decided to write in a given moment. The piece might have gone in another direction but it didn't. It was the best bet at that moment, presumably. Of course, when we are talking about Bach and Debussy, we are talking about musicians who might be galaxies away from us, but perhaps not quite as far as we might tend to think.
The closer we can get to that spontaneous moment of creation, the greater chance we have of living the music and conveying it more effectively to others. There are many ways of doing it.
This is long enough.
Sorry to burden all you Flute-Listers.
Peter Bacchus
Peter John Bacchus
Bacchus Music
Avda. Coll del Portell, 88-90
Ento. C 08024 Barcelona
34 93 285 14 87 phone/fax
34 669 74 71 33 cell
Peter@PeterBacchus.com
www.PeterBacchus.com
