Review from Flutist Quarterly
"This new
teaching manual from Kathy Blocki offers useful, specific exercises with
well-written and
effective directions for careful tuning of the flute scale, intervals, and chords. The book is divided into
five sections: “Developing Flexibility,” “Just Tuning,”
“Tuning Exercises for Individuals and Ensembles,”
“Playing with Dynamic Changes,” and “Tuning Challenges in Flute Literature.”
An
excellent chart at the end provides helpful alternate fingerings for tuning. For developing
flexibility, Blocki includes exercises for pitch
bending, harmonics, and developing a tone with a full spectrum of sonority and
richness.
Blocki also devotes a large section of the book
specifically to intonation and tones. Her
composed exercises here are marvelous, because they incorporate a drone and a
melody whose sounding pitches move in opposite
direction from the difference tones, making it
easy to capture and hear the difference tones in a
balanced and “in tune” way. This section has many exercises for both the individual player with a drone and for ensembles
of three or more players. Blocki presents the
difference tone work
in an organized and methodical way and presents the
exercises with many variations and in all keys, written out very clearly
with the desired difference tones marked.
In the
final section of this remarkable book, Blocki utilizes flute repertoire with
specific help for problematic areas. The
pieces presented are Bizet’s Menuet from L’Arlesienne Suite No. 2, Mozart’s Concerto
in G Major K. 313 (first movement development section featuring chordal modulation),
and the flute solo of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe. Problematic areas for both
tuning and interpretation are very specifically
marked, and alternate fingerings are included. I
highly recommend this book for students, professionals, and teachers."
—Andrea Kapell Loewy
The book begins with
flexibility exercises. Playing in tune begins with having the ability to easily
bend pitches. Planning to Play in Tune
offers a variety of exercises that will not only develop this flexibility, but
also greatly improve core tone quality. The “Full Spectrum Tone” exercises use
the concepts of polyphonic singing and apply them to flute.
The Just tuning system
is explained in the second section of the book. Learning to hear
difference tones is a key element of playing with excellent intonation in an
ensemble. It begins with exercises that help to zero in on these quiet tones
and progress to using the difference tone as a reference for being in
tune.
A variety of methods of
training ensembles is given in the third section. I use these faithfully
for warming up flute ensembles and find them to be highly effective.
Of course, one the most
difficult aspects of playing in tune involves the use of dynamics. An
entire section of the book is dedicated to progressively mastering the art
of playing in tune when tackling extreme dynamics changes.
The final section applies all the concepts to the famous
flute solo in Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. The harmony is discussed so that flutists
are well-informed of how to listen and adjust pitch while playing with the
orchestra.
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