a flute, a room, and whoever turns up
🎁 Somebody sent you this tune — press ▶ Play to hear it
Two thumbs. One holds the bellows, the other slides.
Hold BLOW with one thumb and cover the holes with the other. Keep playing and the mice come out to listen — but every puff that floats away is a breath you have spent, so the tune is really about where you stop.
Two thumbs. The flute lies across the room, head up at the top right and foot down at the bottom left, which is roughly how you hold one. The holes are on the lower half — low at the bottom, high going up. The bellows in the bottom right corner are your breath: hold them down, don't tap them.
Slide without letting go and the sound glides from one note to the next. That is a slur, and it is the nicest thing you can do on here. Let go of BLOW and press it again and the note starts fresh, with a puff of air at the front. That is called tonguing, and it is the whole difference between a flute and a piano.
Watch the puffs. They float up into the flute while you blow and settle back while you rest — but not straight away, so a proper gap in the tune is worth much more than a snatched one. Hold on too long and you will hear it going thin and shaky before it dies with a wheeze.
Max joins in if you can hold one note for about three seconds. Somebody turns up at the window from time to time as well; he is rude, he costs you nothing, and if you keep playing he gives up and goes away.
● Rec keeps what you play and ▶ Play does it again by itself — touch the flute and you take over. Send this tune underneath writes it into a link you can send to somebody.
OCT moves the whole flute up or down an octave. BREATH OFF gives you a flute you can play forever, for messing about. On a laptop, space is BLOW and A S D F G H J K are the holes, low to high.