The Magical Flutist by Rehnström

The Magical Flutist – Exercises for Tone and Technique by Katri Rehnström

If you want to buy any flutist you love a book for Christmas, in my opinion, this is the one. Thankyou to Katri for sending me this copy to review!  I've now been working out of this beautiful volume for about a year and every fluteplaying tip work straight off the page like a magical breakthrough to make you hone in on exactly the physical ease you need for effortless and efficient flute technique from breathing to tonguing, from tone quality, to finger work. Have a look at these sample pages to see what I'm talking about: Sample pages here. And visit the book's webpage here.

The book, lovingly written by Katri Rehnström  was inspired by lessons from the Finnish flute pedagogue Rainer Risberg. The aim of the book is to bring the quick tips and exercises immediately into the daily practice of flute intermediates of any age. You can then apply the tips to any and all scales, exercises and passages. I would recommend it for self-teaching adults, amateurs, in lesson exercises for all ages, and especially a great book to use for a summer workshop or series of flute masterclasses.

 Katri's book includes detailed instructions, simple scaler and chromatic exercises, images of various techniques, technical exercises and fun, and easy tips for improving your tone and technique. The exercises have been organized thematically, so that you can customize different practice sessions by choosing a couple of exercises from each chapter as needed. Sample pages here.

I found this book truly fun and engaging. (And I own hundreds of flute books which are not fun and engaging. Notice how I review so few. :>) I also found it refreshing (not least because it is translated from Finnish and brings a fresh flavour to the words) but deeply knowledgeable, and, obviously the culmination of many many years of insightful teaching (Risberg's). He and Katri really comprehend how humans think, play and move when they play the flute musically and beautifully and are able to sum up what is needed in very very few words.

This book is a lot like Wilkinson's "Physical Flute". You get immediate results for every tiny effort because of the great instructions and images. It simply leads you forward. It gives you lasting ideas that allow freedom from physical stress. Your mind just floats through the images and the body responds with the most useful flutey actions. Such a breakthrough. I love working from it. With this on one music stand and a sheaf of beautiful melodies and Bach-like patterns on the other music stand, I could happily improve for the hour without even noticing the time. This is my honest reaction. Delightful!

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Here is a the Book Review from Flute Almanac. And I see that Carla Rees wrote in the Pan Journal in March of 2025, She wrote: "We’ve become so accustomed to books of exercises that are dry and focus on work---this book is something of a breath of fresh air, breathing new life into the fundamentals of our craft and presented in a format which is likely to encourage younger players to build healthy playing habits. Worth exploring. "  -Carla Rees, Pan Journal March 2025

  Katri was also recipient of a global flute excellence award of the year by the Flute Almanac:

Quote:  "Awarded for Creativity and Practicality in Teaching the Flute. "Katri Rehnström’s “The Magical Flutist: Exercises for Tone and Technique” has become a sensation among flutists and educators alike. Her thematic and creative exercises, inspired by Finnish pedagogy, have been heralded as groundbreaking tools for tone and technique. The book’s wide accessibility and global acclaim reflect her ability to translate advanced concepts into user-friendly resources for all levels. Rehnström’s work has brought fresh, imaginative approaches to familiar challenges, inspiring joy and innovation in flute practice worldwide."

Jen continues:

I'd love to take this opportunity to share what Katri wrote to me with some of her thoughts about the book when it first came out. She wrote:

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"Here are some of my thoughts about the contents of my new book:

Sometimes it feels (at least for me at this point), that it's suddenly SO much about getting back to shape and staying in shape. This book, with all its details, gives, for me as well, a chance to "mentally" go back to flute lessons. And I have used it with good results to getting ready for concerts and gigs in relatively short time. 

- One of my colleagues said: "It feels like I'm back in Rainer Risberg's flute lessons." I've always loved being in flute lessons and it was something I didn't want to end. With the help of this book, I was able to save the legacy for myself and also share it with others!

