I just returned home from a two week trip to Bulgaria. We flew by a low-cost airline, and our baggage allowance was tiny, so, instead of bringing my copper traveling flute, which was cheap enough so that, if it were lost or stolen, I wouldn't suffer a huge loss, I brought my plastic copy of a baroque flute, an excellent instrument that costs as much as a good recorder, since I don't like being separated from a musical instrument for a long time. I bought the baroque flute a few years ago, because I love the sound of the instrument, and I (stupidly) thought it would be easy to play. It isn't. It's harder to produce a full, rich sound on my baroque flute than on a modern metal flute, and the chromatic fingerings are cumbersome, at best.While we were in Bulgaria I managed to play for twenty minutes or so for two out of every three days, so I didn't lose my embouchure entirely. The instrument is naturally in the key of D major, so you have to learn at least the fingerings for C natural, F natural, and B flat to play almost anything at all. I worked on that a little and thought of a strategy for actually learning to play it freely, but I doubt that I'll get around to it.
When we got back home, and I took out my silver flute, I found that the effort I had put into getting a good sound out of the baroque flute carried over onto the modern flute -- a pleasant surprise. In fact, I am close than ever to producing a sound that pleases me. It has taken time and patience.
I never even tried to play flute until 2012, when I was in my late sixties, against the actuarial odds, because I didn't think I could do it. But when we took a trip to Vietnam, I bought a Chinese style flute there as a souvenir, and, after a while, I managed to play it a little bit. That encouraged me, so I bought the first of my five metal flutes (trading up to my silver Sankyo, which is a better flute than I am a flutist).
At first I tried to learn to play on my own. After a few months, looking for free lessons on the Internet, I realized I needed a teacher, and that's when my true flute odyssey began. At this stage I still consider myself a saxophone player who also plays flute, but I've been working so obsessively on flute, that before I reach the age of eighty, I might think of myself as a flutist who doubles on sax.
