Besides doing a ton of work on the loft last night, I did some octaves practice before going to bed. It's a nice, meditative thing to do, doesn't take a lot of thinking, which is good just before bed, and also the heart and soul of flute playing is embouchure, and I need to build up the muscles (however small) and the nerve pathways that control them.
If you examined the brain of a pro golfer, you'd fine the parts of the brain, the brain's body-model, that have to do with controlling and getting feedback from the body in doing a golf swing, would actually be larger. An Olympic shooter can deal quite precisely with a trigger pull weight of less than a pound and never accidentally let off a shot, where I've seen an inexperienced person accidentally let off a shot when holding a BB gun with a horrible, heavy trigger pull that must have been close to 8 lbs.
So in the same way, a high school flute player with a student flute, will just "blow and go" and can in fact get by fine for years with an "OK" embouchure, the main demand being to get all the notes and play along with the band and be able to play a few rather easy but showy pieces to show their parents that the extra activity fee for Band was justified. But I don't have several years.
I'd noticed in my trumpet playing that starting with the start of last year's busking season, that my playing had a sort of "depth" or even "soul" to it that it had not before. It could be that I'd simply bashed away at trumpet long enough. But I think it may have had something to do with my discovering the shakuhachi and doing a lot of basic exercises on it, that require a lot of breath. That's what I want to get going on flute, ASAP. I don't want a thin, uninteresting, tone.
I woke up with a start at about 4. I'd actually dreamed I was painting in the loft. I had two large things to ship, one some heavy manuals and the other a test instrument that wasn't super heavy but was pretty large, being 19 inches wide by 24 long. I had *one* box that would work, so the time I had to pack things was taken up with those two.
For some reason the only shipping option was the US Postal Service. UPS and FedEx weren't even options. So it had to go Priority Mail. I left here the usual time and rode around the back to take these big boxes to the loading dock, but that's differently configured somehow now, and I went right around the block and to the front, where I had to wait (with several other people) for someone to attend to the door for large packages and to un-jam the chute.
I went by FedEx just out of curiosity, and there's still no paper but there's that one remaining package of HP paper.
I got a yogurt drink from the falafel place and noticed that Sizzling Lunch, I think it's called, is still a lot less busy than it was say a month ago. I even peered in and counted three empty tables. That place used to be mobbed.
I picked up a big wheel box from the tire place, a roll of Honda bubble wrap from another place, and reconnoitered the area around the bountiful dumpster - the place next door was tossing out two really large boxes, sometimes this size is called "Dish Pack" and they're a specialty of moving companies. I decided I wanted those and to do some "fishing" in the bountiful dumpster too.
I came back here and unloaded the wheel box and the bubble wrap, and ran a few loads of the stuff I'd put out for people to take, out to Old Bayshore where far more people will see the stuff and hopefully take it away. Chuey next door was washing a car, and I gave him a new chamois that was in the stuff - a leftover from my failed attempt to make trumpet swabs. He was really happy about that.
I went over and got the two big boxes and got them back here, then went out for my "fishing" which got me a few small shipping boxes and one neat thing to sell so it was worth it. It was a busy day with the ol' bike trailer today.
No comments:
Post a Comment