And not just any sound. I’m going to teach you how to get a good sound.

Firstly, you are not born being able to get a good sound out of the flute. It’s not like you either “have it” or you don’t.

You need to blow in the right SPOT, in the right WAY, so that the stream of AIR does the right thing, and *bingo*, you’ll have a clear sound.

So let me tell you what that right spot and right way are!

Shape of mouth

When you play the flute, the shape of your mouth is also called your embouchure.

And it’s critical that you use a particular shape embouchure. Why? Because this is the first step to producing a really good sound.

(Remember, flute players are not born being able to play. They all had to learn to use the correct embouchure, so do not fear!)

I’ve seen teachers teach the flute embouchure in a few different ways. (Like blowing over bottles, or blowing through straws, or just a "try it and see" approach.) Some ways work well, some don't. So I’m going to teach you the hands-down best way.

A good flute embouchure can be really easily created by “spitting rice”. Does it sounds crazy?!

I’ve made this video for you, which shows exactly what I’m talking about. It has helped tens of thousands of people already get a really good embouchure.

Go watch this 5 minute video now, then I’ll teach you how it actually makes you get a great sound on the flute!

Size of embouchure hole

Nearly every beginner flute player will automatically have too big a hole in their mouth when they try to get a sound. (Which is why spitting grains of rice is so magic - it ensures you to blow with a tiny hole).

When the hole is too big, you’ll get a super airy sound. You might call it a "fluffy" sound.

And on top of that you’ll get really dizzy, because you’re blowing out way too much air - through the too-big hole in your mouth. Which means you’re breathing IN too much too! Which makes you dizzy - from too much oxygen.

If only everyone learnt to get their first sounds on the flute by spitting rice! That way no one would have to deal with being dizzy and having a terribly fuzzy sound.

Not too smiley!

So now you know you need a small hole in your mouth. But here's a BIG clue: not too smiley!

Does pulling back the corners of your mouth into a smile improve your sound?? The reason it improves the sound is because it is making the hole smaller. But smiling is bad for you. (Not in life, just in flute playing!) Here's why.

"Smiling" will completely stuff up your flute playing in a few months when you learn how to play higher notes.

If you smile now, you won’t be able to play higher notes later. Fact.

So make the hole smaller by imitating the shape of the rice grain. Think a little more “ooooo” (instead of "eeeee"). Just a little.

Because you’re a human, you breathe efficiently as a habit - when you talk, when you sleep, when you're doing nothing. This means you’re almost already set up to breathe well on the flute. (Yay for being a self-breathing human!)

As you become a more advanced flute player, you’ll learn how to adapt your breathing technique to the demands of playing at an elite level. But as a beginner, you just need to really know what not to do.

(This is one of the reasons why learning the flute is not difficult - you just need to learn it in the right way - which is actually quite simple at heart.)

Long air stream

Remember in the spitting rice video above, I told you to breathe out in long streams, not in short bursts? If you didn’t see that bit, go and watch the whole video, it really teaches you a LOT in a few minutes!

So that long breathing out is excellent. It’s a basic skill that will keep you sounding good as you learn more about playing the flute.

Keep it out of your chest

When people learn the flute (or learn anything new), there’s always some level of nervousness or excitement or intense concentration. When this happens, your body will tense up a little. And your normal breathing can become “shallow”.

Shallow breathing is when you’re a bit stressed, and it feels like you’re breathing high up - in your chest. If you really pay attention, you’ll feel your shoulders rise up when you breathe in.

When you’re taking breaths to play notes on the flute, be aware to breathe in a relaxed way. Your whole torso should expand a little - in the front and the sides.

It’s fairly easy once you get it, because you actually normally breathe in a good, relaxed way when you speak, talk etc. (Remember the advantages of already being an efficient breathing human!) You’re just so good at it in your everyday life, that you don’t realise you do it so well!

Overall, your breathing should feel normal, and relaxed, like you’re not really trying.

How good is that advice?! It’s not every day that the best way to do something is to not really try!

Firstly, the sections of the flute have names. The head joint, the body and the foot joint. You can probably guess which is which.

If you look after your flute in the right way, and avoid accidentally breaking it, it will last for many years.

Of course, the number one way to protect your flute is to never drop it, and never sit on it. This flute was sat on by the student’s dad. Sad ending for the flute!

Cleaning your flute

From playing it, the inside of your flute will accumulate condensation. It’s not saliva! You’re not dribbling! It’s the moisture from the warm air of your breath condensing on the cold metal inside surface of the flute.

