Possum Playlist

A story from my "studio".

While recording music for my 2nd CD "Waking the Devas", which was all recorded outdoors, I went out to play under a Meteor shower. Nighttime nature sounds being different from daytime and besides it seemed like a great way to watch for shooting stars. 
I spread out a blanket, got all set up and turned off my flashlight so my eyes would adjust. I watched the stars and listened to the tree frogs. Then I played several different tunes and re-worked some. All the usual recording activity.
After some time, I heard some odd quiet little noises and rustlings (cat? small dog? giant nocturnal rabbit late for a tea party?) just past my blanket. They stopped and started, got closer but I could only see vague movement. I turned on the light and saw long pointed face, dark wild eyes, fur sticking out in all directions and a long fur-less tail.
Now let me say I love Possums. They are sweet and helpful little guys and girls. They do not generally live long enough to even be at risk of having rabies let alone spread it and they eat ticks so they are most welcome as far as I'm concerned. But they are surprising when they emerge from the darkness and fearlessly sit down next to you. Asking you to play some more tunes on that odd silver tube. Just for them.

Which is why one of the tracks recorded that night but not included in the album stops rather abruptly and includes me vocalizing various “heys” and finally clapping at the end.

A Bit About Me

One day many years ago, I went out into the woods to teach myself to improvise. The cedar tree I sat under taught me how to listen to things I had already heard but not noticed. The birds taught me how to make each note my own song. The breezes taught me how to adapt and change to each moment. The little forest creek taught me to dance while holding still.
This is how I went feral.
After many years, I learned to share my creations with others and slowly became a composer/performer. I studied how to ornament Baroque music. I took classes on Jazz improvisation. I delighted in the many different First Nations flutes and scales in North and South America and the personal songs they sing. I learned the differences between articulations in Irish and Classical music. I jammed with musicians steeped in Eastern improvisation.
I soaked up ideas of inspiration and the creation of music from myths and fairytales.

I create art from breath and make sculpture out of air. Each song/tune/performance is individual and ephemeral. Each flute has its own voice. I use recording as a tool to expand my ideas and share unique musical moments in the wilderness with others.
"Amaltheia's Lullaby", my 1st CD uses Alto, Concert and Glass flutes recorded in my garden. Lullabies and dreams, all based on a 4-note call to Pan.
"Waking the Devas" uses Baroque, Concert and Glass flutes recorded in rain and wind, night and day, crickets and cicadas.
“A Few Flutes Shy of a Flutter”, continues the madness with new whistles and rim-blown flutes recorded over a year of wandering the forest hills.
I am currently working on a 4th album with the sound of water in every track.

What will happen next only the Stars and Time will tell.

Album 3; A Few Flutes Shy...

Got the digital tracks uploaded! Have physical CDs for in person.
Here's a look at the art and program notes to the 3rd solo recording of a mad flutist!

Available at the usual music sites.

Making It Up As I Go

When I was 13, I went out into the woods and began to teach myself to improvise and compose. I did not know it at the time though. I began by memorizing a short folk tune and adding small ornaments (a trill here, a grace note there) to it. I had seen several versions of this tune in sheet music form with ornaments so I made a point of adding ones that had not been in those versions. Some sounded good, others not so much.
The next week, I did this again. And then again. The ornaments got a bit longer and more complex (turns!) and after a few more weeks, something odd happened. An interval in the melody caught my attention. I don't know why but it suddenly sounded different than it ever had before in this tune or in any other. It sparkled and glittered. I spun it around and tossed it into other places in the song. I explored what notes played before and after the notes of that interval would emphasize the extra something I was hearing and feeling in my fingers.
In time, other intervals in this same tune caught my attention. And I worked with them in similar ways. Then I put together the intervals I especially liked (for no apparent reason) and explored how to weave them together in a way that showed off the magic I had found in them. With mixed results. But eventually, I realized I wasn't playing that folk tune anymore. I was creating a new melody.
This unsettled me. I knew composing was a deep pool of new learning and I was a bit reluctant to dive in just yet. So instead, I just told myself I was noodling. Then improvising. I took a small tape recorder out with me (I always did this somewhere I felt I wasn't being listened to at that time) and recorded a few of these little ephemeral notes and lines. I liked just knowing I could go back and hear what I had done again. Once or twice I even actually listened to those tapes (not often) and noticed things I liked and things I thought weren't really that interesting and tried to remember both.

