I actually made these discoveries soon after I made the other posture video and immediately regretted posting that one! But after some thought, I think it's a cool way to watch me grow. :) It's a good thing that I'm still learning, and this channel is about being transparent as a classical musician. I have nothing to hide and everything to share!

I am constantly fighting the urge to hide my mistakes and misconceptions, so really… you guys are actually watching me face it with these videos. I think it has something to do with pride, something to do with shame, and maybe something to do with fear. I'm still working through my thought process about that. One day I might make a video about it. :)

For now, watch me grow. :) I hope you'll grow with me!

-Joanna

What a journey. I resisted the notion that I wasn't a gold player for a long time. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think there was some pride in there. Recently, I've discovered that... well, what's there to be prideful about? Don't I constantly preach that it's not about how precious the metal is that your flute is made of that makes you a great flute player? So why do I care so much?

Regardless, it still took me a while to let gold go. I oddly feel more authentic now that I've fully embraced copper. I'm still asking a lot of questions about how and why I play the way I play.

I hope that this video might help someone else out there who's having trouble finding the flute or metal that works for them. It can take a while, and it's totally okay. :)

​-Joanna

This is probably the thing I've made the most mistakes with over the years that I've been teaching the flute. You sort of get into the weird headspace where you think that because you've learned all the stuff you're teaching that you know what your students are thinking and feeling. It was a huge wake up call when I finally figured out that, no, I don't actually know what my students are thinking and feeling unless I sit down and hear them out.

One thing I didn't touch on in this video was that the discussions to figure out what their goals and dreams are often feel like you're wasting time in the lesson. But let me assure you: you're not wasting time. In fact, you're saving time. I have wasted hours and hours of lessons trying to push students to do one thing when they didn't want to do it at all or it wasn't even beneficial to them! We could have made leaps and bounds far earlier if I had just put my pride away as a teacher and truly listened to them first. I urge you, teachers, to listen to your students and not make the same mistakes as me!

I'm really loving my lessons with my students now, and I hope this video is insightful and helpful to both students and teachers. :)

​-Joanna

HOLY CRAP, GUYS, FCNY SURPRISED ME WITH THE GLISSANDO HEADJOINT TO TRY OUT!!!!!!!

I've ALWAYS wanted to try fun inventions like this!! The flute as we know it today is actually a fairly recent invention itself in the grand scheme of things, so it's really cool to see people taking the flute as far as they can. One of the most limiting things about the flute is the inability to pitch bend as magnificently as other instruments... but this headjoint can do it!!! Ahh!!!!!

I've always wondered how it was put together because from far away, you really can't see the cutout of the outer tube that allows the inner tube to slide up and down. It just kind of looks like this magical lip plate that can slide around, and my brain was always like, "How?!"

I hope you guys enjoy watching me experience the Glissando Headjoint, and I hope it makes its way into your hands too! :D

-Joanna

The Glissando Headjoint by Robert Dick

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We've wanted to make this video for a while, and to my surprise, Jon decided to join me on camera!! Meet my love, my rock: the one and only Jon that I keep mentioning in my videos! :D :D

So the full story is that we saw this game at PAX (video game convention) a few years ago, and Jon immediately said it would be amazing if I played it on my channel. He is a huge music game aficionado, and he is always encouraging me to keep practicing music games even though I'm hilariously bad at them. It confused him the first time he watched me fail miserably at a rhythm game at the arcade, but he never gave up helping me through music games and seeking to understand why I'm failing at them and how reading music through a video game differs from a static piece of paper. It's been five years of him working on me to get me to where I am now in this video. Still hilariously bad, but not as bad as before. XD

I hope you guys enjoy watching us be silly together!

-Joanna (and Jon ^_^)

Yes, I am a bit embarrassed to admit that it took me THIS long to figure out how to motivate myself to practice. As it turns out, it has far less to do with patience and discipline than I thought.

You just need to give yourself a bunch of cliffhangers!

Livestreaming my practice sessions on Twitch has been such an amazing blessing in my life. I was scared that I would end up practicing only as a show, but quite the opposite has happened. These livestreams are the only time I practice. They're real! That's why I'm discovering so many things about myself that I hadn't noticed before. And now that I'm constantly motivated to practice, I keep discovering more things that I want to improve...

And the cycle continues. I've found my drive!

If you haven't found your drive yet, I hope you find it soon! Maybe try out my tips as a starting point and take things from there. :) You got this!

​-Joanna

The March and April annual madness... it's so real, and it's not something to brush off as a teacher! I learned that the hard way. If I'm being totally honest, I know I've driven away a few students from pushing makeup lessons too hard, and I have no one to blame but myself for thinking selfishly. I thought that making this video might help some other teachers out there who are struggling with the same thing during these couple of months every year. 

For a long time, I felt guilty for feeling so selfish, but there's that Dumbledore quote I always think about: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Although, I guess this isn't so much about our abilities as much as it's about our feelings. But it's true--your character shows when you make a decision on what to do with feelings of selfishness.

Learn from my past mistakes and my current success. The success isn't in getting my students to practice--it's in getting my students to still enjoy music during crazy times. :)

​-Joanna

I had so much fun doing this review because I got to try to predict how each headjoint would sound! It's really interesting to explore other flutes within the same brand and be able to draw comparisons and contrasts among different models and headjoints.

I really enjoy this new "first impressions" way of doing reviews, but I realized as I was filming that it's pretty much impossible for these first impressions to be effective if I didn't do reviews the way I used to (try the flutes privately first, write notes down, and then present my findings on camera). I had to build up a "repertoire" of flutes before being able to predict how other flutes might sound. The prediction part is particularly fun because I really want to be proven wrong! Catching those genuine reactions is the best part about this new way of filming reviews. :)

If you guys are enjoying hearing this lovely Powell and want to try it yourself, hit up the Flute Center of New York! :D

-Joanna

Powell Signature

FCNY - JAF Discount
- Free shipping
- 10 day trial
- 18 month warranty
- 3 instruments on trial at a time

FCNY Music - JAF Discount
- 10% off your entire order

Like the Flute Center of New York on Facebook!
Follow the Flute Center of New York on Twitter!
Follow the Flute Center of New York on Instagram!

Contact the Flute Center of New York
About ClubFCNY

**Huge thanks to the Flute Center of New York for sponsoring this video!
**Prices listed in this post as of April 2019, subject to change.
**Full transparency: I do earn a commission on each instrument and sheet music purchased from FCNY using my code "JAF". :) Thank you for the support!

Yeah... it probably took me way too long to figure out how I should have been working with a metronome all this time. It was a problem that I was embarrassed about and avoided fixing for a long time  because I had kind of gotten away without it after my teachers and coaches gave up on me. XD I don't blame them! I was hopeless and confusing. Why was it that as soon as I got conducted I could play just fine, but a metronome would make me play so poorly? Yeah.

It makes a lot more sense once you say it out loud. 

But when would anyone every say it out loud?!

Only a crazy person livestreaming every single of her practice sessions on Twitch. I have to verbalize what I'm doing instead of just practicing, so I find myself having to explain exactly what I'm looking at, what I'm thinking, what I'm concentrating on, what I'm struggling with... literally anything that's going on in my mind while I'm practicing, I'm converting it into words so people can follow along with what I'm doing. I accidentally ended up talking about how I'm just looking at the ball going back and forth, and CLICK! I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD!

I've got a lot more discoveries to share with you guys, so stay tuned!

​-Joanna