- As a child I loved the material with inspiring pictures that had a connection to the songs and to the things to be practiced.  It supports the technique and keeps the creativity channel open - and it was a lot of fun! As an adult, I have asked, WHY it easily disappears from the teaching material? I think Rainer Risberg knew how to perfectly combine the intelligent work with being able to have fun in practice sessions, also in professional studies. 

- These wise words "time, patience and intelligent work" are essential. But I have thought that when someone has spent enough time and patience, what remains after that, is specifically the intelligent work. This is one reason why the exercises are not written in all keys. Clarity. It saves time and helps to focus on the essential things.

- The exercises are also easy to modify. The same exercise can be played with five notes or it can be expanded throughout the register. However, the basic idea is the same, whether you are a beginner or more advanced. Everybody can quite easily find a connection with nature and birds etc. Suddenly the interpretation is not that difficult anymore. " Katri Rehnström

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So I guess you can tell that I just love this book, use it daily, and recommend it for the flutists nearest you this holiday season. You can buy online at Indigo in Canada, and for all other countries and the U.S. see all the online bookshops here.

Enjoy enjoy! And leave comments if you'd like to add your insights!

Best, Jen

Fabulous Bach Flute Trio BWV 1020

Dear Flute-lovers,

Here is a free gift for all my flutey readers. (So now is a good time to start forming your Fall Flute Trios with all your flute friends and students. :>)

 Here is my very own sheetmusic for the very fabulous J.S. Bach Sonata in G minor,BWV 1020, with two movements arranged for equal flute trio! Download the free pdf of the trio's score and parts for free as a gift from me to you. :>)

And here is a midi recording of the flute trio: listen here.

Oh wow, is this trio fun to play! It's for intermediate students to professionals. The Adagio is the easier of the two movements. This is the kind of music especially useful for flute chamber groups created by overlapping lessons, with two equal students and one teacher. But. at home alone, it is just as fun to play any of the three parts along with a professional recording of the G minor sonata's second and third movements, (see below for the Galway recordings). I mean, you really get to know a piece of Bach well when you play each of the voices, one by one, effortlessly and silkily diving and weaving through the other two voices. It's so so fun! I love it the most when all the parts are equal like this.

 I was inspired to arrange good quality trios for equal players due to several real-life reasons:

1. There are very few excellent published flute trios when you've already played all the good ones!

This void in the repertoire can affect the choice of pieces for a dedicated trio who've been playing together for more than a year or two. So we flute-lovers all have to write and arrange our own to fill the void in the repertoire, I think. And there's tons of gorgeous music in public domain. I will try and share more of the trios I've arranged from that source in the coming months, all for free! I had so much fun arranging and playing it! I use a multi-track recorder and record all three parts. Tell me if you need to know more in the comments. Excellent fun!

2. When you have two flute students who can overlap their lessons you can really enrich their lives with chamber music of high quality such as trios. I utilized the final 15 minutes of student A's hour long lesson and the first 15 minutes of student B's lesson to give a full 30 minutes of chamber music to both of their weekly visits. It is super fun and inspiring for the students and creates real incentive to practice and prepare!! Trios are the answer for harmonic thrills when you've been playing alone for so long during the week of practice. The addition of vertical harmony makes it sound like an orchestra of flutes and all three are learning to imitate, play articulations identically, and perfect their intonation (much easier if they've prepared using backing tracks, midi, or pro-recordings.)

 I sent along links to these Galway recordings when I was inspiring students to play with style and virtuosity, but do suggest your own fave recordings of this sonata too. Surely there are some wonderful ones I haven't heard yet.

Galway plays the BWV 1020 Adagio (video)

Galway plays the third movement Allegro of BWV 1020 (video)

3. It's always far more interesting for each player when the three parts of a Trio are truly equal so that each player can shine, so I particularly prefer arrangements where the flutists share the lead melody and equally share the bass lines and interior parts. That way each learns to accompany as well as to take the solo with conviction. Everyone can learn, by ear, from hearing everyone else play the material presented by the trio, and the true skills of ensemble playing are explored: how to blend, how to phrase, how to imitate, how to play truly together. And no one is left with a boring part to practice all week (I find that boring 3rd flute parts rarely get practiced by students, but thrilling equal parts played along with backing tracks or pro-recordings make a student massively practice!)

