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Scroll through the whole process. Click a step header to open it, then tap the bulb icon to reveal a tip, example, or Genially extras.
Main focus: Research the composer’s biography, training, travels, patrons, and situate the piece in its world (French court, Italian opera, German sacred repertoire, etc.). Check relevant comments in treatises such as Quantz, C.P.E. Bach or Mattheson.
Example: Telemann’s habit of writing for both professional and amateur musicians often explains why a single piece can combine demanding passagework with very approachable lines.
Main focus: Read the score without the instrument. Note key, time signature, tempo words, phrase endings, cadences and potential breathing spots, as well as awkward fingerings or tuning issues.
Tip: Use highlighters to colour-code phrases and cadences. In longer movements, add small sticky notes for A/B sections, ritornelli and episodes so you can navigate the piece quickly.
Main focus: Identify cadence types, main key areas and modulations. Observe where harmonic rhythm slows (often at expressive or structural points) or speeds up, and circle dissonances and suspensions as expressive cues.
Idea: Play or sing only the bass line (on keyboard or via MIDI). Notice how it supports or contradicts the melody, and where it invites you to lean, relax or breathe in the flute part.
Main focus: Follow the shape of the line: rises, falls, leaps, stepwise motion and peaks. Mark points where the melody naturally breathes, speaks, or comes to rest.
Compare: Sing the melody as if it were a vocal phrase, then reproduce the same inflection, breathing and stress on the flute while respecting the instrument’s possibilities.
Main focus: Examine meter and recurrent rhythmic figures (dotted, Lombard, syncopated, sequential patterns) and let them guide tempo and natural accentuation within the bar.
Try: Clap or speak the rhythm alone, then add a steady foot pulse. Only return to the flute once the pattern of weight and lift feels clear in your body.
Main focus: Identify whether the piece is binary, ternary, ritornello-based, etc. Mark sections and phrase groups, and note where themes or motives return, vary, or contrast.
Visual aid: Draw a compact bar map: A, B, episodes, cadences, and points of return. This visual outline becomes your roadmap for interpretation and practice.
Main focus: Use historical descriptions of keys (Mattheson, Charpentier) and your own reaction to define whether the music is tender, solemn, radiant, fiery, pastoral, etc.
Bonus: Speak a short sentence that matches the affect (for example, “How bright the day is”), then play the phrase while preserving that emotional colour in sound, timing and articulation.
Main focus: Identify spots that invite trills, appoggiaturas, turns or diminutions: repeats, cadences, long notes over active harmony. Consult historical examples for style and taste.
Listen & compare: Record a chosen passage three times—plain, lightly ornamented and more elaborate—and listen back to decide which approach best matches the piece and context.
Main focus: Apply historically informed articulation (slurs, detachments, leaned syncopations) and shape long phrases with gentle crescendos and decrescendos rather than abrupt changes.
Reminder: Use embouchure, air speed, direction and vowel colour to achieve most of your expressive nuance; think of “speaking” the line rather than simply playing louder or softer.
Main focus: If there is figured bass, sketch or play a simple realization, or use an existing continuo accompaniment. Align your phrasing and timing so that the flute part supports, and is supported by, the bass.
Tip: Practise with a continuo track, focusing on how both parts arrive at cadences, how they release tension, and how you can breathe together at structural points.
Main focus: Combine your findings into a clear interpretative plan: tempo ranges, character, articulation patterns, ornaments, breathing points and dynamic outline for each section.
Idea: Record a complete “recital take” and listen with score and pencil. Mark where the line feels less expressive or unclear and adjust your plan accordingly.
Main focus: Treat your interpretation as flexible. Revisit the piece with fresh ears, different instruments or new feedback, refining details of tempo, articulation, ornamentation and colour.
Tip: Each week, choose a short passage to test three variants (e.g. tempo, articulation, ornamentation) and keep a small practice diary of what works best and why.
When Practice Turns into Listening
A tiny shift: stop “doing” and start noticing what the flute is already telling you…
Sound Starts Before the Note
The attack is not a moment — it’s a short story. Air, intention, then contact.
