Improvements, Poco a Poco.

Remember yesterday when I denounced my iPhone app tuner?

Well, try to forget what I said.  Today the tuner was nicer to me, so I'm more inclined to believe that it is accurate.  That's logical, right?

I noticed a curious phenomenon while practicing this evening.  The flute makes a funny, unpleasant buzzing sound when playing fortissimo.  Perhaps it would be better to state that I cause the flute to make an unpleasant buzzing sound when playing fortissimo.  At this point of chop rebuilding, it is quite difficult for me to know what is my fault and what I can blame on the flute itself.  If someone out there is reading and has an idea how to make such a determination, I'm all ears, er, eyes.  

On my menu today were long tones, T and G Number 4 and Bach C Major Sonata (second movement).  I then listened to one of my several Bach Flute Sonata recordings (Petri Alanko).  I was both awed and saddened.  Such ease of playing!  While I sound like I'm struggling, Mr. Alanko sounds almost flippant.  It's probably not realistic for me to strive for such perfection, but I would love to be able to play with that kind of fluidity (or be in the same solar system).  

I had a new patient today who is a music teacher, and a flutist, no less.  We bonded as I told her about my renewed interest.  I hope I didn't make her visit too much about me, but I couldn't help myself.  She seemed to enjoy the conversation, as well.  

Tomorrow I try some more flutes.  Keith, being the practical anchor in our relationship, has reminded me again and again that I can't buy a flute until after we move.  It is, of course, prudent to wait.  He even offered to read the definition of prudent to me.  I just think we can afford it and I should have it.  That's a good argument against prudence in my opinion.  Anyway, Ms. Trimber has given me permission to hang on to the TJ/Hammig until Sunday.  I'll continue to work my magic with Keith until then.  He says he reads my blog.  This is a good test :)  

Bach and Birthin' Babies

I rocked some JSB today.  Well, not really, but an attempt was made.  I'm trying out some more flutes this Thursday, and I figured it would be good to have a piece or two under my fingers so I can do some good comparison fluting.  I decided that the second movement of the Bach C Major Sonata would be a good test of mid- and low-register sound, and, since it's a jaunty little tune, response.

The music store I'll be heading to is Alberto Grossi Woodwinds in Arlington.  I'd love to bring the Hammig/Trevor James combo to the store and use it as the standard to which I judge the other instruments. The trial period on TJ ends that day, though, and Ms. Trimber is picking up the flute at my office before I leave for Arlington.  Perhaps she'll let me keep it a bit longer.  I am, after all, a serious customer.

Keith mentioned to me after reading my prior blog post that perhaps (and why this didn't occur to me, I have no clue) the iPhone tuner is not terribly accurate.  I tested it with my electric piano, which is in tune.  The verdict -- the tuner is way off.  I suppose I'll eventually need to invest in a real tuner, but getting the flute seems like the more logical first step.

As for work, I witnessed new life being brought into the world again today.  This is why I don't hate my job.  It's always lovely when a delivery goes well, the new parents are beaming and the baby is pink, loud and healthy.  Having a kid isn't at the forefront of my mind, but that kind of moment brings me pause.  I'm nigh 40.  Should I raise one of my own?  Nah.  My dog is enough for me. And speaking of --

Another Day At The Office

I can't really practice in my current shithole condo.  Okay, shithole is an exaggeration.  For DC standards, the place ain't that bad.  It's two bedrooms, one bath with off-street parking for $2300/month.  It would be a great place for one person, or for a couple that has never lived in a place where $2300/month will get you a mansion (e.g. Louisville).  At any rate, practicing is -- uncomfortable.  The walls are thin and I know that my neighbors can hear me.  I, personally, wouldn't want to hear a 7th grader practicing his/her flute, so why should I subject my neighbors to the annoying sound?  Oh, to be more self-centered.

But practice I have (a little bit).  The tuner is chafing my craw.  It's telling me I'm not in tune, which is highly insulting.  I play the most gorgeous sound I can muster with my out-of-shape chops, look at the tuner, and it says I'm 30 cents sharp or flat, depending on the note.  Well, excuse me for living.  What to do?  As far as pedagogy (or auto-pedagogy?) is concerned, is it better for me to check myself constantly with the tuner, or should I just use it a bit at a time and do the best I can in between?  I worry about forming bad habits, but demanding perfection this early in the game is frustrating, to put it simply.  I will ask a teacher as soon as I start taking lessons, which likely won't be until April.  