Years later, my teacher had me add ornaments to a Telemann piece. Using our best information of how ornaments were added at the time. I loved it but it frustrated me wildly. I loved it because it was exactly what I wanted to do a great deal of the time. But so many of the ornaments I came up with did not fit the rules. And I could not seem to actually change any of the notes in the melody which I knew would have happened at the time. Still, it was a whole new way to play with those feisty little notes.
Then, again years later, I took a Jazz improv class. This had mixed results too but by then, I expected that. I knew I was trying to learn to do something different than Jazz so I accepted that not everything I learned here would work for whatever I was doing. And those little noodling tunes and exploratory ornaments I was playing in private kept going. And growing. And fewer and fewer recordings had dull sounding moments in them.
Then I went to play at the Renaissance Festival. Suddenly, I was playing music all day long. I got bored just playing written tunes and played some of my own improvisations. And some of what I now admit were compositions began emerging into the light of audiences. The next year, almost half of what I was playing was my own improvising or compositions. The next year, I had to remind myself to play music other than my own.
And that is the story of how I learned to "dream in music". To allow music to pour through me and, hopefully, into the dreams of others. To create a world of sound that constantly shifts and changes. Like rainbows through rain-clouds or starlight on snow.

Playing the Baroque Flute

I'm not an "expert" on the Baroque flute (also called Traverso.) I was trained on the concert flute and that is where a lot of my skill comes from. But I've been playing Baroque flute for a couple of decades now and I believe I have enough experience to share some tips. In many ways, information about any transverse flute, modern or ancient, can be transferred to the others. But they do have their personal quirks which is what makes them so interesting (and frustrating) to play. Fingerings, tone, volume, range, chromatic notes, basically everything shifts for each flute. This is what gives them their unique sounds.  

-There are several books on Baroque flutes, old and new, out there and I do suggest taking a look at one or more of them. "Method for the One-Keyed Flute" by Boland has some great advice for ANY wood flute, care instructions and some technique exercises. Treat the fingerings as a starting suggestion (this applies to any fingering chart really). Each flute is a bit differently and different fingerings may work better than others. Most of these books assume you already play the modern flute or have a teacher and do not include much basic how-to-get-a-sound-out stuff. If you are starting from scratch you may want to talk to, or take lessons from, a flute teacher to get those basics down.
-Now, another approach is to get an instruction book for the Irish flute. Irish flutes are basically historical flutes of one type or another and these books often have more absolute beginner info in them. These books tend to emphasize Irish trad. playing styles which are different from Baroque/Classical styles so keep that in mind. Comparing the two styles is quite a good idea for anyone regardless of which style you want to play; there are lots of insights into both styles you can get that way.
-When looking for advice and tips, keep in mind that there are several different Baroque flutes out there. The flute went through a radical redesign at the beginning of the Baroque era (1600-1750) and then continued to change without any one style becoming standard. Some of the changes included the shape of the bore (inside of the tube), adjusting the tuning and adding a key. Then they added a couple more keys. Then they added yet more keys.  Then they argued about which keys were useful, which were "decadent" and which got in the way. Some keys closed holes when they were pressed and others opened them. The only key they all more or less agreed on was that first one for the right hand pinky. After that, it was anyone's guess which keys an instrument maker would use or a player would prefer. Plus, some Baroque flutes can be taken apart into 3 pieces, some come in 4 pieces, some have multiple different sized middle sections and the foot joint can sprout a telescoping extension that is almost steampunk looking.
There are reasons for all these apparently conflicting designs; they sound different and some music works better on one and some on an other. Baroque music was not uniform by any practical definition (this is the era of J. S. Bach, Barbara Strozzi and Turlough O'Carolan; the era when opera was invented and folk music began crossing the Atlantic Ocean) and musicians and audiences alike loved variety so naturally there was a wide range of instruments to go with all the different musical styles.

In spite of all that, tips for one style of Baroque flute can generally be applied to the others. But it helps tremendously to know exactly what kind of Baroque flute a person is talking about.
I play a one-keyed, four-piece Baroque flute. It is one of the simpler (though not simplest) styles. It has some of the most limits on chromatics and scales unless you are comfortable with half-hole fingerings. It is one of the last flutes that could be held to either side of the body though it was usually held to the right so the flute section wouldn't knock into each other too often.

Baroque flute in action. Photo by STL Photovisions

Baroque flute in pieces. Maple wood.

Now here are my three main tips (plus one extra);
1) Work with tuning and modes.
2) Try to improvise on the flute you are learning.
3) Finally play the flute regularly even if you don't sound the way you want yet.
Extra; Consider learning the pennywhistle.

