Flutes and Invisible Fingers

Okay, I'm a pianist, so I'm used to seeing my hands.  And seeing which side they're on so I can tell my left from my right.  And I also play french horn, which only uses four fingers on one hand.  And I can see my hand and my fingers.  I didn't realize how important all this is until I picked up flute lately.

First of all, I picked up flute because it's shiny and has all those really cool key thingies on it.  I must have been a crow in a former life, because I've always been attracted to shiny things.  Maybe a racoon, but I don't have a mask unless I haven't gotten any sleep lately, in which case the craters under my eyes create a pretty good imitation.

Anyway, back to the flute.  I got a sound out of it almost immediately, which tickled me to no end.  And being a brass player, I got the whole embourchure (ambisure without the dictionary) thing quickly, which rapidly increased my range.

But my fingers disappeared, and I have yet to find them.  I mean, they're on the flute and everything, I know they are there.  I just have no idea which is left and which is right, or which fingers are what.  The only ones I'm sure of are my thumbs, and even they disappear at will.  In other words, I can't connect my brain with my fingers because I can't see them.

It doesn't help that my left hand is pointed towards me.  That's just backwards, in my opinion.

I'm already backwards.  I play french horn, which is made fun of because it's backwards.  I'm dyslexic, so I can write backwards. I can also read backwards and upside down.  In fact, I can read upside down almost as fast as I can read rightside up and frontwards.

Which isn't very fast, if you must know the truth.

But flute is sideways and out of my line of sight.  I've never done anything sideways before, and evidently my brain cells do not compute that direction.  Whether it's dyslexia, old age, or just not enough gray cells, I'm finding that trying to figure out finger combinations creates a wall.  A big one.

Not enough practice, you say?  Well, that's a good point.  And the fact that I've only been playing flute for about six months.  So maybe I'm expecting too much too fast.  And I'm impatient, of course.  I like the flute.  It's shiny, I'm getting pretty good sound out of it, I don't have to transpose anything, and I only have to worry about one note at a time.

But I lose my fingers whenever I pick up the danged thing, and so far, I haven't found them.  It's like a magic trick.  One minute my brain knows where my fingers are, the next minute, poof! They're gone.

So while I've got all the musical knowledge to be having a lot of fun fluting, I'm once again really, r-e-a-l-l-y slow at the whole reading thing because I can't find my frickin' fingers.