Hi All,

I love my flute, I love exams, but recently I found it really hard to even practice. In case I do push myself to do it, its like pulling teeth.

I know, I am somewhat a perfectionist, and what I really wanted to achieve was to get even with my actual playing standard and the exams. I am still far from achieving it, but I am getting closer. In a couple of days/weeks I will have my Grade 3 exam and in March I will do Grade 4. But I already have decided that I will take it a lot slower from there. Only one exam per year. And I am still not sure whether or not that will be slow enough. But I certainly aim for the teaching diploma, so I should get going.

Recently, I was very very busy. I guess I haven't been at home on any weekend within the last three months. And the two I were at home were so full with work that I hardly enjoyed any of it. Juggling with too many issues. And finally, something was lost on the way. And I hate to say it, but that seems to be my joy to play the flute. I never ever had any issues before with playing my 1 1/2 - 2 hours a day. I was very careful to carefully plan and protect that time. Now, when I have that time, I prefer to lie in bed and sleep.

I think, it might get better with all other issues after the Grade 3 exam, but I am not yet sure.

Any ideas, thoughts?

Lemontree

Sounds like you're a busy person! I find that doing too much can really take away the joy I get out of doing things. Maybe, after your exam, you should take a brief break? Put down your flute, don't make yourself play if you don't want to, and only pick it up when you miss it and really want to play it. For someone who sounds like they love their instrument very much, you probably won't last more than a week. And when you get fed up just take a break for a few days. I find that sometimes it actually helps when I'm learning pieces, it gives my brain time to rewire and reinterpret the music I'm playing.

It also sounds like to me that you're planning to take every exam grade by grade. Depending on the person, I wouldn't say that's always the best thing to do! I've been playing the piano for a long time and took it one grade at a time, but I've only been playing clarinet for 4 years and only ever took 2 exams: grade 5 in my second year and grade 8 in my fourth. As you can see, it saved me a lot of time, and because I was progressing fast, the "learn technique and not cram exam pieces" strategy really paid off. Nowadays I actually enjoy clarinet more!

So that's just my two cents. I hope the all goes well with your flute though, especially the exam - good luck!

Be kind to yourself. Play for enjoyment and if your ready to take an exam then do so. No point making playing the flute a pressure and a chore. And give yourself time for relaxation with or without the flute.

Keep talking and smiling

As someone who has taught many children the piano I have observed that over practising can send the student "over the top" and it is often a good policy to take some time off and be more relaxed. Also, your mind will often subconsciously mull over any difficulties making them much less of a problem on your return to playing.

Good luck and don't push too hard!!

It sounds as if you're physically and mentally exhausted, Lemontree, and it's not surprising that you can't rake up the enthusiasm to play your flute in the way you used to. I've recently been in that situation myself, and like you, I've slowed down my progress and adjusted my expectations in order not to put myself under more pressure. The good news is that although I hardly touched my clarinet over the summer, when I came to play it again a few weeks ago, I hadn't forgotten everything as I feared and in fact I could play everything virtually as well as before. I couldn't play for as long as before because my embouchure had slackened, but I'm getting it back and at least my fears that I might have forgotten the fingerings and the notes proved completely groundless. But my previous goal of doing Grade 5 has been shelved for the time being, and after some initial sadness at giving up that goal in the short term, I'm enjoying just playing the music I like and spending some time on the plateau enjoying the view.

I'm sure your love of playing the flute will come back when you're feeling less exhausted. Give it time, and if you have other priorities at the moment, don't beat yourself up over it. Be kind to yourself, and have faith that your flute will call to you when you are ready

Motivation not only affects musicians but sportsman and even academics at times. Anything repetitive can and does become just drudgery at times. Something that helped me was finding a small group of people to play with. Just saw a note in the local music shop. It's nothing special, just a bunch of similar standard musos getting together once a week. It has been enormous fun and after the initial stress of meeting them and playing for/with them I realised that they weren't examiners just like minded people who wanted to enjoy their instruments. Certainly helped me and I love getting the flute out on a Wednesday night and tooting along. Maybe you could find some local people to play along with? Put an ad up yourself if you have to. The plus is you will also meet some new friends
Don

Why not put down the exam music, pop on down to the local music shop/library and pick out something you'd really love to play, and learn it because you want to. If nothing enthuses you then it's time to take time out, but hopefully something will grab you.

There is absolutely no need to take every exam, you may well progress even faster by playing broad repertoire rather than getting bogged down in preparing examination pieces to perfection.

You can be a perfectionist at technique, not outcome - it doesn't matter if that piece isn't ready for a recital, did you or didn't you learn the new tounging pattern/breathing technique/chromatic work/alternative fingering/tonal quality you learned the piece for? If you can tick off yes I learned that, then don't push the pieces to be perfect in every other way, move onwards and upwards. You might very quickly get demoralised on a restricted repertoire of exam exam exam, it's like eating only potatoes, they have their place in a balanced diet but you can't live on only spuds. It doesn't mean you are putting off grade 5 even later, just that you might find by the time you are ready for another exam it's grade 6, maybe even 7. Just make sure you keep your scales and theory ticking over so that if you do get a pleasant surprise like that you aren't hit by that theory brick wall that so many people run into.

It's horrible when that happens, isn't it? I know I probably can't really match the life of an adult in business, because it all gets much more serious then, but a couple of weeks ago I was pretty damn busy, and found it hard to find time to even open my flute case, let alone play it!

Plus, I wasn't really interested in it, and felt like I could do better things with my time. So I gave it a break. Then when I had more time, fell back in love with it hahaa, I basically listened to loads of flutey things on youtube, picked my faves, then searched the shops for them.

Sorry for going on and on, but maybe try to play the flute for playing the flute, instead of trying to muscle through each exam. I've learned on these forums that music really isn't about exams! Sure, exams might be good to push you, and have something to aim towards, and give you some sort of level, but really, if you're finding them hard work, then push them to the side for a bit. That way you won't necessarily feel that stressed about meeting "deadlines".

Also, why go through all of the lower grades? I know, it's kind of bad of me... but I've skipped grades, I went from 0-3, then 3-5 in a year, and it hasn't seemed to have done me any worse, if anything it's been better because I don't have to go through all the boring lower graded things. So maybe play the things you like for a while, and when you have more time, work on your technique, then if your teacher thinks you're ready, jump in at the deep end and see what happens what's the worst thing that could?

I know exactly where you're coming from over motivation, or even the will to play. In March this year I decided I'd had enough of the playing side, the drudgery of rehearsals, the repetition of things I could already play...and even stuff I was trying to learn!

But I've now realised that taking a step back is a good thing. I've got a lot of ongoing personal issues to deal with at the moment and the pressure of playing would only make everything a lot worse. In many ways, these lapses in our desire are a good thing, a way of telling us we need to review what we are doing in our lives.

Don't fight it or try to force yourself. Taking stock of things has to be done from time to time and a change of direction - whether temporary or permanent - is often what's needed.