1) Tuning on the Baroque flute is not the same as the concert flute. Not just because of the reduced chromatic notes either. The internal scale is tuned a bit differently than a modern flute and it takes time to adjust. Any tuning work on any flute will help so if tuning the Baroque flute gets too frustrating, do some tuning exercises on another flute for a bit. This improves your ear which WILL help your tuning on the Baroque flute eventually. Remember, as your ear improves, you hear the flaws in your playing more and it can feel like you are getting worse. You aren't. Your hearing and your playing are just improving at different rates.
In general, typical tuning issues on the concert flute are magnified on the Baroque flute. For example, the 3rd and 7th degrees of the major scale need attention. And any note in a chord that needs tweaking on the concert flute likely will need very careful adjusting on the Baroque flute. The trick is that you may or may not need to adjust in the same direction or the same amount.
Closely related to tuning is playing in modes. These are scales that use different patterns than major or minor. Playing in a mode is often easier than trying to play in many major or minor scales other than the scale the flute is tuned to. (That's what all those keys are for-chromatics and shifting keys.) This is why you will find quite a bit of older music and folk music that uses modes. It fit the instruments better (or the instruments fit the music better if you prefer). 
What's more, playing in a mode makes you listen to your tuning differently. You will notice that some modes are easier to play in tune than others. This is partly a result of how you are listening to and adjusting your tuning. Each scale rearranges your hearing and tuning sense whether you notice it or not. A note that sounds fine in one mode may sound badly out of tune in another. This teaches you a lot about the tuning of your instrument.
This takes time and work, no way around it. But here's the good thing; if you keep at it, you eventually will develop a more instinctive understanding of how to adjust on the Baroque flute. You will always need to pay attention but it will become more natural, at least on some scales. This link is a short introduction to the modes if you want to know more about them.

2) Now, improvising is a WONDERFUL way of getting to know an instrument, in my humble opinion. Chasing down a melody in your head will really teach you what an instrument is capable of in your hands. Additionally, playing a wide range of music helps you find out what works on a specific instrument faster than almost anything. I suggest looking at older music that was written when these flutes were commonly played (though some of these may prove a bit challenging!) or folk music (those books on Irish flutes I mentioned often have Celtic tunes in them that work well). This music is often written with some awareness of which chromatics are difficult to handle. Take these tunes as leaping off points; ornament them, add notes and let the tunes lead you into improvised melodies that explore the flute's sound. But don't stop there. Experiment with music you like that is outside the typical style for the Baroque flute. Some pieces will work, some will sound dreadful and others will sound oddly transformed. This is all useful when getting comfortable with a new instrument.
You also need time to develop the tone you want and improvising is a great tool for that too. The tone of a wooden Baroque flute will naturally be different than a metal concert flute (this is why many people like it.) But there is a wide range of possible sounds within that wood tone. Listen to your sound, the sound of other players and see if you can change your sound to match others. Experiment to find out just how many changes you can make to your tone. Not every change will create a "pleasant" tone and this is ok for our purposes. The more tone options you have, the easier it is to create a tone you like or that fits a specific performance. It is nearly impossible to describe in words just HOW a person changes their tone. We tend to resort to "relax your throat" or "let the air pour out" or "make it sound like melted chocolate" to cause students to change embouchure shapes. The control of those tiny muscles develops almost subconsciously the longer you play and listen to others. Which makes playing for fun (and I think improvising is wildly fun) one of the best tone exercises around.

3) Don't be discouraged if you don't sound like a virtuoso right away. Just keep at it. Playing/practicing in short, regular sessions is the key. Five minutes once a day will bring about improvement. Fifteen minute sessions each day or every other day are plenty long enough when starting out. You don't want to exhaust yourself and regular practice rather than long is what keeps you from forgetting what you've learned.
And if you miss a day (or three) don't beat yourself up. You won't forget everything THAT fast! Besides, breaks are good both for your playing and for your enthusiasm. I firmly believe that having one scheduled day a week that you do not practice (unless you just feel like it) keeps you from getting overwhelmed and frustrated. You need that down time to remember how much you enjoy playing, to find and listen to recordings you want to sound like and to get some rest.

Whatever you do, make sure you have fun! Perfection is not the goal of music; delight and joy is.

P. S. 
It recently occurred to me that learning the pennywhistle is tremendously useful for learning the Baroque (or any period) flute. Whistles use a 6-hole fingering pattern that is basically the same as the Baroque flute AND uses cross-fingerings most people don't mention with period instruments. The cross fingering are not always transferable but sometimes they are. Add to that, you get to hold the whistle in front of you and PUT YOUR ARMS DOWN! Trust me, the chance to rest your arms and keep playing is fantastic. Not to mention whistles are a great deal of fun all on their own. For more on this idea, see my post 6 Holes-Where Traversos and Whistles Meet.
Just make sure you get a pennywhistle with a tone you like! You don't have to go to the most expensive or fancy whistle (though you can; I sprang for a wooden whistle and couldn't be happier). But do ask to hear a sound clip or try the whistle out first to see if you like it. I suggest Elf Song Whistles (the Jasper Whistle) or Tilbury Whistles as fairly good starting points without spending large amounts of cash. There are cheaper whistles but they can be inconsistent. That doesn't mean all bad-some professional players use $15 whistles to this day-it just get trickier to find a good one. (By the way, the word "tweaked" next to a cheap whistle means "someone has modified this whistle from the original". This is usually good and means various issues have been cleaned up a bit.)
Or look up the "Wandering Whistler" on-line and check out his whistle reviews.

