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| 10/16/2007: "Sulking"
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Well, I've spent much of the afternoon in glowering, sulking self-pity because a flute didn't turn out as well as it should have. An old customer ordered a flute in a certain key and style many months ago, for which a certain select piece of bamboo was soon set aside. A few days ago I decided that it was high time for this one to be completed, and found a nice piece of rosewood for the lip plate. That was sculpted and affixed over the last two days, and today I set out to voice the flute.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out; in retrospect I tried to work too fast and took too much material out of the bore. With further effort it's likely that most of the damage can be fixed, but this flute will probably never turn out nearly as well as it should have.
So much for that-- the special piece of bamboo that's had that customer's name on it for months is ruined, and I don't want to start all over again and start looking for another piece! Aaarghhhh! So I've been fuming, sulking, muttering and raging all afternoon. Why did I get into this stupid excuse for a "business," again? LOOOOOOSER...
What's really annoying about this sort of disaster is that the flute isn't nearly as bad as you might imagine-- in fact it's probably better than most bamboo flutes even in its "ruined" condition. But it's certainly not good enough to send to the established customer for whom it was intended, and since my general pickiness has increased greatly in the past few years it's probably not even good enough to send to anyone sight unseen via the Internet.
See, in the old days when I regularly attended art and craft fairs every available instrument came along for the ride and was displayed to the public; flutes that I considered so-so were happily sold to people who picked them out themselves, which is important. Nowadays I don't have that luxury, and not much can be done with second and third-tier flutes-- I'm hesitant to recommend such items to anyone at all, and don't want to explicitly offer a line of "seconds." Guess it's time to start doing a few shows again.
Gotta run-- thanks for putting up with the rant. More on this soon... --r.
[Previous entry: "Leaf-Blower Haiku"]
[Next entry: "Sulking more constructively"]
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