So I might have a beginning Irish flute student soon, and I’m not sure what the best way to go about teaching him might be.
Obviously it will have be customized to suit him and his learning style and speed.
But what would be a good general way to start?
Do I start him on a tune right off, or just make him work on long tones for a while?
If he has no previous musical experience, do I teach him to read the dots, or do things only by ear?
Thanks for any advice you all can give!
Kelly
Always make sure the pupil is having fun. At some points the pupil will become depressed as things just don’t work. They have heard of the learning curve and expect things to go smoothly. It’s rubbish, people learn and have standstill and even recessive periods, tell them it’s natural. Always remember to check that they actually understood what you said and get them to feedback, in their own words, and question to make sure the point is home.
Never assume. Assume is spelt ASS of U and ME, and it will.
Praise. It does wonders and they leave feeling good and there will always be improvement, even if it is just the haircut. Even a small success will make them anxious to come back.
Finally never “I’m going to teach you to…” always “We are going to learn to…”
Very Good luck to both of you.
I wouldn’t have him working exclusively on exercises; that’s boring.
First lesson, my teacher did give me short tones and overtones to work on. I was having trouble with the upper octave (whence the overtones), so he gave me a simple but beautiful tune that was entirely in the first octave (a Breton tune called the Scholar).
I have no opinion in the dots/ear debate – I’m a book learner (didn’t go to many classes in college or graduate school), so 100% aural learning is out for me. (My teacher is still trying to get me away from dots, but the presence of dots doesn’t mean you’re deaf.)
As C said, it will need to be largely individual, so be prepared with exercises, mechanics, musical background, simple tunes, and lots of encouragement.
The main issue is whether this person has ever played a flute before. If not, most of your work for the first few months will be on producing a tone from the flute. I find that the hardest part to teach, but it can be done. There’s not a lot of point in having the person come back for another lesson after that until he or she can produce a sound from the flute reliably.
If this person has played classical flute or any other kind of flute and can at least get a sound out of the instrument then teaching will be a lot easier…you can start right out on some simple tunes.
Some people like to do exercises, but I’m not one of them so I don’t teach any (other than one-handed scales in the second octave using harmonics, which is a great way to help people strengthen and focus their embouchure).
Also, if he has never read music before I wouldn’t bother with the dots…that’s just one more thing to learn. You can always learn that later. I have several students who started by learning abc notation (just the notes, not the time codes) and then eventually learned to read sheet music; that seemed to work well for them.
Since he is coming to you for “music lesson” I would suggest you include reading the dots. If he doesn’t know them teach him. If he already reads music then work on aural. I’m a reader and have a problem with aural but working on it. Both is good to have. I know some here will discourage reading but I believe it has great merit. It leaves you open to play any kind of music any time without having to rely on hearing repetition. Not looking for a debate here but expressing an opinion.
I teach chromatic harmonica and stress both as being important but, for that instrument, reading is more critical.
Spend some time during the firs lesson assessing your student: how much musical knowledge; any other instruments; rhythym ability (some folks have none and thats its own problem); music in the family, et al.
Depending on past knowledge, provide a tune or two to be learned for the next time in addition to a scale or two and maybe long tones as needed.
Most of all, both of you should enjoy the session.
BillG
[Rant]
The problem with dots isn’t the dots, it’s that people accept the false notion that ear learning is a talent but not a skill. It takes work. Just like sheet music. By relying on sheet music, some folks take that as a free pass into “I don’t have ear talent.”
Not saying that anyone here is claiming this, just that it might be relevant.
[/Rant]
From what I gather from his emails, he has little or no musical experience of any kind.
So, if this is the case, are you saying that I should give him a few lessons on tone production, then tell him to go away until he can get a tone consistantly?
I know what you mean. Boy, do I know what you mean.
Thanks everyone for all the help so far!
Yes, unless he gets stuck and needs help. Learning how to produce a tone is mainly a matter of homework. Once you give some basic guidance on that, the rest is up to the student. Of course once he can produce a tone then there’s more you can teach in terms of improving the tone, getting more focus, etc., but he really has to get through the initial stage of simply being able to make a sound on the flute before he can do anything else, and that takes practice at home.
Assuming that the intent of this beginner is to learn how to play Irish music on the wooden flute, I would work with them on the four main building blocks of Irish flute playing, in the proper order. That would be tone/intonation first, breathing/phrasing second, rhythm third, and lastly ornamentation. There is of course overlap between each of these phases, but in listening to a lot of players as they are learning (including myself) I’ve found that a lot of people get hung up on learning the intricacies of ornamentation before they’ve mastered rhythm and get off-track rhythmically because they don’t understand using the breath to create phrases. And tone/intonation is a never-ending struggle no matter how long you end up playing for, so you might as well start with that as the fundamental concern.
There are of course the big hurdles to get over: first being able to produce a sound at all, then being able to play for any extended period of time without becoming dizzy, then being able to play a phrase without running out of breath (which BTW is your opportunity to teach them to learn ‘phrasing’ rather than ‘breathing’, i.e. to make the conscious decision to craft good phrases that fit their changing breath capacity rather than let their breath capacity arbitrarily decide where the phrase will end - which is usually whenever they run out of breath). Whenever your student hits one of these hurdles, it will take a while to get over it and you might feel guilty about taking their money week in and week out even though you’re not ‘teaching’ them anything. But don’t feel guilty, because what you’re doing at that point is coaching or prodding rather than teaching. Your student is more likely to keep at it and cross the hurdle faster because they’re paying you good money, so let them decide if they need that prod or if they want to be more self-motivated and eschew the paid lessons until they are ready for you to ‘teach’ them something new.
