Have you ever had a teacher tell you that you must always stand when you practice the flute?

Should you SIT or STAND to play the flute?

And have you then wondered why that is the case - when you see band and orchestra players sit down all the time??

I made you this mini-lesson to explain why!

By the end of the 4 minutes you will understand how to sit or stand correctly when playing the flute so that you give yourself the best chance at playing pain-free.

Jane xx

Is sitting or standing when playing flute correct?

Hi there today. I'm going to answer the question: should I sit or stand when I play the flute? Not me. I mean, you.

If you've taken flute lesson yourself, no doubt your teacher has had a strong opinion one way or the other, more likely they've had a strong opinion that you should always stand. If that has been the case, has any part of your brain gone? Yeah, but orchestra players sit and band players sit and their professionals, should they all be standing or what's going on?

So I'm gonna answer that question for you. Oh, I should say my name is Jane Cavanagh.

Learning the flute with good technique

My flute school online is to teach people just like you the proper way to play the flute. And by that, I mean, real techniques that give you instant improvement in your sound, in the speed of your fingers, in how easily you can play your high notes. Speaking of which I've got a free mini course that I've just made to make your high notes much easier. So I'll tell you more  about that at the end of this video.

Which is best when playing the flute - sitting down, or standing up?

So the answer to the question, should you sit or stand when you play the flute? It's both are fine, but both can be bad as well. So it's more about your alignment between your shoulders and your hips. If you've got that right.

And I'm gonna show you how to do that today, then it doesn't matter if you sit or you stand. So let me give you an example. See right now I'm face thing towards you. See that my shoulders are over my hips directly. Now look what happens when I put my flute up, watch how my shoulders move. See how they're now twisted to the right.

All you need to do to get rid of that twist is to move your legs to the right as well. So see now how my shoulders are above my hips still. That's all you have to do when you're sitting. And then sitting is absolutely fine.

Good posture when standing to play the flute

When you're standing. It's the same thing. So all you have to do is turn your feet a little bit to the right, to make sure that your shoulders are over your hips. The other thing you can do when you're standing is take a small step back with your right foot or a medium step back with your right foot and that has the same effect.

How to make sitting and playing flute work for you

Now, there actually is one more element to making sure that sitting is okay. And this is probably the reason why so many teachers say that you must stand. And in actual fact, whenever I teach students, we always stand in lessons. If they're tired, I let them sit down and have a rest. But I feel like I'm being like really, really progressive when I let them sit down for a bit.

So it's definitely ingrained in us teachers that students should stand when they're practicing and in lessons. And here's probably the reason why.

Why a music stand is important to use with flute playing

If you are not using music stand and you are sitting and you're doing this, that is the worst thing you can do for your playing. It’s the worst. It will affect your sound. It affects the balance of your flute, which means that this is falling forward, again, it's affecting your sound. It's gonna make high notes a lot harder to play. It's gonna make playing harder in general.

Slow flute fingers from bad posture

It will slow down your fingers for two reasons, cuz the balance is off and the flute is tipping forward and you're gonna have a whole lot of tension in your neck and your shoulders, which slows down fingers and it gives you pain in the end. In the end, it can end up in injury. So that's a huge thing. Make sure you use a music stand. And if you don't have a music stand prop your music up around eye level or a little bit below on a bookshelf.

So there is your answer to, should you sit or stand when you practice the flute.

Easier high notes on the flute

Speaking of practicing the flute, if you would like to make your high notes, easier to play, come and join me for a free 3 day mini course where I show you how to do exactly that www.flute.school/highnotes. And I'll show you everything you need to know to play high notes properly. See you there.