Practice Advice Requested

Irish Flute
1

I realize that there is no substitute for an actual teacher, but for a variety of reasons (especially scheduling) I have had difficulty lining up lessons. So I am seeking information from players who either teach flute or have had successful experiences with a flute teacher. My questions are: how should a beginning player practice, and at what point should one start trying to learn tunes, etc. I have for the last several months simply been playing notes and trying to move around the instrument while sustaining a good tone. I also sometimes try to play tunes, though they don’t sound very good yet. I have no problem with things that might seem boring, such as scales and long tones. But I would like to know that I am doing things that will move me forward on the instrument. Any advice would be welcome.

Thanks!

p.s. I realize this is probably not the first time this has been asked, and so if you have links to other discussions or answers you may have written up, it would be helpful to me if you posted the links to the threads.

2

Yes, by all means play tunes. Also search on ‘practice’ using the search
engine in the upper rt corner.

I wrote this earlier, FWIW.

I think improving on flute requires, for people like myself,
deliberate practice. It’s a demanding instrument.

One thing I found that helps me, anyway, is playing
at some length, maybe 20 minutes to half an hour,
with a metronome set quite slow. Playing tunes I know
well already, as well as new ones.

Flute seems to be a ‘bottom up’ affair. It’s basic things
done simply and well that make one good. Very slow,
sustained practice, improves one from the bottom up.

Also if there is something that is a difficult or rough,
playing it very slowly, repeatedly, is quite helpful.

Also in tunes there are intervals between notes
and interesting fingerings. Exploring these slowly.

At some point this can become very pleasant, so that
one welcomes difficulties. Each tune is a universe
with it’s own underlying structure, and one explores
it on the flute, one breaks down complex passages
into simple parts and investigates the parts.

I think it is very good to practice scales and arpeggios,
especially when warming up. To begin each practice
session playing basics, and nothing is too basic.
And this includes long tones. The slow playing
will help embouchure too.

Always return to the basics.

Finally I think playing a higher pitched flute, e.g.
one in A or G, is very good for developing embouchure.
It does what overtone practice does, more or less,
but you play tunes and that’s even better.

Always it seems the people who are best at an instrument
play it in a very simple way, the basics have become
smooth and definite, and I think the sort of practice
I’ve described helps that. FWIW. The results are
worth the labor.

3

It seems there are at least two ways to play a flute, one being “recreational”, or just for fun, and then there are those who take flute study seriously. Moreover, it appears that you take the flute seriously, and that you’re already off to a great start!

During the past few hundred years that we know of, a daily flute study routine has been established, and it could be thought of as having four parts, 1) tone, 2) technique, 3) studies, and 4) pieces. Also known as a warm up, this daily routine could take something like twenty minutes or half an hour, or so.

  1. tone: Begin your day by getting the tone of your flute just right. Some people have “perfect pitch” but for the rest of us we use some sort of reference pitch, such as by a tuning fork or an electronic devise, and then we first tune the flute perfectly to that reference pitch, and here “long” tones are your best friend.

  2. technique: This combines getting each of the flute’s pitches in tune with each other and getting the fingers coordinated, typically with the practice of scales. Remember, even a keyless D flute also has a G scale at easy access.

  3. studies: This is where you work on little snippets, those sometimes difficult little sections, the ones you always seems to have the most difficulty with.

And 4) pieces: Now that you’re tuned up, that your scales are sounding good, and that you’ve worked on some of those difficult passages, it’s time to put them all together, and to play a whole piece, a tune, as music.

By doing that on a daily basis, you’ll be following in the footsteps of classically trained flute players from around the world.

4

Is it the classical flute that you want to play?

5

If it is trad music you are trying to play, and not classical, I wouldn’t at all follow Cork’s otherwise excellent advice - the goals of practice for classical music are different from those of practice for trad music. For my money, the playing of the tunes in trad music is “the basics.” Warm up with tunes, practice with tunes, play with tunes -use bits of tunes to work particular things that those tunes (and subsequently many others) demand, string tunes together to build stamina (and the ability to string tunes together), learn tunes by ear (to aid in learning tunes by ear), play tunes very slowly to work on all sorts of things such as tone, even rhythm and the ability to play tunes slowly, play tunes faster to work on playing them faster, turn tunes into exercises for different purposes (such as putting a cut on every note to work on cuts etc.), etc. etc.

