It has been a dour last few days. General fed upness with Covid restrictions resulting in little contact with other people, but mainly because I could not get my flute to work.

As I have mentioned, the flute was overhauled by Takaesu san. He was clearly excited by the project and it was obvious that he took great pride in the work he had done.

As I have also mentioned, the flute played beautifully except for the 2 lowest notes, E and D. The flute can play about 3 octaves. The highest essentially I never use for Irish tunes, concentrating on the lower two. The repaired flute played the highest and middle octave like never before. It was easy to get the notes and amazingly they were all in tune with each other. However I could not get bottom D. I told myself that this would come with practice but it did not. It was very disheartening.

I realized that I was playing a completely different flute. I have owned her since 1979 and she has never behaved like this before. I dreaded going back to Takaesu san to complain. I think he would have been hurt.

Last night I spotted something different about the flute.

There is an ingenious system for moving the cork up and down the head joint. The cork had been pushed down the barrel such that the top of the indicator was flush with the cap. I simply raised the cork out to the position shown in the photo and magically she reverted to her normal personality. Her honk is back.

I am so pleased.

I think Takaesu san, with all the best will in the world, must have set the flute up to perform optimally for classical pieces. But I need a super strong bottom D for the rhythmic structure of Irish flute playing. Now I have it again. I can no longer blame my tool.