Hello there! My name is Alexandra Langley, but you can call me Ally. Welcome back to my Flute Website. More importantly, welcome back to my Flute Blog, "Secrets from a Flutist". This is the place where I will share my flute secrets, musician insights, and fun stories from my life with all of you!
As I said before, welcome back to my blog. In today’s story, I am going to talk about my first flute (or should I say Piccolo) competition since 2016. I’m going to talk about my experiences preparing for it, why I decided to do it, my results, and what I’ve learned from it. Without further adieu, let’s go.
Back in January 2021, the San Diego Flute Guild started sharing information for the annual Spring Festival. This is a flute festival full of workshops, competitions, masterclasses, and exhibitions for all ages and skill levels. This year’s festival was entirely virtual due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. When the competition information was revealed, I was interested in participating. They had a Young Artist Flute Competition, Orchestral Excerpt Division, Piccolo Division, and different level festival divisions available. As I looked through the available competitions, I knew I wanted to participate in at least one division. Aside from the excitement, I also had a bit of doubt. I hadn’t done a competition since my senior year in high school back in 2016. From my last competition, I won the Gold Award in the 12th Grade Flute Division at the 2016 San Diego Flute Guild Spring Festival. I did well, but I still didn’t feel ready to compete again. In my 5 year hiatus from flute competitions, I didn’t feel confident in my flute skills as well as I struggled with new mental hurdles. All these factors instilled a fear in me that I couldn’t stand up or hold my own against other flutists competing. Therefore, I stepped away from competing until I reached a healthier mindset and improved my skills. Well five years later, I successfully graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree in Flute Performance from UNT and regained my confidence and love for performing as a musician. Considering this new factor of confidence, I decided to go for the Young Artist Flute Competition and the Piccolo Specialty Competition!
The competitions have been decided. I knew I had until early March to learn, record, and submit the pieces for the competitions. For the Young Artist Competition Preliminary Round, they required the Paganini Tango Etude No.2 and the J.S. Bach Partita in A Minor, Mvmts 3 and 4. For the Piccolo Competition, I chose the Persichetti Parable XII for Solo Piccolo. I had to create an effective plan in order to learn these pieces in a timely manner while on a deadline.
-Step 1: Finger through the music without playing slowly and find the scale/arpeggio patterns.
-Step 2: Play through the piece slowly and find the difficult spots.
-Step 3: Break down the piece in chunks to learn the difficult passages and get into your fingers.
-Step 4: Add the details: dynamics, directions, nuances, character, etc,
-Step 5: Perform the piece and sing your heart out!
After I recorded the audio files of these pieces, I sent them in with my applications for the competitions. I didn’t get my hopes up just in case I didn’t make it past the preliminary round. Once early March ruled around, I received initial results. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it past the preliminary round for the Young Artist Competition, which I was disappointed but still proud of myself for taking the chance. However, I was in the running for the Piccolo Competition. The coordinator explained in the email that I will hear official results no later than March 23rd (the weekend of the virtual festival). I was proud of what I prepared for the division but still didn’t get my hopes up just in case.
March 25th: I received an email from the SDFG coordinator with the Piccolo Division results. This was a big moment! How did I do in my first competition back? I opened the email to see these magical words: “Congratulations! You have received the 2nd Prize in the Piccolo Specialty Division!” I couldn’t believe it! My hard work paid off because I placed high in my first competition back! I felt confident in my performance of the Persichetti for the competition, but I was honored to hear the judges loved it too. In my comment sheets, the judges praised my tone, vibrato, musicality, and singing qualities. Improvements I can work on are pitch. My high register did shoot towards the sharp side (which is understandable because the venue I recorded in was hot). It’s a critique I can work on. Overall, I’m very honored to have impressed the judges, performed my heart out, and earned 2nd place in the 2021 SDFG Piccolo Specialty Competition!
Important lessons I’ve learned from this experience: don’t be afraid to take a chance. Create a strategy that is effective and productive to achieve your goal. Perform your heart out when recording the piece. If there’s a challenge that scares you or makes you doubt, grab it by the horns and go for it! Why? Because you never know what could happen. I want to thank everybody at the San Diego Flute Guild for holding the festival this year. Thank you to the judges for your comments and for seeing my passion in my performance. Thank you to my family, best friend, and friends for supporting me as I prepared for this moment. I’m proud of doing well in my first competition in 5 years. I am ready to take on another competition!
This concludes my competition victory and lessons. Thank you so much for reading. I hope you learned something new from me through my experience. Let me know how you approach competitions and what you’ve learned from this. Any victories? Any lessons? I'd love to know! Please subscribe to my blog to read new secrets from this flutist! I will see you next time!
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