As for whether or not to use tunes to teach, I would say yes, do so from the start. Give them waltzes or other slow tunes as tone and phrasing exercises as soon as they are able to produce a tone. Then once they are somewhat comfortable with the tone and phrasing, they can use the same tunes to start grasping the subtle nuances and pulses that will give their playing rhythm and lift rather than having it be a boring monotone. Once they’ve grasped these subtle nuances in tunes like waltzes, they can transfer the same techniques into jigs and reels, even at a slow pace. Fight back any and all requests to learn sophisticated ornaments like rolls and crans until they have mastered the building blocks (cuts and taps), which can be introduced as ways to ‘spice up’ the waltzes and slow tunes once their tone and phrasing are stable.
As for whether to teach by ear or by the dots: This is Irish music, so eschew the dots even if they already know how to read music. Play the tunes for them into their recorder, and if they insist on having them written down, give them only the barest-bones ABC notation. You want to force them to listen to the tune as they learn it, rather than reading it off the page. The ABC notation has enough gaps in it that they will be forced to go back to the recording to figure it all out. With the dots, they’ll think they don’t need to listen, and they won’t. Tell them that they need to always be listening, to others but especially to themselves.
Good luck, Kelly!
I’ve always found electric shocks helpful,
but then I was teaching university.
Applied to the teacher, of course.
Might there be a point in suggesting the student start
on a whistle (or play flute but come to you for whistle
lessons while learning to produce a reliable flute-tone at home)?
It seems to me that somebody with no musical
background would profit by having a whistle
around, something on which s/he could make
progress and learn some tunes, while (or before)
grappling with the Black Beast.
That would depend on whether or not the student wants to play the whistle. I didn’t, so I started right in on flute because that’s what I wanted to play. Even today, after 15 years at it, just because I can play flute it doesn’t mean I can play the whistle. I can coax a tune out of one and do on occasion. But every time I do, I’m quickly reminded that the flute and whistle are two totally different instruments that just happen to share the same number of holes.
But then again, I was an adult when I started playing so I was well aware that learning the music would not be an overnight process. In Ireland they very often do give kids who want to learn the music a whistle to start with, no matter what instrument they really want to play. I think this is mainly because young kids are notoriously fickle and thus it doesn’t make sense to buy an expensive instrument for them only to see them lose interest quickly. Instead they give the kid a whistle, which is relatively and often extremely inexpensive, and let them have a go at it. If the kid demonstrates the desire/talent to play the music, then they get to move on to another instrument if they want to. Some, of course, opt to remain whistle players.
Presumably Kelly’s student already owns a flute and wants to play the flute, so I think it would make sense to let him/her devote him/herself to the flute. With most people, time is limited, and any time spent learning to play the whistle is time spent not learning to play the flute. If you look at the four progressive building blocks I mentioned above in this thread, it’s only at the last one or two (rhythm and ornamentation) where the techniques for playing whistle and flute begin to converge. Tone and phrasing are fundamental and are indeed the foundation of good playing. Any house built on a shaky foundation is going to remain shaky no matter how much time is spent fixing up the top floors. Better to build your playing by first laying a strong foundation, even if it means you won’t be ‘learning some tunes’ as quickly as you’d like. (BTW, the fact that I never built the foundation is the biggest reason why I’m not and will never be a whistle player. But then I never wanted to be one in the first place…)
Cool. Thanks again, everybody. I think I have a better idea now as to what to do with this guy, when I finally actually meet him. I haven’t heard anything from him in a couple days, so I don’t know, he may have changed his mind or something. But hopefully I will get to put all your good advice into practice soon. 
Kelly
what do folks think about telling the student about this forum?
Never!
Never!
There you go, off into Never-never land again.
If you tell him about it, there’s always a possibility he’s going to look up everything you ever posted…
Jennie
OK, maybe when he reaches puberty.
Depends on how much you hate them, I suppose…
Loren
Tone production can be kind of fun, too. If you have someone who knows absolutely nothing, then you could have your student practice getting tones on just the headjoint. If you stick your finger in the headjoint, the pitch changes, so you could have your student experiment with that, and try to play a song for the second lesson. that might also be a good way to evaluate things like sense of pitch, etc.
When I started (as an adult, also) I had no flute, so had my first tunes on whistle. After my first lesson, my flute arrived and I’d bring it every week and try to get a sound, failed, and I’d learn a new tune on the whistle. For homework I’d work on both trying the flute, and my jig or hornpipe on the whistle. This went on for a few weeks - meanwhile I learned how to finger a C, and tunes to transfer to the flute later. Teacher would dangle the carrot ‘oh, this is a good flute tune too’.
I would say this is a fine way to start. It kept me connected to my teacher and the music and learning, and also sort of propped me up when I was so mad about not being able to play the flute yet. I was always told ‘don’t worry, here’s a new tune for you at least.’
I think there’s a lot of merit in the other methods mentioned here but I don’t think I’d have been too happy myself if I’d been told to come back later. I suppose this has to do with the goals of the student. Mine was to play the “real stuff, the real way” and to do it on the flute - I guess that’s 2 things.
That’s it for my late night musings!