My flute!!!

On October 14, 1998, I got a new flute!!! I absoutely ADORE it. The difference in it and my previous flute is simply undescribable. I never realized how uncomfortable my other flute was until I played this one. The keys respond instantly, the headjoint responds instantly. On my other flute you had to force everything but I never realized it because I was used to it. Then the sound is just GORGEOUS, huge, rich, and just soooo much fuller!!!! It is undescribably more comfortable. I love my flute so much. TOO much!!! One of my favorite things about my new flute is I can play for hours and my hands don't get tired and my fingers don't get cramped up!!!! That's a first! It's really great.

It's a Burkart, number 83 with head number 801. It's a professional flute, all silver, with gold springs, soldered tone holes, a C# trill key, a split-e mechanism, and of course a b foot with a gizmo key. Go here to see the Burkart site.

I love playing the flute. I have played for just five years but it seems like the flute has always been in my life, it's such a huge part of me now. I have always practiced a lot because I love to practice, and it is so easy to find things that I really need more work on. I started flute in 6th grade along with 20 other kids at my school. It was really hard for me at first. Really hard. I struggled for half a year to get into the second octave. I never gave up though. I kept practicing every day, no matter what. I'd practice until I got so dizzy I couldn't think, and then I'd stop and when I felt better I'd keep going. I loved band from the first day. When the whole band would play in the band room, you could feel the music in the floor, the chair, and your instrument. The whole room vibrated, and I loved it. I had always wanted to "make music," and I loved playing something and listening to it fit in with everything else. My band director would let us listen to music too. I remember in particular a recording of Jean-Pierre Rampal. We listened to Stars and Stripes Forever, Raiders March, and more, yet those stand out in my mind. We'd play in little trios and quartets - even though the music was way over our heads, we had fun. Baby Elephant Walk in particular... I learned that those little baby notes were called grace notes that day... In seventh grade I tried out for all-district, and got second chair in the second band. I didn't expect it at all, I never dreamed of getting in. I was the only kid from my school there. I enjoyed the weekend so much. It was even better than BAND CLASS, and it took a lot for that!! It was around then that I really fell in love with the flute and music. I started practicing even more, and going to music camps, and a little bit later, I started lessons. The more I did, the more I loved playing the flute. In 8th grade I heard about NCSA. It sounded so amazing, I knew I wanted to be there. But I still didn't take lessons.... and all I knew I had taught myself or learned in band class. Not a good foundation! I had lots of bad habits and didn't even realize it...

But I lived in the middle of nowhere where lessons were unheard of unless you were a pianist. So my mom drove me 45 minutes every week to lessons. There I worked on tone, realized that double tounging existed, and started playing "real" pieces.... I was pretty pitiful. That summer I went to CMC, where I learned that I was tounging incorrectly. And that I couldn't count. So I battled that all summer, then returned home to take lessons from a teacher I had started with at the end of eighth grade, who I studied with until the summer before tenth grade. She is an amazing flutist and an amazing teacher. She taught me rhythms, double tounging, triple tounging, vibrato and more ... I worked on etudes, duets, pieces, excercises, everything. I learned soo much my ninth grade year. I took flute more seriously than school, naturally, and put in mega practice sessions every day. And it paid off. I still have lots to work on, but I caught up on so much my ninth grade year.

I love vibrato. I know that sounds really odd, but before I learned it, everyone seemed to have huge rich tones that were so full and expressive (and were full of vibrato) that everything I played seemed puny. When I finally could play with vibrato my freshman I was tickled. :-) I want to play in an orchestra when I grow up. That's been my dream since about seventh grade. I adore classical music because it is real music, full of meaning and extremely complex. I don't see how people can say that classical music is boring. Everytime you listen to it you get something new out of it. And it can mean whatever you want it to, there is no limit. There is nothing that I enjoy anywhere near as much as music and the flute. Everything music-wise. It's all wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, and I love it.

I could write pages and pages on music, the flute, and how I love it, as another hobby of mine is writing, but to express myself without using up all the disk space I have left on my Geocities account :), I'll use this, something I wrote in eighth grade...

"My hobby is making music. I love to express myself through music; it is wonderful. When I play from my heart, I can express emotions and make my tone represent anything from a wild, free bird to an eerie invader. I can make the notes pound with rage, scream angrily, bounce merrily, or be thick and heavy, as if they were trudging through glue. I enjoy listening to classical music because when I really listen to the music, I can decide what the composer intended to express as he spent hours slaving over his masterpiece. It is almost as if words are hidden within the notes on the page, and it is up to the performers and listeners to translate them into something that makes sense. Music has so much meaning to it. I enjoy turning notes on a page into music - which is a story with an idea or expression hidden inside - and it's up to us to find it."

It all means a lot to me. I listen to music and play music and I love it all. You can learn so much from it. Have you ever really watched and listened to an orchestra? Watched how the bows all move in perfect unison and harmony, watch the musicians move with the music, watch everything swirl into a wonderful sense of perfection, a sense of harmony.... Music is one of the best things in the world. Playing in an orchestra is unbelivable... I love every instrument's unique sound and how everything blends together.

Music and the flute are more to me than just notes and rythms and sound... they are their own language and I don't know how to express this to the world or to anyone, but I understand it myself. Whether this sound odd to you or not, or whether you even believe it... Music takes you places nothing else can... if I'm not playing, I'm listening to it... to anything... Too many people tell me I'm crazy to practice flute so much, crazy to listen to classical music, and crazy to enjoy music... but I'll never understand why doing what you enjoy doesn't make sense... Back