… but it means lots to me! (Background, for those who can’t remember/weren’t interested in the first place: I got my very first flute, 19c 8-key, from Jem, on 30 December 2008, ie 10 1/2 months ago.)
Today, for the first time, I have just made, several times in a row, a real, loud, proper honking, full, sustained, bottom D. Yay! 
Thanks for the flute, Jem. Love it to bits. 
And I’m really looking after it, too.
Flute players all over the world are there with you.
“Honk if you’re happy”???
Brits to that to? 
good for you!
Kudo’s Ben! That is really great.
If you remember I started about the same time as you. I am not sure I have had that revelation yet. Still plugging away though. Breakthroughs like that really help keep you motivated to move forward.
Jeff
Thanks for chiming in here, Jeff. Yes, I remember. It’s really the last 3 weeks or so that I feel that I’ve really started to make progress. Hope the same is happening with you, in whatever area of your playing.
I’m going to wait 'til about Christmas and then record another clip or two. Would be great to swap notes again. 
This is great news that you can now play your low D
when in August 2009 you could only play it (for 45 seconds or more with good tone)
when you were not playing a “tune”.
Well, whatever I said, it wasn’t what I would now call “good tone” below bottom G at the time. Frankly, I think my “any note” didn’t really include those bottom ones, in my head.
But I was getting what I thought was good tone, even below G. There’s a huge difference, though, between “good” tone and “a real, loud, proper honking, full, sustained, bottom D”.
Also, as I made clear, I thought, back a couple/few months ago, whatever tone I had on long notes disappeared as soon as I tried to play a tune. What I might not have made clear was that today’s epiphany was about getting what I now consider (might change in a month or two more, I’m only a newbie flute player, after all) to be great tone whilst playing a tune.
Big step forward. For me, anyhow.
Breath power is one of the biggest steps IMO.
Even getting a “bad tone” BUT at a 45 second stretch
is a a giant step for a beginner.
(I am less then a third of that stretch
after on and off fluting since 1971).
I guess by now you are playing at least a whole tune
on one breath …
The breath doesn’t last as long when I’m playing a tune. But, if I concentrate, I can play a whole part (single, not repeated) of a tune in one breath, with a bit left over. Is it worth it? Often not, so I’m also learning where to breathe so as to join up the parts - first time through with repeat, first part with second etc
Right back in February, when I was really struggling with breath, a friend told me that I would, eventually, be able to hold longer phrases in one breath on flute than on high D whistle. I didn’t believe him, but I’m now finding that the breath requirement now, for me, is about the same as for whistle.
Don’t get me wrong here, folks. I’m sill very much a newbie. The biggest feature of which is, that as soon as I get the flute out of the house, any progress I think I’ve made on my own in the house disappears, and gets left at my back gate, somehow.