Evaporation Economics

 I was up all night again, and had 20 things ready to list on Ebay I swear, but didn't list them. At least I finished reading the James Galway book, which seems to have been written right after he had a horrible accident in which he was standing on a street in Switzerland and some idiot on a motorcycle plowed right into him and some people he was with.

I practiced a bit over an hour, basically until I wasn't tired physically but was becoming so mentally. When I did That Sport, at first, I could only concentrate for 20 minutes or so at first, and gradually lengthened the time I could. Over a few years I got to where I was training 5 hours a day, split into two sessions. It was easy since it was my only job. But in retirement, playing music can be my only job ... 

I went another couple pages in the Wye book, through "Sad Song" and to the page where "Rain Is Falling" at the top of the page. That one's got some tricky stuff as Mr. Wye is going into eighth notes. And at the bottom page the note C is introduced, tippy flute time! As when playing C, you have to start holding the flute properly. But I did this in the past, years ago, and will do it again. Besides, with C, I can play this cool thing from a song if I "borrow" a low note below G at the bottom that I'm not sure I'm fingering right. 

I'm getting glimpses of how easy it can be; how the flute *rings*. This is why I think this intermediate flute is more like a 3C mouthpiece on the trumpet and a student flute is like a 7C. If I were going to just play trumpet (and hadn't run into such low limits in my playing) I suppose in addition to my fancy-schmancy Bergeron model "pro" trumpet which does ring more, I'd play a pair of "shews" - the Bobby Shew Jazz which is like a 3C with just a bit more edge, and a Bobby Shew Lead, which is a "lead" or high-note mouthpiece. 

But I'm really eager to see where this flute thing goes. Because if I can master this bugger, there are tons and tons of advantages. I can literally carry 3 flutes as easily as 1 trumpet. I can stick a flute case (or two at least) in my messenger bag along with my folding tip box. Flutes do get drippy, but it's really just condensation where with a trumpet there's real spit going in there, along with grease and oil and all sorts of grot. 

The trumpet does make a fine tone, but I can play great one day and then the next I'm back to - and sounding like - intermediate school level. It's maddening. I just read that the normal range of the flute covers 3 octaves and I'll be there in no time. The shakuhachi is good for 2-1/2 anyway and I'll be there in no time too as the two help each other. On the trumpet in actual playing out on the street, I've been good for about one octave and that's it. While I've done them in practice, I've never played a high C or even a G above the staff out on the street.  And too often, at the top of my practical range, I've treated the listening public to sounds more like a small animal in pain than actual music. 

So if I can get a handle on it the flute might just win out. 

I was reading the umpteenth discussion on Reddit wherein younger people discover the truth of Marx's analysis of capitalism and they were grousing about our "trickle down" economy which is more like "trickle up" where the wealth trickles up from the poor to the rich, and someone called it "evaporation economics" and I think it's a great name for it. Lots of people I've known, friends and the girlfriend I had a while back, would spend any money they came onto with the feeling that if they didn't spend it, it would evaporate somehow. 

I think one friend, an airplane mechanic who was a BMW motorcycle nut, said it best. If you get a chunk of money, spend it on something big because otherwise it'll be "frittered away" on small things like bills. Buy something big (like a motorcycle) and then you'll find some way to pay the small things like bills, and you'll have this big thing to show for it. If you're poor, this actually makes sense. It means you'll lose all your money more slowly as opposed to right away. 

A form of this might work when you're rich. You get a windfall and you put it into art, buy some Van Goghs or Picassos. Only those will increase in value. That's only possible with motorcycles if you're picky about which ones you buy. Plus then you've got to store the smelly things and ride them once in a while to keep them in condition. 

But for most of the poor, it's spend it quick before "the invisible hand of the market" snatches it away. Hence the frenzied shopping my GF would engage in after a getting a pay check. She'd cash the check at "the pink store" and buy stuff there, mainly beer. Then it was off to the larger town 20 miles away to buy clothes or something. She should have been saving like crazy because her rent was small, her food was largely free (she worked at a hospital and took home lots of good food from there) and her only other big expense was her car. 

