minstrel: Flute music help please

[L Joseph]

--- david ball <dkball at hotmail.com> wrote:
> The whole idea that I can have two flutes (in      
> different keys) that I can use the same 
> fingering on to play the same song, but be playing
> sharps and flats on one, and regular notes on the  
> other bounces off my brain like a .22 fired at an 
> M1 tank. 

David, we've GOT to stop meeting like this.

Instead of thinking about the sharps and flats, think
about dancing on a ladder laid on the ground. Your
steps can repeat the same pattern (tune) whether you
begin at the bottom rung or three rungs up or eight
rungs up from there - the intervals or scales of each
key is simply starting on a different rung of the
ladder. Does this make any sense in visualizing how a
musical staff works?

> I'd just bag it all and keep playing by ear, but
> it would be nice to be able to pick up a sheet of  
> music and be able to play the song. 
It's an extremely useful skill if you think you want
to get into playing with other people.

Since you already know your way around a recorder by
ear, why not go pick up a beginner recorder method
book. "The Recorder Guide" by Johanna Kulbach and
Arthur Nitka is designed for learning both soprano (C)
and alto (F) recorder and has what you need to teach
yourself to read music in treble clef. 

Musical notation is simply a code for indicating pitch
and duration of sounds relative to one another.  Note
shape indicates duration (rest symbols indicate
duration of silences) and the position of the note on
the staff indicates pitch. It takes practice to be
able to translate the dots on the page in your head,
but it's a skill worth learning.

Tuppenceworth,
Jehanne de Wodeford, West 


=====
"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid." --Frank Zappa

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