It's exactly like when you pick up a hot takeaway pizza (warm and moist), drive it home in your car and your windscreen (which is cold) fogs up.

Now, if you leave this moisture inside your flute, inside the case, overnight, or for days, it will start to smell gross after a while.

So, purely thinking of you and your probable desire to not play a stinky flute, I would recommend you clean the inside of your flute after each time you play. Use the cleaning rod, along with a specific flute cleaning cloth.

For a cleaning cloth, you can also use any absorbent and thin material, like a gauze. (Just don’t use a tissue, nor paper towel! It will fall apart in your flute and the bits will get stuck inside. Bad for flute!)

Where to put your fingers

I can teach you where to put your fingers in 10 easy steps. Even though it is 10 steps, and you have 10 fingers, it is NOT just 1 step per finger. It’s much more profound (and helpful) than that!

In this 3 minute video here, I explain how to teach a beginner how to hold the flute exactly the right way.

Flute comes to you

One of the most important things that you will learn as a beginner is that you should bring the flute to YOU (not you going to the flute).

Does that not sound so utterly simple?

Well, you might be surprised that it is natural for beginners to want to take their head to the flute. And I bet you do it too, even if it’s just a little bit…

This posture causes a small amount of tension in the neck. Over time however, this tension accumulates and becomes significant tension, causing pain and injury.

If you start playing the flute with this neck position, it will become a habit. And I want you to learn, right from the start, how to stay free of pain when you play.

My string technique (or "string theory"!) is one of the fundamental ways to keep you free of tension when you play.

Learning good habits up-front reduces the chance of tension creeping into your posture. And it puts you on the path to becoming an excellent player.

Here’s a factoid for you! Did you know that tension in your body when you play the flute affects all of these things:

• Pain and injury in neck, shoulders, arms, wrists, hands and back.
• How good your tone quality is.
• How much air you have, and whether you can play long phrases or not.

Here’s a little demonstration of how I teach thinking of a STRING pulling you up tall to avoid long term injury.

Use your arms, not your shoulders

Lots of flute players, even really good players, hold tension in their shoulders when they play. So it’s hardly surprising that beginners will have this tendency too.

I call it “sneaky shoulder tension” because we all think we don’t have it, but most often we do! Just to varying degrees.

If you can consciously use your arm muscles to hold your flute up, instead of trying to use your shoulders, you’ll do yourself a huge favour.

Here are 4 reasons why:

1. You will feel better when you play (ie pain free)
2. Your breath will flow more freely because you’ve eliminated one constriction in your body.
3. Your sound will be clearer, which is directly because of your free-er breathing.
4. Your fingers will begin to move faster and more freely because the tension that used to flow down to your hands (from your shoulders) has gone.

Untwist your torso

The flute is an asymmetrical instrument to play. It’s off to one side, and really is a very unnatural pose!

Doing an unnatural pose, on repeat, while being tense, is a recipe for long term injury. Just ask professional musicians, office workers, and athletes who have developed repetitive strain injuries!

This is why it is super important to keep as much tension out of our bodies as possible when we play.

So, back to the flute.

When you lift your flute up to play, your right shoulder and arm will move back, naturally. This has the effect of twisting your torso.

And as you’ve probably just realised, we need to keep twisted positions out of your posture!

So how to untwist your torso? Easy…

Keep your flute and shoulders where they are, and do one of these three things:

1. Take a small step back with your right foot, opening up your body to the right a little.
2. Turn both your feet (and hips) to the right a little.
3. If you’re sitting, turn your chair (or yourself on the chair) to face the right a little.

Done! No more twisted torso, no more squished shoulders.

You didn’t even know that you’ve just saved yourself from eventual pain in your right shoulder and arm. Yep. You’re welcome!

It might seem obvious to say you need a "flute that works". But many people don’t realise how a tiny little leak in one of the yellow pads under the keys can cause much of the flute to not work.

These are the yellow pads under the keys I'm talking about:

You might think that if one key doesn’t seal properly, it’s just that particular note that won’t work.

But in actually fact, if there is a leak in one of the keys, every note lower than that note won’t work! So if you have a leak up nearest the head joint, the entire flute won’t sound right. Sad times.

That might give you some context now about why it’s so important to look after the keywork of your flute when you’re assembling it. (See section 3 above)

Apart from looking after your flute, what else can you do to ensure that it mechanically works perfectly? Read on.

