COVID and Flute Making. Also summer music camps.

[Casey Burns]

I will start with the Music Camps first. I was curious what Camps and Festivals have been cancelled for the Summer of 2020 due to the uncertainty surrounding the Coronavirus. Currently only FiddleTunes in Port Townsend WA (and all other CENTRUM events) are shut down. The Opera Industry is shut down for the summer. Burning Man over Labor Day Weekend is cancelled.

The only "real" effect the Pandemic is having on my flute making personally is that I cannot label my flutes. The laser engraver I use is at my friends Alden and Cali's house and is under quarantine lockdown like all of us. This is forcing me to finish a project I've wanted to do for ages. I am converting a Silhouette Cameo slicer and dicer into something that can engrave cylindrical objects. Not only will I be able to engrave my maker's mark onto head joints - I will also be able to engrave the silver bands with a variety of artwork including floral, animal or simulated Guilloche. I am getting somewhat bored with the Rose Engine.

I am having to postpone my student until the Pandemic passes. However, she is setting up her workshop now and we will start the instruction next month via Facetime or Messenger. It may be a year or more before its safe for travel and currently the border to Canada where she lives is close.

The only other effect is that flutes going out of the US are accumulating at the SFO Postal Export Processing Center and not going anywhere. A flute I shipped in February to China is still there, as well as one going to Germany and 3 going to Great Britain for a folk school. I just got some boxwood from Turkey that arrived Monday. It took 5 weeks to make it from New York.

I have had a number of clients checking up on me, asking the appropriate "Are you well?" followed immediately by "I'm checking on my flute order". The reality is that I am months late as I am still sore from last year's knee operations not to mention tearing some tendons in my shoulders. Emotionally the Pandemic has been a bit of a worry and there are some days that I lack the focus to work on flute production. This engraver project is a moving forward task and is keeping me engaged in a good way. There were all sorts of memes about how we should be like Shakespeare writing the Tempest during the Plague. Usually at tthe bottom of the list is this statement "During the week of the COVID Pandemic, I ate an entire bag of Pork Rinds!" I have neen sending this to my clients and telling them that oftem, I am at the Pork Rind stage.

Musically I had a rush of opera writing for Really Spicy Opera's 48 hour Coronavirus Opera Scene challenge. They chose 4 out of 30 submissions, going for the more experienced (and more atonal) composers. I am kind of glad they didn't choose mine. The operas were all supposed to use the phrase "The World is Ending" as well as "Corona Beer" thus most were probably comical. I am not so sure how well that will go over when there is so much tragedy happening worldwide. I'm glad mine wasn't chosen.

I've been enjoying the proliferation of these at-home concerts and jams. I looked into JamCazam for some online realtime jamming and a pair of my Galician bandmates, my wife and I will test it over the weekend. Most of what you see is organized over Zoom, then recorded individually to a following track and this is uploaded to a DropBox account. Someone then splits the audio off and removed the various latencies on a DAW like LogicPro, and does similarly with the Video editing, and arranging everyone on the screen. The music is added back in along with any titles and then uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo. One can do a several screen performance with apps like Acapella. I just loaded it into my phone but haven't attempted that.

I haven't watched hardly any of the online concerts of the housebound folk musicians, except for the Galicians and once a bunch of Lark Camp friends. I've been finding these cool videos from India and Indonesia on the traditional wind instrument making technology there. The one thing that is inspiring me tremendously and making me want to play along on my flute is Mondays with John Whelan on Facebook. John is the world's greatest Irish Accordion player and lives just 50km south of me here down on Vashon Island. He is also an accomplished wood turner and woodworker. We've been planning to get together for a few days of flute making instruction and accordion instruction and jamming. It will happen soon. Look for John on Facebook. His account is FB/john.whelan.142. Every Monday at 4PM PDT. His previous shows are on his FB page which you can follow.

Let me know about those camps! Stay healthy everyone! Wear your mask and wash your hands! Even if you think you won't catch it. You might be asymptomatic and give it to someone else unwittingly.

Casey

[PB+J]

I happen to know you just got an order yesterday!

I've just assumed everything is canceled for the summer and possibly Fall. I certainly would not go anywhere people are playing flutes--a flute seems like a carefully tuned virus particle delivery system.

Our daughter was booked for an intensive ballet camp in the Summer, in Utah--we are assuming that's not happening, though the school has not announced it yet. We will probably not let her go.

She just learned that her high school science fair project, on carbon sequester in various soil types, was chosen for exhibition at the statewide Fair--which was canceled because of the virus. She is very sad about that: she loved the atmosphere of kids taking scientific research seriously. The quarantining really falls hard on teenagers--their social world is so important to them. I'm a crusty old academic who likes working alone, so it's easier for me.

I miss the friends in the various bands I play in. I miss the gigs.

[tradlad123]

Does anyone have experience in getting flute into the US lately? Checking if now is a good time to buy those from outside..

[crickett]

Here are a few camps that have been cancelled this year:
Acadia Trad School (https://acadiatradschool.org/)
Cascadia Irish Music Week (http://www.cascadiairish.org/)
Boxwood Flute Festival Canada (https://boxwood.org/)

Acadia is especially sad for those who like to attend because this was going to be their last year anyway.

So far, Lark Camp and Swannanoa have yet to make a decision.

[crickett]

Update: Swannanoa Gatherings have been cancelled (https://www.swangathering.com/).

[chas]

Our daughter was booked for an intensive ballet camp in the Summer, in Utah--we are assuming that's not happening, though the school has not announced it yet. We will probably not let her go.

Our daughter was just accepted into a writing camp. It will be entirely online. Fortunately she's getting experience with video conferencing; her classes and voice lessons are by video conference now. Sitting at a screen for 5-10 hours a day isn't the same as spending two weeks in a dorm with a bunch of writers. She's excited and bummed at the same time.

[PB+J]

The local Comhaltas branch runs a week-long summer camp. They haven't announced anything about cancelling that I've seen--the website still seems to be accepting registrations for mid July. The Catskills Irish Festival hasn't canceled, according to their website


I really can't see sitting in a small classroom with a dozen or so people playing flutes as a good idea. It seems like a great way to spread a virus. The number of cases in the DC area at least continues to rise. I'm surprised they haven't canceled either of these yet.