Garbanzo Bean Salad

It's been a [long] while since I posted any recipes, so I thought I'd share something that I made just now. It's just a simple cold side salad, but would work well as the entree of a light lunch too!

What you need for the beans:
one large or two medium garlic cloves
1 cup dry garbanzo beans
approx 2 1/2 - 3 cups veggie broth (or just water is fine too)
salt and pepper to taste

What you need to make the rest of the salad:
One medium/small carrot, shredded or chopped into small pieces
several slices of dill pickle, diced
 2-3 tbs. vegan (or regular) mayo - start with less and add more to taste
approx. 1 tsp. of dill

Instructions:
1. Peel and coarsely chop the garlic. (Save the ends/skins for making soups or broths!)
2. Cook garbanzo beans and garlic in broth (or water) overnight, seasoning with salt/pepper to taste. 
3. Drain and save bean liquid. Pat beans dry with paper towels.
4. In medium bowl, mix beans, carrot, pickle. Add mayo to taste (I prefer just a light coating), and then add dill to taste.
5. Enjoy! This should last several days in the fridge, and the recipe can be increased/reduced as needed.

I hope you enjoy this dish! It's very flexible, let me know in the comment section what variations you tried and liked!

Exciting news!

I'm excited to announce a joint venture with a great colleague, Alejandro Pinzon!

We are teaming up to present "Latin Flute Affair," a series of Latin music programs! Each program consists of recitals, conducting workshops, and lectures leading up to a concert of music for flute and orchestra. We're currently finalizing details for our first event, which will be at the end of April/beginning of May with the final concert being held on Cinco de Mayo. As the title implies, this program will feature all sorts of Latin music. Some will be by Latin composers, some will simply be in a Latin style or based on other Latin influences.

Interested in partnering with us musically or financially? Perhaps you know of a great location or organization that we should contact! Let us know via here!

Be sure to bookmark our website and check in frequently, we're working on adding more concert dates and venues around the country!

Last month of my Year of Practice!

It's already been about a year since I started using this blog actively (a term I use loosely), and it's been quite the year.

A little review:
Just after starting, the Year of Practice we up and moved over a thousand miles from the beautiful hills of West Virginia, where I had just finished grad school, to the beaches of south Florida. The move was a major leap of faith (really though, the only reason I get to call it a leap of faith is because it happened to work out for us. It very well could have been absolutely disastrous).
I was in probably the worst playing shape of my life.  Ironic, I know, since I had just finished a Master of Music, but thanks to a little bit of unfortunate circumstances, and a lot of unfortunate habits on my part, I found myself in a place where my nerves were so bad I could barely get a sound out of the instrument some days - and that was when I was practicing alone in the house.
I was working part-time in a sports restaurant doing prep work. As much as I wanted to be gigging, teaching, or otherwise musically employed, I wasn't in a place to take any work, even if I could find it.

The goals I set for myself at the beginning of this year included:
To be in a stable financial place.
To be an employable musician, with 25% of my income coming from music.
To increase the home/from scratch cooking.
Begin exercising.
Do some scholarly writing.

With the exception of the last one, I can say that I've met each one of these goals. While I do still work in foodservice, I'm also now on the faculty of a university as an adjunct professor. I've also had a few good gigs. Few, but enjoyable.
I have also been cooking more at home, and all at-home cooking has been vegan, which I'm pretty happy about. I've also been going to yoga since sometime in February. It's been extremely helpful for relieving stress, tension, nerves, all sorts of things.

If you go back in the blog, you'll see that I had a grand plan for this entire year. A plan that fizzled out pretty quickly. It was nice in theory, but I think it was too rigid of a plan, which was exasperated by the chaotic nature of this past year. An idea like this one would work better in a more stable environment and it would need to be more flexible, changing and adapting as it progressed.

Over the next month, I'm going to keep working and practicing like I have been. I'm currently working my way through Moyse's 480 Scales and Arpeggios, which I'm almost halfway through, plus various tone exercises, as well as a few pieces and excerpts. I'm also hitting the clarinet and sax again, getting ready for the school year to start again. Maybe I'll do something special to commemorate the year ending. Ideas?

Tweet tweet!

Two posts in one day, wow!

If you have a Twitter account, let me know you're there! @balancedflutist

Changing It Up

I've been trying a new routine lately when I start my practice, inspired by a segment I heard on NPR called "The Art of Practicing," if I remember that correctly. The program features various professional musicians and how they practice. The one I heard featured a bassist with the NY Phil, and I must admit that at first I was pretty disappointed. I was going to hear a world-class bassist rip through some crazy scale routine or an etude that is nearly impossible, but no. He set a drone to a C# and played a C# minor scale slowly. Talk about a change of perspective.
I've been starting my practice like that since, and it's ready amazing how much it's helped. It's certainly improving my flute and piccolo playing, but it's even helping my clarinet and sax playing!

Moving Forward

I was trying out a yoga studio, and I've decided to sign up for regular classes. The environment is very positive, and I feel safe to challenge myself (or take it easy) without getting self-concious.

Recital preparation is going well, as is my general practicing. While it's not been as much or as regular as I'd like, I can hear and feel subtle changes and improvements.

Even though I included money and fiscal concerns in my mission statemenys of sorts for this blog, I've shyed (shied?) away from actually discussing it, mainly because I wasn't sure how to speak on the subject without revealing too much. I'm going to give it a shot now though. My original goal was (and still is) to be making my living 100% from music by the time I'm 30 (5 years from when I set the goal). I can say that, so far this year, I'm at about 40% music work and the rest from my two part-time jobs. Woo!

I think it's Quarter 3 now?

I'm probably a solid month into the third quarter, and things are going really well!

The South Florida Pride Wind Ensemble is getting ready for our second annual Youth Pride Band concert, which is coming right up (Feb 24)! There's some really challenging works on the programs (I never thought Harry Potter would ever get the best of me), but the kids are holding their own, and I'm looking forward to working with them this weekend and next. Grant writing for the group is actually a lot of fun. It's totally lame and bookish, but I'm really enjoying it!

I'm still working on solo materials, but it's a bit of a mish-mash right now. I have to find a different place to perform if I want to do a recital in the upcoming months (which I do!), and I need to have some unaccompanied works ready to go as well to perform in school masterclasses or other piano-less situations. Those unaccompanied works are kind of taking priority right now.

I've been much less self-deprecating, and that alone has had such a positive impact on my daily life. There's been an important change from a "Why can't I do this? Why do I suck so much? " mindset to one where I accept my own limits and current capabilities.  Notice though, that I'm not talking about settling for less. Instead, I'm facing the very real and acceptable fact that 2012 was just not my year for makes leaps and bounds of progress in my flute-playing. I was working too much, trying to finish my thesis, there was that whole "let's move across the country" phase, and I had surrendered myself to my "failures." What I mean instead about my current mindset is that I recognize that while, no, I can't just rattle off the Leonore excerpt or the Mendelssohn Scherzo, I've done it before, and I can do it again. It'll take some time, and it'll definitely take some dedicated work, but if I could do it then, I'll do it again.

I've really been trying to take care of my physical self as well. There's a great yoga studio not that far from where I live that has a great "new students" deal that I've been trying to take full advantage of. I'll just have to make a whole new post about the amazing benefits that two weeks of yoga has given me. 

There's a lot more to talk about, but I'll save that for another day in hopes of getting myself to post here more often!