There are a few drills I sometimes recommend to students for particular reasons or to solve particular problems, but other than that, tunes.

6

Thanks for all the advice so far. I really appreciate your taking the time to help me out with your suggestions. (To bepoq: Yes, it is trad I am learning to play; sorry I didn’t make that clear.)

7

You’re welcome!

Regular practice is key to success with the flute, and your having a daily practice time can help to keep you practicing, even on those days when you just don’t feel like it (and those days will happen).

Good luck!

8

The advice in this thread I think is excellent, I just wanted to add one small point:

When learning to play the flute, folks tend to quickly get caught up in worrying about their tone. This is understandable–the tone of a learner is often weak, fuzzy, unfocused, and unpleasant.

Don’t get too hung up on trying to fix the tone, though. As you become familiar with balancing the flute–and note that you don’t “grip” a flute, you balance it and if you do it right it takes almost no effort at all–anyway, as you become familiar with holding the flute and working on playing it and learning tunes, you will start to accumulate the muscle memories that will one day bring you to the tone you’re looking for.

I’m not saying to never work on tone, mind: to my ears, a flutist’s music lives or dies by his tone! But give yourself time, and don’t expect a decent tone for the first several months you play, and don’t expect a clear, powerful tone for a couple of years of play.

Note that a good teacher can really speed this up–and can speed up all aspects of learning to play the flute well. Even if you can only do a lesson every several weeks, it will still greatly ease the challenge of learning to play the flute.

–James

9

The most important thing is to do something you enjoy.

I plodded through by myself for some time before taking a few lessons. The things my teacher had me do were overtones (a muscle building exercise in which you start on low D, then gradually tighten the airstream to get middle D, second octave A, third octave D, and third octave F#); short tones, in which you relax the lips then blow short puffs in an effort to learn what shape of lip gives immediate good tone; and rice spitting, in which you take a grain of rice in your mouth and spit it as far as possible (you’ll spit it farthest with a nice tight gap in your lips, like you’d use for playing the flute).

These all allowed me to make really rapid progress, but he also gave me a couple of easy but beautiful tunes that I still enjoy playing, and which allowed me to have some fun and build some confidence. You should never do so many exercises that you don’t look forward to playing every day.

10

Hi Crickett,

I’m like you - no teacher but lot’s of desire… I’ve been at it for about 20 months now. My advice is.

  1. Immerse yourself in the music - listen to tunes at every opportunity www.liveireland.com, library, etc…
  2. Flute requires daily practice to progress well - I like to find tunes I love & practice them so I never get tired of “practice”
  3. Memorize the tunes - sing them, whatever until know all the changes - this will help you learn them faster better.
  4. Go to your local session - hang with the players & record the tunes - learn some - join in at the session - great way to keep yourself pumped. I started with waltzes & airs because were slow - then jigs & reels - finally getting them up to session speed after 20 months… ; )
  5. Play whistle too if you don’t already - guess that’s plenty - hope all goes well for you.

Best,

Deisman

11

lol!

Actually, bepoq, although what we each said might appear to be quite different, I believe we somehow managed to cover many of the same points.

So, to the OP, no matter how or what you practice, it’s regular practice which does the trick!

Let us all know of your progress.

:wink:

12

Thanks to everyone for all the great advice.

13

Although not mutually exclusive, bepoq’s approach could be likened to “specificity”, that is specifically practicing the end result to achieve the end result. Whereas your regime emphasizes “foundation”, or practicing all the “basics” to become well-rounded and prepared for a variety of musical situations. It’s unclear if either approach is more efficient in achieving a high degree of musicianship and so I suspect “serious” players will end up doing a combination of both.

14

Just want to register my complete disagreement with the above post (which is a really annoying thing to do and sorry - in midst of a paper and can’t really explain why at length).

