Flute Motivation

I was paroozing flute blogs and you tube videos and I came across a little article on

How to get your flute practicing back up after a Hiatus

I am posting it here so I don't forget about it lol.

Motivation gogogo!
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I think a goal I will set for myself is to record a piece and post it here. I miss performing and this can be my mini stage!


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I found this on a blog

Questions to ask yourself while practicing:

1. Is the tone fantastically beautiful? Is my embouchure without strain or fatigue?

2. Do I have the option of many tone colours and dynamics? Which ones are easy? How can I make the hard ones easier?

3. Am I using musical ideas, line, phrasing and emotion?

4. While playing all-slurred, is the fingering absolutely neat and even? (check with metronome?)

5. Are my large intervals as effortless as possible? (may need to roll out 1 more millimeter)

6. Am I using a combination of free tempo (for relaxing hands) and strict tempo (for keeping fingers even.)? Do I want to keep a record of the metronome markings achieved?

7. Are articulations crisp and stylistically varied? (Mozart/Bach/Prokofiev etc.)

8. At speed, do I need stabilizing fingerings?

9. Is the intonation perfect? What is the key? Which notes should be higher or lower than in equal temperment?

10. Can I improvise based on this pattern? Do I relax and balance my body more when I improvise?

11. Can I create an etude or mini-exercise to smooth out any fingering pattern or embouchure motion?

12. Can I sight-read material in this key or using these musical patterns? Is there an etude that would amplify and develop what I’ve just learned?

I Lack Fuel and Electricity !

Power Outage
I never finished my post last night because as I was writing it we lost power. The strange thing was there was no storm but there was a pretty significant area in the city without power for about 3-4 hours. Ara woke up the instant the power went out. She relies on her little night light and fan for white noise and she was scared. "A" was out with an old friend and I have to admit I was a little shaken by the outage.. what a dork am I? I used my phone as a flashlight because I couldn't find anything else. I put the one sad little scented candle I had in the bathroom on the kitchen table and Ara and I settled down in her room watching a movie on the laptop.

It was a long night, Ara was hyper and up way past her bedtime, A was grumpy and obsessed with finding wireless networks with his laptop, and I was tired. I eventually got Ara to sleep by using my iPod as a night light. Then I fell asleep on the couch. It was hot and dark and silent, how could anyone not sleep?

Petrol
The car ran out of gas again today. Luckily it was as we were pulling up to our house and I just parked it and Ara and I spent the majority of the day at home. Before you tell me I am a retard for running out of gas there is something you need to know... the entire dashboard of our car doesn't work! Not even the odometer so it's always a guessing game. "A" and I had just talked about getting gas in the evening when we picked him up. My Mom came later in the day and took Ara and I swimming. Then she let us borrow her car until tomorrow morning so we were saved! Saved! I almost said that I hated my car but I don't want bad car karma. I mean it still gets us around and still has AC so the purple car lives on!

Tomorrow
Workout tomorrow morning (and getting gas in the little jug thing for the car and returning my Mom's car) whew that was a long parenthesis.

We got groceries today, yay!