by David Stoeltzing
By the time I was finishing middle school and had been without a consistent flute instructor for more than a year, I was faced with a very difficult decision. Do I walk away from playing flute? My parents had already invested so much time, energy, and, quite frankly, money, fostering my pursuit of music. I felt guilty anytime I considered walking away after all they had done for me. Perhaps turning my focus toward choir and toward private voice lessons would do the trick? Alas, this pathway was closed off to me when, by the end of middle school, I had gone from being a boy soprano with an almost freakish 4 octave vocal range to a very deep bass that struggled to go beyond even 2 octaves. No… Maybe I needed to just sing in choir and focus on creative writing (a new hobby I was beginning to enjoy).
The answer to this question would ultimately come in the form of my next great flute instructor, Ms. Ruth McCarthy. Ms. McCarthy had a youthful exuberance, having just finished her own college studies. I found her very relatable and down to earth. But, perhaps most importantly, for the first time in any of my studies, she gave me CHOICES. She allowed me to work on the pieces that appealed to me the most. She still pushed me to learn and to appreciate standard flute repertoire, but when it came down to what I performed, I was able to choose for myself.
That may sound obvious, but I suppose a lot of life’s greatest breakthroughs are plainly obvious. By being permitted to choose what I performed, I felt like I could take charge and take control, creatively, of my music. It was my music now. Something I could take pride in, something I could fashion and form with a sense of personal responsibility. This simple change in approach gave me a massive boost in motivation and overhauled my personal work ethic. Practicing didn’t feel like a chore anymore, and I began to enjoy playing flute in a way I never had.
Unfortunately, my time with Ms. McCarthy was short lived, as she only taught at YMV for a little more than a year. But her impact was tangible. She helped me to light an inextinguishable passion for flute music. So much so that as soon as I found out she was going to be leaving YMV, I was despondent. In my mind, there was no way I could find another teacher who would inspire me so much. I was entering high school and for the first time the thought of studying music began to feel like a tangible goal to me – it would only be possible if I had an absolutely excellent teacher, though.
It was around this time that my family had started attending a new church. As had been the case with my first teacher, Mrs. Lowe, there was a flautist in the congregation who would play special music. However, in this case, she usually played along with her husband, a cellist. I recognized them both because they had performed at YMV several years before with a harpist colleague, a trio known as The Adagio Trio. Their names were Michael and Kathy Daniels. Michael, it turns out, was the principal cellist for the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, while Kathy had served as a substitute for the orchestra’s flute section and had previously performed with all kinds of ensembles after finishing her studies at the Cincinnati Conservatory, where Michael had also studied. My parents and I believed that Mrs. Daniels might just be the Godsend we were in sudden need of. After a quick conversation with her, it was discovered that she also homeschooled her two daughters, and that she had been hoping to find a good science teacher for them. Since my mom was a science teacher, they were able to quickly strike up a deal where I would receive flute lessons from her in return for science lessons for her daughters.
To say that Mrs. Daniels was a foundational teacher for me would be a drastic understatement. She and I hit it off immediately – she knew exactly how to coax out the best in me as a musician. Throughout the remainder of my time in high school, she introduced me to orchestral excerpts, helped me prepare for competitions and auditions, and she eventually expanded our flute lessons to two hours from one so that I could have the extra training I would need to prepare for college auditions. Comically, she also tried her best to break my habit of apologizing anytime I made a mistake. “Don’t say sorry,” she would say – to which I would inevitably respond, “sorry.”
It brings me great joy when I recall the genuine joy in her eyes when I received my acceptance letter from the Liberty University School of Music. By the time my lessons with her were complete, I had been studying with her for nearly 4 years – the most time I had ever spent with a single flute instructor. It made our final lesson a very bittersweet experience. If my memory serves me correctly, we spent our final lesson playing some of my all-time favorite duets – duets we had played together throughout my studies. To this day it makes me smile when I pull out Kuhlau or Muczynski duets – and I’m left reminiscing about those old golden days.