Fruity flootling!

.

 

I can blow a full octave of notes from a 2/3 full beer stubby, and that's a skill I reckon is OK, even though neither my wife nor any of my friends are impressed.
I can generate a reasonable tune on a harmonica too, and I've played around with piano since I was a kid.
In fact, I've loved music as long as I can remember, and admit to youthful dreams of making a career of it. Had I had the determination to study and practise, and half the talent I once thought I had, then I might well have made some sort of a mark with it.
But the enthusiasm remains, and our small home contains a piano, a sophisticated and computer-friendly electronic keyboard, two chromatic harmonicas, a tin whistle, and a flute!
Aren't I lucky that my dear wife is a musician too, and much more "proper at playing it" than I (which means she really reads the music, and "never" improvises)?
What I really meant to say at the start of this posting was that my impulsive purchase of a flute, while caravaning nearly four years ago, has changed my life.
I thought playing a flute would be easy. I could, after all, get a tune out of almost any instrument. After all, a flute's just a metal tube with hole in it - not unlike my (unpopular) tin whistle, I thought.
By dint of annoying caravaners over a wide swathe of Eastern Australia I did manage to force a shrieking sort of an occasional tune out of the thing, though I wonder, sometimes, at my wife's forbearance. After a year I was able to take six lessons, during a six week rest in Adelaide, and learned a little bit more.
Since then, and since settling down, my flute has become a near constant companion at home. Can I play a reasonable tune on it now? - Yes, if you're not too fussy.
But there's a long, long way to go.
I'm getting better at remembering the fingering for the really high notes (second and third register to us flutists). I'm can play the high notes cleanly and softly, most of the time - except when I'm really trying and thus tend to hold my lips wrong, or blow too hard, or run out of breath.
I recorded myself playing a favourite tune yesterday, hoping for a pleasing mark of progress. But I discovered that listening from the blowing-end is quite different to hearing what others might hear. So I've put the microphone away, for now.
Am I frustrated? Yes. It seems that every step taken leads to another set of stairs, and I wonder if I'm going to live long enough to play well enough to satisfy myself.
But I think I love my flute. It seems to follow me around the house, so I can play to a good tune on the radio, or add my bit to my wife's piano practice, or so I can just make a quick go at going from register 1 to 2, or even 3, without even one of those damned "squawks."
I think I'm obsessed!
(Picture: Two grandsons trying to help)