Performance Preparation: Practice! Know your music inside and out. Practice repetitions of smaller sections of the piece and then the whole piece, so you feel well-prepared. The more prepared you are, the more confident you’ll be. Be familiar with the piano part, and how the piano and flute parts fit together. Study the piano score and listen to recordings. Write measure numbers in your part for the rehearsal. If your piece has multiple pages, tape your music and make copies if needed to ensure you don’t have to stop playing to turn a page during the performance. Visualize your performance from beginning to end. Imagine every detail and it going well. Record yourself and make notes for continued practice and refining. Give mock performances for family or friends to practice playing the piece straight through and getting familiar with any possible nerves. Be sure to share if you want feedback or not. Sleep and eat well leading up to the performance to give yourself the opportunity to feel your best. Performance Anxiety: t’s completely normal to be a little nervous for a performance. Even many professionals still get nervous and experience nerves in a variety of different ways (i.e. sweaty palms, dry mouth, racing pulse, shaky knees, nervous tummy, shaky lip/air support, shallow breaths). Tips: Take slow, deep breaths. Bring awareness to different parts of your body starting from your toes on up. If you notice a symptom of performance anxiety, welcome it. For example, you could say, “Hello, shaky knees! I feel you and you’re welcome here as I continue to play.” It’s silly, but it can help! Acknowledge that you did all the preparation for this moment and now is the time to enjoy seeing your efforts pay off. Remind yourself how much you love playing flute and your piece. Visualize each moment of the performance going well. Remember that there’s no such thing as a perfect performance. The purpose of the performance is to connect with your audience and share the gift of music. Know that your audience is excited to hear you play and wants to see you have a great time. Make it your goal to have as much fun as possible! No matter how the performance goes, understand that this is a fleeting moment and just a step in your musical journey. Find joy in the journey and be proud of your progress. Performance Etiquette: Attire  - Dress in semi-formal attire or “Sunday best”. Generally, a dress or slacks and a button-up with dress shoes. You don’t need to dress in black when you’re the soloist. Arrive Early  - Give yourself plenty of time to find the venue, warm up on your flute, and tune. Walk on Stage and Bow Set Your Music and Tune  - Adjust the music stand to the appropriate height where the audience  can still see your face. Tune on your own before the performance starts and then very briefly again on an A with the piano when you get on stage. Breathe and Acknowledge Pianist  - Take a brief moment to get into the character of the piece and allow yourself to breathe. Once you’re ready to play, nod to the pianist to make sure you’re both ready and begin. Keep Playing - Even if something happens during the performance, keep playing and the audience may not even notice. You have a wonderful pianist who will find where you are and follow you. Acknowledge Pianist and Bow Together  - Wait until both you and the pianist are done playing. Once you hear applause, acknowledge the pianist, bow together with a smile, and head off stage. Recital Reflection Personal Goals: What would a successful performance look like? Create measurable and attainable goals. What do you need to do to prepare yourself for success? What are you most looking forward to? Post-Recital Reflection: What about your performance went well? What are you proud of?  Was there anything you didn’t expect? What you would be sure to do again? What would you do differently next time? See the attached PDF for a handout version of this post with space to write and reflect!

