Flute Practice: Butchering Bach

Siciliano from Flute Sonata No 2 in E flat

My flute has been sitting untouched in its case underneath my desk. Before that, the case was gathering dust under my bed in my previous apartment, and in the place I lived before that, it was shoved in the storage space under the stairs. I can't remember how old I was when I started playing - ten years old? eleven? - so let's just say I've been carrying this thing around with me for almost twenty years.

I've misplaced my music stand, but that hardly matters, because I've also lost all of the sheet music I've ever had.

First I played in my school band. I took lessons for a hot minute, at Palen Music Center, the shiny modern music store on the south side of town. But I was never much for practicing or for showing up on time for appointments, so the lessons ended after a few weeks. Still, without lessons and with minimal practice, I was always second chair in my school band, out of about fourteen flute players. Sure, first chair was miles ahead of me, but I figured she probably practiced or something.

I didn't want to go out for marching band in high school, so I took some time off from the flute, until I started playing at church. Music was always the part of Mass that I related to most, that felt most transcendent, so playing felt appropriate, even though I was distancing myself from the Catholic Church at the time.

While I was in high school, I started my first band, and seem to remember being reluctant to play flute in that context. I was already a female vocalist in rock music, and I thought that my voice was too young and girly-sounding. Playing the flute would just be too much femininity for rock and roll. But somehow, I was persuaded to give it a try, and somehow, it worked. Playing the flute in a rock band taught me to improvise, and to experiment with the range of effects I could produce with the instrument, and while I never thought of myself as a skilled flautist, I felt like I was good at what I was trying to do.

But then I moved to New York, the band split, and my flute started gathering dust.

So, five years later, I've played perhaps three or four times. Every time I've played I sound worse than the time before. My intonation is shot and my fingers have lost any dexterity they had. I went to Missouri to work on music last month and I forgot to bring my flute.

So I get back to New York. Some combination of festering guilt, momentum from working like mad on the Listing album, and external factors (other people asking "Hey, d'you ever play your flute anymore?" and "Hey, you should really play your flute!") actually created a perfect storm of motivation and I cracked open the case for the first time in over a year.

I find some sheet music online. Scales. I try to play. Ugh.

It is then necessary to find a fingering chart, because I seem actually to have forgotten how to play some of the notes.

I used to be able to read music. I was always pretty lame at sight reading, but I knew my treble clef. Now I'm catching myself using the old mnemonics: FACE, and Every Good Boy Does Fine (or, alternately, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge!).

A few days of practice later, and I'm kind of feeling like I am getting the scales under control. I decide to buy some supplies as a birthday gift to myself. So, I am now the proud owner of a book of sheet music for flute, and my music stand should be delivered on Monday. And I just spent an hour trying to attack Bach's Sonata No. 2 in E Flat (listen above), which I decided to learn first because I thought it looked easier (ha!) than some of the others. In conclusion: practicing is still no fun, but finally getting the first eight measures (kinda sorta) right is a really good feeling.