Second P. S.
Tone advice; Since I can't comment or reply to my own posts (a tech issue I hope is resolved soon), I'm including a reply to a question on tone here.
All the tone exercises concert flute players learn are great for the Baroque flute too. Slow but beautiful tunes are good when you've gotten bored with the long tones. Octave jumps can help since the more your upper and lower octaves match in tone, the more likely you are to have a good (or better) tone. Listen to other players and compare your tone to theirs. You may not like their tone but that's ok. You want your ear to process that Baroque sound so you can hear yourself as accurately as possible. Wood instruments often sound "softer" or "darker" or "airier" than metal flutes and that can take getting used to. Try to change your tone intentionally. The more changes you can make to your tone, the more control you will have over it.
And try to play the Baroque flute fairly regularly (daily, every other day or every third day if possible) so your embouchure muscles remember all the new things your trying to do. Keep at it and good luck!

Interpretation and Improvisation

"The name of the game is flexibility. Every conductor has his own interpretation. Your job is to interpret not only your conception, but also that of the conductor." Julius Baker

Interpretation is the art of deciding how to play a piece of music. This includes how loud and quiet sections are, what tempo to take, when and how much to change tempos and all the little things that can't be written down in the notation or possibly even expressed in words. No one interprets a piece the exact same way and learning to adjust to another person's ideas can be more than a little challenging. Yet Classical musicians are expected to do exactly that. When they practice, they explore multiple interpretations. Then they adjust and match their interpretations to those of the other players in their section. Finally, they change how they interpret a piece each and every time a new conductor takes the podium.
I believe that in many ways, this is a form of improvisation. Granted, the improvising is subtle and doesn't involve changing the notes or rhythms. Yet the music changes every time it is played based on the performers choices at the moment. This is the heart of improvisation; no two performances, or even rehearsals, are exactly the same.

Now Classical music used to include a great deal of improvisation even in ensemble playing. It was only after the 1800s that instrumentalists were expected to "just play what's on the page" rather than filling in musical ideas on their own. Recently, there has been a push to reincorporate improvisation into Classical music. Solo pieces have been the main focus of this idea. Many Classical musicians find this unsettling at first and the idea of adding improvisation to ensemble playing is still largely not discussed at all. 
Perhaps considering interpretation as a form of improvisation could be used to ease Classical musicians into the world of music of the moment.

Ephemeral Life

Music is ephemeral. It is never the same twice. Even listening to a recording is never quite the same because the listener brings a different awareness each time they listen. They can’t help it. This is what makes music so tricky to explain and so wonderful to experience.
Many Classical musicians focus on learning to play the notes they see with as much accuracy as possible. The goal becomes to play the piece exactly as written every time. This is a good skill to have, never think otherwise, but there is more to music than that. Music is not the written notation but the moment of playing or performing including all the mistakes or even deliberate changes to what we see on the page. Music is the act of creating sound and listening to it. Improvisation is part of this and always has been. Even when improvisation isn't taught, performers end up making little tiny changes every time they play (there is no way not to). Perhaps instead of striving for note-by-note repetition, we should spend time trying to understand WHY these changes felt good or bad, what in the moment caused the music to transform and how we can make these different "interpretations" work for performers and audiences. This is the beginning of improvisation and part of what makes music an experience that is treasured.

