Now is a time of great excitement in the silver-plated part of my brain, as the school concert Wavelengths is coming up very soon. Both Poem for Orchestra and Warrior Legacy are becoming pretty accurate orchestra-wide, and the souls of them are really starting to shine through. To get to this point, throughout the month I have been working on just “feeling” the music so that the notes come naturally to my fingers, but also being more conscious of the key signatures (especially for Poem, which is in A flat major), as any wrong notes will not be absorbed by an awesome orchestra-wide baking like in Legacy (the flutes play quite a major role in this one). One issue, I believe, is switching quickly between different lip tightnesses (tighter lips allow louder high notes, while looser ones allow low notes), so that neither register cracks or fails to come out. For example, in Poem, there is a part where one must slur between C5 and A flat 5 (I believe that is what it is called) which I normally find easy, but then often fail in rehearsals. This suggests that my brain registers notes by their sound, not be throat position, so perhaps for the final performance I can practise going through the whole of both pieces with earplugs (while recording it) and see what mis-pitches happen. Then, when they do, I can look at a tuner app on my phone and change the embouchure until I get the right note. Hopefully, this will strengthen the mental link.
Once this is accomplished, the second problem will probably become less of an issue. I find that I feel very quiet or have a very breathy sound (I prefer a fuller, brassy sound) when I play, and this may be due to this constant worry of missing notes. If I find the right embouchure and throat position, then I could probably relax and direct more air into notes in general, feeling louder.
I am working on similar things with flute lessons, but it is slightly frustrating now that it is so much practice rather than playing actual pieces. However, I do recognize that bedrock as important as well.
I am very excited for the concert.