My Flute Lessons

I thought I've blogged about my flute lessons or more specifically my flute instructor, as I first referred to him previously, but it seemed that any mention of my flute teacher was mostly on fb, and he isn't my fb friend up to this point, so here's a little post about him.

Let me recap what I blogged about him in my first ever post in my other blog.

He is a gentleman, very polite and cautious when body/skin contact has to occur, and he even asked for permission and apologised in the few instances he needed to touch my fingers or wrist to adjust my posture, and my jaw, to allow the air to be blown in the correct way, and the numerous tensed movements I tend to make.

Okay, that's my No.1 problem during my lessons, I tend to be tensed and couldn't leave my worries and 'stress' at the doorsteps and brought all that into my lessons, I think he's as frustrated as I was. Music is infectious, so is stress. Try being cooped up in a small enclosure for more than 15 minutes with a stressed out person, one-on-one... sure infected by the frustration and the negative vibe one.

Each week, he'll say relax, don't be so stressed, relax, or else you'll have no 'energy' or 'support' from within to play the flute, etc.etc, and each week I give the same feedback to my husband, and THREE months on, after my weekly class, I told my husband my teacher asked me to relax more and my hubby said: "I think that's very consistent" and he almost rolled his eyes.

Anyway, my teacher is oh so very young! He's at least 10 years younger than me. Fresh out from his first Diploma, and taking on a specialised Diploma in Flute with hopes to further his music studies overseas in two years time. Good to have a passion in life to follow through! We do chit chat a bit during the short breaks and also at the end of the lesson while cleaning and polishing our flutes.

Well, there are three reasons why I wanted to take up flute as my second musical instrument:

1. I've always wanted to learn to play the flute since I was a schoolgirl in my early teens.

2. I want to take my mind off my state of childlessness and the 'stress' of not having something I cannot have YET, so instead of stressing myself out over something I cannot control, it's better I learn a new skill that at least I can master and control and it is a good distraction, albeit an expensive one. :-)

3. I love the oboe and flute, especially after listening to "Gabriel's Oboe", and its variations, Nella Fantasia (popularised by Sarah Brightman), and the recent "Whispers in the Wind" by Hayley Westernra.

Oh, I love the song so much (point no.3 above)!

Sarah Brightman's version in Italian, Nella Fantasia:



Hayley Westenra's version (2011) with the original composer helping her with her newest album, English title of the song becomes Whispers in the Dream:



Flute (originally composed as Gabriel's Oboe): - This kid from HK has his own flute video channel on youtube and he's a really hardworking kid:




I've been telling my teacher Gabriel's Oboe/Nella Fantasia/Whispers in the Wind is the song that motivates me to play the flute and he was like !!??!! then he paused and said: Good, have a high aim.

So good luck to me and to him too for having this 'too adult' student, a term I coined for being 'too much of an adult' by overthinking every time I wanna play the flute and fail to relax, lol.

My First Flute!

I have a new baby! And it's my new flute!!!

This is actually an overdue post but better late than never!

I am still continuing with my private flute lessons and now, THREE months have passed and I am a proud owner of a brand new flute for nearly a month now. It's the best decision ever to take on flute as my second musical instrument. True, there are hard times when I just couldn't master the techniques and all, but after each breakthrough, the satisfaction is so immense it's overwhelming, like WOW, I actually did that!

My baby, not sure how to take a close shot of the entire length with it fully assembled (flute is in 3 parts, which are to be assembled together), and that's my hubby snapping a shot of me blowing my new flute - I'm loving it! :-)

Usually this is how you look like (proper posture) when blowing a flute: http://0.tqn.com/f/wiki/e/en/thumb/b/b2/Flute_player.jpg/250px-Flute_player.jpg

This new hobby is surely turning into my new passion!