Practicing in Slow Motion
Slow practice isn’t about control — it’s about hearing the next detail sooner.
The Magic of the First Note
The first note tells you what kind of day it is — not by sound, but by attention.
The Fingers Are Not the Problem
Often it’s the timing of intention. Fingers follow what the mind already decided.
A Practice Room Is Already a Stage
If you never practice “being seen”, the concert will feel like a new instrument.
When Practice Turns into Listening
Write your full reflection here.
Second paragraph here.
One note. One breath. One question: what changed?
One practical takeaway
Keep it small, repeatable, and attentive.
Closing line.
Sound Starts Before the Note
Write your full reflection here.
Prepare the air silently for 2 seconds before you play.
One practical takeaway
Practice the “before” as much as the note itself.
Closing line.
Practicing in Slow Motion
Write your full reflection here.
Take one bar and play it 5 times at 30% speed—each time listening for a different detail.
One practical takeaway
Slow practice is a listening exercise, not a control exercise.
Closing line.
The Magic of the First Note
Write your full reflection here.
Before the first note, decide the affect in one word.
One practical takeaway
Begin with intention, not with sound.
Closing line.
The Fingers Are Not the Problem
Write your full reflection here.
Practice the passage as silent finger choreography, then add air, then add sound.
One practical takeaway
Fix the intention-timing, not the fingers.
Closing line.
A Practice Room Is Already a Stage
Write your full reflection here.
Start your session with a 30-second “walk-on”: posture, breath, and one phrase—no warming up.
One practical takeaway
Train the transition: from private to public.
Closing line.
How Much Music Can You Make with Two Notes?
Two notes are enough to explore direction, tension, colour, and musical intention.
Do Baroque Flutists Need a Metronome?
A metronome can build pulse. The ear turns pulse into living rhythm.
Practising Without the Flute
When you cannot play, silence can still train hearing, breath, fingering, and musical intention.
Practising in the Dark
When vision steps back, listening often becomes more precise, more physical, and more honest.
The Magic of the First Note
The first note carries the full weight of intention. When it is shaped consciously, the phrase already knows its direction.
How Much Music Can You Make with Two Notes?
Take two notes.
Not a scale. Not a phrase. Just two notes.
Play them once. Then again.
It seems almost too little to practise — until you start changing the relationship between them.
Let the first lead towards the second. Make the second an answer. Connect them closely, then separate them. Make one lighter, warmer, more decisive.
The pitches remain exactly the same, but the music does not.
On the traverso, even two notes may ask for small changes of air, embouchure, resonance or colour. But the interesting question is what those changes are for.
Two notes are already enough to create direction, tension and release. A phrase becomes expressive not simply because it contains notes, but because those notes have relationships.
Eighteenth-century writers often connect melody with speech. Johann Mattheson, for example, describes melody in terms of musical sentences and their smaller divisions: sounds gain meaning through the way they are organised and connected.
With only two notes, that relationship is exposed.
Choose two neighbouring notes in a comfortable register.
- Play them completely evenly.
- Let the first lead clearly towards the second.
- Make the second sound like an answer.
- Separate them slightly, then connect them as closely as possible.
Then experiment:
- Change the articulation, colour, dynamic shape or timing.
- Make the same two notes sound questioning, decisive, gentle or playful.
Notice:
- How little do you need to change before the gesture changes?
- Does one note naturally attract the other?
- Are your technical adjustments serving the musical idea?
Finally, find two apparently insignificant notes in a piece you are practising and try the same experiment.
One practical takeaway
Don’t always practise more notes.
Sometimes, practise the relationship between two.
Do Baroque Flutists Need a Metronome?
A metronome is one of the most useful tools available to a musician.
It helps us establish a reliable pulse, notice moments where the tempo becomes unstable, and develop greater rhythmic awareness. Used thoughtfully, it can bring clarity and confidence to our practice.
At the same time, anyone who has spent time with a metronome knows that there comes a moment when the music asks for something more.
