I’m still a total novice. My main problem at the moment is that it’s hard to keep the flute still enough while fingering the notes that my airstream keeps hitting the right spot. How did you overcome this problem? Can you think of anything I might be doing wrong that’s contributing without realizing it? I think one reason is that I’m trying to play faster than I should because I already know the tune fingerings from playing the whistle (not session speed or anything, but not nearly as slow as I played when I started on the whistle). How slow should I be playing?
It is very good to spend some time playing VERY slowly.
A metronome can be a godsend.
Also review the way you are holding the flute.
That should be sufficiently stable that the flute
is solid with all the fingers off the holes.
If you don’t know how to do this,
please tell us.
insure that the flute is low enough on the L1 joint … so that moving the index finger has no effect on the flute
as slow as you need to to play it correctly
Something my old director told me, which applies to Irish music as well as “classical” band music (and any other music you can think of), is that the best way to practice a tune is to slow it down until you can play it with no mistakes, and over time that tempo will become faster and faster as you master the tune. If you do that, you’ll be able to play as fast as lightning when you want to (with time and practice, of course); but if you play fast all the time, you won’t even do that well at all.
My congratulations to you at being a “total” novice. That’s where everybody begins, at least everybody I know!
First, however, learn to hold the flute, before anything else, even fingering.
Try this C&F thread: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=62929
It’s important to learn how to correctly hold a flute, before anything else.
Any questions? I’ll be right here.