Lesson 9/17/03

I pointed out three pieces that I’d been working on this week to Fred at the beginning of the lesson: a chromatic etude, On the Wings of a Song, and Gavorette. I also said that I hated Gavorette, and just couldn’t quite get the feel of it. It has a bunch of grace notes, which are played as sixteenth notes leading into the “real note” (that’s not a great explanation, but the best I can do right now). The object is to land on the real note on the right beat. I actually had to play one when I worked on a short piece from the Nutcracker Suite, but that one was easier (perhaps because I was familiar with the piece).

Anyway, that meant that we spent the whole lesson working on Gavorette, of course. But, we eliminated the grace notes, and I’m currently just working on playing it without them (which is going much, much better).

I still need to work on getting a bigger sound. Fred suggested placing a sock in the bell of my horn when I practice, but still trying to get the same sound I get now. The idea is that when I remove the sock, I’ll be so used to playing with more air that I’ll get a bigger sound.