{Just for full disclosure, I am a 38 year old man who plays about 6 or so instruments, starting out on clarinet, which I played through all of my school years, mostly as first chair, getting to "all county" but never to "all state". So I guess I achieved "pretty good but not great" status there. These days I mostly play guitar and piano.}
Very early impressions:
- Learning the flute is going to be no walk in the park! : ) After one hour of blowing (headjoint first until I was getting OK tones, then to the assembled flute), I can state that I underestimated the difficulty of consistent tone. (I realise that this can take a long time, but I must have been cocky based on my clarinet and sax experience!) Color me humbled.
- No octave key?!?! (Just some newbie humor there; FYI for you non-reed players, both sax and clarinet have a left hand thumb key that you press to kick you up in to the higher octave range. Flute: so it's all mouth approach?!? That's hard! : ) Where's my drill? (Just joking!)
- On a serious note, my octaves are all over the chart. Sometimes high, sometimes low. Any tips on controlling this better?
- I've started by working on "second space" C (on the staff), going whole notes C-B-A (repeating). Trying to get a decent solid tone. My plan is to stick with these notes until I can get them sounding consistently OK, then venture in to other notes from there. (I got my fingering chart from the Jennifer Cluff free pda file.) Does this sound like a good plan?
- I can readily endorse the web tips that stress practicing embouchure in front of a mirror. I am "less horrible" with a mirror; I am "pretty horrible" without one.
- On that point, I feel like 2/3rds of my breath are going in to outer space ("pfft" right over the head joint), with maybe 1/3rd contributing to a note. VERY airy / amateurish (which is appropriate, since I am a total beginner.) Rolling out helps, but not a ton. Besides practice, any tips there?
- On another note, I can say good things about my eBay experience. This thing is solid and shiny and clean, and I know that it's been played for 15-20 years, as the seller gave me it's two-owner history. It was well cared for. Keys/pads seem to seat properly and evenly (from my layman's perspective), pads don't seem shot, springs seem to be all on balance with each other (no weak or sticky ones). Must have been serviced not too terribly long ago. $88 total out of pocket seemed to be a good deal for this Gemeinhardt 2SP.
- I am looking forward to this challenge. It is properly humbling for me to acknowledge that there are 7th grade girls all across America who can kick my butt all over the place on this thing! (And here, I'm a 6'5" rock guitar / piano guy who has been a musician since, oh, 1978 or so?? lol - so much for that!
- Lastly, boy is my mouth going to be sore tomorrow!
Sorry for the long post. Any feedback on airy tone, good "first notes" to start on, octave control, airyness, or anything else would be appreciated! Hope you enjoyed my ramble. Thanks in advance,
Ed
