The Atlantic Flute Society

It was a pleasure to welcome Joanna G'froerer once again to Halifax!  Ms. G'froerer has been the principal flutist of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa since winning the position in 1992 at the age of 20.  A former student of Kathleen Rudolph and Timothy Hutchins, she has performed as a soloist with many orchestras, including the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Montréal Symphony Orchestra, and the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Spain.  She has participated in the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival and the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, and is featured on a 2001 CBC Records release of Mozart flute quartets with violinist Martin Beaver, Pinchas Zukerman on viola and Amanda Forsyth on cello.  An active teacher, she has taught at McGill University and the Scotia Festival of Music. 

Ms. G'froerer had a wealth of ideas to offer the participants and the audience at this two-hour event, which took place at the Dalhousie Arts Centre in Halifax.  In her warm and quietly friendly way, she praised and encouraged the performers, while quickly focusing in on technical aspects of their playing to help them to express their musical ideas more freely.  Nathan Hill opened with the Concertino for Flute and Piano by Chaminade, followed by Deepti Limaye with the Concerto in G major by Mozart and Melissa Doiron with Mozart's Rondo in D major, K.184.  There was an informative question period after these performances.  What follows is a summary of some of the main areas that were covered during the masterclass, along with some photographs kindly provided by Beth Du Bois. 

One theme that received attention at various times was that of articulation -- or rather, the importance of the air in relation to it.  Ms. G'froerer pointed out that one should not to rely on the strength of the actual tonguing to make a note speak.  The air itself is what does the work, for without the air, there is no sound.  Articulation is simply a clarification.  She offered some exercises to help focus attention on what the air is doing. 

One such exercise involved playing a long B with a good sound without any articulation at all, focusing solely on the air.  The next note, C, should also be played without articulation, then C#, and so on, chromatically working away from the original B, completely without tongue and with minimal movement of the lips. 

Another exercise involved the application of this focus on the air to technical, running staccato passages, such as those found in the Mozart flute repertoire.  One should begin by playing such a passage slowly slurred, blowing through all of the notes with a steady stream of air and a good sound, regardless of where the notes lie on the flute.  Then, keeping with the slow tempo, repeat the passage and add extremely legato single tonguing, keeping the notes long with the same feeling of connection, evenness and continuous air as one had when slurring ("daaadaaadaaa" -- very long and smooth).  The next step, still at the slow tempo, is to repeat the passage with the same legato smoothness, but with a very slow double tongue.  This will feel unnatural at such a slow speed, but it is a crucial step towards training the body to produce the consistent "legato air" while incorporating the tongue.  The throat is to remain open and the embouchure should not be reset with note; lip movement is kept to a minimum.  Then, once the passage has been sped up to the proper tempo, one must still think of having "legato air" even in a staccato passage, for only then will all of the notes speak evenly.  The fast tempo itself will ensure that it sounds like a light staccato anyway, and the player will have more control over the entire line. 

Ms. G'froerer also demonstrated a position for the right hand that she personally found comfortable to help balance the flute and to keep the fingers close to the keys, as one can see in the two photographs above.  She placed her right hand thumb somewhat sideways and slightly in back of the body of the flute, to counteract the way the left hand pushes the flute somewhat backwards.  This enabled her to keep the right hand pinkie finger curved for dexterity -- dexterity which one can develop by learning the Flight of the Bumblebee using the lowest notes of the flute and the right pinkie!  In general, when not actually pressing a key down, all fingers should be so close to the keys as to be nearly on top of them, to minimize the distance they must travel and to maximize dexterity. 

On the topic of intonation, Ms. G'froerer recommended recording one's self -- a valuable technique to get feedback on other aspects of one's own playing as well -- and ensemble playing, with careful listening and matching of tones.  To bring the often troublesome middle and high C#s into tune, she suggested fingering the lowest C# and overblowing into the desired octave to get a concept of how the upper C#s should sound in terms of intonation.  Then the C# is played with the standard fingering and matched as closely as possible to the earlier C# harmonic. 

