familiar refrain
I haven’t been a geek for long.
I discovered computers pretty late in life, spending most of my teenage years studying music. I came to a realisation in my late teens that it would require a lot more hard work than I was willing to put in to lift myself above mediocre, and with a teenager’s arrogance I decided if it didn’t come easily I wasn’t going to waste my time on it.
It’s been a long time since I really played more than once every few months, although I still sing incessantly. After selling my digital piano close to two years ago when I was strapped for cash, I haven’t had regular access to an instrument and stopped playing anything entirely. Recently I’d been thinking about taking up music again. In a small apartment I don’t really have room for a decent digital piano - I have a borrowed keyboard that I use occasionally but it’s difficult to find room to set it up and annoying to have to put it away again every time I use it.
My second strongest instrument was flute, and much to my neighbour’s dismay I ordered one from trademe and it arrived two days ago. It was extraordinarily cheap and I’ve been really impressed with it. It’s a very light metal and I suspect it wouldn’t stand up to the knocks my old Yamaha solid silver flute did, but I’m more careful with my toys these days. I love the bright red enamel finish and for 1/5th the price of even a student flute from a store, how can I go wrong? Sadly the same seller doesn’t have any piccolos, but there are some similarly cheap from other sellers I might try.
I remember more than I thought I would, given I haven’t played flute in close to 10 years. I keep having to consult a fingering chart, and for the life of me I can’t remember how to get strong low notes, but I’m having a lot of fun. I keep forgetting I’m not playing a clarinet or a recorder but I’ll get there eventually. Strangely I remember having trouble with very high notes when I played regularly - now they don’t seem to be an issue.
While looking around for sheet music for Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (one movement in particular has a beautifully haunting flute part I’d like to learn) I discovered virtualsheetmusic.com. They have annoying DRM stopping you from copying and pasting any part of the PDF, but printing is allowed and their year’s membership with unlimited downloads is very reasonably priced. Not only did they have the complete concertos I was after, but a lot of other music of varying skill levels I’m keen to try.
10 years ago I don’t remember anything all that exciting on the internet for musicians - wow has that changed!