The Physical Flutist

On Tuesday Angela McCuiston posted about warming up:

As musicians (whether you be a flutist or not), we tend to be rather meticulous about our instruments and how we approach our practice time: warming up the smaller muscles of our embochures [sic], warming up our fingers with scales, even warming up our ears with long tones or our minds with imagery and planning the session out. But how much attention do we give to the rest of our bodies?

Very little, so I’m discovering.

Warming up your body is as important, if not MORE important than warming up our instruments, but it’s something we all to easily neglect.

One of my favorite flutists, Zara Lawler, has several entries about Physical Warmups on her blog The Practice Notebook:

Physical warm-ups not only prevent injury, they make your practice more efficient. If you start practicing without doing a warm-up first, your body is going to be trying to do two things at once: warming itself up to the task of playing and learning the new skill you are practicing. Eventually, you will probably accomplish both those tasks, but you’d be able to do it faster and easier if you did them one at a time. You can find my suggestions on physical warm-ups by clicking on “Physical Warm-ups” on the Categories tab...

I tend to practice standing up rather than sitting--unless I'm practicing with an ensemble. And sometimes, I even dance while practicing. In yesterday's International Herald Tribune, which I subscribe to on my Kindle, I ran across "Stand Up While You Read This":

It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.

That probably explains, at least partially, why I feel better when I practice on a regular basis.

If we should be warming up physically before practicing, should we also be cooling down? There isn't a lot of scientific research on the effects of cooling down. Or warming up, for that matter. However, most of us know how our bodies feel before, during, and after practicing or exercising, so listen to your body and act accordingly.

Goodbye 518, Hello 231

Su came around with paper signs with the names and phone extensions of the new occupants of offices. The signs are to help the folks who are moving the crates, phones, and computers.

That's Sabrina's name on the paper sign on my office. At least it's officially my office until Friday, but I won't be in for the next two days. Tomorrow is the Lifelong Christian Formation and Vocations Team retreat, which will take place at Church of Our Saviour in Chinatown. Friday, since they will be shutting down the phone system at noon to facilitate the moves, I will work from home.

Originally they scheduled the actual move to take place over the weekend. We were to have everything packed up by noon Friday and then unpack Monday morning. Except that they started moving people today. Why? It seems they only ordered 100 crates for the 20 people moving. I have 11 crates of stuff, and I have a lot less then most of the other folks moving. So, those of us that are moving into offices that are currently empty were asked if we could finish packing, let building services know to come and move our crates, and then unpack the stuff in our new offices.

They came to move my to move my crates after lunch.

So here's my new office on the second floor: #231,with my name on the paper sign. I didn't take pictures after I unpacked the crates, so those will have to wait until Monday. Basically, I dumped things onto the shelves. Except for the files. Those got put in file drawers: administrative files in the office, and everything else in my file bank, which is in the hallway behind my office.

At the moment, my new office seems a little dark. Some of that is due to the fact that the light in the hallway outside my office is out.

But the office is a little smaller, too.

Compare 518 here...












...with 231 here. Note the difference in the amount of wall space between the door and the bookshelves.

Hopefully, I will have time to organize the new office before a new crisis its rears its head.

Peace,
Jeff

A Different Method

It has taken me since August to work my way through the Taffanel-Gaubert 17 Daily Exercises. Obviously, I didn't do all of them every day, or even one a day. I began with Number 4 and practiced two pages for a week and then moved to the next to pages the following week. The past three weeks, however, I've worked on an entire exercise each week.

So last week, while working on Exercise #3, I contemplated whether I should stick with Taffanel-Gaubert, or should I try something new. This evening I pulled out the Rubank Advanced Method: Flute Vol. 1 that I first used in high school and again while studying with Betty Leeson at Rockford College. I know some teachers and flutists who look down on methods like the Rubank, but many, many of us started with them in public schools and even with private teachers.

I worked through the first 15 exercises in the Rubank (not quite three pages) and noticed something right away. The Rubank method tells you what key you're working in, whereas the Taffanel-Gaubert assumes you know. It also labels the Natural, the Harmonic, and the Melodic minor scales. I'm pretty good at knowing the major scales, primarily because Lise Mann drilled them into us during my year at Moorhead State University. I still struggle a little bit with the written key signatures. The minor keys escape me, because I never studied music theory. So working through the Rubank method while also reading Music Theory for Dummies is helping me to learn the minor scales. Not to mention strengthening my knowledge of the majors.