A Couple of Examples
The Medieval troubadours are well known for setting their poetry to music but their music was not “complete” as we would understand it; they rarely included any rhythms and even wrote multiple melodies for the same poem. In other words, they improvised and used written music as a chance to expand their possible musical ideas instead of writing out a perfect version of the music. They adapted the music to their instruments and voices, they changed tones to fit the mood of the moment and treated the music like the living creature it is. There are a large number of period performers who carefully use only musical ideas from the age of the troubadours, going so far as to exclude all modern instruments and most period wind instruments since they weren’t “commonly used” at the time. Their goal is to recreate the troubadour sound as exactly as they can. This is wonderful and shows us a whole different kind of music than we are used to but I can not help feeling that the spirit of this music is in some ways being ignored. This was music that was meant to change, to adapt. If a performer didn’t play the instrument a composer had in mind, they still played the music even if they had to change the melody to do so. If only certain keys or modes worked for a specific instrument or voice, the performer could even CHANGE the scale of the piece and play the piece with different harmonies. If the audience wanted a different mood than the original piece, the music could be changed. A lament could become a dance in next to no time.
Baroque music incorporated improvisation into opera and bass lines as a matter of course. But the melody instruments were expected to change their more completely written lines too. A straight performance was often considered dull and not worth the audience's time. Today, students often spend hours researching how musicians might have improvised a piece in that day and age. But why stop there? Why limit ourselves to imitating someone else’s improvisation? Don’t mistake me, imitating is a great way to learn but then we can add our own ideas. Radical, I know, because this may well result in older pieces being made modern. But why is that always seen as a bad thing? We are modern musicians and we bring that sound with us. As beautiful as I find the Baroque style, I see no reason to rigidly make everyone follow it in every performance.

I admit, creating new music can be frightening. Some changes don’t work and some improvisations fall flat. It takes time and practice to get reliably good at improvising. But why should that stop us? We spend hours, even years, learning to reliably recreate written music after all. There is no reason to assume improvising will just come naturally without any effort. But the seed of improvisation is there, in anyone who has played one note and then another without any direction from someone else.
Improvisation and written music are not exclusive to each other and I love playing written music just as much as improvising. I find it beautiful and inspiring to play and hear music others were trying to share. But I know that I will never create a carbon-copy performance of any piece and I wouldn't want to even if I could. New sounds, new ideas and new music leap out of performances of old music. Some are sweetly similar to the sounds that created them, some are radically different. The musical possibilities and knowledge that this music will never be exactly the same again is what makes the experience so rewarding.
We are, after all, as ephemeral as the music we love.

I Don't Know That Song

"I know that one but I can't do it". This quote from a book about improvisation got me thinking; What is the difference between knowing and being able to perform something? And how does that difference shift based on if the performer reads music or plays by ear?

I was trained to read music so for me, knowing a piece means I can play it reliably well when the music is in front of me. But take that music away and I am suddenly at sea even with simple tunes that can turn into ear-worms. I can often fake a harmony line or even stumble through the tune (after a few false tries) if it is a simple song but I won't really retain it based on that alone. The interesting thing is that I clearly "know" the tune because I recognize whenever I hit a wrong note, flub a rhythm or miss an entrance. For that matter, I also recognize when I get it right! 
I find that learning a piece by ear, even a short repetitive folk tune, can take a startlingly long time compared to reading the sheet music. Having to recognize when a note is right or wrong AND work out the technical details of playing it AND commit the song to memory all at the same time doubles or quadruples the time required to learn the piece. I often get wildly frustrated and say, "just find me some sheet music, it will be faster". But the tunes I have learned by ear I KNOW. They are in my head, my fingers and sometimes simply spring out of the flute without any conscious plan to play them. Even the music I have memorized after learning to play them from sheet music don't take up quite the same space in my mind.

So here are some of the conclusions I have come to; 
Those who habitually play by ear can recognize a tune without knowing it well enough to play by themselves. This doesn't mean they can't play along with a group since they often can come up with something reasonably close based on knowing similar tunes or simply having absorbed the style of music (much easier to do when you spend such intensive amounts of time on every single song). 
Those who usually read music can play a tune with the notation in front of them but may have trouble jumping in with a group that is playing from memory. On the other hand, they can play a wide range of tunes using the sheet music with relatively little prep time. They can even switch styles with reasonable accuracy based on having studied so many different styles (much easier to do if you aren't spending quite as much time learning every single song). 
Additionally, musicians in both groups may develop the ability to fake a tune or a harmony line based on what others are doing. Oddly, this skill is not generally taught in spite of how useful it is in almost all musical situations. Maybe because it feels like cheating to so many musicians, hence the term "fake". What we are actually doing is improvising, often at a very skilled level.

It seems to me that there is a wide range of "knowing" music, ranging from simply recognizing a familiar melody to having each turn and twist committed to soul deep memory. And somewhere in-between, each musician comes up with a sweet spot that let's them know, perform, teach or ornament a tune to the audience's (and their own) satisfaction.

Playing a piece I have halfway memorized and the odd faces I make in the process.

April Improvisations, May Compositions?

