Picking up My Flute... Again

It's been three months since I practiced, or even picked up the flute to play a few tunes. For some reason I felt like playing today. While it feels good in many ways, it's also frustrating to pick up after a few months of not practicing. Pieces that were close to being performance ready are once again a struggle. The daily scale exercises are a series of misfingered notes. It wasn't a total disaster. The short piece from Frederick the Great's 100 Daily Exercises that I started today actually fell into place pretty quickly. It's not perfect, but today anyway, my closet perfectionist is locked in the basement with Robert (of Robert's Rules).

I do like to pick up my flute and play music that I like--Taize instrumentals, traditional dance tunes, some of the baroque sonatas and other pieces that I'm drawn to. But practice is necessary to really play them well, especially the baroque sonatas. There's also a romantic piece (Donjon's "Pan Pastoral") that I'd like to get to the point of being able to perform. It takes me a lot of work with a metronome to get a piece to the point where I could perform it. Especially since I'm not taking formal lessons, and haven't in 25 years or so.

Performance and lessons. Those are the two things that would give me the structure to practice more regularly. Lessons will have to wait. I'd just started looking for a teacher when I lost my job. Until I'm working, and have built up some savings again, lessons will have to wait. Performing comes now and again, mostly at my church or an occasional gig at a wedding or memorial service. There are amateur bands and orchestras in the area, but there are more flute players than there is demand for them.

Ideally, it would be nice to find a couple of other amateur musicians to get together and play some chamber music. I've put out some feelers, but so far no response.

So I'll practice for a few days, and then off and on for a while. Followed by a fallow period. At least that's been the pattern so far.

And I'll keep my eyes and ears open for places to play.