I noticed this while practising a slow movement. The pulse was steady, every beat was in place, and the rhythm felt secure. When I played the same phrase again without the click, something else became easier to hear. The pulse remained present, yet the phrase seemed to breathe more naturally. Some notes carried a little more meaning, a cadence had time to settle, and the musical line began to feel less like a series of beats and more like a spoken sentence.
Perhaps this is why the great eighteenth-century writers speak so often about speech, dance, character, taste, and expression. Quantz, Hotteterre, Leopold Mozart, and C.P.E. Bach all describe rhythm as something closely connected to movement and rhetoric. A steady pulse forms the foundation, while the shape of the phrase gives the music its life.
The metronome can help us build that foundation. Once it is established, our listening gradually takes over. We begin to hear where a phrase is leading, where it wants to rest, and how the rhythm supports the character of the music.
In this way, the metronome becomes not a guide to follow forever, but a tool that helps us develop an inner pulse—one that remains present even after the click has disappeared.
Choose a short phrase from a sonata, dance movement, or prélude.
- Play it once with the metronome clicking on every beat.
- Listen carefully to the steadiness of the pulse.
- Play it again without the metronome.
- Imagine you are speaking rather than counting.
- Let the phrase breathe naturally while keeping the pulse underneath.
Then experiment:
- Set the metronome to click only on beats 1 and 3.
- Then only on the first beat of each bar.
- Then only every second bar.
- Finally, switch it off completely.
Notice:
- Does the pulse remain stable?
- Does the phrase become more expressive?
- Where does the music naturally lean forward?
- Where does it want to settle?
- Are you following the click, or hearing the pulse internally?
One practical takeaway
Use the metronome to build the pulse, then gradually remove it.
The goal is not to become dependent on the click, but to develop an inner sense of rhythm that allows the music to breathe, dance, and speak. Rhythm should feel alive—not because it ignores the pulse, but because the pulse has become part of your musical thinking.
The magic of the First Note
I was about to begin a Telemann Fantasia. The room was quiet. The flute was ready. Breath prepared.
The first note emerged slightly unfocused. Not incorrect, not unpleasant — simply undefined.
Everything that followed required subtle adjustment. The phrase settled only after two or three notes.
That small instability made something clear: I had practiced the passage, the articulation, the technical transitions — yet I had not practiced the opening itself.
The first note had received no independent attention.
In Baroque performance, the first note establishes the entire environment of the phrase. It determines:
• air speed
• articulation character
• tempo perception
• dynamic space
• emotional atmosphere.
When the first sound carries clear intention, the phrase unfolds with direction. When it is undefined, the line needs time to organize itself.
The opening tone already contains:
• the weight of the affect
• the shape of the vowel
• the level of tension or relaxation
• the implied continuation.
It functions as a declaration.
The stability, focus, and character of this first sound influence everything that follows.
Eighteenth-century writers consistently connect musical execution with rhetorical intention.
Johann Joachim Quantz repeatedly insists that the performer must understand the character and affect of a piece before executing it,
and that sound should follow informed judgment rather than mechanical habit.
In this framework, the first note is not a mechanical starting point. It is the audible manifestation of prior understanding.
Choose the opening note of any piece. Work with that single tone only.
- Hold the flute ready, but delay the sound for a few seconds.
- Decide clearly on the character (dance-like, tender, solemn, intimate).
- Shape the breath silently. Feel the air already moving before tone begins.
- Begin with continuous air — avoid a sudden burst.
- Sustain the tone long enough to observe stability of pitch and color.
Then experiment:
- Start once with slightly firmer articulation.
- Start once with a softer attack.
- Start once imagining a spoken syllable (for example “da” or “la”).
Notice:
- Which version reflects the character most clearly?
- Does the pitch settle immediately?
- Is the throat free?
- Does the air continue naturally after the attack?
Finally, play the complete phrase. Observe whether the line now grows organically from the opening.
One practical takeaway
Practice the first note separately before practicing the piece.
Not once.
Not casually.
Deliberately.
