Flute Life « Practicing Flutist

Back from the Flute Fair! Amazing!

January 30, 2012 at 7:44 pmCategory:Flute Life

I’m back home from the 2012 Florida Flute Fair and I think I can say that a good time was had by all. A whole weekend of flute immersion, what a wonderful thing! We are so lucky to have this terrific event here every year.

My presentation, Cyberflute: Navigating the Internet was well-attended and went pretty well. The audience was terrific and it was an enjoyable session. I’ll have to figure out how to make the handouts available for those of you who are interested. The rest of the program was packed with great performances and presentations, including a terrific concert by this year’s headliner Carol Wincenc. She also gave a wonderful session on getting warmed up to play. The attitude of the audience was also quite impressive. At least 95% of the audience participated eagerly. It was an amazing experience to have about 100 flutists all doing the physical exercises and long tones together. We made all kinds of noises and funny faces as we prepared to sing through our flutes, figuratively and literally. I am sure that everyone there benefited from her excellent advice and amazingly positive and encouraging manner. I can’t use the word ‘amazing’ enough!

Here is a link to the program: http://www.floridaflute.org/FFA2012ConventionScheduleGuide.pdf. I can’t wait for next year, if you are nearby next year, you should check it out!

Building the Flute Choir

January 24, 2012 at 1:33 pmCategory:Flute Life

I’ve been working on organizing and building a new flute choir, the Tampa Bay Flute Choir. Luckily I have a great partner in this venture, Judy. I would never attempt it alone! I’m directing and she’s managing and it has been a great adventure so far.

We’ve got a good start with music after taking advantage of the ALRY liquidation sale. Attracting high quality players is a challenge, need to be more active on that front. We don’t want to sound uppity or snobby, but we do want players who want to and can play challenging music. There are plenty of all-inclusive groups here, but we believe that there is room for a more elite group as well. As conductor, I also don’t want to be in teacher mode all the time, though it is hard not to be!

It really is quite the adventure. Today I found myself looking for books on conducting and wishing I had kept my texts from college. Who knew I would need them all this time later? Anyway I’m loving it and hope everyone else is, too. That is really what matters. I think we’ll put on a good debut concert and be off and running. Then who knows what the future will bring from there? Hopefully good flute music, at least!

Flute Fair Prep

January 21, 2012 at 1:33 pmCategory:Flute Life

It’s time for the Florida Flute Fair again and I am so behind on preparation for my presentation! I submitted two proposals and of course, they chose the one I made up on the fly over the one I could give in my sleep. My topic is Cyberflute, internet resources for the flutist. Kind of ironic considering how bad I have been about posting! (That will be incorporated, how intermittent some resources such as blogs can be.) I didn’t intend to be a topic in the presentation, but there it is! Any input or ideas you have are welcome, I want to be as comprehensive and interesting as possible.

I am looking forward to a weekend devoted to flute and fluting, learning new things, meeting new people, hearing new music, and shopping for flute stuff. It is such a departure from my daily life of being a flutist with a day job. For 3 days I get to just be a flutist, what a luxury!

It’s hot in here!

September 3, 2011 at 8:00 amCategory:Flute Life

My air conditioner is on the fritz, it is about ninety degrees in here, and now that it has rained, the humidity is close to one hundred percent. The air is so heavy that it feels like I am trying to breathe underwater. The lip plate slides all over my chin as I struggle to produce a steady airstream. Sweat trickles down my back. Perfect conditions for practicing!

I’ve gotten so soft! I’ve practiced and performed my way through many summers without the benefit of air conditioning. There used to be a tarnish outline on my lip plate where a postage stamp was affixed to help keep the head joint from sliding around. I developed strategies for practicing in rooms with fans. If the fan was too disruptive, I did without. I reconciled myself to the fact that anyone within a quarter mile could hear me practice through open windows, even took advantage of the situation to show off a little. Now all I can think of is how uncomfortable I am, how inconvenienced, how wimpy and whiny I am.

Of course it always took awhile to acclimate to extreme conditions. And of course I complained then, too, until I found a way to cope. Then it became a point of pride that I could function under such adversity.

In truth, I miss having the windows open in summer like I did growing up on a farm in the Midwest. I miss the fresh air, the feel of a nice breeze, the smell of rain. I miss the sound of insects and frogs at night, of birds in the morning. I feel distanced from the outside, like I’m not taking part in the progression of the seasons. Of course, I live in Florida now, “in town”, where the summers are blisteringly long and you can feel the sting of the sun’s rays on your skin like mini-laser beams if you dare go out unprotected at midday. The ‘snowbirds’, Northerners who come down here for the winters, flee before the summer can fully manifest. Farmer’s markets pack up, heat advisories become everyday events, and the daily thunderstorms roll on through. Could I survive without air conditioning? Sure. Will I let a little heat keep from practicing? Not any more than I let anything else. So I’ll experiment with the ceiling fan going, get a tall glass of ice water, maybe a towel to wipe my brow, open the windows wide, and maybe even show off a little.