On my current housing situation -- it's changing for the better next month.  Keith and I have a contract on the lower unit of a two unit condo in Shaw.  It's a Victorian row home built in 1900.  The interior has been completely renovated.  The home has four levels, and we'll have the bottom two.  I figure I can play to my heart's content in the lowest level and I shouldn't bother my neighbors.  I hope not, anyway.  

My day at work lacked unpleasantness, which is a positive thing.  (The absence of negative in my line of work is, by default, positive).  An attempt was made to drag me into some office drama regarding a patient and one of my colleagues, but I deflected it, more or less.  

Here's a picture of the flute I'm testing, as promised.  

Oscar Night!

I like movies, but I love, love the Oscars.  Not to be a stereotype, but I'm the person who drags himself to work the next morning all bleary-eyed because he stayed up too late watching the post-show interviews.  My partner, Keith and I, have filled out ballots.  That said, neither of us has even seen The Artist.

As stated in yesterday's post, I drove out to Arlington to try some flutes.  The business, The Flutist's Faire, is at the owner's home.  Betsy Winslow Trimber is lovely, and she was prepared with many flutes and headjoints within my price range.  I tried a Dean Yang, a Burkhardt, and a Haynes, among others.  The flute I decided to take home and try out is a Trevor James Virtuoso with a Hammig headjoint.  The headjoint has a 24 K gold riser and is more expensive than the flute itself.  The sound is big, especially in the low register, and the riser gives it this bright, spinny quality that I adore.  The tube is silver and the mechanism is silver plated.  It has a C# trill key and a split E mechanism.  The price - $4070.

I had plans to tell you, dear reader, about my horrible sense of direction and my cursing out my car's navigation lady.  The story was going to be funny and masterfully recounted.  Alas, time is ticking and I must get to my awards show.  I'll post a picture of the flute tomorrow.  Until then, Go Meryl!

Making the Best of My Unfortunate Incarceration

I'm an ob/gyn at a university hospital, which means when I'm on call, I am in the hospital.  My current sentence is for 24 hours duration and ends at 08:00 tomorrow morning.  As you, dear reader, might imagine, this does afford the opportunity for some catch-up work, and, in my case, some fluting.  As my pager is a long dog chain, I have holed myself up in my office and have been, ahem, "playing" a Muramatsu flute I have out on trial from Flute World. 

Now, dear reader, I have a confession to make.  I may have misled you.  While my intro post on this little blog accurately states that I graduated music school 15 years ago, I have played since then.  I graduated residency in 2007 and was in an ob/gyn practice for nearly 4 years in Louisville, KY.  I bought a flute after finishing residency, took lessons and even enrolled in grad school part-time.  I played a decent little recital at the end of one semester.  The work was exhausting, though, and, I, being the all-or-none person that I am, stopped school and stopped playing.  So, please don't think I haven't played in 15 years.  I have.  It is fair to state, though, that I haven't played in 2 years.  Guilt be gone!

Now for the flute.  It is a used Muramatsu EXBOE.  I'm not really sure what that means, but that's what the tag on the case says it is.  It has a sterling silver headjoint, silver plated body and foot, open holes, off-set G, B foot and a split-E mechanism.  The question, of course, is how does it play.  Well, I have no foggy idea, because 97% of the sounds I produce are unfocused, unsteady and out of tune.  As a formerly decent flutist, I know that even the best musicians can tell if they've skipped one day of practicing.  I have skipped many, many days, so I can hardly blame the flute for the middle school band student sounds that come out of it.  I can say that it doesn't seem to have any leaks, but the pads make an annoying sticky sound.  If I concentrate really hard and blow just the right way, I can get a fairly pretty sound out of it in the low and middle registers.  The high register sounds thin to me.  Is that my fault?  Probably.  The mechanism feels pretty good.  All-in-all, I think I would be happy with this flute for the next year.  The price tag for this little gem -- $3,400. 

