One of my favorite shows on TV was the West Wing. What I've seen lately, is mostly based on DVD's I own. Anyway, after dealing with anything, Jed Bartlett always asks, "What's next?" I guess that's the main question I'm asking about my trad flute playing. I consider myself to be a fairly steady trad flute player, but recently I've been listening to my own playing and the playing of those I admire and wondering, "How do I get there?" In other words, what's the next step for me.

For the past two years I've used a program called Audacity to slow down the tempo of tunes I want to learn. Why is this so important? Because it allowed me to hear for the first time exactly what the players I admired were doing. Since I started this brand of exact copying, I've gotten better at adding ornaments in tunes that I learn from non-flute players, as well as varying melody with different ornaments. But there's a limit to such learning in that sometimes you misinterpret what a player is actually doing. So how do you figure out what they're doing an incorporate it into your style of playing? That's a pretty big question considering I live way out in Big Flat Dry place, where we don't get out much. I'm surrounded by great players, but eventually you want to figure out something new that gets you to that next level. Enter youtube and videos like:



Or



And suddenly you've got the ability to see what the fingers are doing. Hopefully this will spark my playing a little bit. Enjoy the videos!

Peace, love, and tunes,

Mac.

Labels: Irish flute