WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW?

author=wildwes
Sooooooooo... any advice for a beginning flute player (and when I say beginning I mean I've only had it for three days)? Like I'm looking at tutorials on how to play this thing and they help but jesus this thing is hard. Getting it to produce sound is hard, I mean, I know how I'm supposed to blow into it, but actually finding that sweet spot (as some people call it apparently) is proving difficult. I can't quite position myself in a way that gets it to make sound and when I DO find that spot I forget where that spot is. It's annoying how I have to position myself EXACTLY right or else no sound comes out. And if I'm one millimeter off it doesn't do anything. How do flute players manage to just put it up to their lips and start playing??? Oh, and also I've noticed that I run out of breath RIDICULOUSLY quickly and sometimes I even get a bit light-headed. I've been told I need to stand up straight and allow plenty of space for my lungs to expand so I have plenty of air, and I try that but it doesn't help much...

Maybe I'm just impatient and I need to practice a WHOLE lot more just to be able to consistently get it to produce sound, but all this is still really irritating me. :/ jeez the ocarina was so much easier compared to this monstrosity...

You got lucky, my parents are musicians. I started fairly recently, since I had to take a break, but I'm getting along quite well apparantly.
One tip in general - the first lesssons are always, always, alwaaays the most important. Which is why learning by yourself can lead to some very bad habits if you don't know how to do it.

First of all - you can't just blow in there randomly. Otherwise you'll just screw up. The trick is to blow a certain sound, so your tongue comes from the top of the mouth down in a fast motion, creating a stream.
Gosh, I just know the German equivalent "düh" .. what comes close ..
Anyway, try different d-sounds. If you know even rometly how "dü, düh" is pronounced, go try that. If you concentrate on the tongue, it'll go down with the d and drop relatively low. That's what you wanna have.
The lips do not play a major part for wooden instruments. They are very important for metal ones (trumpets and so). Nor does your mouth positioning - you don't want to eat the mouthpiece, and you need to be able to keep it on your mouth - so the best option is the most comfortable one, usually.
Clarinets or so could play a little bit different, but I didn't inquire about that .. would be quite interesting to know though

That is probably also the reason you run out of breath fast - do not try to force sounds by blowing more air! That can even harm the instrument. You will need to create a stronger stream for high-pitched sounds and overblowing, but that is something you produce with throat muscles (you should feel it there), not with more air. More pressure is the key.
Now, I don't know what kind of flute you're playing, but the very high and very low sounds are harder to do than those in the middle range. Although the deepest ones aren't that hard, either.

For the lower ones (covering all holes) - low pressure, little air. Try gently until you get there.
For highpitched ones - high pressure, little to a little more air (again, never try to force them by blowing more).
Overblowing is a huge step in difficulty and pressure, which is why it has its own term. Overblowing means you uncover (or partly uncover) the hole(s) on the back which you keep closed for all lower sounds.

And for higher ones - many flutes (yep, the flutes themselves too) need some time and practice until you can get there. Each tone requires a little bit different blowing (especially high-pitched ones), which is why you should train them one after another. Stay in the medium range and then build your way up - add a higher one, train it until it comes along firmly and easily, then go to the next.
When going to higher ones, it can help to start with the tone below it, then keep blowing while you change the finger positions, then hold the tone.

I don't know which kind of flute you're using, so that's all I can give you on the way. It sounds complicated, but it really is easier than it sounds, trust me. Just be gentle to the instrument and keep practicing. Do you have a beginners book or so?
If they're good, they'd say the same things (although very few do that), but they all give you songs to practice which start out in the medium range of your flute.

It's funny, though. I kinda had a harder time with an ocarina, but perhaps mainly because it was a rotten cheap plastic one. Got it right off the bat with my alto-flute, except the highpitched ones, of course.

Ah I see. I unfortunately do not know much about them, but I can go ask for tips.
Good luck to you ;)

And yeah, they probably can, but you feel and hear the quality. Might want to buy a good one some of these days, but I didn't plan on seriously getting to it anyway, so I felt it would be wasted.

This thread can't just be all about arguments and music advice. Have some crossover.

Happa 18th Jeroen! how about setting up another mafia game to celebrate May you receive many cakes and presents and such!

author=wildwes

This thread can't just be all about arguments and music advice. Have some crossover.

Happa 18th Jeroen! how about setting up another mafia game to celebrate May you receive many cakes and presents and such!

That gif is the absolute best thing ever.
Also, thanks! I'm actually working on another mafia right now, I thought I couldn't give the GoT the feel I wanted it to have, so I'm now preparing a world heavily inspired by GoT, with much backstory. I'm actually writing a short story about it, but I'm going to let what happens reflect the outcome of the mafia game after it's done. I hope it's going to be epic But I know for a fact that PlatinumAshes is also preparing one, so we'll see that one before mine.

EDIT: The mafia game is actually going to have multiple factions, so it's going to be highly experimental. I hope it'll work. If it does, the game is going to be A Clash of Kings to remember. :)

There's no major difference, really. But you should start to actually get somewhere, so that's not bad. Except everything else about it, of course : D
Nah, really, congratz!

Meh, imo you're still a kid until you reach 20. :P

♪ Er is er één jarig, hoera, hoera... ♪

Happy birthday, Jeroen! Say goodbye to your childhood and enter the world where you are considered an "adult".
That doesn't mean you can't simply still act like a child whenever you want, though. Enjoy!

author=mawk
I will say that Mfn is no Birthday Cake, and Deja Vu isn't quite Sugar Water, but it's been twenty years and I don't feel fair comparing the two like that. it's a damn fine album, and it's fit particularly well with something I'm puzzling out right now, and so I'm happy with it.

The album just isn't memorable to me outside of a handful of tracks...whereas each track in Stereotype A stands out in its own little way. I guess my problem isn't with the overall sound as much as a lot of the album sounding, well, samey. With regards to the lyrics...I've never been a fan of concept albums, but they are okay I guess.

My life feels like a bit of a mess at the moment.
- Not happy about my future job anymore as it's a far-cry from what I imagined I'd get into when I started University
- The girl on my course who I used to like keeps FB messaging me and constant "what-if" scenarios keep playing in my head. I don't know why it's so hard for me to accept it was never gonna happen, and it all seems so dumb. Like, why do I even care? :<
- STILL keep thinking about death for some screwed up reason

Ugh. Well, here's hoping it all gets better.

Also, happy 18th birthday Jeroen! It all goes downhill from here