Buying a flute

Well, if you are looking at buying a flute, I’d recommend a brand new one. Because, out of the box, new flutes are usually very well aligned (and if it’s not, you should get a refund!)

A flute in good (mechanical) condition is exactly what a beginner needs to learn on. They don’t need an expensive, gold plated, bells and whistles flute, but they need one that mechanically works perfectly.

Why? If a beginner can’t get a good sound because their flute is not in great condition, how are they supposed to know whether it’s them or the flute?!

When I say to get a brand new one, that means I’d suggest staying away from second hand flutes. Over time, the mechanisms of flutes wear out, and go out of whack.

And by now, you’ll know that even going “out of whack” a tiny bit can have big (and undesirable) results! If the flute is second hand, you have no way of knowing just how out of alignment that flute is.

The only exception is if you have access to a professional flute repairer, or very good player who can play the flute for you and tell you whether the flute is good enough to learn on.

It is an excellent idea to learn to play some notes and melodies before you learn to read music. It just means you’re learning one new thing at once, instead of two new things at once (which is a disaster for anyone's brain!).

It's a smart way to learn. Because you actually learn, as opposed to being overwhelmed! Yay for good learning, I say.

So, your first notes on the flute:

Your first note D

You already know how to hold the flute, and where to put your fingers (from section 4 above). So it’s time for your first note: D

D is a great note to learn first because it uses nearly all your fingers. Which means you’re practicing doing the right thing with each of them.

The flute has lots more keys than in the diagram below, but I have only drawn the keys of the flute that your fingers actually ever use. It makes the drawing much simpler to interpret!

Below is the fingering for D. It shows you which fingers to put down. Coloured-in = finger down.

Even though you might want to jump in and start learning to read music straight away, it’s a very good idea to learn to listen first.

The last thing you want is for your playing to become mechanical: Put-your-fingers-here-when-you-see-this-note-on-the-page (like a machine!). If you learn this way, you will by-pass the critical skill of hearing what you are playing.

In other words, it’s so easy to forget to listen to yourself!

And having a “good ear” is what really sets good musicians apart from the mediocre ones.

Hear the contours

Having a good ear is a learned skill. The way to develop it is to just be aware of how the notes you’re playing actually sound. Hear the contours of the ups and downs when you change notes.

For example, when you change from B to A, hear that it goes down in pitch.

If you play G then D, hear that it jumps up in pitch.

Make this a habit, and when you learn to read, you’ll naturally be able to hear what you’re playing.

Your first tune

Now for a big challenge. It’s time for you to work out, on your own, how to play a melody that you already know the sound of.

It is an excellent exercise, regardless of your age. Because it trains you to listen. Which means you’re starting to become a good musician.

Here’s the task: Can you work out the notes of Mary Had a Little Lamb, using the notes B, A, G and D?

Start on the note B. And off you go.

This may take you a while, or it may be quick. That is dependent on how much musical background you have, not on how talented you are! Remember this is a learned skill.

(If you get stuck, leave me a comment below and I’ll give you a clue!)

What comes next?

Once you've working out this melody, well, you’ve just achieved a milestone. Congratulations!

What you would do next is learn more notes. Then you work out more melodies that you already know the sound of. Even after you start reading music, you continually develop your “ear” by working out more and more tunes.

Which tunes should you learn? Anything that you already know the melody to!

Children’s songs (like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) are excellent because we all know how they go. Christmas songs are also very familiar to many people. Your country’s national anthem is good to do. Happy Birthday is a fantastic one because it’s tricky but not too tricky. Songs from the radio or from your childhood that you like. And lastly, famous classical tunes (like Ode to Joy, or Morning) that might get stuck in your head from time to time - they’re perfect.

(Again, if you want a clue as to how any of these melodies go, just YouTube a recording of it, or leave me a comment, and I’ll help you out!)

And now you’re ready to learn to read music. From following through this post, you have many of the fundamental playing skills ready to go.

And when you pick up a “Learn to Play Flute Book” you will already be able to get a good sound, hold the flute, play with good posture, know some notes, know a short piece, and do something that lots of others can’t - you’ll be in the habit of listening to how you sound.

CONCLUSION

Welcome to a world of learning the flute well. And becoming a good musician...

By that I mean, learning skills that are real, feel easy, but are so solid, they will set you up for a lifetime of fantastic flute playing.

That is what I love to teach.

I hope you can now see that learning the flute is not hard, you just need to learn it in the right way. Which is a way that feels easy and quickly gets you good results.

Jane Cavanagh xx