So I spent the last several days playing the hell out of my beloved Copley. Beautiful it was. I have never yet produced such exquisite sounds on any other flute. Tune after tune just flowed out of me, with the flute responding to my every impulse with the richest, darkest, reediest edgiest sounds I have heard since…well at least since the last time I listened to Mr.Molloy.
I’m getting ‘it’ back, I told myself triumphantly…look out McEvoy…move over Tansey…I’m coming through.
I rediscovered The Monahagn Jig. For some reason I had always thought of it as a whistle tune, perhaps because I first heard it played by Mary Bergin. Hah, listen and weep Mary. This, THIS THAT I AM PLAYING is the Monhagn Jig. I played it over and over and over…much to the annoyance of my neighbours I am sure. For hours I played it. For days in fact. God was I brilliant and did my flute ever sound AWESOME.
I woke up yesterday ready to be brilliant all over again…in fact quite resigned to it, and almost humble about the fact that I would be. I vowed never to look down on lesser players. It isn’t their fault after all…that they can’t be me.
It was then that the bubble burst. I picked up my flute. Took a bow to the imaginary audience of swooning (and very attractive young ladies) and …produced a sound a little like a Dickie Dee’s ice cream van…only not as in tune.
Bad embouchure day doesn’t begin to describe it. It has been like that ever since. All I did was oil the flute. Surely that can’t be it? I have spent hours since fooling around with my headjoint. Contorting my face and lips into every imaginable position. Standing up. Sitting down again. Even went for a run…thought my lungs might need a good clean out…all to no avail. Maybe I simply tired out my lips. Who the hell knows. Ain’t like I haven’t been through this a thousand times before. I should know better. It ain’t like it won’t ever happen again either. But what is the solution? I have come to the conclusion that there isn’t one. Some time in the near future I will pick up my flute again and inexplicably everything will be as right as it ever was. Which joking aside is not all that right in my case, but not all that bad either.
No real question here. Just venting. You guys on here are the only people I know who understand what this is like…too bad for you all I guess. So just a whiner whining. And being the good Christian that I am I’m also hoping that someone else feels a little more miserable than I do right now.
Thanks
Nate
Check your cork position-it may have moved on you. Or some other thing, like a leak-hopefully not a crack-but check it over and see. Sometimes it is you, sometimes it’s the flute to blame. Don’t worry though, if you’ve gotten that close to being happy with your stellar playing, and your embouchure, it will happen again. Good luck!
assuming that you did put the cork back in 
Nate , you were deadly . we listened entranced , beguiled , gobsmacked.
my neighbour across the way swears it was Matt , but i knew it was you , by the way you cut the A’s .
and we’re in Roscommon !
it was your best yet , and we look forward to hearing you , when you get the fourth part of the Monaghan Jig tidied up .
we’re doing a Novena for the return of your embouchure ..
A Novena…yes that’s it…thats what I need right now. Divine intervention is the key. Why didn’t I think of that myself. Of course playing as divine as mine requires help that is more than mortal.
But I am dismayed that you couldn’t hear the subtelty, the expressiveness, the obvious skill of my rendition of the fourth part of the Monaghan Jig (thanks for correcting my spelling by the way which I knew to be wrong just not how).
I have been checking…can’t find anything…I guess I just suck is all. My Copley is beyond reproach.
Thanks for cheering me up!!
Nate
I think you know as well as I that once the cork is out it NEVER goes back in.
Is your Copley keyed? Sometimes when oiling I have ened up with a bubble of oil hanginging out in one of the keyed holes, making things not work quite right. Maybe you just need another botox treatment? 
Maybe I need spell check!
Nope I have the keyless slideless version. It’s a beautiful flute. About as low maintenance as you can get in a wood flute. Believe me the fault comes from within…not from the flute. Totally aside from the main gist ( if there ever was one ) of this thread…Mr. Copley makes exceedingly good flutes!( Theres a schoolboy English joke in there somewhere!).
Thanks again everyone.
Nate
Had to edit this. It was too stupid even for one as idiotic as me. But I’m still a drunken bastard.
Basmati? Now where the hell did THAT come from? What was ever wrong in calling oneself a bastard?
What a shame you didn’t record that mighty music for us all to share- on posting clips. Still once you have it back please do, just incase you loose it again
You haven’t been cavorting with reeds, by any chance? 
Be careful what you ask for. Actually I wouldn’t in a million years inflict my painful noises on another persons ears. Bad embouchure day or not, it would simply be too cruel.
Nate
You’re welcome at the Piping Forum any time. 
And hey. At least you weren’t on stage. 
The Piping Forum? Isn’t that where the serious musicians hang out? Sounds kinda scary to me.
By the way. I think the Novena must be working already. Just got through the Reel of Mullinavat without doing too much damage to my own ears.
Nate
Are the finger holes on top? Had a terrible time when I put the flute together and all of the holes finger holes were on the bottom. Took me a bit to figure out that my thumbs couldn’t do all of the work and so I turned it over and had to change my embouchure so that it pointed up (surprisingly similar embouchure to the regular way). Made it hard to breath through the nose though. Talk about a bad embouchure week! I have never had these problems with my one piece fife.
Embouchure comes and goes, anxiety about it seems to be self fulfilling, and at times I wonder if I am trying to replace one set of habits for a better set when I go through those times.