Write a piece for solo flute with piano accompaniment.

1) Write 32 bars of meaningless twoddle with lots of semiquavers in the flute part ("oom-pah" is adequate for the piano, and even desirable).  Do not attempt to leave the Tonic key.

2) Write a further 32 bars of pointless semiquaver arpeggios.  Remain in the Tonic key.

3) The next 32 bars should consist of chromatic scales going up and down. Some element of "tripping" can be included.  Remain firmly in the Tonic key.

4) A 16-bar coda should include some scales leaping by octave - extra marks are awarded if these could be chromatic.  Some arpeggios would be nice.  End on a piercing and unpleasant high note marked to be played a quarter-tone above written pitch, and fortissimo. (The conventionally feasible range for the flute need not be observed for this note).  Candidates are advised to remain in the Tonic key - advanced students may suggest a modulation to an absurdly remote key two bars before the end, returning home via some diminished-7th chords.

5) Ascribe the finished work to Mercadante or Halevy.  No-one will ever notice, or care.

EXAMINER'S NOTE:
All solo pieces for the flute should be written according to this model.  They are usually played by earnest-looking thin people in glasses, for whom one's sorrow over-rides the natural reaction to the music they've played.  Thank you for extending, if not broadening, the Solo Flute repertoire.

Variations on the Couplets de Phaedre from LA BERGERE DE NIMES,  the Haymaking Chorus from DER POSTILLION VON LUDWIGSHAFEN,  or Elisabetta's aria from ELISABETTA DI WOLVERHAMPTON.  Although these are all quite well-known

6.  On no account should you attempt to write for two flautists to play rhythmically together, or heaven forfend, in unison.  That is at least Grade LXXXVII.

7.  Please avoid accompaniment by harps.

Tommo

The solo instrument I most love to hear, after the violin^*, is the flute 







_{* I am excluding electric guitar and hammond organ, in deference to the forum's sensibilities.}

11.  An honorary membership awaits any composer writing works for Grades V-VII Flute who include instructions to beat the music stand violently with the flute mouthpiece.  For a long time now, examiners have complained about the steady procession of teenage girls named Jacinta/Fenella/Camilla/Skandia*, each with about as much talent for blowing as would not inflate a paper bag, and as much gumption as a wet cloth, entering the examination room with a nice shiny new gold mouthpiece.  It is really not fair that such riches are not so available to our struggling examiners, and it would put a smile on many of their faces to imagine the horror suffered by daddykins when his little angel comes home with a mis-shapen tube instead of his proud investment.


*in fact any silly 3-sylable name ending in 'a'

Tommo

It's rewarding to see political subversion creeping into the rubrics for such pieces  Perhaps the "Variations for Flute on the Soprano Aria from..." genre needs to move along towards "Brechtian Variations on "Happy End" ?  

Well that is just silly old Boulez's opus 1 is it not?

One of Professor Martle's distended pupils demonstrating how it should be done.