Don't express notes

I was working with a learner on this air by Bacilly and I talked about freeing ourselves from the notation. This week I also had someone say to me that the Telemann Fantasies are like boring etudes.😅

I get it. As traditional classically-trained players, we learned to read notation and execute them correctly. If you look at the notes on the page, these pieces don't LOOK like they're of high quality. What do you do with all these notes?(how boring that they're only half notes, and who writes music with only 16th notes?!) Before I got into historical performance, I definitely felt the same way. However, dig deeper and go for expressing a gesture, a movement, a declaration of the text. Say"d'amour" a couple of times - to translate that into flute-playing, we'll want to go towards the "mour" (which sounds long and open-ended), and not accent on the "d'a". Also, retract the breath on the long note and make it disappear into nothing. Don't worry about playing exactly an 8th note in relation to the dotted quarter, or that notes need to sound their full value. We need to express the text, the meaning, but not notes or rhythm.

Likewise are the Telemann Fantasies super exciting! With a bit of knowledge in music theory and combining that with varied articulation, we can decipher these strings of notes and turn them into compelling phrases. They're like a crystal with a perfect construction of shapes and forms but also a little universe with fluid energy. Break the boundaries of notation and see them only as suggestions to get you to a place that's even more fascinating!