Picking Up the Flute sets to music a former professors musings on retirement, marriage, literature, and the natural world. From his home in historic Bristol, Vermont to Irelands Connemara coast, travel through John Elders exquisite topography and relish his explorations of nature, poetry, and geology. John Elders memoir through music is permeated by his unique combination of prose and learning how to play the Irish flute. Elder revisits his time teaching at Middlebury College and explores the next phase of retirement, utilizing texts and memories from his past, whose meanings echo with a new sound now. Picking Up the Flute is an interactive, multimedia memoir that immerses the reader in Elders provocative prose, while offering the ability to listen to his spirited playing on his website.