So for these three reasons, I'm sharing my equal trios with you all.

So enjoy this free JS Bach Trio sheetmusic! I love this G minor as a trio so much. It honestly plays itself!

All best,

Jen Cluff

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Other trios Jen recommends: Zempleni, Sandra Howard, McGuire, Casterade, Boismortier's.

Trios Jen has written for sale if you need more for gigs:

Celtic Suites for three equal flutes

Christmas Trios for three equal flutes

Wrong note in BWV 1013?

 Dear flute-lovers,

Did anyone else enjoy the online discussion about a possible note error in the Allemande of the Unaccompanied Sonata in A minor by J.S. Bach BWV 1013? I loved that convo! It brought out my Hercule Poirot! 

Follow the crazed path of googling, and then enjoy my True-life story (below) about playing the piece for the first time. Happy reading and spoiler alert, there's no errata; it's an F-natural.

 The email conversation started like this (I'm paraphrasing each emailer):

click on jpgs to enlarge them

Flutist A: My flute student is playing an F-natural in the fourth beat of bar 17 of the Allemande after he has prepared the work while listening to Emmanuel Pahud's youtube recording. I've always played an F# on the fourth beat, second 16th. There are quality editions in print that contain either note. Which is correct?

Flutist B: I've always played the F# as found in the Rampal recording and in his edition. To my ear it has always sounded far more pleasant than the F-natural and I believe it to be the best sounding version of the harmonies in question. Growing up hearing it, my ear just loves it better!

Flutist C: Looking at Bach's original manuscript I see that it does look like an F-sharp, and that might have confused earlier interpreters. In Bach's time every accidental had to be marked separately, so this note must be an F-natural as the previous accidental just doesn't carry through the bar as it does in modern scores.

Flutist D: Wasn't there an interesting story I read somewhere about a two different copyists who changed out right at the half-way point in the Allemande, and one of them wrote some note mistakes that are visible in the score? (NB: red herring as the visibly corrected mistakes happen after measure 17.)

click on jpgs to enlarge them

Flutist E: And of course, in music history at this time there are no "Classical Harmony Rules", as this is the early 1700s and no such rules yet exist. J.S. Bach is inventing what we think of as "rules" as he is writing ground breaking stuff.

Flutist F: In my edition my teacher wrote years ago that the F-natural is correct because it matches a transposition of the identical measure 41 in which the same note is definitely marked correctly as a B-flat in Bach's manuscript:

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Well there you have it. It was sitting on page two this whole time staring at us. 

An exact transposition in measure 41. (or bar 42 if your edition is numbered differently).

Do I ever feel stupid for staring at measure 17 and googling my face off finding all the above links and enlarging hard-to-read copies of the original manuscript when I could have just read the urtext sheetmusic in a quiet room to measure 41 without a computer, and figured it out myself.  Oh deary me.

 But meanwhile I did play through all these versions of measure 17 to figure out why the note F-natural would have been Bach's actual choice (as it does sound less sweet than the F-sharp at first), and here are all the great things that I came up with for your ear's amusement. The top line is the original and the bottom line is the simplification (play on piano or flute):

1. The delicious chromatics in bar 17's first beats (I love them!):

click on jpgs to enlarge them

2. The descending scale in the soprano:

3. The two note chords on each eighth note whose sequence beautifully frame the upcoming cadence in E minor (play on piano to hear the pure beauty):

click on jpgs to enlarge them

And who does not love a minor second rising in an inner voice, right?

Wow! Just look at all the thing Bach is doing in that measure 17, holy smokes it's incredible! Here they are, all at once:

click on jpgs to enlarge them

After playing through all the above my ear did think the F-natural sounded "right" at last. :>)

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True Life Story

I have never performed the Allemande of BWV 1013 as an adult because of a slightly scary memory from when I was fourteen years old. I was a highschool flute player who'd been playing for three years. I'd never had a flute lesson with a actual flute teacher nor did I own any flute sheetmusic (and to tell you the truth, my notation reading was seriously sketchy). 

