The Fairest One Of Them All

A name that makes hearts of flutists everywhere sing good...good...good...good vibratioooooooo...ba...ba..badop....

At the Hampton Roads Flute Faire today (faire....who the h-e-double-toothpicks calls it a faire!) J.L. Smith & Co. was there hawking flutes. I tried, I liked, I took a one week trial. Miyazawa!

This is the fairest flute of them all, and I tried them all.

No, seriously, there were about twenty flutes on the table, and I tried twenty flutes and I kept coming back to this 402. So I decided to take it out on trial for a week. Tonight I don't get to play because of Nick's party, but tomorrow I will play many hours. Next weekend is the National Flute Convention in DC. and just maybe I can find this flute in a price range a few $$$$ lower than the new one I'm trying out.

Hanging out with like-minded people is inspiring on so many levels. During yesterday's YFB I refined an idea for stitch markers that a certain secret pal is gonna love, and came up with another earring design. Then, yesterday during the Bonita Boyd concert I came up with an earring and bracelet set based on the railings around the concert hall.

Regarding this concert. I could skipped hearing the Bach Sonata in E minor for the umpteenth time. She's a fine musician but there wasn't anything particularly outstanding that any other good musician couldn't have done. The Poulanc piece was really nice, though, and she shared an interesting story about the composer, that he was the black sheep in his circle of friends (Les Six) and considered the least likely to succeed. As it turned out, he succeeded just fine, thank you very much, and his flute sonata is very popular among flutists. I think I have a copy, too. She also did an interesting contemporary piece at the end that sounded a like scale exercises, but I'm going to look into that.

I arrived at the thing in a foul mood, though, thinking that I'd missed all the good clinics in the morning. I certainly missed the competitions, which I'd have dearly loved to have seen, but wonderful Susan informed me that I arrived in time for the really good stuff, and the rest was, well, Amateur night at the Bijoux, as a very dear friend is fond of saying. Please not that that's my characterization, not Susan's. HOWEVER, there was the table of J.L. Smith flutes. After our concert we swarmed the table. Swarmed, I tell you!

Susan saved the day, and I slept well. On with the day!