Four Simple Ways to Make the Most of Your Practice (repost)

Here is an article with some simple but excellent reminders for practicing well, which I found while perusing secondinversion.org.  Enjoy 🙂

by Joshua RomanI’m gearing up for the next trip as my 3 week stint at home in NYC comes to a close. It’s been nice to have so much time in one spot, especially as I’m putting the final touches on my new(ish) apartment space and getting my taxes out of the way. I love to use my time

Source: Four Simple Ways to Make the Most of Your Practice Session | SECOND INVERSION

New Recording!

Hi all!  I just posted a recording of my most recent performance.  On February 21, I had the honor of performing Dary John Mizelle’s Silverwind for solo flute.  Published in 1990, this solo flute piece has two movements: ‘bagatelle’ and ‘dance.’  The bagatelle is short and sweet, a sort of daydream that recalls a jazz improvisation.  The dance, in contrast, is a non-stop tour de force executed in strange meters that make one think of a dancing centipede.  I worked extra hard on this piece, and loved performing it in Loewe Theatre at NYU Steinhardt.  I have included the soundcloud link below.  Enjoy!

2015 in review

I’m glad wordpress sent me this report.  Brazil and Italy?  Even India has a little shading!  How cool is that?

Also, thanks everyone for reading! (More posts & updated site to follow this year).

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 850 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 14 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Stabilizing in the Whirlwind

Hi all,

I am writing, finally, from the Glorious Big Apple.  Some of you may be wondering if I made it here alive since I have drifted into near total silence.  But I am here, I am well, and am enjoying my stay here in Manhattan while I look for a place to live.  I am so blessed to be able to live in this amazing city, and I am excited to share with you all the wonderful adventures that await!  In the meantime, I dusted off an old recording of Hush: Eric Barber & Friends, a gig I was part of in Seattle in October of 2014.  I took out this excerpt of a duet between Eric Barber and I and have posted it here for your listening pleasure.  Eric, wherever you are,  thanks again for such an amazing opportunity!  I hope our paths cross again.

Recordings and Update

Hello everyone!  I have two announcements for this week.  One is that the recordings from Extended Horizons Project at Cafe Racer have been posted to the archive at racersessions.com.  That way you can still hear the show even if you weren’t there.  I am working on obtaining the files myself, that way I can post them to soundcloud and embed them on this site for easier access.  I will let you know when that happens.

The second and even more exciting announcement is……..(drum roll):

I am moving to New York City.  I will be flying out on Tuesday, August 18 – two weeks before my first day at NYU, where I will be pursuing my M.M. in flute performance.  I will be studying under (guess who) Robert Dick.  I am so excited I can hardly stand it.  BUT – practical things first: I need a place to live and a job.  So if anyone happens to have any connections in New York – especially someone I can potentially stay with for a short time while I find a place to rent – please let me know!

Thank you all and hope your summers are all warming up to something wonderful.  Until next time…

Dream Acoustics

350px-TrioSonata

In a massive cathedral with vaulted ceilings of gold and engraved wood, I am playing the flute with an ensemble that includes violin, cello and harpsichord.  The music is 21st Century Baroque.  Intricate melodies interweave with strange harmonies, percussive sounds and otherworldly harmonics, creating a rich tapestry of the threads of the ancient and the avant-garde.  The room is vast and open, without benches, dwarfing the audience in folding chairs listening intently as to a sermon.  Behind me is a grand fountain with curtains of water splashing delicately in the oversized pool below, which is filled with exotic goldfish.  The sound of the quartet threads itself through the rafters, creating a fourth dimension to the music that pours forth from our instruments.

I awoke with this dream about a week ago, and how sad was I that it had only been a dream!  But perhaps it is not impossible.  In the meantime, I would like to make a reappearance onto the digital stage with some updates:

1)  I have been relatively silent lately because I am in the process of getting applications ready for grad school.  In the coming weeks I will be making video recordings to send off to NYU, Mills College in Oakland, California and University of California at Irvine.  I might even post these videos to my website, so keep an eye out!

2)  Extended Horizons may seem to have come to a close – but only for now.  Keep an ear out for Extended Horizons Volume 2, new an improved with added features, to begin in early January after my applications have been mailed off.

3)  In the meantime, I thought I might share a soundcloud posted by Second Inversion which features members of the Seattle Symphony performing Ligeti String Quartet No.1, “Métamorphoses nocturnes”.  I can’t get enough of this recording, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Eric Barber & friends: Hush

Fall is officially here, and already it’s a busy one.  As you all know, I was lucky enough to have the chance to perform with Eric Barber at the Chapel last night.  It was a quiet gig; the theme of the evening was to explore the possibilities of the dynamic range from mf (medium-loud) and below.  Also, there were three people in the audience.  But it was a lot of fun, and man does it sound good in there.  I wish I could practice in the Chapel…

The performance was entirely free improvisation and included Carmen Rothwell on bass, Mike Gebhart on percussion, Christian Pincock, trombone and of course Eric Barber on saxophones. Please check these fabulous musicians out.

Thanks so much Maggie for coming out hear us play!

Upcoming Gig: the Chapel

Alright, here we are into September already.  Growing spiders lurk in trees next to solitary yellow leaves and, despite the lingering warm temperatures, there is a subtle bite in the air.  School has started (for those who are still stuck going!) and the Autumn Equinox is less than two weeks away.  And on September 27th, I will performing at The Chapel Performance Space with the wonderful Eric Barber.  Here is the text from the listing on http://www.waywardmusic.org/event/eric-barber/:

HUSH – music of the lower decibel persuasion

 

We’ll be creating some beautiful improvisations in the Chapel that will focus on the wide dynamic range from medium to quite quiet. Featuring Carmen Rothwell, bass; Mike Gebhart, percussion; Christian Pincock, trombone; Ammon Swinbank, flutes; and Eric Barber, saxophones.

Here is more about Eric Barber: http://www.ericbarbermusic.com/.  I will be very grateful to all those who are able to make it out to this event.  It will be the first time that I perform at The Chapel, and I look forward to it with eager anticipation.

Sonic Exploration

Alright, finally here is another of my forays into solo flutelandia.  For this one, I began with a multiphonic in the first register.  The multiphonic is a major second apart.  I then explored the other possibilities of this fingering and others similar to it, finding some interesting timbres and intervals in the process.  It is amazing how much beauty can be found in the airy, imperfect spaces of the flute tone that we train so hard to smooth away.  In fact, at the moment I wonder why we strive so hard for that perfect tone, practicing and practicing for homogeneity in all registers instead of striving for greater knowledge and control of the flute’s sonic capabilities.  If we did this, I think we would have the freedom to create the sound that is right for any occasion whether it be a Bach Sonata or a an ethereal exploration of the spaces between conventional tones.

At any rate, this is my personal favorite recording so far.  I hope you enjoy hearing it as much as I enjoyed playing it.

 

Piece for Flute and Cat

Okay, so the title is a joke.  But about one third of the way through this recording Harley, my cat, comments on my playing.  He does not like the flute.  Or maybe he is just informing me that this improvisation is no good.  But I will let my cyber audience be the judge of that.  Please enjoy this third installment of my improvisation experiment.