As the year draws to a close, we’d love to share our flute adventures from 2023 with you!

In the fall semester, we experimented with a group format that made it possible to work together in a way we hadn’t before.

So, below you’ll find two kinds of offerings: our usual solos plus collaborative group pieces.

We hope you’ll enjoy our work!

Intermediate/Advanced Group: Childgrove

Here’s a truly collaborative offering! We learned about chords and how to choose notes that could act as an accompaniment to the melody, and then partnered up to create two different takes on the same tune. Bridget explained, “It was super fun to come up with our own chords and collaborate with a partner in dividing up the song to know when we wanted to trade off the melody and harmonies. It was cool to hear how it came together!” Audrey agreed: “I like doing the chords in the background and trying to improvise with the melody!” Avery described how this active process had memory-related benefits: “The notes we picked feel more drilled into my brain. I remember them more than the melody!”

(Original arrangement of an English Morris dance tune from the late 1600s)

Michael, age 8: Hot Cross Buns

“I heard the flute and it was my favorite instrument before I even played it. I just thought it was cool. I knew how to play Hot Cross Buns on the ukulele and I thought it was weird that I had only played it for one week but I still didn’t know how to play it on the flute. So I learned it and we recorded it. On the ukulele, you only need two fingers, but on the flute you have to use three fingers. That might not sound like a big difference, but it is.”

(Original arrangement of an English street cry (Roud 13029))

Sophie, age 10: Russian Folk Dance

“I used to play piano with Lisa. Now, years later, I’m playing the flute. This song is one that I played with myself, because I used my old piano recording! Flute is better than piano, because with piano you have to move your hands so much. With flute, each finger is designated to a key so you don’t have to keep moving them across the whole keyboard.”

(Trad. Russian (“Во поле береза стояла”/”Beriozka”/”In the Field Stood a Birch Tree”) in Faber, My First Piano Adventure, Book B, pp. 32-33)

Hannah, age 10: Jingle Bells

“I chose this song because we recorded it right before Thanksgiving! I learned it for a band concert at my school. I changed the rhythm of my song a little bit from the sheet music. I hadn’t recorded before but it’s interesting. It’s like you can mix different instruments to make it sound better. If you hear yourself playing or after you finish, you can really tweak what you’re doing.”

(Original arrangement of a song by James Lord Pierpont, written in 1850 and published in 1857 to celebrate Thanksgiving (remember this to win at trivia!))

Beginning Group: Hey, Ho, Nobody Home

For this one, we repurposed a backing track that Lisa created for an Instagram post awhile back. Learning this beautiful round was a great challenge for our beginning players who had begun just weeks earlier! They rose to the occasion admirably. Sophie enjoyed the process of recording with a reverb plugin: “It felt odd because of the mysterious-sounding accompaniment. It made it sound like you were in the void!”

(Original arrangement of a traditional English melody found in Ravenscroft’s Pammelia (1609))

Charlotte, age 13: Winder Wie Ist (Winter, Now Your End is Near)

“I like the flute because it’s portable and sounds really nice. The sound has more power when we doubled my part on the recording. Plus I like how we added the drums. In school band we play a lot of ’80s songs, but here in flute lessons we play songs from the 1180s!”

(Original arrangement of a 12-century German melody by Neidhart “von Reuenthal”)

Bridget, age 16: The Road Goes Ever On and On

“For awhile there I was really in a folk song-ish mood, and I really liked the idea of a song in a walking beat. I love The Lord of the Rings and feel like it has really satisfying songs that feel very complete and serene. The sound of the flute is what keeps me playing. Obviously every instrument has its own sound, but the flute has its own vibe. I think it’s so pretty.”

(Original arrangement of Howard Shore’s rendition of a J.R.R. Tolkien song; take a deep dive into the many versions here and here)

Avery, age 17: Looking at a Rainbow through a Dirty Window

“The whole tone or feeling at the beginning of this song sounds different than at the middle. The beginning sounds more peaceful and calming, and the middle almost sounds darker, a bit, but not quite. It’s still relaxing, just slightly more serious.”

(Original arrangement of a traditional Scottish tune by Calum Stewart)

Audrey, age 17: Drömmen

“People should listen to this song when they want to feel peaceful. It’s so relaxing! I worked hard on getting the breaths in the right spots and keeping the tempo steady.”

(Original arrangement of a traditional Swedish tune by Göran “Freddy” Fredriksson)

Everyone: Gånglåt från Östfold

Lisa was deeply fortunate to attend the second Scanian Folk Flute Workshop in Sweden over the summer, and she brought back this beautiful bridal march to share with everyone. It was the perfect song to share with the full studio, since Andreas Ralsgård’s brilliant arrangement had “puzzle pieces” at all levels! We recorded these components individually and Lisa edited them together, a process Michael was familiar with: “I’ve used GarageBand to make beats. I could be in America and someone could be in China, and we could make a song together!” The intermediate/advanced group learned the melody plus ornaments completely by ear, a complex process that demands skills not often developed until college. Audrey shared, “I like all the ornaments. I play it at school when we have 5 minutes at the beginning of class to put our instruments together.”

(A traditional Swedish tune, with our adaptation of Andreas Ralsgård’s arrangement taught at the Scanian Folk Flute Workshop in Summer 2023)

...plus, here’s a holiday encore!

Beginning Group with Intermediate/Advanced Guests: Carol of the Bells

We didn’t intend to record this one, but sometimes music happens without being planned! Lisa shared the famous first four notes with the beginning group, and then our intermediate and advanced players filled in a few spots with tricky fingerings. Avery enjoyed the process: “I think it’s cool that everyone is doing something on this. It’s like a collaboration of everybody.” And Charlotte added, “I like how it’s like this big collage with everyone doing it!” It’s definitely a multilayered track. In fact, if you listen with headphones on, you can hear the players switch off with each other!

(Original arrangement of Shchedryk, a traditional Ukranian song for New Year’s composed by Mykola Leontovych in 1914, and adapted for Christmas by Peter Wilhousky in 1936)