Spare Change

I cannot play any instrument but I love music, all types.
I like real flutes, etc.
I really love pipe organs and most of them have excellent flute
sections. Pipe organs are really a one man band.

Bonnie, in Middletown, VA

On Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:56:39 GMT, (NightMist)
wrote:
It is so tempting to try blowing harder if you are not getting a
sound. It is getting the knack of blowing into it properly, not
blowing into it harder most of the time. If you have ever watched a
flautist up close you will notice that they make some of the wierdest
faces of anybody in the whole band. That is because they are playing
just about the only non-reeded woodwind in most ensambles and it is a
completely different technique at the mouthpiece. Add to that that
almost every single one likes to be handled a little differently, and
the flute and piccalo sections of bands and orchestras can be quite
entertaining to watch. DH favors wood, but has played other flutes as
well. The way he plays his bamboo flute versus his rosewood flute
versus his crystal piccalo are all very different. They all take
different angles at the mouthpiece and require different amounts of
airpressure. I suck at flute, but with recorders I love my wooden one
and am not fond of the plastic models. DH who has a more aggressive
style prefers synthetics because he has a terrible tendancy to blow
too hard into the wooden ones resulting in much squeaking.

I have never seen an electric flute that was anything but a regular
flute with a microphone. You can get an assortment of flute patches
for electronic keyboards, but you lose a lot of the complexities and
the subtlties of the sound.

NightMist

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:46:00 -0500, "Polly Esther"
wrote:

At the risk of boring everybody else, I would love to have a flute. My
heart hears the voice of the flute in so many compositions but I've never
had the lung power to play one. It's crossed my little mind that perhaps
now there is a really good electronic flute that would do the 'blowing" for
me and let me simply provide the notes for anything from Bach to Willie
Nelson. Please do ask your DH what he thinks.
To get back on topic, and on this topic - we found a fabric salvage shop
today over in Alabama where I spent my spare change and everybody else's on
some wonderful good stuff. It smelled a bit like garlic and onions but
that's easy enough to resolve. [also, thank you all for chiming in on what
you do with spare change. I enjoyed every one.] Polly



"NightMist" wrote I use change when I am shopping.
When I am done shopping, I dump any change left into a Harry Potter
lunchbox. Any change that I find on the floor, in pockets while doing
laundry, and etc. also goes in there.
Every now and again I roll it up, and then when the box gets too
heavy, I take the rolls to the bank and turn them into paper. The
paper gets stashed in the thermos. When I can squeak it out, I add to
the thermos. Then I use it about every other year to buy a new
musical instrument for DH for Christmas.
This year I am debating between an intermediate grade violin and a
dobro. On the one hand he has not tried a bowed string instrument, on
the other he is an awesome guitarist and has not had the opportunity
to play around with a resonator style instrument. I had been looking
at traditional Japanese flutes since he enjoys playing unlevered
flutes, but when I saw what the things cost I about fainted dead away.

NightMist
--

Nothing has been the same since that house fell on my sister.

On Sep 19, 10:44 pm, "Polly Esther" wrote:
What do you do with spare
change? Polly

I refuse to collect it. I try to pay with correct change whenever I
can, halting the inflow of more of the stuff. If ppl would stop
collecting change, the govt. would have less expense of making more.

I used to let it collect, but after wasting an entire Sunday afternoon
counting and rolling, then schlepping to the bank, I decided it wasn't
worth it. Paying Coinstar 8% is an even worse choice. I do keep abt
ten bucks in quarters in the glove box - for tolls, parking meters and
coin laundries when traveling.

Our kids' school had a very dedicated 2nd-grade teacher who thought
reading music was just as important as reading books. A woman after
my own heart! She required everyone in her classes to buy a recorder,
and they all learned to play, more or less, and to sight-read.

I also love the sound (if played well:-), but it will remain a
learner's instrument in many people's minds because it is so
inexpensive and relatively easy to learn. Did you play other
instruments before you took up the flute?
Roberta in D

On Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:34:13 +0100, Jack Campin - bogus address
wrote:

It's unfortunate that so many people think of a recorder as a learner's
instrument. I went the other way - started on the flute and picked up
the recorder much later. Most people don't get to hear what a recorder
can do when it's played well.

It's unfortunate that so many people think of a recorder as a learner's
instrument. I went the other way - started on the flute and picked up
the recorder much later. Most people don't get to hear what a recorder
can do when it's played well.
I also love the sound (if played well:-), but it will remain a
learner's instrument in many people's minds because it is so
inexpensive and relatively easy to learn. Did you play other
instruments before you took up the flute?

No, flute came first. Nowadays when I play flute, it's usually an alto,
I love the sound they make.

