Hmmm, haven’t posted for a few days, only practised once and that was for 20 mins. I haven’t lost my joy of the flute, but this whole thing with the embouchure is seriously pissing me off!

I have managed to make a sound, I’m not sure if it’s a good sound or not but it’s a sound. What grinds my gears is that I can make the noise once and then I’m not able to do it again without moving the mouthpiece around.

I’m not in a good place today to practice but really get a grip over the weekend

Unlikely to be any practice today as going out so I’ll post something to cover me until Sun.

I’d like to take the time to thank all the wonderful flautists (flutist?????) on YouTube, especially Tatiana Thaele and justanotherflautst (sorry, I don’t know her name!)

You’ve got to be mad to attempt to learn the flute without formal lessons. It’d be virtually impossible if there were no World Wide Web, so, thanks Tim Berners-Lee! Having access to YouTube has given me amazing resources. The variety of videos covering all sorts of flute related issues. I know they’re not going to replace lessons but if I can play Popeye the Sailor on it (it’s not mandatory, I just plucked that one out of thin air!!!) or any tune at all I’d be satisfied that the £65 I paid for the flute was well spent!

Been looking forward to getting a grip on my flute today. And to be fair, I did manage to make a moderately clean sound (once) but there’s no consistency in it.

I seem to sort of have a sort of balance holding the flute, but I get cramp in my forearms so I don’t know if I’m gripping for dear life or if it’s because it feels mega strange to be holding an instrument to the side.

My embouchure is all over the place. I thought, right, I’ll look in the mirror to actually watch what my mouth is doing and just spent ages in hysterics. Oh God! Why did I start this? Let this not be another instrument abandoned before I get anywhere. Actually, I haven’t abandoned instruments, I have a banjo, mandolin and violin all waiting to be learned. You’d think that as I can already play guitar the string instruments would be a piece of piss, nah, not happening!

I was sat at home last night, thinking how exciting this could be, to learn the flute, purely for my own enjoyment. If you think of it, a professional could pick up my flute and play something beautiful. It’s a cheap flute but it was reviewed by professionals who said it has quite good tone. All that is stopping the instrument from playing that beautiful music is ME!

I practised this afternoon and felt that the flute wobbled less today and I did make a note. I guess I’ll have to learn some patience. I should know by now that you don’t just pick up an instrument and play (unless it’s a recorder!!) It just seems that there is so much to learn and that’s waaaaay before I start to learn notes. Onwards and upwards!

So, last week I bought a flute. I wanted to play one in school but it never happened, after being made redundant it seemed the perfect time to do the things I never had time for previous.

I already play a few instruments but I don’t know what would make me think I could pick a flute up and start playing like James Galway. Noooo!

The disappointment was crushing. There’s SO much to it. Even holding it is a trial. My arms feel unnatural, actually holding it the way it’s meant to be held is tricky, as for the embouchure – forget it! What the fuck is an embouchure? I soon found out when I couldn’t do it. It’s basically the shape your mouth makes to direct your breath across the mouth piece. Sorely disappointed that the noise I make is like a badly suppressed fart!

The point of this new blog is to encourage me to persevere with the flute. I’m also hoping that one day I’ll look back on these struggles and laugh haha at what a mutt I was. Hopefully I can make this an entertaining read!