🎶 Earlier this month, my instructor and I completed Johann Christian Schultze’s Sonata for Two Flutes in Album of Flute Duets, revised and annotated by Louis Moyse, and moved on to Hans Köhler’s Sonatina for Two Flutes in the same collection. This week, I am focused on the second page of the Allegro.

We are also working in a new-to-us book: Interval Duets by Thomas Filas, which appears to be out of print. “[T]he playing of duets is the starting rung of the ladder which leads to higher musicianship,” the introduction gently chides. Truth. While providing a respite in a challenging program of study, these deceptively simple pieces have reminded this adult student that while “speed” (or “velocity”) may be difficult to achieve, a clear, beautiful sound is always achievable.

🎶 In Robert Cavally’s Melodious and Progressive Studies from Andersen, Gariboldi, Koehler, and Terschak for Flute, Book 2, I am now working on the third of Köhler’s “moderately difficult pieces as studies for flute” from Op. 33, Book 2.

🎶 Speaking of difficult, this semester’s band selections… so, yes, P. Bona’s rhythmical articulation studies has sunk to the bottom of my daily practice roster again. As I have mentioned, though, only two assignments remain in this book, 116 and 120. I will get to them eventually.

🎶 This week, having successfully presented the third movement, I began practicing the first movement of the Stamitz Concerto in G major, Op.29. (Yes, I chose to work on them out of order.)

🎶 I am not playing piccolo in band this semester, so my instructor has added short piccolo duets to my practice sheet, as well as a solo: “L’oiseau du bois” by Charles le Thiere. Yes, this is all quite a lot, but right now, I am exhilarated, undaunted. Check back with me over spring break, though; the Köhler study could break me.

🎶 In last week’s lesson, we concluded our work on the Mozart Duetto No.1, K.378, an eleven-page undertaking that began in late June. Because this is the final piece in Selected Duets for Flute, Volume II (Advanced), I have moved on to Johann Christian Schultze’s Sonata for Two Flutes in Album of Flute Duets, revised and annotated by Louis Moyse.

🎶 Somehow I have arrived at page 16 of Robert Cavally’s Melodious and Progressive Studies from Andersen, Gariboldi, Koehler, and Terschak for Flute, Book 2, which means I am working on the second of Köhler’s “moderately difficult pieces as studies for flute” from Op. 33, Book 2. For this adult learner, they are simply difficult, but the work informs my progress in band.

🎶 Not long after I presented the first half of 113 in P. Bona’s rhythmical articulation studies, band rehearsals resumed. With only a few days until our fall concert, however, Bona has moved from the bottom of my daily practice roster back to the (near) top. According to my instructor, only two assignments remain in this book, 116 and 120, the latter of which is five pages long; hence, Bona will remain on the practice roster until at least mid-2024.

🎶 For the last three weeks, I have been working on the third movement of the Stamitz Concerto in G major, Op.29. Unsurprisingly, getting the passage of triplets at measure 45 and the quick measures beginning at 225 under my fingers requires the concentrated repetition in assorted rhythms that many instrumentalists hate but that I really appreciate.

🎶 I first joined the community band for the Spring 2018 concert program. While I felt welcomed and well-supported in what was then a large section, I also felt woefully unready. Four and half years later, when I arrived for the Fall 2022 program, I brought my husband and a significantly stronger skill set. For this weekend’s concert, in addition to a featured flute passage in one piece, I was also assigned the featured piccolo passage in another. What a difference 3,000 hours* can make.

* the (very) approximate number of practice hours between May 2018 and November 2023