when you're practising your flute, what daily routines do you swear by ?

Do you feel you must do all your scales ?
Do you spend half an hour doing studies ?
Do you spend ages and ages on long notes ?
Do you do all of the above before you start playing pieces ?

angie x

I do a few long tones first and then I cheat and go to the fun stuff. I am not really goal orientated when it comes to the flute much anymore.

Can you believe I am still up? :O I really need some sleep. ZZZZZ...

<Added>

Hey Ange.. you are right, that post is gone!

routines?! :O

ok, maybe this is why I am not taking lessons!

I'm not structured or disciplined enough to have a routine per-se! Is that a bad thing?!

I do find myself doing a couple of basic scales to warm my fingers up, and a few long notes to warm myself and my flute up. (living in the England, EVERYTHING is cold!!)

Other than that, which only takes 5 or 10 minutes, I leap straight in to play!

well i'm really not that organized during practices.

but just like kara, i also do some long notes first to condition myself for playing, and then i'd start doing the practices and play some of my favorite pieces.
when i get tired i'd play in random...some kiddie stuff! lol!

----kishi

Do you feel you must do all your scales ?

No but generally I try to.

Do you spend half an hour doing studies ?

More. Yesteraday it was about 2 hours doing them. I had a long break at the store.

Do you spend ages and ages on long notes ?

If you mean De La Sonorite, I try to practice a few exercises from this book but definately not the same ones. As Sir James Galway said about it. It was something like, "Why have the mind wander to the accompaniment of a long note."

Do you do all of the above before you start playing pieces ?

No. Routines lead to wandering minds. Not good for learning. They develop a habit of not playing with good and careful attention.

I have plenty of things that I can practice for daily studies, exercises and pieces. It one gets boring or I feel that I've worked it to the max, then I move on.
~Bilbo
N.E. Ohio

Thanks guys, that's interesting to know, i look at the scale studies and just think how tedious they are, i play my scales, work on about 3 different studies that each have different aspects of playing, like double tongue, high octave, finger work, then i will have a go at something i know is difficult but i really want to play it, and then after that i'll play something easy so that i can enjoy it.

The reason i asked you all what you do, is that i wanted to know if i was doing my practise the right way, if infact there is a right way, and it seems that my practise is not so dissimilar to yours which has made me happy

thanks xx

<Added>

can i also say hello and welcome to fluffy x

I should do my routines, scales and so on.

But right now I am fully concentrated on two pieces, one for my student "concer" on Friday 9 and the other, more demanding, to play with a Basoon friend by end of June. So I have good excuses...

Hey, Lera, I've been reading the other's posts having a go at you, and they've made me curious, so please don't consider this an attack, but if your spelling is so poor, and you don't have a spell checker, how is it that you manage to spell words like "articulation" and "interpretation" properly but cannot spell "through" or "every?" It boggles the mind (mine at least!)

Lera's first language is not English and, I presume, struggles with those words which are not spelled phonetically.

Could be, but with only a partial understanding of English, and spelling phonetically I would expect something like "artikulashun" or "enterpritashun" to result...Maybe not though...

Lera,
Good move, the Rubank Advanced method does have a good plan for what to practice of it's used. One thing I should mention is that it is good to practice a few of the areas with not just what's assigned.

1)Scales, Practice, revies all of them sometimes. If you practice just one or two scales, you stay in one tonality for a few weeks and then never see it again. Best to review and/or try a new one.

2)Same for the Articulation section. They are neat little mini-etudes that can and should be reviewed. Imagine if your teacher assigned one in the future and you already know how to play it well. & don't forget the double and triple tonguing pages. The may never ger assigned.

3)And then there's the one page of individual finger exercises. Always do three or four of those. They can really help if you focus and listen to your changes. Don't avoid the hard ones or the ones that you don't like. They may be the most beneficial.

The advanced method is soo much more fun than the Intermediate. eh?
~Bilbo
N.E. Ohio

I practiced this morning as I always do, like a menu:

started today with all major scales, one of the patterns from taffanel-gaubert studies

then exercise #4 from Flutists Formulae by Barrere in all the harmonic minors

then melodies in about 8 different keys, did the 3rd mvt of JS Bach eminor sonata today

technique exercises (email me for details)

apreggios in 7ths from Taffanel-Gaubert

Ist half of second mvt of JS Bach CM sonata in 8 different keys

then spent some time working on Carmen Fantasy by Borne which I have to perform next month

this all took 2 hours and is typical of how I practice each day, i just do a different scale patterns each day and I do the above in different order

"I always Rewew What I lerned in Priviouse lessons at least ones a week.
(Thet might explain why I practice 1-2 hours a day.
And might Go up to 4 hours."

Well Lera,
That's a very good way to do it. I would bounce around those three sections that I mentioned. THey are all good to practice unless you don't understand something in them.

~Bilbo
N.E. Ohio

Patrick, is that picture of you recent? You look so young and so unflautist-like.

Lera, is that Rubank Advanced Method fun to learn & practice? It's just that I am almost finishing my Trevor Wye's Omnibooks and my teacher said that it is advisable to continue on the Trevor Wye's Book 6- Advance level. We are also using another collection which belongs to him. I browsed the former and I find it a bit too serious, so I am looking for a new book.

Tessa, that pic is from a CD from a few years ago