In short though, in playing trad, the performance, rather than the work, is of paramount importance - thus the constantly changing playing of good players. As such, what I suggested was not so much as it would appear practicing the end result to achieve the end result, as when practicing tunes in the way I suggested, you are not practicing the end result at all.

In addition, you say that the drills, etc. etc. that Cork mentioned make you well rounded - I would suggest that they do nothing of the kind with regard to trad, although they ought to give you a good batch of technical skills which I suppose would come in handy to some extent. Classical type drills are designed so that you can play just about anything (western art music wise) that is put in front of you, but we don’t play that way, we play change which requires a whole different sort of understanding and ethos.

I think.

It’s late.

15

While I find your statements rather self-contradictory, I do follow a practice regime similar to what you describe and deem this approach as practicing the “end result”. It works for me, even though we seem to have a difference of opinion in the required state of mind.

In fact jazz musicians practice drills to enable improvisation (and other musical competencies), not merely what is “put in front of you”. Recognizing that there are different degrees and kinds of improvisation, most musicians would consider such an ability a genuine asset.

16

Ben - I find your advise very helpful and appropriate, thank you! I hope we will get more of it in future here, and you are not permanently put off by what happened while you just tried to explain yourself.

(my emphasis)

This really hits the main difference between classical flute practise and playing - practising traditional music. Traditional music is not fixed, a tune is not a tune as written (the written score is at most only a poor sceleton), but a living thing with changing patterns, as the musician feels and wishes to express.

As soon as you aim for a fixed performance goal, where some tune should just sound like some fixed pattern you got in your mind, you lost the playfulness inherent in the music.

For me a lot of the joy of practising comes from discovering and unravelling the beauty of a tune for instance, its aliveness and its call for being played in changing ways, if that makes sense. A good teacher will be able to transmit this nature, and perhaps set challenges for the student to try out new ways to deal with certain phrases, to ever deeper explore a tune, experiment through playing with it, without loosing the essence of a tune.

Sorry if this comes over as a bit wishy-washy, but it is hard to describe a living connection.

Be playful, not serious!
~Hans

17

i would say that there is more than one way to go about something. sorry to say, it is sometimes necessary to do drills. someone who can play their alberti bass on the flute, for example, will have a better tone than someone who does not. bottom line.

it all depends on the person, and how you approach it. some people like drills, and think they’re fun. some people don’t. i might recommend that on a daily basis for irish music working on tunes, and working on technique in specific instances, but that being said, when i need to master something, i will often devise a drill to do this.

for example, i would say if you could do a chromatic scale, all 12 major and minor, and all basic arpeggios on a wooden flute as well as a classical player on the silver flute, your irish music would be much better for it. hands down.

i do not believe in rigidity of method or that one needs to do things the established way to learn, but with that belief in flexibility comes the idea that you should be flexible enough to accept rigidity. when practicing piano, for instance, in general i do not practice scales or exercises, but practice technique in tunes. however, if i notice that my staccato is not good, and that it should be better (and it is not getting better just by practicing it in context), i may spend the next hour or so working on building muscle strength and technique to get my staccato back up to speed, and then may not do another exercise for a month or two. likewise, when i notice my dynamics could be better, i often practice scales to work on my finger pressure.

in irish music for the flute, it is essential to do exercises for tone. if you have an unflexible, uninteresting, highly-effortful and inconsistent tone, you are not really saving yourself time by only practicing tone in context, because your tone is still bad. you should probably practice your tone. some of the best exercises out there for tone are (surprise surprise) classical exercises. i do not do these every day, but i have devised my own that are much quicker, but that i can do only because i used to practice these classical exercises. by now, i use james galway’s headjoint exercise (on youtube), and then i set up the harmonic and regular fingering of second octave A so that it ends up resonating in my mouth a certain way. sometimes, every time i pick up my flute i do the second one, and it takes a total of half a second. i can have a “bad embouchure day” and fix my tone in about two minutes, because of all the time i have put in doing exercises, rather than just not believe in exercises, which would mean i would have bad tone, and be subject to believing that my flutes change in humidity or dumb luck makes my tone bad on any given day.

18

Again, thanks to everyone for their comments.