The flute is my great love but it was not my first instrument. I started playing guitar at age eight and picked up the Baroque flute and the recorder at age twelve for two reasons. I fell in love with the sound of early woodwinds (listening to all of Frans Brüggen's recordings) and I wanted to make music with others. Playing guitar can be a very lonely thing. But I still play for my own pleasure and I'm very conscious of harmonies and the vertical structure of music when playing flute.
I never played modern flute but started out with historical instruments right away. My first teacher was a student of Konrad Hünteler and I hope some of his playing rubbed off. Later I also picked up the Baroque bassoon and had most of my orchestra and recording career in the USA and France with that instrument.

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The first thing you do when you pick up your traverso to start the practice day, and why?
I try to wake up my body and the flute with long notes in the middle range and go from there, taking time to adjust my embouchure so that I get a maximum of resonance from each note. Then I move to arpeggios, also very slow, in order to explore the harmonics that are inherent to these resonances. There is a theory that there isn't just a natural overtone series but also a natural undertone series (Martin Vogel). When playing it is crucial to be aware of harmonies and tone relationships all the time. Flutists tend to neglect this and produce endless noodles and unfortunately much of the repertoire lends itself to doing so. I like to spend quite some time working slowly and with long tones, especially when I pick up an instrument that I might not have played for some days, weeks, months.
Also I have a long standing love affair with lower instruments. The Haka Renaissance flute, the Naust from Paris a whole step lower than normal (a flute in D at 357 Hz or a flute in C at 400 Hz) or a Quantz flute around 390 Hz or a Flute d'amore. I like to start the day with these big instruments, because it helps me to center myself and to train my lungs and my breath control. I also encourage my recorder students to practice every piece on an instrument one size bigger. Alto parts on voice flute or tenor, descant parts on alto etc. After moving back to the required smaller size everything seems much easier.
Any recurring piece to play every day, and why?​
A Telemann's Fantasia. A different one every day, depending on the repertoire/key/tonality I want to work on that day. Also Frans Vesters' '100 Classical Studies for Flute' never leaves my music stand. It is a very smart collection of etudes from the 18th to the early 20th century. And there is always Hotteterre's 'Premier Livre' and the flute parts from Bach Cantatas.
Do you have a daily routine?​
I have been a lifelong practitioner of Alexander-Technique and QiGong and focus as much on my body as on the sound of the traverso. For 10 minutes I play long notes and arpeggios to wake the flute and myself. These 10 minutes are totally intuitive and I'm just trying to get into a flow without hindrances. Then I move on to establishing the mood/mode of the day by picking an etude in a specific key and a Telemann fantasia. I love to have a hum going by keeping a key pressed on a chamber organ. Intonation is very important and it is the ear that needs to be trained, not the eye staring at a needle. I do have a set of tuned bells that works very nicely too. In the worst case a tuner needs to take over. First I center myself, then I establish contact with my instrument and then we put ourselves in relation to the world.
What kind of goals do you set for your practice?​
Beautiful rich sound and flexibility! Many colors! Rhythmic accuracy! Perfect breath-control! No unwanted wind-noises! Smooth transitions! Perfect intonation! All technical problems solved so I can concentrate on my partners when I go into a rehearsal or a concert.​
Do you have a specific structure for warm-up and practice sessions?​
Long notes before short notes, soft sounds before loud sounds, slow passages before fast passages. Building up everything slowly. Everyday is a good day to make a new start!
It's a bit like the work of an athlete. First you warm up your body, then the equipment. You start with slow movements, stretch a little, find your pace alternating between tension and relaxation, enjoy being alive and moving without pain. Then you aim for height, for speed, for endurance.
Any distinctive characteristics of baroque flute daily practice vs. modern flute or other instruments?​
A wonderful flute is an incredibly flexible instrument. I have also worked with flutes like the Japanese shakuhachi and the Indonesian suling. This flexibility should be explored with all the non-standard fingerings one can think of in order to find more and more colors.
The flutes I favor and that I think are close to original instruments have this flexibility. I think it is kind of unfortunate that some teachers, players, makers, favor instruments where everything 'locks in'. You get rather stiff and inflexible instruments, often very loud, but not interesting to listen to because they lack character.
We can learn a lot from voice methods from the 17th and 18th century. Descriptions of month-long messa di voce exercises. How to speed up and slow down trills etc. I like to try all these things.
What are the key elements and unmissable points of daily practice?​
All mentioned above and read read read. You can't play early music on a high level without studying all the time. Every composer deserves attention, especially the lesser known ones. Erich Leinsdorf wrote his wonderful book 'The Composer's Advocate'. I try to do justice to every composer I play. I try to emphasize 'strangeness', trying to make music from different periods sound as different as possible. That will never work with one traverso from 1799, one technique, one style, one set of ornaments, one speed (mostly too fast), one volume (mostly too loud).
Luckily the times have passed when everybody played a copy of the same Rottenburgh flute from the late 18th century. Today we have a candy-shop of a dozen reliable makers and each has some special instrument to offer.
My projects are often planned and developed over very long periods of time until all the right factors are in place. Instruments at the proper pitch with plausible temperament (never Valotti), no plastic strings on lutes, harpsichords with bird quill that make the strings sing and don't sound like percussion instruments. If all this is sorted out, the flute can just relax into a beautiful ensemble sound.
How long and distributed should warm-up and practice be?
