The practising process    

This page presents parts of the practising process. Here I am exploring the rhetorical figures based on Wilhelm Larsson's storytelling, as well as other storytelling aspects, possible to explore by playing the flute.

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Adding stress through staccato  

Adding stress through a paus

Experimenting with a phrase where short staccato notes are leading to a stressed note, I comment that the phrase "feels conversational, in a good way". 

Continuing with the same phrase from the Sequenza, I speak out a quote of Wilhelm Larsson's before playing, and try emphasizing the staccato and the stress in the same way as he does. It actually seems like such a direct quote can be translated into the flute playing. 

Towards the end of the phrase, there is a tiny gap in between the two last notes, implying a short silence. It is very tricky to "exaggerate a silence", but by acknowledging it is there, and trying to imitate how Wilhelm Larsson pauses before important words, I try to make the most of it.

Long notes, hesitation-noises

Thinking-aloud on the difficulty of phrasing the long notes in a natural way. I am implementing hesitation noise, as Wilhelm Larsson does, and by coincidence, the long notes circle around e, e flat and d, just the same pitches as Larsson has for his hesitation noise too. I decided to try that a long note starts as hesitation noise, then goes into something else. 

Trying to play long notes as hesitation noise again. Listening to this video, to me, it sounds interesting. To interpret long notes as hesitation noise adds meaning to them. 

Here, continuing the interpretation work, I go further in the hesitation noise process. Maybe all this scene is about the long notes adding to a sense of anticipation? The hesitating qualities bring a curiosity of what is coming after. 

Conveying empathy or a pedagogic tone   

 Breathing sounds

The large intervals in the beginning of the phrase, are interpreted by Wilhelm Larsson's "empathetic tone". These large intervals are tricky to execute well on the flute, and interpreting them with empathy in mind is helpful. 

Further, I comment that the outburst following after the long notes follows as a logical continuation, if I get the first phrase to sound super empathetic. 

Continuing the work with the empathetic tone, I tell myself to include the grace note in that character, not to play a fast note harshly, just because it is fast. Here, I experience that the grace note becomes convincing and empathetic.

I remind myself to make use of Wilhelm Larsson's way of taking a loud breath before starting a new part of his storytelling. In between the two phrases in this video, my own loud breath gives a deepened meaning to the breath itself, as well as to the phrase that follows after. 

Imitating other voices

I discovered I had missed an annotation in my score, to imitate other voices as Wilhelm Larsson does. I instruct myself to catch the two voices in the big leaps, where the first person is an engaged speaker, and the second more cautious. When playing the phrase afterwards, I think I have found a way of varying my expression further. 

At this point, I tried implementing Wilhelm Larsson's way of imitating other voices by changing voice range. Here, the pitch range is set in the score, but instead I tried playing with a "dark sound", which I also think made the phrase more convincing.

When scat-singing the phrases, it would just be too difficult to sing the right pitches. But I try "scaffolding" the phrases, and I can see that the scat-singing helps in coming to a storytelling mindset. To fully engage in the scat-singing takes some kind of bravery, and I remember that I at this point during the experiments felt comfortable fully trying. 

When scat-singing the sequence, I remember to bring out the dynamics better. More importantly, without the focus on playing the flute, there seems to be some extra percentage of expressive capacity left.  

Comparing the two editions of the score

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