Very cool - did you make it yourself Treeshark?
Hi,
I join in cause I thaught the same about the avatar some days ago. It’s very nice! How did you draw it?
brotherwind
Glad you like the little chap, I only wish I could look as carefree and relaxed playing as he does! 
I drew a few frames to make a loop, only 5 or so. Photoshop has a function to join the layers into an animated gif. I’m sure there’s other progams that will do the same trick.
It’s a nice looking gif 
I have wondered, however, when I see videoclips of people playing irish flute there’s often very little movement - even compared to classical players (I’m not talking about stomping of feet but the torso and up ). Do you agree and if so - why do you think that is the case?
Have a nice weekend all!
Brian
Yes waving the body about doesn’t help with keeping that air jet aimed! I do move about a bit myself but strictly from the hips, it’s probably a bad habit. I actually have trouble tapping my feet at the same time as playing, I learned the recorder before the flute and foot tapping was forbidden!
It actually reminds me a little of a very funny animated gif that a friend sent me a few years ago, entitled “Why Stick People Went Extinct.” It shows a very obviously male stick person going at it with a female stick person, but based on your knowledge of what happens when you rub two sticks together you can figure out what happens next… 
Common baby, light my fire!
The avatar is charming, Treeshark. Well done.
My flute teacher told me to hold still while I was playing. I said, “But I feel the music so much!” He said, “Put that into the music!” The extra movement is indeed a draw off of that focused air stream and embouchure energy.
Very nice avatar.
Carol
Pivot Stick Figure Animator will let you make small animated gifs, and it’s free. But nowhere near as cool as TreeFluteStickMan™, a product of FluteBeardCo Inc.
So what tune is he playing Trees?
Hmm I hadn’t thought, a Rant perhaps or maybe Hesleyside reel.
If you’re playing Irish traditional music (and I do realize that not everyone here is), the accepted form of movement while playing is the foot tap. If the player is really feeling the music, the movement can extend to other regions of the body and still be totally acceptable but only on the condition that the movement originated with the foot tap and can be traced directly back to it. Anything else will brand you as a poseur of the highest order. This is why you never see emotive movement by players of slow airs. There’s no regular meter to them, so no foot tap can ever start. And without the foot tap, no other movement in response to the music is allowed. All emotion from the air must come solely by way of the notes being played.
Other traditions related to ITM take this a step further and actually require a stylized toe-tap. French Canadians are famous for this. Many years ago I was at the Augusta Irish Week and Lisa Ornstein was there to teach French Canadian fiddle. One of her students told me that before she taught them the first thing about fiddle playing she spent a good bit of time teaching them the foot-tapping.
Absolutely superb.
To think that a poster here could be so computer literate.
We are honoured.
Think of the hours of sweat spent drawing and the heartache when it did not work.
Think of his stay-ability in always coming back and eventually conquering the system.
Think of the mental strain, think of the mental strain involved in writing this rubbish.
Still, it is a good avatar and no one will suspect we are being paid in an attempt to make this a sticky.
Aaargh! Damn it Bill no Co-op vouchers for you!
If I run a string from my foot to my ears so they waggle in time, would that be OK ITM wise?
Yes, here it is BTW:
It looks like you’re trying to get the water out of your ear, Trees
That’s what is missing! TreeSTickMan needa a Flute Beard!
Wow I hope Michael Flatley doesn’t hear about this! He’ll be crushed. 
I saw him playing for the first* time not long ago on a video. Couldn’t figure out why the paramedics weren’t rushing the stage. I thought he was having a seizure.
Doc
*and likely the last…bare bellies, spangles and spandex just don’t do it for me. Gotta admit though, the guy can play!
LOL!!! Brilliant.
All these animated gifs. I may have to bring Roaring Mary back, though she’s far less elegant than The Tapping Trees …
It occurs to me that this is no work of art after all.
The foot, and the player’s motion, gives the game away…
It’s one of those computer-generated images obtained by sticking bright reflective dots on various points of the body, “Motion Capture” they call it in the movies.
It’s the CEO of FluteBeardCo™ trying out their soon-to-be released FluteBellows™!!! http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?p=480061&highlight=flutebellows#480061