Practising in the Dark: Listening Changes
One evening I switched off the light and kept playing. At first it felt slightly uncomfortable. The flute didn’t seem to sit quite the same in my hands, and even a simple phrase felt less secure. Without seeing anything, I noticed how much I normally rely on small visual checks — fingers, posture, the page. Then, after a few notes, something shifted. The sound came into focus. Not bigger or more beautiful, but clearer. The start of each note was easier to hear. The center of the tone felt more defined. Small irregularities — the ones that usually slip by — became obvious. Without seeing, I heard more.
The absence of visual feedback changed the way the body organized itself. The breath took over. The fingers acted from memory rather than control. The balance of the instrument became something to feel, not to check. The phrase also behaved differently. It moved forward with fewer interruptions. There was less temptation to correct, more need to continue. The musical line depended more directly on inner hearing. This reflects a central idea in eighteenth-century practice: sound must follow intention, guided by the ear rather than by mechanical routine. In the dark, this becomes unavoidable. The traverso feels different like this. Less something you adjust from the outside, more something that responds directly to breath and intention. The darkness does not add anything. It removes what distracts, and reveals what is actually happening.
Choose a simple phrase — even just two or three notes.
- Turn off the light (or close your eyes completely).
- Hold the flute and wait a moment before playing.
- Imagine the sound clearly before it begins.
- Start with continuous air — no sudden attack.
- Let the phrase unfold without interruption.
Then experiment:
- Play once focusing only on air continuity.
- Play once focusing only on the beginning of the first note.
- Play once imagining a spoken syllable (“du”, “ru”).
- Play once focusing on the space between notes.
Notice:
- Does the tone stabilize faster or slower?
- Is the attack clearer or more hesitant?
- Do you feel the instrument differently in your hands?
- Is the phrase more continuous?
- Are you listening more actively?
Then return to the light and observe what remains stable, what changes, and what becomes clearer.
One practical takeaway
Practice regularly without visual input, even briefly.
Not to improve something abstract, but to verify that sound is guided by listening, not by habit.
Practicing Without the Flute
Some of the best practice happens when we cannot play at all.
On a train. In a hotel room late at night. Between rehearsals. During travel. Or simply when the embouchure is tired and silence is better than another repetition.
At first, it feels like lost time.
No flute. No sound. No “real” practice.
But the real problems are often still there.
We still do not know where the phrase is going. We still rush the cadence. We still breathe in the wrong place. We still articulate before deciding what we actually want to say.
One flutist on TPN said it beautifully:
“I recommend not only practising with your flute but also without it… Everything you could think of, first has to start in your head.”
Baroque music begins before sound. Before breath comes intention. Before fingers move, rhetoric already exists.
Practicing without the flute means working on what really shapes the phrase:
• harmonic direction
• cadential weight
• rhetorical punctuation
• implied breath.
Even silent fingering can reveal a lot. If the fingers hesitate without sound, the issue is often not speed, but uncertainty.
Mental playing can be surprisingly powerful too: hearing the opening breath, imagining the color of the sound, feeling the cadence arrive before a note is played.
When you return to the instrument, something changes. The phrase feels clearer, the breathing becomes simpler, and the fingers move less.
Many technical problems turn out to be musical decisions not yet made.
Choose one short phrase you often repeat but never feel fully settled — an opening of a sonata, a Bach sequence in 16ths, a slow cadence, a recitative line.
Leave the flute in the case.
- Find the note the phrase is truly moving toward — not the loudest note, but the real destination.
- Mark the strongest cadence. Where does the tension actually resolve?
- Decide the breath. Where must you breathe? Where would breathing break the rhetoric?
- Finger the passage silently once. Notice where the fingers hesitate without sound.
- Hear it internally before playing. Imagine the breath, articulation, and arrival of the cadence.
Then, when you can, take the flute.
Play it only once — not to “practise” it, but to check whether the musical idea is now clearer.
Notice:
- Does the phrase feel more inevitable?
- Is the breathing simpler?
- Do the fingers move with less tension?
- Is there less need to repeat the passage?
If yes, the problem was probably not technical first. It was musical.
One practical takeaway
If you cannot play, you can still practice.
Sometimes the real work begins before the first note.
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