April is here at long last but the trees are still barely budded. I've been waiting and waiting for the spring storms to roll their way across the roof and inspire new notes with each thunderclap. But instead I find myself hearing gentle rains pattering lightly on the ground. Light little taps of a watery baton. The new tunes aren't flashing into my mind this season but they are slowly building up. Each note slithers its way onto the staff like seeds sliding into the ground.
My garden doesn't grow in rows since I'm much too impatient to make the plants behave. Instead the sprouts scatter over wide areas and pop up in places I'm sure I didn't plant them. But the patterns they make are all the more lovely for that. I've taken to writing several versions of a new melody idea for similar reasons. There isn't just one pattern for the notes to follow when I play and for the life of me, I can't decide on one to commit to the still paper version. But when three different versions twist round each other on the page, I am happy and content. I don't have to set these songs in stone; they can leap about into new and unexpected designs. The improvisation and the composition can exist side by side after all.

I was late ordering seeds this spring which has worked out well for once. The cold kept returning, making me grateful there wasn't much in the garden to get nipped by the frost. I feel the same about how long I took before learning to compose. I didn't study the subject in school. The rules and restrictions in those classes would have driven me mad. I understand the point of using structure to develop a creative skill (and use the idea in many ways) but the rules about which intervals could be used and the patterns of melodies that were allowed were not the structure I needed. I needed to follow the notes down into the dark depths of the musical forest, where even the deer trails disappear and learn to find my way about by listening to the notes alone. I needed to have the freedom explore the different ways the harmonies worked from year to year, within their wild home. It took a great deal of time and in many ways I am still lost in the woods but I feel at home there and I have found new and unexpected skills within my musical creations. Little sprigs of ideas appear like mushroom caps and early wild flowers after a rain. And when I let them grow at their own pace, without hurrying them, they often surprise me with their beauty.
I grow salad greens inside the house as well and this year was no exception. The broccoli raab I planted back in January has been a great and unending delight all this long winter. The window box of green florets sits beside my music stand in my practice room where I can look out the window as I work on scales and memorizing. My breath makes the leaves toss and turn at times and I can imagine the plants are dancing to the music. I've watched the winter season through that window with each practice session and gloried in the tiny changes I was seeing. And hearing.
It may have taken a long time but there is no doubt. It is the budding season, the time of new growth and new ideas. The bird-calls fill the days and the coyote-howls fill the nights. Soon, I will take myself outside to practice, to give the note-seeds room to grow and to delight in the spring.

Busking Thoughts

Busking is exhausting, too hot or too cold, noisy and the audience is often small. So why do I like it so much?
For one thing it inspires new music. When I first started busking, I played a lot of folk tunes, old troubadour music or Renaissance tunes. I've always liked how these tunes seemed to be related and the fit in at Festivals wonderfully. Plus the improvisations and variations I came up with made it possible to play one tune for a longer time without boring myself (or my audience!) It was a startling short hop from there to simply playing music I created from scratch. Not everything was wonderful but it is thrilling to know people were willing to listen to a tune I created. The more time I spent busking the more I improvised on my own musical ideas. The more I did this, the more I liked the music I created and before long I had a long list of original tunes I was trying to remember.
Then of course I busk because I love to play. And I like seeing people smile when they hear the music even if they don't stop. I feel like I'm doing my tiny part to add creativity and maybe even beauty to people's everyday lives, something there should always be more of.

In many ways busking is an endurance activity. Even when you only have a short time to play in, you have to keep the energy and music moving the whole time. There is no off-stage to duck into, even when you can take a break. The more involved I am in the music, the easier it is to keep the show going. When the music changes and is new, I can (and do!) stay enthusiastic about playing till I drop.

Mixing up the music I play, my own, folk, Classical and anything I've just wandered into is what keeps busking closer to a game than work. And nothing is quite as exciting as putting the flute to my face and discovering what I’m about to play along with the audience.

Lemon Balm and Whiskey

Different music comes about in different ways, often in ways I don’t entirely understand. This is the story of how two of my tunes were created.

My Dad died about three years ago. He was a musician, guitar mainly, and the person who first showed me how to get sound out of the flute (although he didn’t really play flute, just knew the basics). After he died, I went outside and played. The tunes were fairly short, slow and moody, not too surprisingly, and so was most of the music I played for a bit after that. A few months later, I took my Dad’s car (which I inherited) to get an oil change. One of the mechanics at the garage is also a musician and was asking me about some of my flutes. Since I was going to play a show later, I had the glass piccolo with me so I pulled it out and played a little for the guys in the garage. For the first time in several months I felt like playing something at least a little less sad. What came out of the picc as a result was the first couple of phrases of “Lament’s Balm.” It took forever for me to figure out this was the piece’s name, and I called it that-garage-tune to myself for more than a year. I liked the tune right off and worked with it right away. Within a week it developed a companion tune that was fairly bouncy, energetic and builds to end on the second highest note the glass picc can play. I quickly named the second tune “I’m Not Dead Yet, Pass the Whiskey Please” which was directly inspired from one of the last poems in my Dad’s journal. The two tunes traveled together for about half a year so very firmly I thought I might not need to name the first tune at all. Then they abruptly split into two independent pieces. I sometimes still play them together but they are no longer permanently joined.

