For my NYAA healthy living, I am working on my flute playing.

This month, I have been working mainly on improving how well I play individual notes, and especially avoiding “voice cracks”.

Adding to that challenge is adjusting to my second flute. This is because I must place my fingers in the right positions so as to cover the holes in the keys (they help make a louder, thicker sound). I have mainly adjusted now but still struggle a tad with the lowest notes the flute produces (B3, C4, and D4). This is because to play the B3, one must slide the pinky finger forward in a flat motion (as the C4 key next to it must be pressed as well), and that makes my fingers slide off the holes on the other keys, resulting in no sound, or a pigeon-like hum. I think that it will be an interesting biomechanical challenge to find a way in which to do these notes reliably even with my narrow fingers.

As for my sound, I find that as I currently play the solo oboe part in the HS orchestra, there is an urgent need for me to improve the reliability and volume of my lower register. To do this, I am practising what is known as harmonics. This is changing the precise ways to tense the lips and relative position of the jaw to make many different notes come from the same fingering. For example, from D4 (which I must nail every time in my solo) one can make D4, D5, A5, D5, and more. However, this is obviously not always desirable. Hence, I practise with my flute teacher and by myself. Essentially, by making it clearer to my mind what each harmonic of a fingering is, I hope that my lip muscle memory will get me through performances.

Above: Examples of notes from which I do harmonics

So far, I feel I am making decent progress. I am quite confident that this improvement to this “base” of good playing will mean that I will be able to improve the accuracy of my playing, i.e. playing faster, and playing the right notes in the first place.