STANDING
If you'd like to try something different than what you might be doing, read on. Contrary to what seems natural to do, try the following instead of standing parallel to the music stand:

Have your left foot in front of the music stand and have the right foot further back, in the angle you see in the photo here. Now feel how you can shift your weight either forward onto the left foot, or back on the right foot. So now we're able to move by shifting our weight like this and maintain a feeling of groundedness and stability at the same time, without feeling stuck. Try to let much of your weight fall onto your feet and lower legs, thus the knees slightly bent. Let everything drop downwards, avoid locking your knees straight since that'll pull tension upwards.

Feel the contact of your feet and toes with the ground, imagine they go even underground like a tree with deep roots spread underneath, so that your weight/tension is evenly spread. This is why I could never understand how people perform in high heels!   To each their own.

So this is how we can accommodate the necessary playing angle of the transverse flute as well as incorporating freedom of movement, and shifting our weight and tension downwards.

SITTING
So you see here that I have my chair angled towards the music stand so that I can have my feet and legs in the similar position I'd have for standing (not parallel to the music stand). You can still move by shifting your weight forward/backward, you should feel your pelvic bone and shifting between the "halves of your bum" is basically it. Again here as well, keep the weight downwards, feel grounded to your seat and extending through the legs and feet onto the ground.

A thing about CHAIRS and MUSIC STANDS - make sure your chair isn't too low like you're sinking into it. If the seat makes you slouch you'll want to avoid that. I'd sit also within the front half of the seat and not leaning on my back. You want to be UP and READY at all times. 

MUSIC STAND – You'll want to have it high enough so that you're not aiming downwards. This photo is a little distorted, but the music stand was a little higher than it appears here.

PLAY TO THE HORIZON. Besides the height of the stand itself, experiment also with the ANGLE OF THE DESK.Please use only music stands where you can adjust the desk angle freely!! If you lay it a little flatter (point more upwards instead of a steep angle), that'll also encourage your head to stay up and not be buried in the music stand. In a performance situation, this will also encourage better stage presence and communication with your fellow players.

​Let me know how this all goes! 

BESIDES seeing Crescendo/Decrescendo as being simply turning the volume up or down, see if you can now think of it as a musical intention. So a crescendo is the musical intention of going forward, often over a longer distance, and a decrescendo is leaning back, retracting, relaxing in a controlled way and also over a longer distance. That will give us the overall structure, and then within that there are some further details to showcase, which is where the slurred groups come in.

Lighten up at the end of slurs to shape sound. Because in order to shape, we must define a hierarchy – some notes shine, some notes must shine LESS. But they're all important within their roles, and the fun and art of flute playing is recognizing and enjoying those moments of light and shadow.
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So go ahead and try that – find and enjoy those light and shadow moments. If you're loving your sound, kudos to you, but now don't hang on to it too much. Because in fact, your sound will SHINE EVEN MORE if you dare to let go.

Notes for a student, Telemann G minor Fantasy. The thing that makes the most difference is letting go, lifting the sound to highlight rather than pressing down for length. Also, aligning interpretation with how the instrument sounds best. F natural on the baroque flute is not a naturally strong note, so replace volume with precision will often be the much wiser and more musical choice. 

Practicing letting go - put away your flute and do a sigh. Notice how you're letting go the air, if we could draw it, it would be kind of a bulge in the beginning, followed by a more narrow wisp of sound. Now try to replicate that in flute playing, although it's true that you will need to maintain a certain tension in order to carry on the phrase. However, it requires a lot less than you think and you'd gain much more expression by reducing. Less is more. The minimum for the maximum. 

(from Boismortier's Op. 35, left: Bourée en Rondeau in B minor, right: Rondeau "Les Charites" in E minor

One ornamentation question I get asked every now and then is about these two symbols in Boismortier's music: the plus (+) and the squiggle. They both indicate a trill, but why the two different symbols?

I used to answer that pluses in Boismortier tend to be found on longer note values, while squiggles on shorter ones. Whether the note value is considered as long or short is relative to the meter of the music. This generally indicates that pluses are for longer trills and squiggles are for shorter, quicker trills.

However, this passage from his B minor Suite Op. 35 struck a bell for me and I have now a more in-depth answer. You see both signs on the same half-note value. What does Boismortier want to tell us in this case then??

After some thought, I'd define the difference more clearly as having to do with the IMPORTANCE of the trill and the CHARACTER of the appoggiatura. In both cases we'd ALWAYS start from the note above. As far as I've seen, pluses are found at places where there's a harmonic significance, perhaps a cadence or a dissonance. Places where Boismortier probably wants us to do a more PRONOUNCED appoggiatura. Slightly longer, CLEARLY AUDIBLE, LEANING into the dissonance and perhaps yearning or sighing in expression. Squiggles are thus more DECORATIVE and while they can still carry meaning in terms of affect and expression, the appoggiatura should be shorter, sometimes to the point that it's hardly audible depending on speed and the notational value.

In the case of this B minor Bourée (above left), the (+) is thus found on the cadential trill (more harmonic significance), and the squiggle is on the downbeat before. Boismortier wants us to differentiate these two trills so that we don't end up playing them the same way. Both are ornamental but carry different meanings and have separate flavors. Because baroque music is all about CONTRASTS, DETAILS, LIGHT AND SHADOW. Balance something light with something more weighted, have something more passing followed by something more emphasized. One is more electrifying and then it stretches out a bit. Try it this way and then compare it with playing both half notes with equal-sounding trills - which one sounds more interesting? Which one glues your feet to the ground as opposed to taking a joyful leap?

Take another look at the Rondeau "Les Charites" (above right). We again see the cadential trill with a plus, and the squiggle at the resolution (on a quarter, which is a long-ish note value in 3/8). Boismortier wants us to be sure to do a light trill (shorter appoggiatura, less pronounced) on the resolution, which makes sense because it's the end of a phrase and a resolution should have a sense of relief. And while it's entirely possible to do a more obvious appoggiatura on a resolution, that would generally indicate a different affect, perhaps more pathos, something more serious. That would not fit so well here as, the name indicates, this is a movement about charm and grace. So go for a gentle, light trill, and not too long (4 notes suffice!) and make sure it's in absolute diminuendo. It should almost sound like simply some kind of wavering in the air.

So I actually no longer think that these two symbols have so much to do with the LENGTH of the note/of the trill, but very much to do with how we approach the APPOGGIATURA, which will give different meanings to the ornament. The length of the trill itself will be dictated in part by the note value and the desired affect, but as these examples demonstrated, that doesn't seem to be the main reason for having these different signs.
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Take a look at other pieces of Boismortier, test my concepts and let me know what you find!

This is a shout-out to my friend Sophie.💜