Internet Flute Lessons

First-rate flute player Harry Bradley is now offering flute lessons over the Internet, by exchanging MP3s. Interesting idea, as it opens the door to those who can't make it to Ireland to get lessons from Harry in person.

It might at first seem like such lessons would be necessarily limited — the teacher won't be able to see your grip, embouchure, etc. But we're producing music, not visual art, here, and the audio carries a heck of a lot of information, especially for a skilled listener. Studying with June McCormack's excellent tutor Fliúit has really sold me on the virtues of having well-played slow audio of the tunes I study. Without seeing her play or talking to her, I feel like I'm getting formal instruction just by listening and playing along to her tracks. I'm sure that having tutorial recordings made just for you and having your audio heard by a teacher would be even more beneficial.

With all that said, I don't think I'll be signing up just yet, for the same reason I haven't booked tickets for the Frankie Kennedy Winter School: I'm still new to this instrument and I feel like I have a lot more of the basics to learn from my teacher here in town before I start working with folks from overseas. But I really, really look forward to the day when I'll be good enough to make such efforts worthwhile.

Speaking of the Frankie Kennedy Winter School, Bradley teaches there, too, and you can get several MP3s for study (albeit not slow ones) from him, Téada, Robbie Hannan & Dermot McLaughlin from the Winter School site.

Some Tunes

I don't know if this is great reading or not, but here are some tunes I'm learning right now and the recordings I'm using as references:

• Trip to Athlone (track 4 of Colm O'Donnell's Farewell to Evening Dances). O'Donnell plays it together with The Blackthorn Stick; the two sound great together. This one is hard for me to play on the flute since it goes from first-octave A to low D to second-octave E, necessitating changes in embouchure.
• I Buried My Wife... (Tara Bingham's recording from An Gaoth Aduaidh) Matt Molloy performs this on Heathery Breeze as Frieze Britches (where it's incorrectly identified as a slip jig in the liner notes, which confused me for some time when I first bought the album!), but his version is too fast/complicated for me to keep up with, though very nice for pure listening! Bingham's recording is slower and less heavily improvised. Liam O'Flynn plays it on Come West Along the Road.
• Rolling In the Ryegrass (June McCormack's recording from the CDs which accompany her tutor Fliúit). CCÉ's Foinn Seisiún 1 CDs have a recording of this (as Shannon Breeze), which you can download for free from their site, but I find McCormack's tone and performance inspiring.