Dear reader, please don't think I have neglected my duties while working today.  I am nothing if not dutiful.  I have rounded, performed a minor surgery, attended a delivery, caught up on office notes and have signed delinquent hospital charts.  At this point on any other Saturday on call, I would be watching TV or surfing the Internet.  Instead, I played long tones.  Long tones, out of tune, with poor tone quality.  I know how I want to sound, but my facial muscles and respiratory system are woefully uncoordinated and uncooperative with one another, which, funny enough, isn't good for tone production. To help solve the many problems I am having with my sound, I bought a tuner app for my iPhone.  It's called TonalEnergy Tuner, and it has more than met my tuning needs today.  It has many features I can see using in the future, but the interesting feature I particularly enjoyed today was the setting that allowed me to tune at an intermediate level.  At the intermediate level, I get a green happy face if I'm within 5 cents of the pitch (A=440).  There was no beginner level, but I would have chosen it if I could have.  I think intermediate level tuning is good for now.  Not too easy, not too difficult.  And the green happy face is oddly rewarding.

After some long tones, I felt some scales were in order.  That's what you do when you're warming up, right?  Play scales?  Anyway, I was able to remember Exercise Number 4 (I think) from Taffenel and Gaubert 17 Daily Studies, or whatever the hell it's called, and played through the keys of C major and A minor.  I was sorely missing a metronome, but, with an iPhone, there's no excuse not to have one.  (Do you think Apple might give me a little money?)  I downloaded an app called Tempo, which, again, has met my metronome needs.  It turns out, when one takes two years off from playing the flute, one's rhythm is uneven and one's technique is, shall we say, rusty.  I was able to play fairly even scales with quarter note = 72 beats per minute.  It's a start. 

Now for some literature.  I worked on the introduction and the first few bars of the allegro section of the Faure Fantasie.  I've played it before, but it is the piece required for the taped preliminary audition for the adult amateur competition I want to enter next winter.  On a positive, er, note, I have an occasional nice moment, hitting a decent spin here and getting a good taper there.  But, mostly, in the words of Paula Abdul, I'm not ready for this competition.  I do like a challenge, though, so I'm going to keep at it. 

As I'm typing, I'm looking around my office.  I have no art on the walls, unless you count my med school diploma and my certificate from the ob/gyn board (ABOG).  Oh, and don't forget my cork board.  It's actually pretty nice.  Nicer than most cork boards I've seen.  I really need to spruce this room up.  I've held this position for around 8 months now, and I've done very little to make my office look nice.  I will rectify that one of these days. 

So, that's my first day of practice.  Not bad, I guess.  Hopefully I'll get better.  Only time will tell.  I have an appointment in Arlington tomorrow afternoon to try out some more flutes.  I'm excited the way a kid getting a new bike is excited.  I'm also the kid who broke his arm riding his first bike without training wheels.  Let's hope there are no flute-related injuries tomorrow.

Untitled Flute Project

I used to play the flute.  I loved it.  I was very serious about it.  I ate, lived and breathed the flute. I started in 8th grade, majored in music in college, and received a music degree in 1997.  My dream was to be an orchestral flutist.  As sometimes happens, though, fear got in the way, and I decided to switch course during my last year in music school and take pre-med classes.  After graduation, I stopped playing, and, yadda, yadda, yadda, I'm now a practicing physician.

Over the past decade and a half, I've realized many times that I will never be as passionate about medicine as I was about music.  To me, a fluteless life is a dull one, and I don't want to live fluteless anymore.  So, in Julie and Julia fashion, I've come up with a project.  I don't have a catchy name right now, but it will come to me.  Until then, I am beginning the Untitled Flute Project.

I plan to purchase a flute (I sold mine to help pay off debt), practice daily, start taking lessons and play in a community orchestra.  I live in DC, and the North Atlantic Flute Association is holding an adult amateur competition in February 2013.  I will enter that competition.  I want to WIN that competition.

I will endeavor to journal my practice daily, and I will (if I can figure out how) post clips of my practice from time-to-time.  It will be hard, it won't be pretty, but it will be -- gratifying.  So, from DC to your corner of the world, I give you the beginning of the next year of my life.