Fishin' in the stream of consciousness (all-purpose, no topic chat thread)

Instructions unclear, now I toot while I toot.

 

My bff played one for a long time, but all I retained were that reeds are a pain and your tongue is important. Also the word embouchure (which I had to Google to spell, having only heard the word aloud).

 

@Starcrossedsky i can't tell if you're serious or not :P for one you have the two pieces put together turned around ...

 

hey that picture is the thing straight outta the closet, that's not on me

what ELSE am I supposed to do with a clarinet that may or may not have been left in my house by fairies

 

fair point fair point

 

there's this asmr artist i really like and english is her second language. and she has this turn of phrase that really makes me smile. "______ sound." in like every other video. salt sound. vegetable sound. plastic sound. wood sound. glove sound. idk why but i love it

 

i used to play the clarinet, can still remember where to put fingers to produce a good octave of notes, probably don't have the embouchure to not squeak like heck anymore tho

 

I played flute and my friend played clarinet, my knowledge consists of: assemble the... top bit. On a flute its called the head joint but idk. The part where the reed goes. Ok now you can make horrible goose/duck noises and summon a demon probably

 

So what is an embouchure anyway? I remember it completely without context, floating in a formless void attached to the concept of 'clarinet', and Google is unhelpful.

 

Your mouth doing the musical instrument thing. So if, when playing flute, you have your lips too tightly pursed or not tight enough or whatever, thats your embouchure being wrong

Edit: i just thought of the phrase "mouth stance" and a) @ myself wtf the fuck, and b) that actually might be a good way to put it

Edit edit: oh wait also it sometimes means the mouthpiece of the instrument too

 

let's be real, though, wrong is the only way anyone ever plays flute

 

i used to play flute and true. when i was a kid my first teacher never fucking explained to me what tongueing was and i didn't realize until i switched teachers. and i STILL never really got it.

 

meanwhile I'm over here like "I played violin in school, I have no idea what to do with a tooty thing"

 

(cranes neck at 70-degree angle) ~posture~

god a row of flutes when the chairs are all set up for people who hold their instruments in front = everyone carefully coordinating to not poke each other in the shoulders

 

It's a faerinet

 

I mean, this is also the violin/viola aesthetic when the room was set up by the band. Good luck, try not to jab your bows into each other's faces.

 

i have no idea why i just spent 5 minutes finding this picture, but it's the only one that exists online of me and my flute
(apparently this picture was taken in 2005, i am currently 24, someone else do the math)

 

This one time, at the stream of consciousness thread...

 

I used to play French horn and trumpet and trumpet is a piece of fucking cake when compared to French horn

Emboucher is 90% of French horn playing and mine is 100% gone, my lips would buzz if I tried to play any brass instrument now

Someone was surprised that I played French horn because my "lips are too big"

 

Theres a pic on fb of little babby summer-after-grade-9 me cleaning my flute head joint at a summer music thing, complete with the tag "[Everett]'s gross flute cleaner"

Oh and one of the photos i think my mom actually had printed out was of me and my clarinetist friend, with me either holding my flute like a clarinet or her clarinet like a flute, and vice versa. Ahhh band times were fun before i got completely stressed out and stopped in 2011 lol