Today it’s five years to the day I picked up a rental flute from a local music shop and blew my first notes.

How appropriate that today I found in the New York Times the feature “Five Minutes That Will Make You Love the Flute”. Click on the image below to have flutists (flautists if you're European and play a flaute?) and composers introduce you to some of their favourite pieces.

I’m already in love, but perhaps you need some more convincing? Have a listen!

For me, it was the one and only Emmanuel Pahud who did it. (His official website needs to update a certificate, but you can read more about him if you do a quick internet search.) He was one of the youngest musicians to join the Berlin Philharmonic, in 1992, and I saw him first in 2015, at two concerts that took my breath away (scroll down to "new hobby"), and inspired me to pick up the flute. I'm currently at 636 hours of practice time (excluding lesson hours), so well on my way to 10,000!

While I enjoy some modern music with funky extended techniques (i.e. not regular blowing notes but clicks with keys, playing with micro-tones, and making noises that make you think "wait, is that a flute??"), the stuff that makes my heart beat faster and that I really have on my bucket list is from C.P.E. Bach, son of the great J.S. Bach. Some day, I'll play that Sonata in A minor for solo flute.

I could write for hours about flute music, but I won't. Instead, why don't you discover some of the repertoire for yourself, and let me know in the comments what you find?