I am Chiara Strabioli, an Italian flutist from the Castelli Romani, near Rome, where I currently live, play, and teach. I studied and played the modern flute a great deal before I encountered the traverso. I was fascinated by the description of fork fingerings and how they gave different colors to the tonalities. I absolutely wanted to hear it live. I heard Barthold Kuijken in concert in Rome, playing Bach’s Partita in A minor—and my path was decided! 
I studied traverso first with Claire Genewein, and then with Barthold Kuijken and Frank Theuns in Brussels. I have played with La Petite Bande, the Accademia Barocca di Santa Cecilia, the Accademia Montis Regalis, Atalanta Fugiens, Gli Originali, among others. Since 2009 I have been part of the Cappella Musicale Enrico Stuart, with whom I recorded Boismortier (2019), Haym (2022), Babell (forthcoming), and we are currently working on another Telemann disc to be released soon.
I also like to carry forward a more experimental solo project, Suoni Raminghi, in which I use the traverso in unusual ways, playing in open spaces or in acoustically singular locations.
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Chiara on Facebook and YouTube

The first thing you do when you pick up your traverso to start the practice day, and why?

The first thing I do is playing a descending D major scale. By playing it, I feel the instruments and the position of my hands. Starting from the middle-register D and going down is, for me, a way to begin from the center of the instrument and then slowly descend, sensing how deeply I can reach into my body that day. It is a bit like asking myself: “How are you today?” In this way I understand what kind of energy I have. Then I move on to exercises that awaken the sound and resonance. Sometimes, when I know that I will not be able to play much that day, I begin with a small improvisation, in order to leave within myself the feeling of having given space to music, even if afterwards I will only have time for a few long notes.

Any recurring piece to play every day, and why?​

There isn’t a recurring piece that I play every day. It depends on what I need to prepare at that time. Normally, after the warm-up, I begin with one of the pieces I am preparing that feels most familiar to me, or one that I particularly like (very often a slow movement), and then I continue with the more technical or new things.

Do you have a daily routine?​

I have always had a daily routine for practicing. I like having one. For me, it is a kind of ritual. This natural inclination of mine was reinforced by necessity: unfortunately, over the years, I have had several problems with tendinitis in my left hand. This was certainly an unfortunate thing, but it also gave me the opportunity to reflect a lot and to find a different way of managing my daily practice. I learned to respect my body and its limits. This necessity also gave me the chance to work more on concentration and efficiency, to achieve results with shorter work sessions. It was also important for learning to organize long-term work better.

What kind of goals do you set for your practice?​

The goals I set for my practice sessions change depending on whether I am preparing a concert, a larger project structured in several phases (for example, a recording), or if it is a calmer period with maintenance goals. When preparing for a concert, or when working on a long-term project, it is important for me to divide the work and structure intermediate stages. I set deadlines by which to have worked on certain pieces or phases of preparation. This may sound like a very rigid process. In reality, although this method comes from the necessity of my hand problems, the result is that I work without haste. Having a good work plan means that within each stage there is the necessary time for ideas to settle, to be revisited, changed, and experimented with anew. In short, it allows me to carry out a creative process which, for me, requires slowness. It is like playing with time on different levels: the very measured daily sessions push me to be efficient and focused on the present moment; the awareness of having time in the medium term allows me to accept the different phases of a piece’s maturation, even the impasse moments, and to let ideas decant. In a world that constantly distracts us and makes us feel rushed, managing my daily flute practice in this way is for me both an exercise in balance and an act of resistance. In periods when I have had to reduce my performance commitments, I have also learned to appreciate the goals of maintenance in daily practice. There were moments when I had to reduce daily practice to a minimum, to allow my hand to recover gradually, or to adapt to the weight of a different instrument. In such cases, my goals were mainly about sound, hand relaxation, and posture, working on pieces I knew well and focusing on the small detail as if it were a zen garden.

Do you do any systematic warm-up?

In my daily practice, warming up is indispensable, and I need it to be systematic. I begin with body warm-up exercises, without the flute. I start with exercises for spinal flexibility and for the mobility of the neck and shoulders, then I do hands exercises. In the last year, thanks to the help of an excellent physiotherapist specialized in musicians’ hands, I have learned specific exercises to warm up the fingers and prepare them for the type of movements required on the flute. With the instrument, I always begin with sound warm-up, with long notes to awaken resonance, and exercises to go through all the keys—even the most difficult! These can be scales or a broad melody transposed into every key. During practice, it is then very important to have regular breaks to relax the hands and do specific stretching. Finally, I always close the practice session with stretching.

Do you have a specific structure for warm-up and practice sessions?

I have always done half an hour of warm-up before moving on to practicing pieces. Recently, and thanks to my physiotherapist’s advice, I had to structure my daily practice in a more precise and even slightly strict way. At present, the structure of my study sessions is modular and follows a specific scheme of alternation between hand exercises and half-hour practice blocks: body and hands warm-up / 30 minutes playing warm-up / hand stretching / 30 minutes playing / hand stretching / 30 minutes playing / … / final hand stretching.

