NFA was blast, as usual! The health and wellness sessions were well attended, as flutists are really interested in learning about self-care and things that they can do to improve the quality of their musical performances. My breathing workshop was packed and I had a long line of people waiting to ask questions. Much of the content of this breathing workshop is included in the “Everything You Wanted to Know About Breathing Series” of 7 articles that have been published here at Flute Examiner.
This article is about how I put the self-care tools that I teach my students into practice in my own preparation to participate as a finalist on alto flute in the Low Flute Artist Competition and to perform a solo piece on C flute.
Extremely short background story
I was notified that I was advanced from an alternate to a finalist in the competition at the end of June. I was excited about the opportunity, but I was a little concerned with preparation time. I was heading to upstate NY to a cabin at Big Moose Lake in the Adirondack Park and then immediately to the Performing Arts Medical Association Symposium in Washington, DC. For the competition, I needed to learn a solo alto piece by Lisa Bost-Sandberg called when it rains/the river is silent. Lisa was so very gracious to send me a PDF version of the piece because the hard copy would arrive after I left for vacation. The piece includes multiphonics, some circular breathing, and some sing-and-play sections. The techniques are basically the same idea as on C flute, but it’s not quite the same thing on an alto. I had performed the other alto pieces (Amanda Harberg – Firefly Triptych, I and III) and the C flute piece (Sami Seif – Miniatures from Phoenecia) previously.
Preparation was going great while up at the lake. PAMA was fantastic – I learned a lot but, unfortunately, came home with Covid. I was in bed for 10 days, unable to play anything on any flute. After that, I was diagnosed with secondary bacterial infections in the form of a sinus infection and two ear infections, and put on antibiotics, steroids, and an inhaler – five days before the start of NFA.
Here’s what I did when I couldn’t play. Let’s be honest – this can happen to all of us. Illness happens despite our best attempts.
1) Lots of listening – over and over and over to all of the three pieces I needed to perform. I listened while following the score on my iPad and also listened with my eyes closed. For the two movements of the alto pieces with piano accompaniment, I specifically followed the piano score to learn that better than I for my previous performance. I listened at least three or four times to each piece every day from my bed. I realized that I should be able to look at the alto part and hear the piano part in my head and that wasn’t happening all the time when I started.
2) Mental practice – there was an entire session about this at NFA done by Francesca Leo and Simone Maurer from the NFA Performance Healthcare Committee. They were right before my breathing presentation, so I wasn’t able to hear their whole thing, but what I did hear was excellent. I spent a lot of time mentally practicing the fingerings for the multiphonics. Some of them are easy, others are weird. In several places, there are different multiphonics in sequence, so you have to get from one weird fingering to another to another. The places where notes or rhythms were a challenge were easy to isolate and mentally rehearse at a slower tempo with 100% accuracy.
3) Getting movement into the body – this was mainly to help with learning the intricacies of the piano part in the 3rd movement. There was one mixed meter section that I learned incorrectly and another that’s just tricky. I did extensive study of the piano part, which consisted of me air playing piano rhythms, both tapping on my chest and clapping, while thinking the flute part in my head. Once I could sing/make some type of vocal sound, I would sing the alto flute part while tapping the rhythms for piano.
4) Deciding what to eliminate – the circular breathing section had to go. I’m not great at this technique and it was improving. Realistically, it probably wouldn’t have been ready in time if everything was perfect. I decided that just regular breathing was going to be enough of a challenge given the illness. I used the alternate section that doesn’t require circular breathing written by the composer for this purpose. I felt it was more important to spend the available time and energy on things that I knew I could improve.
5) Education – I reread and rewatched everything about multiphonics in all of my books and online. I was hoping for a magic solution that would bring consistency. That doesn’t exist in a book or online; it exists through trial and error and repetition!
6) Planning strategies – once I was able to breathe well enough to return to playing, I could only handle short practice sessions. I was just not able to sustain long phrases and had to mark in multiple breathing strategies in case I wasn’t physically up to doing my usual thing for NFA performances. I had to identify the absolute hardest parts and write down a practice schedule for myself.
7) Prioritizing – with mini practice sessions, it’s not possible to get to everything each day. The majority of the available mini practice sessions were focused on the extended techniques on alto. I found that practicing the multiphonics in random order was helpful. Can I nail it on the first go? Yes or no? Move on to the next one. I also had to prioritize time spent on the three pieces, with most of the time going to the newest piece with the hardest stuff, plus tricky spots in the others.
8) Playing complete run-throughs of all of it for trusted friends – This was physically challenging due to ongoing breathing concerns and fatigue, both physical and mental.
Fast forward to Atlanta – still on medication and feeling better, but not great.
9) Rest – this is so important, even if one is 100% healthy. I see this in my college students all the time; they are so tired and so busy and working so hard. Right up until they can’t, and then they’re sick for a long time. I knew I needed extra rest, which meant that I had to skip concerts in the evenings, events in the early morning, and time hanging out with flute friends. This is also prioritizing – which events do I choose or do a choose a nap?
10) Planning practice time for both instruments – I’m not a believer in practicing right up to the last minute and expecting huge improvements. Either you’ve done the work and trust the quality of your preparation or you haven’t. I definitely felt less prepared than usual, but better prepared that I thought possible when I was experiencing the “I feel like a bus ran over me” joys of Covid. This meant also having to choose not to attend concerts and presentations because I needed to spent some time on each flute.
11) Troubleshooting weird things – My C flute performance was first and some strange things happened. I felt very jittery, like being overly caffeinated (but I’m a decaf girl). My hands were shaky and my face was shaky. My mouth was incredibly dry, so my tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth for some of the flutter tonguing. I was able to stay in the moment and the piece was fine. After thinking about this, I realized that it might be side effects from the steroid medication. Similar things would happen at night when trying to sleep – jittery, brain won’t shut off even though I’m exhausted. I didn’t take the medicine on the day of the competition until after I performed and I had none of those issues.
Day of the competition
12) Rest again – I slept in because I needed it. I had my breathing presentation, C flute performance, and my one and only rehearsal with the pianist for the competition in the late evening.
13) Intelligent warmup in hotel room – long tones, multiphonics out of order, slow practice of hard parts. The goal was not to change anything at this point but just to be warmed up and ready to go. Fatigue was still an issue, and I didn’t want to overplay and have nothing left in the tank.
14) Time management – I headed to the warmup room early. Sometimes, it took 20 minutes to get down the elevator from the 21st floor of the hotel. I had plenty of time to spare.
15) Staying in the groove no matter what – I found a nice little bench and 10 minutes of Non Sleep Deep Rest. Here’s a link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKGrmY8OSHM ) to what I use and what I teach my students. I have written about this activity before for Flute Examiner. I didn’t feel nervous but my breathing was deeper, slower, and more calm after I finished. This tool is one of the things that my college students typically say is the single most beneficial thing they learned all semester. I generally listen to the music of Queen with my AirPods before performances, and this time, I decided that my nervous system could stand to be a little less engaged.
Finally, my competition performance went well. I was very pleased with what I was able to accomplish in a short period of time with all sorts of external variables outside of my control. The combination of tools that I used was the key to getting a good result. These are the same tools that I teach my students because they work! It’s an honor to be competing at this level, and while I didn’t place in the top three, it was a tremendously rewarding experience.