If it gets me to practice the "icky stuff," as one workshop presenter called it, helps me improve my technique, and helps me learn theory, then it's a method book that works.

Maybe I Should Have Gone The "Give Up Something" Route

I make use of Google Reader to track the blogs I read regularly and also to let me know if anything pops up in the areas of Christian Formation/Education. This afternoon I noticed this post on Susan Russell's An Inch At A Time. An online Lenten Study Group? Hmmmm... Studying Nora Gallagher's The Sacred Meal? Hmmmm...

A book on my To Read list and an opportunity to participate in an online community with a specific topic/theme, how could I pass it up? This morning I had a phone conversation with a colleague in Minnesota about starting an online community for Lesson Plans That Work, and we are in the process of setting up two Lesson Plans-related blogs (more on that at a later date). So, I whipped out my trusty Kindle and ordered the book, which of course, was delivered in seconds, and I started reading it on the train ride home.

I'm leading a Lent study group in my parish on Diana Butler Bass' A People's History of Christianity at noon on the second, third, and fourth Sundays of Lent. And I'm participating in the 8:00 a.m. bible study on the Passion Narratives being offered by our priest on every Sunday in Lent. Vestry, to which I was elected at January's Annual Meeting, meets the third Sunday of every month at noon. I finally have keys, so I can access the classroom that will become our new prayer room. Not to mention that I'm the parish webmaster, which means overseeing both the web site and our Facebook page.

Oh, and my full time job at the Episcopal Church Center.

I think I'm about Lented out, and it's only the first Monday in Lent!

Peace,
Jeff

Kindle Strikes Out

Don't get me wrong, I love my Kindle. Mom gave it to me for my birthday, and I learn more things about it on a regular basis. It's great for traveling, since it's a lot lighter and less bulky than packing three of four paperbacks. It allows me to store books online, which takes up no space on my already overstuffed bookshelves. I can take notes on it as I'm reading an electronic text. I can download work documents onto it for reading on the road; nice for long documents, since the Kindle screen is much easier on the eyes than a computer screen. As I said, I love my Kindle.

One thing I've avoided doing is purchasing electronic sheet music because it seemed to me that would be pointless. However, I thought I'd give it try just to see if there might be anything useful with electronic sheet music. So I turned on the Kindle's wireless and went to the Kindle Store.

I started by downloading a sample first. Strike one. Sheet music samples are one page only, the page which reads

End of this sample Kindle book. Enjoyed the sample? Buy Now or See details for this book in the Kindle Store.

Since this was a test, I looked for an inexpensive piece of music. I ordered Johann Sebastian Bach's Flute Sonata No. 2 in E-flat Major (BWV1031). Cost: $1.56 for the flute part. Most sheet music is optimized for the Kindle DX, but it is still readable on both other Kindle devices, including Kindle for PC. Even on the DX, I doubt it would be large enough to read from while playing. Strike two. You can't print anything from an electronic edition, so this is useless for playing.

So maybe it would be useful for studying a piece of music and making notes before playing? Strike three. The annotation function does not work on electronic editions of sheet music.

Yooooou'rre out!

Lay Off The Layoffs

Hat tip to Jan Nunley for this article, which she linked to in a Facebook post comment in response to an Episcopal Church post about the Executive Council meeting taking place in Omaha, NE. Here's a quote:

Managers also underestimate the extent to which layoffs reduce morale and increase fear in the workplace. The AMA survey found that 88 percent of the companies that had downsized said that morale had declined. That carries costs, now and in the future. When the current recession ends, the first thing lots of employees are going to do is to look for another job. In the face of management actions that signal that companies don't value employees, virtually every human-resource consulting firm reports high levels of employee disengagement and distrust of management.

Ya think?

Peace,
Jeff

The Orange Crates Are Here

So Su titled this afternoon's email to the staff. And sure enough, there they were in the elevator lobby. Everyone, even those folks not moving this time, groaned when they saw them.

By the time I took this picture, we'd already begun moving them into our offices to pack.















How many files can I get in here?
















I don't think those books will fit in one crate.




















I've packed those things I won't need access to over the next week. At least, I think I won't need them. Five crates so far. I can't believe I have this much stuff in my office! Although, the bottom crate on the left-hand dolly is files that were until today housed in cabinets in the hallways. I still don't know where my new file space will be. Not important at this stage.

Ah, the joys of moving.

Peace,
Jeff

Watching a Young Flutist

I've recently discovered a new blog by a music student at a university in Kentucky: A Classical Journey.

