Snowflake Challenge: Challenge 8

[lebateleur]

Challenge #8

In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year: it can be a list of fanworks you're especially proud of, a gift of your time to the community, a quality or skill you cultivated in yourself, something you generally feel went well. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This one is both a skill cultivated and something that went well.

I love music. I love listening to it and I love playing it. The feel of an instrument vibrating under your hands while you are performing is like nothing else. The feeling of performing with other people is like nothing else.

I had to give a lot of that up in the late 90s, because that's when I began moving--frequently between continents and hemispheres--regularly. Some instruments are difficult to transport over long distances. Others are not something you can play if not living in a detached home or if you don't have access to a practice room...which you're not going to have outside of high school. (Fact: your neighbors do not want you to play an oboe in your apartment. Nor do I want to hear my neighbors play that or any other instrument in their apartments.)

While searching for a brick and mortar store where I could buy kilt hose last August (related to another lapsed skill), I ran across a store specializing in world/niche/traditional instruments. That had a beautiful (beautiful) Irish flute on consignment.



I slept on it.

And then I got up the next day and bought it.

I was worried that it was going to be a dud. I was worried that it was going to be internally out of tune, that it wouldn't be responsive enough for ornamentation.

I was worried that, even if it wasn't any of those things, I still had not touched an Irish flute since 2004. I was going to have to struggle to get the embouchure. I was going to have to struggle to get a solid seal on the finger holes. I was going to have to struggle to avoid Flutist Death Grip^TM, to not have postural misalignment.

Granted, I'd been playing pennywhistle regularly at local sessions until covid ended local sessions (along with everything else), so the fingerings and repertoire were there regardless. But still, wooden flute is another beast entirely.

Well.

Well. This flute is a dream. Even without an embouchure, I got a decent tone out of it. After several months of slow, steady long note practice I now get a beautiful tone out of it, the best of any flute I've ever owned. (And the patience to do that long note practice? Also something I lacked 15 years ago.) And yes, oh my god, it was a bear to regain the hand and finger flexibility to seal the holes, but seal them I can, and man, it is just so lovely to play music again, and when things open back up whenever covid finally ends, I am going to play it with other people again too.

これで以上です。

Comments

[luthien]

That's so wonderful. I'm glad it plays as beautifully as it looks - and I've glad you've found an instrument that's so beautifully in tune with you.

(You're making me think I should sit down at my piano again. It's been... a while.)

[lebateleur]

Thank you! And ooh, piano. I never really played any instrument capable of chords...it seems like a different musical world to me.

[under_the_silk_tree]

You and that flute were obviously meant to be. I definitely call that a win!

[lebateleur]

Thank you! It really was a lovely coincidence that I happened to stumble across that store.

[hamsterwoman]

I don't know enough about woodwinds, or playing an instrument in general, to follow any of the detail, but this was still such a lovely thing to read! I'm glad the flue came to you -- clearly it was meant to be -- and I hope you get to play it with other people soon.

[lebateleur]

Thank you! It is really nice to have something that helps me look forward to the future particularly as omicron continues to flatten the region. Hopefully we're all able to gather regularly with others soon...

[rekishi]

oh, that IS a beautiful flute! congrats!

[lebateleur]

Thank you! I'm really delighted with it.

[enemytosleep]

Love this!

[lebateleur]

😊

[tsuki_no_bara]

oh, this is so cool. i think the universe wanted you to play the irish flute again. it's so pretty, too.

[lebateleur]

Thank you. :) It was definitely one of those moments when everything came together in a pretty excellent way.