Plans for Weeks 1 and 2

It's going to be a crazy week because we're packing everything up and traveling across the country. Maybe it would be easier to push everything back a week or a month, but I feel like I need to make myself push through this time instead of taking an easier way out. Since it'll be a hectic couple of weeks, and I'm not sure how time will pan out, I've mapped out the first two weeks below.
Thankfully I've already begun some preliminary practicing, trying to lay some foundation for the work I'm going to be doing. On the first few days of the week I'm going to try and touch on flute, piccolo, and recorder, but on the moving days I'm only going to worry about a little bit of flute tone and finger technique.
Notice that I plan on "sharing"   a recording of myself playing the opening flute solo from Ravel's Bolero at the end of Week 2. I'm looking forward to it!

Hopefully as I go along, I'll become better at preparing these weekly practice plans, and they'll be a little easier to understand. There will be sporadic practice reviews that I'll post, commentary on how things are going, etc.

Plan for Year 1, Quarter 1

Here's the master plan of the first quarter:

(hopefully you can click on it to make it bigger...?)

I've got a pretty busy practice schedule coming my way, and I plan on posting the first weekly plan on Monday (July 30th). That one will map out my practice goals and plans for the first week. There are a few codes to explain:

1 and 2 8va Exp. Int: Expanding interval exercises. The 1 8va begins on a low G: G-Ab-G-A-etc.. up to the next octave, then back down. Repeat the process on each chromatic tone until you're starting on middle G going up to high G. Great to do with a drone.
JW: Exercises from a packet I received at masterclasses given by the fantastic Jim Walker. There's a lot of emphasis on harmonics, especially slurring to the second partial (i.e. - Low D, slur to harmonic middle A, without changing the fingering).
Wagner: Exercises from Ernest F. Wagner's Foundation to Flute Playing. I especially like the exercises found in the 52nd lesson, "Embouchure Exercises."
Moyse Tone Dev. and De La Son.: Tone Development Through Interpretation and De La Sonorite
TW PB 1: Trevor Wye's Practice Book 1
Jill Felber: A packet of information and exercises I got from attending one of Jill Felber's masterclasses. I think it's called 'A 40-Day Flute Make-Over' or something like that. It's packed up right now, or I'd pull it out.
PG: A great practice method from Patricia George, available on Larry Krantz' website. I'm doing my own thing for the first week using #3 and #17 because her method is only a 12-wk program, it doesn't use #3/#17, and I'm moving during the first week.
TWP: These are from the Wye/Morris 'A Piccolo Practice Book.' It's currently packed up, but I'll list the page numbers for each exercise later.
The Koehler etudes are from Op. 33, the Bitsch are his Douze Etudes (which are fan-TASTIC!), and the Boehm are from his 24 Etudes, Op. 37.

I have a lot to do for flute, but I hope that it will be a bit easier than it looks because I've worked on most of the repertoire at least a little in the past. I'm doing five excerpts, but they're all familiar as well. Tone and technique are the most important to me.
For piccolo, I'm mostly going to be focusing on sound, pitch, and flexibility. I am doing a couple excerpts and a little rep., but nothing too terribly substantial. The second movement of the Vivaldi is important, but that's why it's at the end. By then I plan to have a good foundation of piccolo chops for such a delicate and expressive piece. I may add another solo work, but I'm not sure as of yet. We'll see how things pan out over the first few weeks.
Alto flute is obviously not that important, it'll just be fun to pull it out for that week. Maybe I'll add a solo work later. Maybe.
The plans for recorder are the most vague, and that's partly due to my lack of knowledge of any recorder methods that are geared toward a serious recorder player, as opposed to a 5-year old, or 75-year old (not hating, just an observation). I intend to do lots of long tones, working with a drone, articulation, etc. Basically, I'll refine this category as it goes along and become more familiar with the instrument and my abilities.

The Overall Plan

Alright, so I've been working on a master plan for the year. It's undergone several revisions, and has now reached a reasonable state.

I'm going to be spending a large amount of time of this year restructuring my playing style and embouchure. It's very critical for my long-term success as a professional that I get the (mostly minor) issues that I have under control. Along with this will be plenty of articulation and finger technique, which I will use technical exercises (Taffanel & Gaubert, DeLorenzo, Moyse, etc.) and etude books (Boehm, Moyse, etc.) Along with the general technique mentioned above, I plan on having certain weeks where I will focus on "special" topics: trills, multiphonics, etc.
 Next is repertoire. I'm only going to work on a few pieces a quarter per instrument. The exact number will vary, and I'll be starting with some vaguely familiar or very important works and move towards works that are brand new to me.
 I'll also be working very diligently on orchestral excerpts. Like with repertoire selections, the exact number per quarter will vary depending on a number of factors.

In order to make the execution of this whole process more manageable, and to help myself in keeping track of my goals, I've divided the year into four 13-week quarters.The first quarter is Aug. 1 - Oct. 30.  I'll plan out each quarter in advance, and then plan daily practice sessions for each week in advance of the start of the week. Once I have a typed up version of my plan for the first quarter I'll post it, and I'm considering doing the same thing with weekly practice sessions. I'm also going to try and make some posts where I review my practice from the day/week, as well as some audio or video recordings as possible.

If you have any suggestions or comments along the way, please share them with me!

Next Week vs. Next Year

For a while now I've wanted to start getting serious about practicing, but there's always been something major in the way. Thankfully, I have *finally* finished my Master’s thesis and can now really get moving forward with my life. Now that I've gotten to this point where I actually have time to practice, I have had to figure out what my next step should be.

Certainly music is a large part of what I want to focus my life around, you could even consider it a centerpiece for me. However, my life is not single-faceted (as I’m sure you could say about your own life), so I have other things to think about and try and balance as well. Finances are a major concern of mine. Having just completed graduate school, I now have quite the mound of debts to repay. Not to mention savings to build up, emergency funds, maybe a vacation every once and a while, and - Lord willing – even retirement to think about. I want to build a career in music that’s my own. I’m also not single, so I have another person to work with and try and create a life and home that’s our own.

One quote that has at time both inspired and haunted me is by the British flutist Geoffrey Gilbert: "Remember, you're not practicing for next week, you're practicing for next year." There have been so many times when I have thought "Oh if only I'd been practicing this more/all along/etc.!"

Why not take this quote one step further:  “In everything you do, don’t prepare for next week, prepare for next year!” Musically, professionally, personally, we should always be looking ahead, planning ahead. I plan to spend the next year trying to balance all of these pieces. So, this leaves me with one question:

Where do I want to be one year from now?

What a loaded question. I can honestly say that so many ideas have popped into my head – a career as a woodwind doubler, starting a chamber group, planning recitals out the wazoo, maybe I should take a second job, etc. I’ve been thinking about all of these options (some harder than others – really, Phil? You want to prepare four recitals in a single year?!), and I’ve been trying to sift through them. The ones that are more readily available to me or more important are moving to the top of the list, while the loftier or more challenging ones are drifting to the bottom. It’s starting to become clear which avenues I can really see myself pursuing.

As I'm actually not going to officially kick this one year of dedicated practice off until August 1, the month of July will serve as my planning month. This will allow me ample time to plan effectively, and get geared up.  I won’t be writing it all out in today’s post, but I’ve done some work already, gotten ideas written out, and some rough plans going.

I hope to be back soon with exciting news and at least a few clear goals!