You feel both of your feet on the ground and take a slow breath in through your nose. Even though your lungs anatomically reach only to the bottom of your ribcage, it feels like your slow nose breath fills you all the way to your belly. You sense your heart beating in your chest and radiating out toward your fingertips. It is almost time to connect to the tempo, style, mood, and atmosphere of your music, but it all starts with breathing.
This is your Magic Moment, your chance to connect to the air flowing in and out of your body. It is your chance to notice that you are not just a physical being but a mental, emotional, and spiritual one as well. This Magic Moment is the portal to great music-making, great performing, great practicing, wonderful “aha” moments and so much more. Taking special time like this is important not only before performances but throughout your practice sessions, throughout your days, and throughout your life.
For centuries, philosophers, authors, and great thinkers have recognized that breath is a bridge. It is the thread that weaves together mind, body, heart, and spirit. From ancient meditation practices to modern mindfulness, the breath has always been seen as a kind of universal key. It unlocks a deeper connection to yourself and to your music.
When you consciously return to the breath, you interrupt the whirlwind of habits that run your practice sessions on autopilot. Instead of rushing through your scales, studies, excerpts, or the looming concerto cadenza, you pause long enough to remember that music begins inside of you. In that pause, something quiet but powerful happens. You shift from doing to being. From tension to curiosity. From overwhelm to a soft, grounded readiness.
The Magic Moment is a small ritual that makes so many things possible. Ironically, it is the moment most flutists skip.
Students skip it when they are behind on assignments and feel like they have no time to waste. Professionals skip it because the to-do list is endless and the pressure is constant. Teachers skip it because they pour so much of themselves into their students that their own breath becomes an afterthought. But when you breathe with awareness, even for a few seconds, you return to the inner place where musicianship lives.
Your Magic Moments remind you that growth does not come from forcing, pushing, or performing perfection. Growth comes from presence. From noticing. From the willingness to meet yourself exactly where you are and take one step forward from there.
Perhaps you were taught that practicing is all about organization, accuracy, discipline, and repetition. These things do matter, but they are not the heart of the work. Repetitions without soul do not lead to great music making. What changes your relationship with practicing is recognizing that presence and personal awareness is the starting point for every moment of growth. Practicing begins with who you are, not what you produce.
When you take a Magic Moment before you play a single note, something unmistakable happens. Your tone opens. Your vibrato sings. Your fingers move more cleanly. But the biggest shift is internal: you become available to inspiration again. You practice from a steadier place, one that is not defined by fear or comparison but by alignment.
Have you ever practiced while secretly thinking, “Why am I not better yet? Why can’t I get this? Why does everyone else seem to improve faster than I do?” The Magic Moment becomes your off-ramp from the Busy Brain mental highway. It gives you a different path, one grounded in breath, intention and the felt sense of your own musicianship. It gives you agency.
Viktor Frankl wrote that between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies our freedom and our power to choose. The Magic Moment opens that space for you. It gives you a breath-sized pause where you can shift from reacting out of habit to responding with intention. In that small space you reclaim your sense of choice, your clarity, and your direction. You step out of survival mode and into alignment.
When you reconnect to this deeper layer of yourself, practice becomes less of a chore and more of a conversation. You begin to notice all kinds of sweet spots. You recognize when to push, when to rest, and when to explore. You become kinder to yourself, more patient and, paradoxically, much more productive. What once felt like a battle becomes a form of creative self-care.
I am the flute professor at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, and even though my studio is filled with highly intelligent, talented students, the difference is striking when they dive into their repertoire versus taking a Magic Moment before they begin. One example stands out clearly. An extraordinary graduate student of mine, an over-the-top amazing performer, began to embrace the transformative power of the Magic Moment. When they did, they played the opening of their concerto with more color, volume, resonance, passion, and power than I had ever heard from them before.
The Magic Moment does not just help your practicing. It transforms your performing. When you walk onstage with the same grounded breath, your technique comes with you, but so does your heart, your clarity and your connection to the music. You are no longer fighting your nerves or chasing perfection. You are simply breathing, listening, and allowing your musicianship to unfold.
In an age when students are more anxious, overloaded, and overstimulated than ever, this single moment of breath becomes a kind of antidote. A reset button. A home base. A reminder that the source of your artistry is not external achievement but internal alignment.
You do not need more pressure. You need more presence. And presence begins with breath.
In your very next practice session, try this:
Before you play a single note, take one slow breath and ask yourself, “What kind of flutist do I want to be right now?”
Not over the next semester, not in your next audition, not even in the next five minutes, just in this moment, right here, right now. Everything’s okay. Start where you are. Feel your feet on the ground or your chair supporting you. Connect to your breath and enjoy the transformative power of the Magic Moment.