I was *kind* of like that in my 20s. It's almost like I was afraid to save. I had my rent, and since I didn't have a driver's license for a car I rode motorcycles. Looking back I still could have saved tons. I actually went bicycle-only for a bit and it was great. Far cheaper than motorcycles too - I could have done quite well sticking with bicycles and just taking a cab or the bus to work on rainy days. I wasn't cooking at home so I was spending a fortune on prepared food. Even with paying student loans I should have been able to save a ton. But somehow saving was "for the future when I'm making a lot more". Plus that fear of saving, like it might ... evaporate. 

I was always pining after this or that, a "better" motorcycle, or for instance at one point I had three sets of "leathers", one of them custom made for me. It was consumerism at its finest. And it was sure not fine for me. Looking back I could have gotten into reselling electronic surplus even back then, or at least set up a workstation at home and taught myself surface-mount circuit board work and rework. 

My buying musical instruments might seem a bit wasteful, except I can make money with them, and they don't consume gas, registration, insurance... 

The similarity between our economy and an evaporation/condensation chamber are striking though. At the bottom, the chamber would be "hot", the hotness being emotions and the feeling of "spend it or lose it". At the top, it being cooler would be the lack of over-emotionality about money, and longer-term thinking. 

I could not get motivated enough to go out anywhere, and the book store's not buying today, so I stayed in. I started in on the 2nd James Galway autobiography circa 2009. Early on, when he was about 10, he says his father bought him a flute that probably is the equivalent of $1500 today (a Selmer London Gold Seal) and then when it turned out to be junk his father ponied up again for a better one "the equivalent of more than $2500 today". That was calculated in '09 so call it $3k at least now. I can't believe a non-Asian parent doing that for their kid but his father did it. 

Hell I had to go to Radio Shack (for some reason they sold a few musical instruments) and pony up my own money to buy a recorder. Once I got it cleared up that it wasn't a tape recorder I wanted (that I could not afford anyway) I had a nice little Aulos brand soprano recorder, that cost me maybe $15. I practiced tons of scales on the thing and eventually my dad said at first I sounded awful but I'd actually started to sound pretty good. But any more encouragement than that, or God forbid the offer of at least renting a student flute, forget about it. That's not the American way. You're on your own. 

(Maybe that's why we're such a guitar-playing country. The standard thing is to get a guitar, preferably electric because then you can be sold lots of extras like an amp, and you learn all on your own. Hardly anyone takes actual classical guitar classes, because those would involve longer-term thinking, and socializing and working with others. No, the American way is to be a loner with a guitar, alone in the garage or attic, trying to assuage your loneliness and anger with simple twang-twang chords.) 

Galway's 2nd autobiography is a bit slicker than his first. He doesn't mention in the 2nd what wild kids he and his friends were, no mention of harassing "Corky", a lady who had a cork leg whom they used to cuss at volubly and then run. When I was a young teen we had a guy in the neighborhood named "Woody" because of course he had a wooden leg. No teasing him though, he was an adult and to be respected - that's the Asian culture I grew up with. I wonder if Galway's kind of hoping no one comes across his earlier autobio. 

I'm kind of glad now I didn't go out, because I did some searching around about how to work on flutes and found people referring to a book that's over $50 on Amazon but $36 from "flute world" which has a shop up in the City so I've ordered it from them - about $48 with shipping and tax. It's supposed to be the bees' knees though. There's a school for learning flute repair too but they're in-your-face Christians so that's out. 

The thing is, I've always been kind of handy and when I did the sport I worked on my own equipment and in the end even did things that made it work better than it did as supplied. I think if I'd known about making flutes as a kid I might have gotten into doing that, instead of making skateboards and hand-boards for bodysurfing and such things. The PVC flute I made in 2011 or so was not only louder than a recorder but more intuitive to play and a lot of fun. 

So buying this flute book puts me about $7 or $8 over my goal of saving half of each weekly pay check (not counting the large check to the IRS) so no more spending this week. I've got $27 cash on hand if I really need it.