Flute Etudes

During the almost two decades I devoted to being a flutist I spent thousands of hours practicing flute etudes. Even though I know that flute playing really should be done by people for whom it really is their voice, there is a part of that period of my life that I still embrace.

I do, for example, love writing for the instrument, and I particularly love it when something I write is played by a honest-to-goodness great flutist. I have been fortunate to have known many.

When I was asked to write a group of flute etudes for the Illinois Music Teachers Association last February, I shamelessly "asked" for my highest ideals of flute playing, while trying to make the music accessible enough to be played and understood by high school flutists.

I just came across these video recordings made by Jonathan Keeble, the flute professor at the University of Illinois (and sometimes principal flutist in the Champaign Urbana Symphony Orchestra), and after hearing him play the two "senior" etudes, the flutist's heart that beat in my heart through much of my teens and all of my twenties is still a-flutter.