I listed 10 things last night, small things. Our sales are utterly awful right now. Like, we're at about 4 grand and we need to be at 6 to cover our expenses and actually operate in the black. I know we've dipped down this far but I don't know if this is something that happens each year around this, back to school, time. I suppose I should have been keeping a record on graph paper all this time and then I'd know.
I practiced last night, just tons of long tones. The thing is, if I can build up the basic strength and stamina and good tone, the rest should be by far the easier part. I'm doing more like 12 in a row now.
I got up with plenty of time to have coffee and nuts and pack 12 things, and get going at my usual time. I just had to go to the post office as all the things were small.
I had plenty of time to think, and I thought back to my visit to West Valley Music. Of course among their many other things they had some Hall crystal flutes on display, and now I thought about those. I'm really itching to get out there busking, but have held back for lack of repertoire and strength on the shakuhachi, and the fact that the shakuhachi I have is a pretty ugly hunk of plastic.
But a crystal flute! I'm convinced that half of the people who tip buskers are "listening with their eyes", in the same way that to at least half of the eating public, a restaurant meal just doesn't taste good unless it looks good. A crystal flute would certainly look interesting.
I'd commented to the owner of West Valley Music as I looked a bit wistfully at the crystal flutes that "I'm afraid I'll just break it". But what if I did break one? What if I broke a few a year? That's still cheaper than a re-pad on a concert flute. And while they may not be crystal (I'm unclear on what "crystal" is, really) they're made of borosilicate glass, good ol' lab glass. It's fairly durable stuff. I could get a piece of the clear plastic tube they sell at TAP Plastic and put a couple of end caps on, and I'd be able to carry it around just fine. Plus, Hall publishes a book on how to play their flutes from the beginning, and one of Christmas carols.
If I have to learn a second flute besides the shakuhachi, the crystal flute would be a very good choice. I have a couple of major problems with the concert flute. Firstly, it's so long and the hands have to be curled around in such a way, that my left shoulder does *not* like it. (In all fairness, it doesn't like violin playing either.) Shorter flutes like the shinobue or a crystal flute don't give me this problem. Secondly, anything made of metal, plated with silver no less, and having springs and levers and pads and so on, will not do well at all in Hawaii's tropical environment. I don't want to mess around with anything that complicated. The shakuhachi is great, being a simple hunk of bamboo with some holes in it. A crystal flute is just a hunk of lab glass with some holes in it.
I actually had first blown into a crystal flute when I was still living in Sunnyvale, with a car and my own small business, selling on Ebay. I'd gotten interested in busking and had a feeling things were going to get worse, economically (they were, we remember it as the crash of 2008). I'd figured if I could find an instrument that works for me, I could go out busking and for every $10 I made busking I could make $10 less on Ebay until I was switched over. I'd not need the expensive apartment, the car, the credit cards...
So I'd gone up to the Lark In The Morning store in San Francisco - yes, in those times, 15 years ago now, one could do that. Just go into the store - and tried one. Not hard to get a note at all, and I believe it was easy to get a nice pure tone. This means it can also be played loudly, an important thing as long as I'm busking on the mainland. I remember being worried about breaking it if I got one though, which is beginning to sound more and more like not taking up the guitar because one might break a string.
So I know what I'll be up to this week - getting over to West Valley Music to look at their crystal flutes, and hopefully they have the books too. Because if I get hopping, I can catch this Christmas season and New Year's eve/day and be set for next summer.
And the upshot of the whole thing is, I have a crystal flute in G plus the two books I mentioned coming directly from Hall now. The Hall site recommends getting a flute in one of the middle sizes - being diatonic they're in different sizes according to key, and the C one is probably bigger than I want as a beginner. And I was able to get the decorative pattern I like most - none at all.
I'm really itching to get out there busking again and the $120 I just spent is still cheaper than renting a trumpet to get out there with.
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