Don Hosek - Flute - January-March 2001
What is it about the first part of the year?
Featured flute recording
Music of Indonesia 6: Night Music of West Sumatra

This would be my classical slot but I'm realizing I really don't have that many recordings of classical flute (and many that I do have aren't on amazon.com). Anyway, this is a nice collection of Sumatran folk music, well-recorded, much of which features the haunting sound of the endblown flute shown on the cover.

For some reason, I always have too little to write the first three months of the year. Practicing regularly but with little direction at the moment.

I did get some reader mail from a reader in the UK:

Love your diary! I've just gone back to practising the flute after a year or so of abandoning it in despair. (I'm a sax player, and there's enough work in getting that right). I still can't get a half decent tone on anything above g" (if we're using the same numbering system!), and although I can play up to g"' fairly regularly, I have no idea how I do it, and everything just screams from a"-c"'.

Oh, and I fall over gasping for breath every couple of bars.

Best advice I've had came from rec.music.makers.saxophone, where the guys are sooo much more active and friendly than alt.flute. Just play b" for a while they said. nothing but b". And play it dimenuendo. And try to make it last 8-10 seconds.

Also, notable, I've bought a couple Yamaha fifes to goof around with.