You have a new piece to prepare and are wondering "where do I even begin?". You might be inclined to dive straight into playing the piece at full tempo out of panic from seeing your approaching deadline and fear of wondering if you'll be able to even play the piece. Remember that the way you prepare and practice will make all the difference in the end. Each of the preparation steps listed below will lead to a much more effective performance in the end--both technically and musically! How to prepare a piece for an effective performance: Research the history behind the piece. It’s important to know who the composer is and why they wrote the piece. The time period it was written in can inform the style in which you play the piece. Knowing the occasion for which the piece was written or the story behind it can also inform the character we bring to it. This would also be a good time to translate any terms in the piece that are written in another language. We are sharing someone else’s writing when we perform their piece, and we want to do it justice and honor their work. Choose three recordings you love for inspiration. Ultimately, your voice is what will come through the music, but it’s important to have different ideas of how the piece can be played for inspiration. Know why you like each of the recordings you chose. However, avoid listening to these recordings to learn the music itself or to copy someone exactly. You need to know the music and have your own voice when you play, so think about how you think it should be played as you learn it from what the composer wrote. Score study. This is your roadmap, so you know where you’re going. Listen to the whole piece while looking at the flute and piano score (or orchestra, band, quintet, etc. score). In your part, note where you have the melody, who you blend with, when you pass on a phrase or take over a phrase, and parts that you will want to particularly focus on in your practice. Create a plan: section the piece and identify the hardest spots. Consider your goals and deadline for learning the piece. How long do you have to learn it before your performance? From there, you can divide the piece into small sections and decide how much you will need to learn each day or week to reach your goal. Take into consideration the parts of the music that will need more practice time and work in small sections at a time. Leave extra time in your plan to practice running through the entire piece before the performance and ample time to memorize, if needed. Practice smarter, not harder. Use practice games and repetition to get tricky passages under your fingers. Practice slowly (at the speed of no mistakes) and always with your metronome. Do not allow yourself to increase the tempo until you’re truly ready and continue to play expressively even at the slower tempos. Slow and intentional practice is essential to building accurate muscle memory, and actually helps you learn the piece faster in the end. Don’t just play through the entire piece again and again, but focus on the sections that need the most work. This will make the most of your practice time. Trust the process. Polish and perform. Perform even before THE performance! Now that you’ve worked out the details, it’s important to practice running the piece for endurance. When a mistake happens, know that it’s normal, and use it as an opportunity to go back and focus on that passage at a slower tempo again. Ask friends and family to listen to your run throughs and allow yourself to visualize the performance. By the time you get to the actual performance, you’ll be so well prepared and feel like you’ve already performed it before!

Have you ever felt lost when it comes to rhythms? Have you found yourself listening to recordings or other members of your section as a crutch to learn your music, instead of being able to read and understand what's written on the page for yourself? Let's unpack this rhythmic puzzle! Terms: Time Signature: The convention used to indicate meter in sheet music. The top number indicates the number of beats per measure and the bottom number indicates the type of note that gets the beat. Meter: The way the beats are organized into groups. Rhythm: The pattern of notes and rests. #1: Understand the time signature. The first step to breaking down a rhythm is understanding the meter (the way the notes are grouped) based on the given time signature. The top number of the time signature will give you the number of beats per measure and the bottom number will give you the note value of those beats. When in doubt, you can often better understand the meter based on the notation and the way the notes are already grouped. For example, eighth notes and sixteenth notes are normally already barred by divisions of two or three in correspondence with the meter. #2: Know where the "big beats" are in each measure. Now that you know how many beats there are per measure and what the note value of each beat is, you can write in your "big beats" (1, 2, 3, 4...). #3: Break down each beat into the smallest subdivisions. If sixteenth notes are the smallest note value in the piece, make sure you know the sixteenth note subdivisions (1e+a, 2e+a, 3e+a...) for each measure. Take into account the duration of both notes and rests as you write the subdivisions. Subdivision example: In a simple quadruple meter (4/4), the whole note is the largest note value in a measure, and it can be subdivided into 2 half notes, 4 quarter notes, 8 eighth notes, and 16 sixteenth notes. Some pieces are in simple meter and others are in compound meter. This will help you further understand the subdivision of note values as well. Simple Meter: Meters that subdivide most of the beats into divisions two. Compound Meter: Meters that subdivide most of the beats into divisions of three. #4: Use your metronome to subdivide in real time. Set your metronome to the smallest subdivision and practice from there. Pay attention how many subdivisions or clicks you should hear for each note/rest. You may find that the long notes and rests need extra attention at this slower tempo because we often think of them as "easy", but their duration matters just as much as the smaller note values. Sometimes articulating each subdivision during practice can also help. Once you've practiced the passage at a slow enough tempo to build muscle memory and understanding, you may slowly increase the tempo with repetitions. The goal is to still have the subdivisions in your head when you eventually play without the metronome. Now you can have confidence in knowing exactly where to place each note, which will free you to focus on musical expression and what you'd like to say with those notes!