Flute Debut

I have been playing the flute for about a year and a half now, which isn't a very long time, but I have dedicated a significant amount of time toward practicing. I felt like it was time to put my skills to the test by arranging my first public performance. I came across a couple of Christmas songs written for a flute trio, so I found 2 more flutists in the ward, Julie Phillips and Monica Malcolm, who were willing to join my band. Julie is actually the person who inspired me to play the flute after hearing her perform on Easter Sunday 2 years ago.

Being the Ward Music Chairperson, I was able to schedule our flute trio into the Christmas Sunday program on the 23rd. Before our first practice, I was very anxious to see how I compare to the other girls who have been playing most of their lives, but I was pleasantly surprised that my abilities were more than acceptable. I'm trying to be modest, but I was downright awesome. Julie thought I must have had lessons and was surprised how I managed to play with good tone, embouchure, and right amount of vibrato. I have had no lessons besides watching a couple of YouTube videos. I guess I just figured everything out with lots of practice, a good ear, and a natural knack for playing the flute.

We put in several practices, most of which were in the chapel to get acclimated to the acoustics and surroundings. Then the morning of our performance, we quickly gathered in a classroom to warm up, checked our tuning on a tuning application on my phone, then played O Come, O Come Emmanuel as a prelude song just before the meeting started, and Angels We Have Heard on High during the actual program. We played each song through twice and we did really well.

Leading up to our performance, I had a couple concerns about things that could interfere with my ability to play. First of which was getting the hiccups. I mean, there's just no way to play the flute with hiccups, I've tried. And when I get hiccups, I get them for like a week. Second was getting a canker sore. When I talked to my mom about my concerns, she thought I was just over-stressing but she changed her mind when I got a great big canker sore on the corner of my mouth 2 days before we were supposed to play. Then Sunday morning as I was getting ready for church and I hiccuped ONE TIME and I think it scared me so bad they didn't come back. lol

I didn't know how nervous I would be during the actual performance since I have never played in public before, but I actually think it's easier than singing because you don't have to make eye contact with the audience. I just focused on my sheet music and if I started to feel nervous, I pretended it was just practice. I was very pleased with our performance, and my only mistakes were one tiny squeak in the first song and a minor finger fumbling in the second song. Not bad for my first time!

We got a lot of positive feedback about our flute trio's performance. We were told that we sounded very well-practiced and polished and that our tone was pleasant and easy on the ears. I know my mom was very skeptical and concerned about our sound quality being acceptable, having never heard a good flute performance in sacrament meeting before, but she thought we sounded absolutely beautiful. I know if my mom thinks we did well, we really did. My Uncle Mark, who gave me my flute, came down from Yuba City to spend Christmas with us and got to hear my first performance. He said we sounded better than the flute section in an orchestra he heard up north where they had to try-out to get in. That was a big compliment.

I love playing my flute so much. Maybe it wasn't completely random that I wanted to start playing the flute a year and a half ago. Maybe something inside me knew it was meant for me. Here is a sample of our performance. Julie is playing the melody, I am playing the middle harmony notes, and Monica is playing the low notes.