Lemon Balm Blossoms-Lament's Balm

Lemon Balm is supposed to make people feel happy or at least calm. It is certainly delicious enough.

Both of these tunes are fairly typical for me in that they jump around and rearrange themselves a great deal. However, “Lament’s Balm” has a bit more of a solid outline to its melody line even though it shifts wildly within that basic shape. “Pass the Whiskey” has several defined phrases that hold it together and a basic rhythm and build, but resisted being more defined for quite some time. The result is that “Lament’s Balm” was ready to record fairly quickly and “Pass the Whiskey” is only now reaching the stage when I feel ready to record it.

Most of my composing is based on improvisation, not formal composition training. I studied a great deal of music theory but not with the intent of developing composition skills. The theory training seems to have functioned more as a net for when the improvisation loses its grip during its trapeze act (all right so my metaphor needs a little work but you get the idea).

Lemon Balm Sun Tea-Good for a hot day

Improvisation Can Change the World

Improvisation is one of my favorite ways of performing live. And comparing different styles of improvisation gives some interesting insights to the different approaches the various genres of music use.
Baroque and Classical improvisation is based (these days) on a very strict method of comparing how melody and harmony interact. There are frighteningly thick books on how to improvise correctly in these styles, mostly full of examples that look like simple little ornaments (turns, trills, runs and so on). However where they are placed in the melody and harmony is critical and very quickly turns into something much more complex than just adding ornaments. The way I learned was to go through these books and find examples that supported each and every single note I added to what the composer had written. Every week I would go to my lesson with the page covered in pencil scribbles and my teacher would demand that I support ALL my choices and added notes from one of the 2,000 page books or start over. Then tell me to go add more. Before too long, what I was playing was so different from the original music that other people had to ask what piece I was working on even if they were familiar with it.
Jazz improvisation is also based on leaping off from the melody and/or the harmony but the style of learning is quite different. Students are often told to listen to other players' solos and learn them note by note then try to figure out how those solos relate to the original music. Then compare different solos on the same music and different solos by the same performer. The theory is that after learning enough solos this way, you will begin to be able to create your own in a similar style.
In many ways, Classical works from the outside in by studying exactly where and how to place tiny additions until it builds into something musical. Jazz comes at it from the inside out, learn musical solos until you figure out the patterns and rules that are being used (or broken). One more interesting point is that, back in the day, Classical music was actually studied in a similar fashion to the Jazz approach. J. S. Bach famously transcribed other composers music to learn voice leading. But of course now we have the rules written out, learn them first and worry about making them sound musical later.
In Middle Eastern music (which I freely admit I am less familiar with) improvisation has a different spin. Setting aside the fact that many of the harmonies and scales use micro-tones, there is more of an assumption that the audience will be somewhat musically educated and the performer is expected to make them work to follow their improvisation. This can be interesting when you are familiar with this style but it can also make it difficult for people who haven’t studied this style to get into the music. One form of improvisation from the Eastern style that does intrigue me is to take one note, ornament it more and more then add another note or two and ornament them together. This creates a nice build to the music and often combines well with other improvisation styles.
I find that looking at these and other methods of improvising expands my ability to use them all. I enjoy the way the different styles expand on each other and how they change my view of the musical world they are creating. I may not master every single style I study but I always take new ideas away from them and every new idea changes how I use the styles I am already familiar with and sometimes allows me to use an idea I had trouble understanding before.

How I Didn't Learn to Compose

I never wanted to be a composer. I ornamented tunes and slowly learned to improvise but just never had any desire to write music or even to attempt to replay tunes I came up with. Sometimes I experimented with recording my improvisation which did eventually help me remember snippets but it still didn’t seem I was writing music. Certainly I don’t feel the music rattling in my head the way poems do, demanding to be written before I can sleep at night. Music simply flows out my hands through the flute and into the air with no particular effort and no request that I keep going till they are done. Poems clack and bang about insisting I work them out before they let me go. So it didn’t seem as if there was any reason for me to be a composer. Even if the tunes I could recreate were slowly increasing. And the variety of improvisation was expanding and becoming more interesting to me. By the time I started playing the Ren Fest, I was beginning to suspect that there was more going on than I had guessed. Spending entire weekends working on my music has done amazing things to my composing. Nothing else ever caused me to actually write music the way the regular focus on my own improvisation did. All the theory classes, music writing exercises, jazz and Baroque improvisation turned out to be just prep work. After one or two years, recording a CD seemed natural. There was so much music pouring out of me that it was nearly impossible not to recognize and develop some but it still seemed a long way from composing. By the time the second CD came along I knew I was going to have to admit to composing music fairly soon. Where I am going with this creation or it with me, I still don’t really know but I do know that the music spins round my head now, not quite the way poems do but just as inescapably. And unlike poetry, there is no demand, no insistence that I do anything about it. The music doesn’t stop (or rather settle quietly) just because a tune has been worked out. Harmonies, melodies, variations, dances and laments overlapping and separating, sometimes one at a time and at others dozens competing for an audience. All exist with me or without. But oh, I am so glad they have come to live in my head.

