Now that I've figured out how the embouchure is supposed to work I got a lot better at the Venova, fast. Lower two octaves more-or-less clean and with concentration I can get through the top of the second and into the third. Which isn't supposed to exist on the Venova, and is terribly out of tune on that instrument but anyhow.
Between work and trying to get more exercise and of course trying to get as many words on the page as possible I've had little time for practice, much less for composition.
Maybe that's why more music is slipping into the novel. It started as most things do in Discovery Writing. I wanted to do a take on a story I heard about Army musicians in Italy during World War II sneaking off base past the watchful MP's by pretending to be Italian. So I gave my character a little band geek background.
Turns out many of the fun musical terms that fit the scene (sound like language, are less known as musical terms, etc.) are the variety of bowing terms for the strings. And since I know a bit about violin myself...
Well, one thing led to another. I read a couple of accounts of a woman who survived in the water after falling off a cruise ship; she had kept her spirits up by singing show tunes. Given that my protagonist was in High School theater, she must have done a few musicals. So can at least sing a little. So again one thing led to another and she's singing in quite a few places now.
Plus there was already a scene planned (I started writing that one today) where a couple characters talk about some famous opera arias. No, my MC isn't singing any of those.
* * *
So at some point I'd like to revisit the thought about how experience on one instrument can help with another. I've realized it didn't, for me, start with the recorder. It started with whistling. I got used to breath control, shaping of the oral cavity for tone and pitch (which is necessary for trumpet), and a number of extended techniques; tonguing, vibrato and tremolo (don't get me started on that particular nomenclatural quagmire!)
Those translated to recorder, which adds overblowing and of course fingering. To which I added the extended techniques of diaphragm vibrato, flutter tongue, and chanter fingering. Which helped towards the faster fingering and accents of penny whistle, which also adds a more focused overblow to the necessary techniques.
The Venova isn't a Boem system woodwind. It is fingered like a recorder. So what it adds to the mix is embouchure and general reed control, as well as the care and feeding of reeds (Rico Select 2.0 for the moment).
I still want a practice space. Even better than that, more understanding neighbors so I could just pull out an instrument any time I felt like it and blow a few licks. Well...I guess my current neighborhood is a good excuse to get the new uke out of the case and spend more time with that.
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