Playing Duets

When I was a beginner flutist one of the great pleasures in life was to play duets with people who were also relatively new to their instruments. I used to carry a whole repertoire of duets along with my instrument pretty much wherever I would go. That is one of the advantages of playing the flute--it really fits anywhere. Playing duets was a time of special bonding. It was a time of mutual support, and if there was a bit of competition between me and my duet partners, it was usually healthy. I always learned something from playing duets, and I always knew that my duet partner did too.

I was reading some of my favorite blogs today--blogs written by adult beginner cellists who have formed a blogging community and write about the progress, difficulties, and concerns that they have while learning to play the instrument. One of the cellists posted this duet played by herself and another blogging cellist. One cellist played her part with a metronome, and the other cellist played the other part along with the first recording. They used Audacity to record their parts, and sent them to one another as MP3 attachments.

There is something about the whole thing that makes me smile. It reminds me of "playing duets" when I first started playing the flute. I hope that these cellists get the opportunity to play duets together in real time, but until that time comes this is a creative way to break the isolation of being an adult beginner.

Tags: Adult beginner, classical music, duets