Beware The High Pitches

Purpose

Power

Change

Care

Health

Family

Strength

Money

Not for the first time in six years, but I can probably count on my fingers the number of times I’ve picked it up. What with the original wrist injury and my shoulders and that neck problem I had in second year and my perpetual headaches and so on, I just… never started playing again. I was good, when I stopped. Working on diploma-level pieces, a genuinely good flautist on my way to being better. I didn’t stop voluntarily, but I could have gone back sooner, and I didn’t.

I played for ten minutes, mostly just slow stuff, a few tunes, and then stopped. My loss of breath control and my weak embrouchure meant that was about all I could manage before my headache got too bad to bear.

Today, I played again. Fifteen minutes this time. I played through the second flute part of the Doppler flute duet, and a movement of a CPE Bach sonata I loved six years ago. It came back… easier than I expected. All those semiquavers, all those accidentals, were still somewhere under my fingers, despite the years since I last played those pieces. My breath control is shot, and my tone isn’t anything like as clear as it used to be, but… I had the notes. I played the notes.

My left hand hurts a little now, from gripping the flute too tightly, but not too much. My head hurt a little afterwards, but not unbearably.

Maybe… maybe I can do this, and it won’t take as long as I thought to be good again. Maybe it doesn’t have to be a slow climb up again from the bottom.

A daily dose of Bach  

Sonata for Flute & Keyboard in E-flat major, BWV 1031 - 3. Allegro