Another exercise involving harmonics proved useful in jumping passages with extreme register changes, such as the jumping G minor arpeggio in the last movement of the Concerto in G major by Mozart.  First, a note in the high register is fingered.  Then the player blows with a very slow air speed -- i.e., the aperture (hole between the lips) is quite open so that the air does not rush fast between the lips to get through.  The air speed is then increased by reducing the size of the aperture, with minimal lip movement, until the same amount of air must rush quickly to exit the mouth through the smaller hole and the right harmonic for the note that is being fingered is attained.  For her, the air speed -- adjusted by aperture size -- is the factor that changes registers, and it is a minimal movement.  On the other hand, the angle of the air -- which depends on the back-and-forth position of the lips relative to each other -- is the adjustment that one makes to bring the flute into tune at various dynamic levels.  She stressed that she did not want to change anyone's embouchure, but was simply describing what worked for her. 

On the subject of vibrato, Ms. G'froerer felt that it should be varied according to the mood of the passage or piece.  One first can try playing a phrase through completely without vibrato or dynamics, and then make a determination how it should be shaped.  The next time through, dynamics can be added.  Then the vibrato can be added the third time through, according to the artist decisions made earlier without it. 

She demonstrated the use of two very interesting instruments which help her in her daily routine to touch base with her breathing: 
 
 

The above photograph shows a "Voldyne", an apparatus sometimes used by asthmatics.  After exhaling to empty the lungs as much as possible, one puts the mouth on the nozzle and inhales as much air as possible through the tube connected to the tank.  It has a five-litre capacity, and a very good breath may take in something over four litres.  It is a useful way to connect with what a really good breath feels like. 

The second instrument is called a "Breath Builder".  It is used to touch base with one's capacity to take in a large amount of air very quickly, which one often needs to do in long, continuous passages that contain very few or very short breathing breaks.  Again, the lungs are first emptied as much as possible, and then a very short, fast breath is taken through the nozzle.  Inside the cylindrical main compartment there is a ball, the diameter of which is only marginally smaller than the diameter of the inside of the cylinder.  A quick breath creates a vacuum in the compartment, which sucks the ball from the bottom upwards.  The faster and deeper the breath, the higher the ball jumps, making it a valuable feedback tool. 

As an orchestral musician, Ms. G'froerer has to be flexible enough throughout the range of her instrument to do whatever a conductor may ask her to do, and thus she feels she needs to touch base with a number of different aspects of her playing nearly every day.  For example, a helpful exercise to get comfortable with projecting in the low register extreme of the flute is to play a very low note and increase the volume until the note cracks.  One takes note of how far to push until that crack occurs.  The next step is to repeat the process and try to raise that threshold, so that one can increase the intensity a bit further with each attempt, and yet still hang onto the control of the low note.  Another exercise is the familiar "endless diminuendo", particularly in the high register: play a very long note starting at a loud dynamic and gradually decrease the volume down to nothing, without sacrificing intonation -- a very useful tool in the orchestral flutist's arsenal. 

She listed a number of such techniques that she incorporates into her daily warm-up, which she said typically takes about forty minutes.  First, she does some stretching, limbering up her body, her hands, wrists, arms, and neck.  Then she chooses from the following, not necessarily in this order: long tones; flexibility exercises; chromatic scales; high-register diminuendos; starting high-register tones without the tongue; low-register exercises; and finger technique, which she varies, working out of any number of books (mentioning that she happened to be using the Geoffrey Gilbert exercise book at the time).  In order to trill evenly and to exit trills gracefully, she recommends the trill exercise in the popular technic book by Taffanel and Gaubert.  After her warm-up, she prioritizes what she needs to work on in her orchestral repertoire, concentrating the most effort on solo passages, for her work load is heavy.  She has learned over the years to maximize her productivity and minimize repetitive strain, with some assistance from physiotherapy and some key extensions to make her grip on the flute more comfortable. 

Obviously, this was an extremely informative class, delivered in a low-key but very direct and focused way by a fine musician and teacher.  It was one of sixty such educational events that took place over the course of the six-concert Atlantic Tour of the National Arts Centre Orchestra.  For more information on the educational outreach activities of the NACO, visit their website at: http://www.artsalive.ca/.

Special thanks are also due to Tara Morton for her expert piano accompaniment, and to Dalhousie University for providing space for the class. 
 
 

                                            © Jennifer Publicover, 2002 
                                            Masterclass photos taken by Beth Du Bois.

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