There really isn't anywhere to go

 I was up all night yadda yadda .... got a bit over an hour's practice in, and thinking longer-term, I need to gradually build it up to hours a day. This will be easier when I'm out of here, back in Hawaii, and should only have to worry about whatever cubbyhole of a room I can rent, and lots of practice and busking. 

Unless things have changed, and they basically don't change in Hawaii, I can pay the student activity fee at UH and use the practice rooms and libraries that I'd always sneak into anyway. 

There were even rooms with typewriters for typing up papers, but lots of those had problems or were taken, so when I had to type a paper I actually went back to Dr. Allison and used his typewriter upstairs at the Blue Cross Animal Hospital. Of course once relatively inexpensive "daisy wheel" typewriters were a thing I got one and borrowed a book on typing and taught myself, starting with the home position and all that. 

So I was up all night, tooted on the flute for a good amount of time (for this stage in my progress) and went actually to bed at what, 8AM? 

What's funny is, I'm getting to like the sound of the flute more. I've always kind of liked it, and it was in not only classical music but age-wise I was timed just about right for "art rock" which I still love, and that had flute among other things, and even bands that were not really "art rock" like Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull had flute. Then hearing Jean-Pierre Rampal was magic. His playing on "Suite For Flute And Jazz Piano" made him a flute superstar if he wasn't one already. 

So I've not disliked the sound of the flute, but my choice to go to it from trumpet has been a series of compromises. It's smaller and easier to carry, would be considered less obtrusive or "noisy" in a lot of venues, it seems playing above the staff will be a lot easier, it's more of the kind of instrument parents like to see their kids interested in and I like playing to the parent + kidlet crowd, etc. 

But I've considered the "soft" tone of the flute a bit of a come-down from the "clear voice" of the trumpet. But I'm starting to find that the flute can sound pretty neat. There's a way the tone can be softer and fuzzier or sharper, depending on how I place my embouchure. There's a whole spectrum in fact, from too many higher harmonics to just right to too few. This is really interesting. 

Plus the flute is the best cross-training for the shakuhachi. Would I take a silver flute, with its delicate pads and springs, along with me on a shelling trip to Kualoa? Not if I'm smart. But would I take a shakuhachi, so that after gathering perhaps a quarter-cup of kahelelani, I could do a bit of busking for the tourists? Sure thing. A little salt air is not going to harm bamboo or the jiari lacquer in the bore in the least. 

Besides, I can *make* flutes. For some reason this matters a lot to me. I guess it comes down to, I don't like the idea of getting attached to anything that can be taken from me. I know I can always pick up a student trumpet in any pawn shop or music store. The same goes for flutes. If I don't mind playing a student model ... 

This is another thing that's made flute seem like a compromise to me: "Red", the flute player whose spot was always in front of the now-defunct movie theater downtown, used to play the cheapest flutes he'd buy online for $100 or so. Wendall, the guy who used to come out from New Orleans, also played student flutes. Both had a mediocre sound. I think this is because student flutes are designed to make it easy to "get a sound" and sound OK in a marching band or a student wind band. Both guys might have really profited from getting a better headjoint and plugging it onto their student flutes.  But how would they know? 

The one flute player with some "guts" I've heard around here was a buy trying to busk at San Pedro Square. Unfortunately, he was trying to do it by one of the big doors that lead into the restaurants. I happened to be riding by and heard him and was really impressed. He was playing some jazzy thing with some "extended techniques". Just as we have plenty of engineers and computer programmers in the homeless camps, I'm sure there are a few Juilliard grads out there too.

I wanted to stop and talk with him and suggest a better place, and I guess I rode around the block and came back by and by then he was being hassled by a cop. So I rode on. He probably had not only years of experience but a better flute than the usual student job. 

So I think I made a good choice in getting an "intermediate" flute. I'm beginning to see glimpses of a good sound. 

So I woke up around 4 maybe, read a bit more in the 2nd James Galway autobiography, and got up and checked online etc. Geez .... Part of moving to the mainland was the idea that I'd be able to go just about anywhere, certainly somewhere cheaper than California, if I wanted to when I retired. But from what I'm reading on Reddit, everywhere has California prices now and most of the country is swarming with Nazis. There really isn't anywhere to go. 

So it's stay here in expensive, largely culture-less, bland, California or go home. California's really not culture-less, it's just that the cool stuff is all behind admission prices or long distances or knowing the right person, etc. In Hawaii the the cool things are pretty much on a walk-in basis. Hang around the college and next thing you know you're working on some neat project like DUMAND. And not just tech but all kinds of arts and crafts sort of things and my older sister learned bookbinding which is a thing I'd have to teach myself here on the mainland. 

I actually got an answer out of one of the people I emailed on Craig's List and the upshot is, I'm meeting them tomorrow before noon and will likely buy the student Yamaha flute they're selling. I asked if the flute was made in Japan and the lady said something like, "Of course it is, it's a Yamaha!" but little do many seem to know, Yamaha's been making all but their most elite instruments in Indonesia and Malaysia for the last 20 years. The fancy trumpet I got, being one of their elite Xeno models, was made in Japan, but the flute, as neato as it is, isn't high enough in their model line to have been made in Japan. 

The main thing is, not only will a Japan-made flute even if it's just a student one, likely grow in value (I'm only paying $200 for it) but I'll have something I can learn to do simple repairs on, and it may, in a way, be better for busking. Not only would I worry a lot less if it gets stolen or damaged, but since it's made for students, I may not get quite the tone but it may be easier to hold notes longer on it. 

I'm eager to get back out there busking and making some money, and since I'll be a player of modest skill, it's best I'm seeing with a modest flute. What really amazes me is I can't remember what my song line-up was when I was playing flute in maybe 2013 or 2014 or so. I know I had a handful of songs, and I know I made money, and I even went out to Santa Cruz at least once. I even remember having the same Trevor Wye beginner book I have now because I remember the illustration of the caveman playing a bone flute. So I guess I was doing all right.