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| Featured flute recording Jethro Tull: Stand Up
Hey, it's Ian Anderson who turned me on to playing the flute and this is probably one of the best showcases for Ian's early flute playing. Technically it's not all that great of flute playing (about the level where I am now, in fact), but it's fun to listen to, especially the well-known instrumental, Bourée. This is the album which really established the flute in rock music. |
No terribly significant news of progress. I've finished book 2 of The Complete flute player and I'm getting a bit better at consistently hitting E3 although there are some days it continues to split on me.
Perhaps the most interesting bit of progress came during the annual extended family vacation: As I was practicing on Saturday afternoon, one of my young second cousins said with surprise, "hey, you can actually play that!"
I've been working extensively on the first two pages of the Beethoven duet with good results (the use of the D trill key is more or less second nature now) and the Clementi sonatina also is feeling pretty comfortable with only a couple rough spots in the first movement. I'm ready to move on to the Kuhlau sonatina (second in that collection) and once in a while when I'm feeling especially adventurous I'll take on the Martin Ballade which lingers just beyond my abilities.
Also just beyond my flute abilities are the heavy arpeggios which make up the flutes 1 and 2 parts of my arrangement of the Ode to Joy (see my chamber music pages). That will be an indication of a significant bit of progress in my flute playing when I can play either of those (plus it'd be nice to replace the current midi version of the piece with an actual recording).
At a recent pick-up music playing session, I ended up playing flute for every song (usually I will play flute for half or less of the songs and play bass, guitar and/or piano instead). I didn't realize that I'd been playing so much flute until I'd reached the end of the evening and as I was cleaning out the flute became aware of just how much saliva there was inside. I'm sure you're glad to hear about that.
Two bonus points for anyone who catches the double meaning in this month's title.