Well, another Christmas gig under our belts. Every standard, rock song, or carol that exists, I think we played them all.

The hall is really a vaulted entrance, and in a pinch holds 100 plus people, I think more than that were there.

We were set up with the bose L1 over my left shoulder and my wife standing with her flute beside me to the right of the keyboard.

So, it gets crowded, punch, shrimp, cookies cakes etc. Donation box for the food bank and prizes.

When it got really busy I could not hear my wife, even with my hearing aids cranked. This lasted a few minutes and I ended up playing 2 pieces solo and things 'calmed' down. I think we might have been competing for talking time and pushed their volumes up.

So we get home have a bowl of greul and some stale bread toasted and slathered with an animal byproduct. And my wife explains that she started player an octave above the normal one. Of course a flute player would know she has a crappy flute, no foot on it, and C is a chore at the bottom. Anyway she says if you play higher an octave it's easier to hear. Maybe for her. I have to get her to drag the thing out and play way up, maybe she's going past my hearing.

So I say (and when it comes to the 2 of us I remind her I'm always right cough cough) the higher the pitch the less distance it will travel.

She says, "where do you come up with this crap?", and I reply, for the guys on the forum, they taught me this stuff, or I learned it in physics. (Don't mention the latter, I ran the high school physics department for 3 years LOL, I did all the work, set ups, lab tech, clean gear etc. super nerd), and I remember all kinds of things she wants me to forget. I digress, again.

SO, the questions are:

1. Does a higher pitched sound carry the same as the lower pitch at the same 'intensity'?

2. Would using a mic in that setting (I just didn't take one), help or would the 'audience' talk louder.

BTW, they always make a choir of 90 year old women who have christmas song sheets and yell out numbers. Right in the middle somewhere on old gal says When Irish Eyes are smiling. I had worked that out last week so I launched into it and told the flute player beside me where it was on her music stand. What a hoot. We went back go Angels we have heard on high. I've heard some when I'm high. (The latter is legal for me now).

I hope she's going to like the new yamaha flute I'm giving her for christmas.

(I'm using her raise to pay for it...)


John Conley
Musica est vita