I bet you know this piece! It's such a famous tune. And here it is played on the flute.

Played on flute: In The Hall of the Mountain King

You can download the sheet music for this song for free here

Okay, this is In The Hall of the Mountain King from The Peer Gynt Suite by Edward Grieg. My name is Jane Cavanagh. I'm gonna play this for you on the flute. And at the end, I'm going to give you a little teaching tip to make the piece easier for you to play.

So, oh my God, if you haven't heard the orchestra version of this totally go on YouTube. It now it is so fantastic. And really when you play this piece, you ought to be hearing the bassoon and everything else. That's going on the strings. That's going on in the orchestra, because it gives you so much idea about how to play this with the right style, listening to the orchestra version.

Flute teaching tips

Okay. So there's a couple of teaching tips to tell you about this. Um, on the second last line in the last bar, you'll notice that there's a high B firstly it says 8vb ad lib under a few of these, um, bars in this piece. Now 8vb means play it down. The octave ad lib basically means if you want <laugh> it's Latin for ad lib. Something like as in freedom. And I translate that as if you want and notice how 8vb ad lib is written underneath the music.

You've probably seen 8va before written above the music. And when I played this, then I actually played at eight VA because to tell you the truth, I have never seen 8vb in Flute music before, because we're always required to play up the Octave, not down the Octave.

Not all flutes have a B foot

And I literally just played that 8va, cuz I didn't read it properly, which is crazy. I realized just as I finished playing that I'd done it 8va, not 8vb. Now the reason that it's Adlib, the reason it's optional is because not all flutes have a B foot and a B foot is the lowest, not all flute.

And you need that to be able to play this down the octave, I don't have a B foot, so I couldn't have done it. 8vb anyway, <laugh> and I did an 8va for you and the teaching tip, I was gonna give you, which is still relevant for future in the last bar measure on the second last line, there's an F sharp followed by a B.

Normal fingering for B on the flute

Now, if you do that up, the octave, the normal fingering for B uses this tool, but the F sharp fingering uses this finger. So whenever you've got an F sharp next to a B, you play the F sharp normally, and then you play the B with that middle finger. If you rewind this video and watch that's exactly what I did.

So that's really handy for you in the future. If you have an F sharp next to a B up high up the octave, um, the other thing I was going to say for you, that's gonna make this easier. So it was one, listen to the orchestral version of it to get it in your head. Two what 8vb, what ad lib and what 8va means. But you knew that, um, three, the fingering for high F sharp next to high B. And there's a fourth one.

I was gonna tell you, oh, that's right. The tongue. Did you hear that? My tongue is really crisp and clear if you're wondering how I get that. There's a whole module in the flute academy on crystal clear tongue, and it teaches you exactly what I do to be able to get tongue that clear.

Flute embouchure in the right shape

So it is partly your tongue, but there's a lot of setup that goes behind it, um, before it, so getting your embouchure in the right shape, getting your embouchure whole to be the right size. And then on top of that correctly.

The Flute Academy

Now, specifically as you tongue higher on the flute, your tongue actually moves into a slightly different position. It's too detailed to go into here. There's a whole module in the flute academy on it, but if you wanna pursue that, then you can look at joining the flute academy.

So there you go. I hope those tips helped you. It's a cool piece and I'll see you next time.