When you're poor like me, it seems more often than not that you have to focus on what you need and make yourself forget about what you want. No income is ever "extra" so when money comes along, there is always some bill or need to eat it up. So, naturally, when I got the idea that I wanted a flute, I thought it to be a distant dream instead of something I might acquire anytime soon. Lucky for me, my Uncle Mark decided to make my dream come true and surprised me with a gorgeous Gemeinhardt 2sp - the number one top selling student flute. It arrived at my house one week and two days ago and I can hardly put it down.
My only prior experience with a flute was in about 7th grade or so at which time I played clarinet in the school band of about 8 kids. I think we had 4 clarinet players, 3 trumpet players, and one trombone. We were a pretty pathetic band and our teacher only taught us to play by finger numbers instead of notes so we really didn't learn properly. Well, one time we came across a song that had a short flute solo in it and the band teacher recalled having come across a couple flutes in the school shed so my friend Ashley and I volunteered to learn the flute solo and play our clarinets the rest of the song. The flutes we used looked like someone had been bludgeoned to death with them... twice. They were awful. So, I guess you could say my desire to own a flute wasn't entirely a wild hair, and may or may not have been fueled by a flute performance at church on Easter Sunday.
Despite not learning to read clarinet music, I had taken some piano lessons as a kid and have enough choir experience to be able to read music at a very slow pace. On the piano, I can't sight read and it is very difficult for me to play anything I haven't heard before. I struggle through the sheet music until I learn it then I memorize it so I don't have to look at it again. Thus, I can play a few songs on the piano complicated enough to trick people into thinking I can play the piano, but it is only a facade. I am most talented at playing my vocal cords.
When I first assembled my flute, I found I have a natural ability to blow a tone and a good ear to pick out a couple basic songs based on the notes that are straight forward enough to play without instruction. Then, I began the task of learning the names of the notes I was playing and the fingering for more notes. Flutes aren't as simple as one might thing. They aren't like a recorder where the more holes you cover, the lower the note is- not in all cases anyway. It seemed like a daunting task, at first, but I was surprised at how quickly I was able to memorize the fingerings and even learned to read and play the music to some easy arrangements. One thing I am really enjoying about playing the flute is that you only have to worry about one note at a time, which is great for someone like me who is not fantastic at reading music.
Playing the flute hasn't been everything I hoped it would be, it has been even more. Thanks again, Uncle Mark, for paving the path to another musical adventure.
