Weekend Flute Hero

And so, the long weekend slowly comes to a close, and work will begin anew in a few short hours.

Over the weekend, I played with the King's Flute Choir at the Flutes in the Forest concert on 2026-11-07T19:30+08, held at Esplanade Recital Studio on The Big Flute. It was a magical performance---unlike the first time that I played there (and with the KFC), there was definitely less stiffness as I have known these folks a little more, and the repertoire was definitely better felt than before, and all in all, I had a wonderful time.

There were also more folks whom I know who bought tickets to come watch the concert, and they spanned from work, to church, and even to TGCO, though how many from the last group was very uncertain, what with many taking opportunity of the ``natural'' long weekend that came from an extra off-day due to Deepavali being on a Sunday to head out of country.

On Sunday, I made my way to the Autumn Flute Festival held at SOTA Gallery by MusicGear and Band World friends. It's an almost annual event where exhibitors from around the region swing by with their flutes, piccolos, and related accessories to show off the latest gear that is available for flute folk, while Muramatsu, Miyazawa, and Sankyo flute technicians do light servicing for the flutes in the background. It's a format that has been happening for at least ten years now, and I have made several friends among the exhibitors. The AFF usually runs for two days, and I'm almost always there for both days, but this time round, I could only go for the second because of the KFC performance on the first. One good thing that came out of that was that the exhibitors were also present at the performance itself, which gave some cool ice-breaking conversations for the new folks whom I've not met before---I was pretty hard to miss, considering that I played The Big Flute, while also having a bald crown.

Anyway, one of the more interesting things that happened during the AFF was from Churaoto Kobo Josef Co., Ltd. Their CEO, Mr Yukio Nakamura, was present (with his wife, I think), and when I was trying out their DARAUMA headjoint (it looks like a traditional cut headjoint, but with an additional channel carved after the blowing edge to allow the air stream to cut much deeper without dealing with the traditional mass of the wall in the way---think of how the Pneumo Pro looks like for a better visualisation) on the hibari Series piccolo, he made a comment that I was a very good player---because I was playing stupid high notes very softly, and with super clean staccato, the kind of playing that I would normally do on a bangdi or even a xiaodi. It was quite pleasant to hear that comment from him---I think this was probably among the first times that Josef has had a presence at the AFF. Maybe they will come again. Oh, and I shared with them about the ``Oval-8'' rings that I was using to prevent my pinkies from locking up.

The other interesting thing was also associated with Josef---their piccolo cleaning flags were at least 1.5 inches longer than the standard Valentino piccolo cleaning flag(!). This means that with that, I could easily swab out Stella (Nagahara MINI) without having to disassemble her!

But they didn't sell it loose like that, and I am now seriously considering having a longer screw-on handle rod machined. It has gotten to the point that I am staring pretty intently at Mitutoyo's fastener tread gauges to figure out the tapping needed.

I met Mr Guo (GUO Music Instrument Company) once more, and he was showing me his prototype PHONIC crown for the contrabass flute. It looked really cool, but I didn't bring The Big Flute down during my trip to AFF because I was just tired and wanted to just enjoy the fair without lugging too much luggage. It can be a really good upgrade to The Big Flute to enhance articulation through damping out the excess noise/standing waves after the motive force (i.e. the airstream) is removed.

I then went on to have dinner at Five Guys, walking from SOTA Gallery to Plaza Singapura, only to walk back to SOTA to take the bus back home.

And as for today, I just slept in, and spent much of the day catching up on my various YouTube videos, before deciding to write this entry.

That's one of two major flute performances done. The next one will be with AFE JB, and on 2026-11-29... which leaves something like another three-ish weeks left for rehearsals. And then, that's probably the last of the performances for this year, unless I get directly involved in this year's Christmas event under Music Ministry (hard to say at this point).

Sadly, I am having a weird-ass tension headache on my left side, so I'm just going to call it a day for all major activities, and just turn in for the night.

Till the next update, I suppose.