In today's post, titled Weather, Adam writes about "having a normal life" while pursuing his dream. This might have been me 30 years ago except for two things. First, as I've written before, my father forbid me to be a music major. Second, I don't have the gift.

And even if I did have the gift, I'm not sure it would have been a good idea to pursue a career in music. I did show a gift for acting, and was encouraged to pursue it professionally while I was in college. However, I was difficult to live with when I had a part in a play. Just ask my mother. Or some of my college friends. There were days I didn't like myself! For the most part it was something I enjoyed, but it was those days when the temperamental actor personality took over, I was miserable. On the other hand, I never got that way with music, and I was much more involved in music than I ever was in theater. So maybe a temperamental musician personality would never have come into being.

Do I regret my choices? Maybe on rare occasions, but for the most part, no.

I see Adam discovering the balance participating in normal student activities brings to his life. As I've written over the past few months, getting back to music has been reteaching me the importance of balance. I hope he hangs onto his balance as he pursues his dreams and goals.

P.S. Adam, you need to fix the comments portion of your template, because it doesn't open the window enough for someone to type in the verification word.

Why?

On her blog Chocolate Phoenix, Sariah occasionally posts about being a musician. In Check your Ego, she writes:

The hardest thing about being a musician is learning when to let go. We are taught to play with perfection. Anything less than perfect just will not do. That is why we will spend weeks and weeks learning one piece of music. We will spend an hour in the practice room perfecting one measure. We do not stop until it’s perfect, and we aren’t happy until we can do it perfectly. I don’t know that it’s entirely healthy, but that’s the way it is. So when something happens and you have to just let it go, it’s hard. And whatever little bit of an ego you had is now completely shot.

What she said.

Growing up, if I couldn't master or learn something quickly, I lost interest and moved on. In school, when it came to those subjects I had trouble with--Math and Economics, for example--I took the minimum requirements and then went on to something I was good at. When I didn't understand something, like Economics, I could still manage a C in the class.

Sometimes that meant I wouldn't take chances by following through on something I enjoyed but wasn't particularly good at. In junior high school I belonged to the Art Studio and served as president my last year there. When I got to high school, I didn't take any art classes because I knew I didn't have any "real talent" in art, and I thought I'd get a poor grade, which would pull down my GPA. Of course, looking at some of my surviving artwork from that period, I probably would have done just fine in an art class and might have learned to appreciate and encourage my right brain capabilities a lot earlier in life.

At the beginning of my junior year in high school I went to the band director and expressed an interest in learning to play the flute. He handed me a battered school rental and began giving me lessons. Thirty-four years later, I'm still playing.

Have I mastered it? No.

Will I ever be another Rampal or Galway? No.

Has my closet perfectionist gone away? Of course not. I have to deal with him every day of my life.

Can it be frustrating? Yes.

Do I have to work hard to maintain the level of even middling amateur? Yes.

Does it bring me joy? Yes.

And that, my friends, is why I've never walked away from my flute for very long.

Send Out The Change Of Address Cards!

For the fifth time in the seven-and-a-half years I have worked at the Episcopal Church Center, I am moving. This move comes in the wake of the reconfiguration (a reorganization by any other name...) prompted by the layoffs resulting from the drastic budget cuts of last year's General Convention. I may also have an eighth boss, but the reporting and accountability lines remain unclear. In any case, the move, which will consolidate the reduced staff onto fewer floors of the building, takes place the last weekend of February. The dreaded orange crates should arrive a week or so beforehand so that those of us relocating can pack up our offices.

In addition to consolidating the staff, the new office locations mix us up, separating members of the new (and remarkably old and familiar) program teams (read "departments"). The official reason is that they want to encourage cross-team collaboration. They figure that by sitting us by colleagues on other teams we will be more likely to collaborate with each other on a variety of projects. Of course, many of us already work collaboratively with other departments, and have been for a long time. The other rationale, which was originally told to me in private, is now widely known in the organization. They want to break up former Staff Officer/Program Assistant pairings to wean the former Staff Officers from continuing to rely on their former Assistants for help with administrative tasks. Essentially, that means that I will be the only Lifelong Christian Formation and Vocation Team member on the second floor. The Team Associate (administrative support person) will be on the fifth floor, along with the shared files.

On the positive side, being on the second floor will make me more likely to use the stairs more often. The second floor is two full flights up, because there is an intervening half floor (the Mezzanine) on that side of the building. The rest of my team, and the files, will be three flights up, and the Finance offices will be only one flight up instead of two down. Every bit of going up and down the stairs helps!

Peace,
Jeff