What Starts with Brisket and Ends with Pie?

Ah, a full weekend off work.  Beautiful.  Restful.  An opportunity to do some good fluting.

I slept until after 9:00 this morning, and the only reason I didn't sleep later is because of Keith and his inability to leave me alone when he's wide awake.  How does it work with us?  He is a morning person, while I am a night owl.  He is an extrovert while I am an introvert.  It does work, though.  Anyway, we walked to a great barbecue place for lunch (Rocklands in Glover Park), and when we came back, I had a package waiting for me from Flute World.  I had ordered a flute swab, pad cleaner, cleaning rod, a folding music stand and JSB's Partita in A Minor (Leduc).  Wouldn't you know the music stand broke almost immediately after I opened it?  The bracket that supports the stand when the proper height is selected snapped clean off.  Bother.  

I practiced exclusively on the Muramatsu today.  I started with long tones, and I noticed that I am able to get a clear sound more consistently throughout the registers than I could a week ago.  My intonation has also improved markedly.  I worked with T and G Numbers 1, 2 and 4, all slurred, and only a part of each exercise.  I set the metronome at quarter note=60, and I was able to play evenly about 70% of the time.  Again, a marked improvement.  For the first time since I started writing this blog, I practiced an etude today.  Cavally's Melodious and Progressive Studies is a bit "freshman in music school", I admit, but it's a good start for rusty ol' me.  I was able to learn the first piece well enough for my purposes in less than 30 minutes, so I figure a good goal would be to get through one of these exercises nearly every day.  Following that, I practiced for a good hour on the JSB Partita in A minor.  I LOVE this piece, and, while I've heard it played millions of times, I've never actually learned it.  I know, it's a huge deficit in my repertoire, but one I am correcting.  It's deceptively simple, and much of Baroque music is.  I love that I have the maturity, if not the technical ability, to realize that.  

After my practice session, I noticed the key directly to the left of the F key on the Muramatsu is sticking. I will bring that to the attention of Mr. and Mrs. Grossi, but it is definitely a negative in my opinion.  I may need to keep looking.  Ms. Trimber is collecting her flute tomorrow, and I think I'll ask her to help me continue my quest for the perfect less than $5,000 flute.  

A highlight of my evening was an email I received from Alexis Del Palazzo, AKA The Sensible Flutist (sensibleflutist.blogspot.com).  I love her blog, and, after emailing her, she gave me some good tips on how to make my little project more popular in the online flute community.  Based on her suggestions, I joined Twitter, to which I've been somewhat resistant in the past, but now that I've joined, I'm becoming obsessed.  

A close second in my small list of life passions is cooking, and tonight I cooked like crazy.  I made cheese straws, sauerkraut and brats, and Dutch apple pie.  While I did not use homemade puff pastry for the cheese straws, I did make the apple pie from scratch.  It was a pretty good meal, and I am feeling the sluggishness of too much food and wine as I type.  One can't always show restraint, though, whether it be cooking or doctoring or fluting.  Sometimes you just have to indulge, ya know?  Cliché as it may be for me to write, life is short.  I think I'll try to prevent life from being too short, though, and stick to chicken breasts and vegetables for dinner for at least the next few days :)  Bon appetit, everyone, and may you take the time to indulge every once in awhile.