Flute Candy

This is a fun piece by composer Ian Clarke called Zoom Tube.  It shows off a lot of the interesting extended flute techniques you can use, like singing while playing, air sounds, tongue clicks, etc.  Flutists are pretty versatile! 

Blog Assignment: Eugene Bozza

For my first piece, I decided to write for solo flute. I've never written anything for flute, or any other instrument other than guitar so I looked around for scores and recordings of solo flute pieces to get a slight idea of how it's done. One piece I found was a solo by 20th century composer, Eugene Bozza.

Bozza was born on April 4th, 1905, in France. He studied at the famed Paris Conservatoire, where he learned about composition, violin, conducting and chamber music. He composed many works for woodwind/brass ensembles as well as symphonies, operas and ballets. Although his pieces are rarely performed outside of France, his works for woodwind and brass remain a mainstay in the modern repertoire.

The piece of his that I am looking at is his flute solo "Image." This is a beautiful and well written piece that is actually quite famous amongst flutists. Although it is a tonal piece, there are some sections that are quite dissonant. However, the dissonance, unlike in many pieces, doesn't subtract from the melodic aspects of the song. This helped me to realize that you can be both melodic and dissonant in the same piece. This piece also showed me that the flute sounds good when played both rapidly or slowly as well as the basic range of the instrument. Despite the style of my piece being more baroque-esque, it was still helpful in my understanding of the flute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JYl8UTCNmY