Our band teacher told us in September that this was the year when each of us would have to perform for the class at the end of the Fall term, a solo written for our instrument. 

I was panic stricken;  where would I find a solo? (And how could I avoid having to play with a pianist who'd cost money and require rehearsals?) 

My friend the Oboe player said "No problem, we'll just go to the Municipal Music Library and borrow some sheetmusic to try out." I was astonished. I didn't know there was a music library. She took me there and I borrowed the only unaccompanied flute solo I could find. It was by J.S. Bach and was the unaccompanied A minor Sonata. But it was the Recorder transcription in C minor. (Little did I realize this was not the original key.)

 Well I practiced the opening two page Allemande more than any other piece of music I had ever practiced before. But when it came to the performance in December that year, although I started out with a bang, the nerves hit just about a third of the way through and I started to tremble and shake, yet boldly played on.

 By the end of the Allemande I was so shaky with adrenalin that I felt I were losing control of my legs. Knee vibrato! The worst way to shake!! I ran from the band room in tears. I felt I had failed completely because of the physical weirdness of my performance. That's what being fourteen is all about. Unfortunately it precluded me ever wanting to play the Allemande again.

 Anyway, that's my story of playing in the wrong key (who knew?) and the reason why I was seldom attracted to that movement when it came around in University. For one thing, I probably subconsciously preferred the key of C-minor as it was slightly easier to make sound brilliant! For another I now knew how difficult the piece truly was to play well!  And let's not even mention the breathing questions. hahahahhaaa..hahhaaaHAHAHAHA oops! *hic!*

Hope you enjoyed this J.S. Bach errata in BWV 1013 question adventure. 

And I hope my blog readers are happy with the substack subscribe which is new.

Blog posts will appear in both places. Comments truly welcome!

I'd love to hear everyone's take on this Allemande BWV 1013 and the first time they played it!

Best, Jen

Dude! I am substackin'! :>D

 Dear Flute-lovers,

 Happy August to everyone. I am back from holidays and have started to update my technological grasp of the flutey universe!  I am substackin' it dude! :>D

I had been using a blog-subscriber service called "follow-it" on the right side-bar here. But it was annoyingly creeping up the re-directing and blatant advertising and in July I asked my subscribers what subscription service would be better, and now I can offer the best substitute.

Substack is just like Blogger and you do not have to subscribe (click on "Not now") to just go through that to all the articles that will appear there. And it is free. I like it because has a  easy format to use, an app for your phone and a straightforward subscription email service for making sure you see all my flutey posts. Check my "blog welcome" out over there to see a sample.

And all my future flute blog posts will appear in both places. 

The blog index will still be updated.

I will never charge subscribers and I do not intend to monetize. So you don't need to donate or do anything like that. Nothing will change really. If you've bookmarked this blog, it will still be current. So for as long as it holds up as Blogger, I'll be posting at both places (about once a month).

If you want to subscribe to the Substack version of this blog, and unsubscribe from follow-it here's all the information:

Go to my substack and subscribe or use the right side bar or above Substack button to get emailed every blog-post as I publish them. (And one bonus is that Substack you can leave comments and questions!)

If you had previously subscribed to Follow-it, and you're reading this in your inbox, their emails have an unsubscribe at the bottom of each one. (This email should have it too). Use that to unsubscribe from the follow-it ad-filled version of this blog, and you're done! Let's leave that service in the dust. As we used to say as kids: " How ruuuude!! "

Hope this works out for everyone!

I have a new flutey post this weekend and it will appear in both places.

All best, Jen

Piccoloist knows when to solo!

 Dear Flutelovers,

I've been on holiday for a few weeks, but am swooping in with a great little movie from the early 1950s. The piccolo player is always the wisest person in the room, don't you agree? (or at least they know when to take a solo!)

Enjoy! And if anyone out there has a flutey question, please ask!!

