8 ways to make yourself WANT to practice the flute in lockdown!

I'm not really big into going for a regular evening walk. But as it turns out, with limited exercise options in this time of lockdown, it's really all I've got!

So, last night on one of my "regular evening strolls", within 2 minutes of leaving home, I'd passed someone practicing the piano accordion in their garage!

Then 5 minutes later I heard a pretty darn great piano player in their home practicing away.

Then before I got home, I heard a beginner kid practicing their tuba, high up in an apartment!

Trifecta!

I've never heard three musicians all in one walk before!

Then it occurred to me: Hearing people practice their instruments in my neighbourhood gives me such a sense of community.

And that is what's so needed at this time of being socially distanced from one another.

So in today's mini-lesson, I teach you how to be a super sleuth and find the way to practice the flute that makes you want to play every day!

Included are 8 examples that you can choose from to help entice you to pick up the flute and come out the other side of this lockdown as a better flute player than you were when you went into hibernation!

 All right today, I'm going to teach you how to practice the flute in a lockdown. There are two principles here that are really gonna see you come out the other side of this lockdown, being a better flute player and a happier flute player as in a less lonely isolated flute player. Just so you know, I'm taking my own advice and I'm applying this to myself as well. I'm gonna show you actionable examples that can make this work for you, and I'll show you what I've been doing for myself that works very well for me.

Number One principle to make this lockdown work for you and your flute playing is to find the type of practice that you like doing that makes you actually want to practice. That's what I'm gonna show you today. So I realized that with my rehearsals and concerts canceled, I didn't wanna come out of this ordeal however long it goes for on the back foot.

I didn't wanna come out being a worse flute player because at the moment I'm not being paid to play, which I normally do. I normally get paid to practice. I know that at this time, I don't like the idea of shutting myself in a room being even more isolated to practice my flute, but I still need to practice. So I had to do a bit of super sleuth work and kind of find a way to trick myself into wanting to practice and it worked.

So I know that I like variety in my practice. So I decided to go onto flutetunes.com once a day and choose random piece. Once a day, I'm gonna choose a random piece and learn this piece. I was gonna say, learn that beep out of this piece, but this is family friendly. I want to learn this piece so that I know it so well and I can play it really well just once a day. It normally takes about 15 minutes to do this. And that fully satisfies that creative part of me that likes that variety. Now, combined with this, I know about myself that I love the feeling of being better than I was yesterday. I love the feeling of feeling dextrous, having quicker fingers, lighter fingers, even a better tone, more control over my high high notes over my soft notes over  my whole playing. I love that feeling. It's like intoxicating when I can feel myself improving. So that might not suit you because everybody is different in what motivates them into wanting to practice every day. I've got a list of eight examples of what might suit you, what tickles your fancy to what motivates you to want to practice.

So example, Number One, practice one new scale every day and get it more even and more fluid than it was the day before. Example Number Two, practice all of your major scales every day and every day get them a little bit quicker, a little bit more even, the sound a little bit better and more fluid of playing than it was the day before. This is the one that I'm doing. Now I play my scales in a bit of a special way. It's not just up and down, but you can do that. So for example, this is my first one C major. And then I do that on every key going up, like I said, you can just play the normal scale up and down one octave if you can do it two octaves if you can do it and three octaves on some, if you can do that.

All right. Example Number Three of what might suit you to motivate you to practice every day. Learn a study a day from a book of studies that you have and try and finish the book. Example Number Four, learn a piece a day from an online source, for example, flutetunes.com, which is what I'm doing. I found some great pieces. I've been doing this for six days now. I tell you what I'm so excited to get on there everyday and see what it's gonna spit out at me to make me learn. Example Number Five, you can work at a little melody by ear every day. A new melody every day, for example, a famous classical tune, just off the top of my head.

You could work that out. You could even do it on a different starting note every day, and that would extend one melody out for 12 days. Since there's 12 different notes, you could start on. It can be a song from the radio, an old song, a new song, anything that's in your head, try and work it out by ear. Example Number Six, if you're a beginner, you could learn a new note every day and try and remember it for the following day. You could work on your tone over this time. You could do an exercise, the same exercise every day and incrementally improve your tone day by day. It all accumulates and coming out the other side of this lockdown, you will have a hugely better tone who wouldn't want that. And the final example, example Number Eight, all you really need is a big project that you've been wanting to do, or you've got a book of music or anything that I mentioned and break it up into smaller increments every day.

So think of a big project that you've wanted to do, perhaps it's a big piece that you've wanted to do and learn one line every day. Oh my gosh. I could have done nine examples. Learn a big piece, one line at a time or one phrase at a time, any big project that you've got broken up into daily, doable bite size chunks. So there you go. That's how to get yourself wanting to practice is find the thing that motivates you. Oh, Hey, my name is Jane Cavanagh, I forgot to say. I love showing people how to get faster progress with their flute playing through proper technique, like learn the proper techniques of flute playing and you get an instant improvement to your playing. If you would like to improve your tone, come and do a free three day minicourse with me, where I show you how to instantly improve your tone. It's free. Join me at www.flute.school/free. And I walk you through exactly what you need to improve your tone straight away. I'd love to see you in the minicourse. Good luck through this lockdown. Enjoy your practice that you do. See later.