Any distinctive characteristics of baroque flute daily practice vs. modern flute or other instruments?​

I believe an important difference between practicing the traverso and the modern flute is the work on resonance. To achieve a good sound on the traverso it is indispensable to work on bodily resonances. All fork fingerings have to be “invented” in the body, since there is no corresponding acoustic hole in the instrument. Often, two neighbouring notes have a very different resonance scheme in the body, and one must train to change these schemes very flexibly. On the modern flute this aspect follows a more linear logic. Then there is the matter of changing instruments. With the traverso, one must adapt their way of playing to many different instruments of the same type. Just thinking of one-key flutes, playing on a Hotteterre is very different from playing on a G.A. Rottenburgh! In my opinion, this requires a much greater flexibility of approach to sound than with the modern flute.

What are the key elements and unmissable points of daily practice?

For me, the key elements of a good practice session are connected to sound. I feel I have worked well when, during the session, I have truly focused on resonance and built the work on the pieces while remaining anchored to my sound. It is a very precise physical sensation, as if every note had a specific place in the body, and my goal is to build the piece while maintaining this bond between sound and body. When this is there, musical ideas are more convincing, and technique becomes more fluid. But of course, not every day is the same! Sometimes it simply isn’t a good day. Then I think there is one fundamental point in daily practice, which I have learned over the years (and sometimes still find difficult): never end a practice session angry with the flute! One should always make peace before taking the instrument apart.

How long and distributed should warm-up and practice be?

I think it is very important to be regular with practice. In short, one should practice every day! Maybe just a little, but daily. On the other hand, I have learned the hard way that one should never study endlessly in overly long sessions. Above all, it is essential to take breaks about every half hour to allow the hands to rest. It is important to respect the feeling of fatigue and to stop when it arises.

Any  specific tip to address difficult technical passages during daily practice?

To face a difficult technical passage, I think it is very important first of all to understand its musical meaning. Sometimes the technical difficulty makes us lose sight of the passage in its context, and this only increases the stress. The body tightens, and everything becomes harder. Playing the passage slowly in its context (if necessary, even the entire movement) helps me a lot to separate the various components of the difficult spot according to a musical logic of phrasing. Once I have structured a good “micro-phrasing” within the passage, many things already resolve themselves. I learn to “think” it more effectively. For some especially finger-challenging passages, it can be useful to apply the method of changing the rhythm, practicing with different dotted rhythms in succession to deconstruct the fingers movements patterns. I find this useful in certain cases, but in my opinion, it is not decisive if there is no parallel work on micro-phrasing and musical context. Otherwise, it risks turning the passage into a mere technical drill. It must also be used intelligently so as not to fatigue the hands in a harmful way. Something I find extremely valuable in dealing with technical passages of any kind is giving themselves time. Even when we have understood them, a passage is not solved in a single day. The body needs time to grasp correctly what we are asking of it. It is better to return to it regularly over several days rather than insist obsessively in a single practice session. Finally, I think it is very useful—and fun—to try changing the difficult passage! Inventing a substitute passage that still makes sense in the musical context is an excellent exercise. It helps to make the piece more deeply one’s own and also offers relief from the tyranny of a few stubborn bars.

Are there any tools that are particularly useful for practicing?

One tool that is certainly useful for daily practice is the metronome. For me it is a very valuable aid, especially in the early stages of working on a piece. At later stages, I also find it useful to use the metronome with a very broad beat (for example, the whole measure, or even two measures). This allows greater freedom in internal timing while maintaining stability in the overall tempo. Of course, it is also very important to turn it off! Another tool I use a lot is the recorder, especially for working on ornamentation. It is like a notebook that keeps track of ideas and allows me to evaluate their effectiveness from outside. Often, listening from the outside makes certain solutions emerge more spontaneously.

Any other general advice, suggestion, tip?

I think that playing an instrument is a very physical art. We create sound with our body. Sometimes, as musicians, we tend to overlook this aspect and “use” our body without limits in order to reach technical perfection. We should learn to listen more to the body and respect its signs of fatigue. I also believe it is useful to do regular physical activity. This helps us connect better with our body, understand it, and keep it more efficient for practicing the instrument.

How do you advise your students as far as structuring their daily practice?

I suggest to my students that they practice every day. It is important for building good bodily memory, especially for beginners. I advise them to begin with a little warm-up of long notes and a few technical exercises (for example, scales, arpeggios…), but not too much, and then to move on to the pieces. My students are mostly very young, so it is important that the technical part is not too heavy, leaving more space for the fun of playing actual pieces. When they have little time to practice, I advise them to still find a few minutes to play even just a short piece, so that there is still some space for music in their day.

Do you suggest or teach a warm-up routine?​

Of course! I suggest they do some basic hand warm-up exercises and then begin with the flute by playing a few long notes and a scale slowly. I always tell them to take breaks, especially when they feel fatigued. It is important that this warm-up is not too long or heavy, so that there is space left for more enjoyable things.

Are there any specific pieces particularly beneficial to be played regularly in daily practice?

I believe it is very useful to often change the style of the pieces studied in different periods. To alternate work on pieces of the main Baroque styles—French, Italian, and German. A bit as if one had to keep practicing different languages. For example, in the next period I will have to prepare for concerts music by Telemann and later on some Wilhelm Friedmann Bach music, so I just spent the last weeks playing Monteclaire’s Brunettes and before that I enjoyed taking back some Haym sonatas I had recorded.

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