Best, Jen

I feel stupid (when I face challenges)

Dear Flutelovers,

Terri Sanchez has written a great piece over at The Flute Examiner on creating better practicing mind-cycles:

Quote:

"Vicious to Virtuous: On Creating Better Practice Cycles 

by Dr. Terri Sánchez June 26, 2025 

There’s a little sign that I love, on my office door (snip) that says:

“This is too hard” is often a disguise for “I don’t want to put in the time it requires to accomplish this.” Similarly, “I don’t want to put in the time” is often a cover up for “I feel stupid when I face the challenges instead of ignoring them.”

The incredible irony is that “I feel stupid” comes from “this is too hard” which comes from “I don’t want to put in the time” which comes from “I feel stupid” … It’s a vicious cycle that is NOT EVEN REAL. 

Because no musical passage is ever too fast or too difficult when approached with...."

....continue reading here.

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I super enjoyed reading what Terri has to say. She understands the topics she writes about deeply and her writing is so on topic and concise. Love it.

This week I also became aware of AI songwriting as two local businesses put out fun, informative songs this week, and it stunned me as a musician. It's so easy to write a compelling song now, using software, you just put in the lyrics and choose a template. Anyone can do it.

If musicians are not needed in the job force, what will we do with all the expertise in training musicians that we've accumulated as the human race? Hmmm?

These are interesting times indeed!

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On a second topic: I'd like your input. The subscription-feed I'm using is called "Follow It" and it's supposed to just send you an email whenever I post to my blog. Well oh dear... I'm finding that they've pulled the old bait-and-switch and are now redirecting subscribers to a more advertisement-filled format, and not directly to my blog.

 If you despise this practice (as I do) and can suggest a better company to use to alert subscribers to fresh and new blog posts, do please let me know in the comments. Thanks so much. 

Eek. I hate ads!!

Alternately, if you don't find the adverts annoying and it's okay by you as a subscriber, feel free to comment also. Thanks again for input.

Update: August 21/25 : This blog also appears now on Substack!!  Thanks everyone for commenting and helping out!

Jen

Unforgettable Music Teachers

 Dear Flute lovers,

 I'm still loving this  Jeremy Denk article in the New Yorker about his piano teachers when he was young and the fantastic drawings one of his earliest teacher put into his lesson notebook each week. Read this fun piece here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/08/every-good-boy-does-fine

To see his actual piano lesson notebook, watch the video here: Video at the NewYorker

Quote: 

" (My piano teacher) Leland’s notebook is surprisingly visual. In place of the paste-on stars used by piano teachers everywhere, Leland drew stars by hand, giving nuance to his praise: sometimes the stars were beaming with pride, sporting halos or crowns; sometimes they had sidelong glances, to reflect mitigated success; some stars were amputees, and limped on crutches; and sometimes things were so generally disappointing that he drew a slug, or a caterpillar, or even, on one terrible occasion, a toilet. There were other artistic annotations, such as a drawing of a large check from the Screwball Bank of West Burlap, dated April 7, 1981, and made out to me for a million dollars: I had at last remembered to play a correct F-sharp in place of an erroneous F-natural.

On a typical page of the notebook (March 12, 1981), Leland writes, “Scale practice is getting sloppy.” He suggests practicing scales in a series of rhythms—eighth notes, triplets, sixteenths—and urgently switches to capitals: “USE METRONOME.” This heartless device is invoked constantly: “Metronome! You need an outside policeman every time the inner policeman breaks down”; “Use Metroyouknowwhat”; and on and on. Anyone who has taken music lessons knows the indignity of emulating a machine until every last human vagary vanishes. The clicking monster was also part of Leland’s cunning scheme to prevent me from playing everything as fast as I possibly could. In response to my performance of William Gillock’s “Forest Murmurs,” Leland writes, “Forest Murmurs, not Forest Fire!” Below a carefully drawn portrait of a sullen Beethoven saying, “Man muss zufrieden sein! (One must be happy!),” he complains that my tempo “sounds like a Hell’s Angels motorcycle race.” At the bottom of another page, there is a “Quote of the Week”—“It’s amazing what you can do when you go slower!”—attributed to me in the act of discovering this brilliant truth."

Enjoy,

Best, Jen