The warm-up shouldn't take more than 20 minutes. Then everything should be going very nicely. While traveling or in an intense season one might not get in more anyway.
The practice time varies depending on what is coming up. If it is for a difficult program I try to get two to three hours in, absolutely focused, with an infusion of green tea every 45 minutes. My best time is in the morning. Afternoons are for reading books, for rehearsals or just to play through piles of sheet music without really 'practicing'.
Any  specific tip to address difficult technical passages during daily practice?
I build up hard passages from the end, with a metronome clicking, focusing on being right on the beat. First playing just the final note and working my way back. With each go I add one note only, until I've built up the entire phrase.
In this process you really learn something. Playing a piece over and over, always starting at the beginning and always having the same problem at a certain spot doesn't help at all. There are two kinds of people: the intellectual musician and the player by road. I opt for the former.
Are there any tools that are particularly useful for practicing?
- A mirror, possibly full length, so I can control my posture and adjust in a second if I spot something not right. I always stand and in fact I very much dislike to sit down when playing wind instruments.
- A metronome stuck at 40-60 or a grandfather clock to give a sense of accurate measure like a Foucault pendulum. But very slow, just to give a frame. I never count anything faster than a breve in Renaissance music or a half note in later repertoire.
- A bell, a shruti box, a tuner, anything that can put a sound into the room to relate to.
- Lately a video camera. It is very revealing if you can film yourself and then see and hear what you've really done instead of thinking what you've been doing....
Any other general advice, suggestion, tip?
Stay curious, never take anything for granted, question modern 'authorities' and go back to original sources, explore! Look further than just flute! Look what harpsichord and viol sources can tell you. Read Quantz! Just a small part of his book deals with the flute and flute technique. The bigger part is about music and musicianship. About half of the flute players from 18th century Paris also played bassoon. Why not give it a try? Or bass viol? Learn the music from a different angle, looking through the eyes of a continuo player. Study vocal music! We hear about the voice like quality of the flute. For Quantz this is the strong masculine voice of a contra-alto castrato! For Vivaldi one of his orphan girls and for Bach the St.Thomas boys. Try to bring this out in your playing and with the choice of flute you use. Sometimes the flute imitates another instrument. Check Bach Cantata BWV130 for Saint Michael's Day. In the Tenor aria the flute plays a trumpet-like part. Please try to sound like one!
Keep going back to the original sources and go back to a teacher or a trusted friend. We can't really listen to our own sound and playing and it is great to have a neutral open ear and an open mind to give us feedback. It might not be quite as crucial as for a singer but it should be done. A good video camera might help a lot, but it doesn't replace a human.
Take every chance to play with other people. Play chamber music. Train your ears! It's not all about lips, tongue and fingers. Even if your keyboard skills might not be great you can try to finger through the music. See at which scale degree your notes are. Learn to think in functions and tune accordingly.
Intonation is very important. You don't learn that by comparing note by note to a tuner, especially not in equal temperament. Have a sound available that you can initiate easily. An inexpensive steel strung resonator guitar in an open tuning for example. You can just strum the strings and the sound will surround you for half a minute.
If you have a harpsichord or spinet you should tune it with a tuning fork only by ear on a regular basis. It might take a few times until you come up with satisfying results, but listening to these vibrations falling into place is the best ear-training I can think of and it makes you a more careful listener in ensemble situations.
How do you advise your students as far as structuring their daily practice?
Never doodle! Couperin writes how he teaches every student an hour per day and then locks the instrument and takes the key with him, so the student doesn't destroy in ten unsupervised minutes what he had build up in the lesson.
It is better just to play for 40 minutes totally focused than to doodle around for hours and not get anywhere.
I'm into medical science, neurological programming of the brain, building up conscious memory, muscle memory etc. This definitely influences my own practicing and teaching very much.
There are proven patterns and numbers of repeats necessary to really remember things. I try to make students sensitive to these facts. And I ask them to read 'Musicophilia' by Oliver Sacks, so they get a deeper understanding of these things.
Do you suggest or teach a warm-up routine?
Long tones, messa di voce exercises, tonguing patterns. Arpeggios to define the tonal space you are working in.
I like to show people how to create an exercise out of the passages they are working on or stuck with. Try to get a glimpse into the workshop of great flutists/teachers. As Stephen Preston pointed out in his interview, the Quantz 'Solfeggi' are a great example how to isolate a problem and work on it. I also remember a film about James Galway and seeing him practice. Very impressive.
Are there any specific pieces particularly beneficial to be played regularly in daily practice?
Etudes that match the period and the repertoire I'll be working on. Etudes are great, because they were often written by experienced teachers who knew how to solve problems. Solve a problem first before you got to the music. Don't kill the music by overplaying it and getting stuck on problems all the time!
Some final comments...
Before starting my studies I was not sure if I should be a musician or an instrument builder, having had a woodworking shop at home. At age 17 I was traveling through museums and measured instruments. Back then it was still possible to play them for 20 minutes which is of great value to me. I know what it feels like to blow into a Denner flute or an Eichentopf recorder and therefore I'm often not able to praise the fantasy products some makers try to sell as 'reproductions' or 'improved' versions.
Also I was lucky that I was always living close to great craftspeople. In England Barbara Stanley made me the first Renaissance consort around 1980 and took me along to Nancy Hadden's Flute Circle weekends. In California Rod Cameron was just a short drive away. In Berlin Stefan Beck had his workshop right across the river. I'm grateful to them for their friendship and endless talks in their workshops.