What most people starting out on the recorder don't realize is that it's
a family of instruments, and you need a bunch of them to cover all the
musical options. I have about 40 by now, sizes ranging from garklein to
greatbass; instruments pitched in C, F, G, A & C sharp; wood and plastic;
baroque, renaissance & German fingering; very expensive ones and others
that I don't mind leaving on a pub table. There are only two that sound
more or less the same. Usually going to a pub session I'll take about
six.

I also play ocarinas (5 different), clarinets (4 different), whistles
(several), washboard (about three) and sax (only one of those). Takes
me a while to get set up and looks like a magic act with the number of
things I get out of my rucksack.

==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === http://www.campin.me.uk ====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557
CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

I really like the spare change at church idea. i'll have to suggest
that to someone.

i keep mine in various hiding places at home and in my car.....my sock
drawer, an old pitcher...the ashtray in my car...etc...i gather it up
once in a while and DD and i roll it up and use it for milk money or
gas money or an ice cream treat. depends.

and the money found while doing laundry is mine. i keep that. it goes
with all the other "found" change.

I used to have a really big plastic cola bottle bank, but my 1st XH
took that. %P
that held loads of change.

amy in CNY

On Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:34:13 +0100, Jack Campin - bogus address
wrote:

DD1, the family flautist, started on a little plastic recorder at
age 6 or so. We bought her a very beautiful wooden recorder when
she expressed the desire to continue, and she moved on to a metal
flute around age 10.

It's unfortunate that so many people think of a recorder as a learner's
instrument. I went the other way - started on the flute and picked up
the recorder much later. Most people don't get to hear what a recorder
can do when it's played well.

I have always fancied medieval thru baroque ensamble pieces featureing
lute and recorder.

I certainly don't play well enough to perform such, but I like them a
lot. I might have learned to play a bit better if I had gotten to at
least hear some decent bits rather than being made to play things like
A-tisket A-tasket without getting to hear anything actually good.


There was a visit from a German orchestra (the town's twin), with
their recorder soloist. He was saying that the sound was so good
that it was indistinguishable from that of a flute (in this man's
hands of course g); but, it can, therefore, be done.

GAAAHH!!! If the player's any good it should be DIFFERENT from a flute!
There is a reason for having both instruments!

I'll second that GAAAHH!!!

I play both, recorder more often. I switch between them according to
the music I'm playing and the sound I'm trying to get (and since I
mostly play traditional Scottish music in pubs with an unpredictable
lineup of instruments, I don't always do the same tune on the same
instrument).

My flute ambiture is truly terrible, being as it is not my primary I
leave it to my DH.

(snip)

There are few pictures of me playing the recorder on my website. That
green plastic one (a cheap but okay Yamaha descant) must be the most-
photographed recorder in the world. I get tourists taking pictures of
me playing it nearly every Sunday afternoon.

Huh, DH fancies the Yamahas too. They do have a nice sound for a
non-wood instrument. Heck of a lot cheaper too.

NightMist
--

Nothing has been the same since that house fell on my sister.

Polly Esther wrote:
At the risk of boring everybody else, I would love to have a flute. My
heart hears the voice of the flute in so many compositions but I've never
had the lung power to play one.


I played flute in junior high school band. At the beginning of every
school year, the flute players would have their head on their music
stand trying to stem the dizziness we felt from the heavy
breathing. We'd get used to it in a few weeks, and the dizziness would
stop. It doesn't take more air to play the flute, just more controlled
air. The rest of the woodwind and brass sections didn't get dizzy.


The ambeture builds too. That's the face you make to blow the air
correctly. Takes practice.


I learned the soprano recorder in elementary school and still like it
for those times when I want music fast without the practice that goes
into making a beautiful flute sound. The recorder is often self-taught.
Granted, it's better to have a teacher, but it goes more easily
learning from a book.


--Lia

The word none of us has been able to spell is embouchure! It was going
to drive me nuts until I found it. It's the mouth of a river. It's the
mouthpiece to an instrument. It's also "the manner in which the lips
and tongue are applied to such a mouthpiece."


--Lia

On Sep 22, 12:43 pm, Roberta Roberta@Home wrote:
Our kids' school had a very dedicated 2nd-grade teacher who thought
reading music was just as important as reading books. A woman after
my own heart! She required everyone in her classes to buy a recorder,
and they all learned to play, more or less, and to sight-read.

Bless her heart. When I went to grade school in the Devonian Period,
music and sight reading was de rigueur. After a few years of this,
every kid could read music, at least treble clef and in maybe G and
F. I doubt it's taught now in American schools.

I am in a chorus which accepts singers who don't read, and it sure is
a drag on the rest of us. Too much time is wasted with rote
learning.