Program Notes or What I'm on about in my albums

Digital downloads available in all the usual locations.

Link to buy CDs of Amaltheia... 

Amaltheia's Lullaby-program notes-
In Greek Mythology, Amaltheia is a nymph or a goat who raised Zeus the God of thunder. Pan, half God half Goat, is the God of the wilderness. There are many different stories of Pan’s birth and antics. As the son of Amaltheia’s goat, Pan was raised in a cave with Zeus. Another story says Pan and Arcas were the twin sons of Zeus and Callisto a nymph who was changed into a bear. In yet another story, Pan helped Zeus after his sinews were stolen by the guardian of the sacred oracle at Delphi. Pan often plays a panpipe or a syrinx that can put anyone to sleep. A Labyrinth is a maze with only one path in and out. The version often seen in Crete, where Zeus and Pan were said to have been raised, has seven corridors.
The four notes F G C and E-flat are a call to Pan according to some. All the pieces on this album relate to these notes.

1 Cave Lullaby---alto flute

2 Bear Dance-Cub Steps---flute

3 Bear Dance-Tempo Challenge---flute

4 Transposing Delphi-Lament and Lure---alto flute

5 Transposing Delphi-Mirror Dreams---alto flute

6 Beggars Pan---glass piccolo

7 Labyrinth-1^st Loop-Lulling---flute

8 Labyrinth-2^nd Loop-Memory Game---flute

9 Labyrinth-3^rd Loop-In the Garden---flute

10 Labyrinth-4^th Loop-In and Out---flute

11 Labyrinth-5^th Loop-Weaving---flute

12 Labyrinth-6^th Loop-Turn About---flute

13 Labyrinth-7^th Loop-Rainstorm---flute

14 Rain and Flood Lullaby---flute

 

 

 

Link to buy CDs of Waking...

Waking the Devas-program notes-
A while ago, a friend of mine was telling me about her new garden. It was in the country across the road from a forest. It made her happy just seeing it. It overflowed with life as if little spirits were peeping out around the tomatoes, morning glories and grass. Even the bugs that ate plants down to the ground had a magic to them although that didn’t make them less of a nuisance. The garden became a nursery for nature devas, a safe place for them to gain strength as they step, roll and rush out into the world. This got me thinking about waking the devas, fairies, nature spirits in the world around us. Drawing them into the cracks in our lives and letting them run wild. Messy sometimes but more than worth it for all the joy they bring.

1 Lament’s Balm---glass piccolo in C recorded in a forest clearing

2 Rain Dare---glass picc during a rainstorm with a few cows

3 Thaw Longing (Sun in January)---flute as a wind front built up

4 Wind and Rain (Waking Lullaby)---glass picc in a garden during a break in the rain

5 Flood Drops---flute on a sunny winter day in a greenhouse

6 Drawing Out---glass flute in G on a windy sunny day in a greenhouse

7 Fireflies-Here and There---flute at early night on the edge of the woods with crickets

8 (Enter Chorus) How Hummingbird Sees Time---baroque flute on an afternoon in a forest clearing as the cicadas warmed up

9 (Fireflies) Spying on Starfall---flute at night on a lane in the woods with crickets

10 Chorus in the Elm---baroque flute on an afternoon in a forest clearing with cicadas

11 Fireflies-World’s Rim---flute at night on the edge of the woods with crickets

12 Perseids-Night’s Overflow---flute, rattle at midnight on a lane in the woods

13 Cicada Antiphony---baroque flute on a summer afternoon in a forest clearing

14 Perseids-Some May Yet Sleep---flute on a lane in the woods under meteors

15 Lament’s Balm/Lemon Balm II---flute at night on a wooded lane

16 The Fairies’ Hounds---flute. The hounds in question scrambled across a tile floor (click, clack go the claws) but refrained from howling till the recording was done.

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