flute yoga Archives | flute hacks - the next level of flute playing

Have you ever wondered if there were flute practice tips to study in a more efficient way but in less time? If so, you will appreciate our flute practice tips collected over years!

Whether you need to study for, let’s say a flute ensemble, whether you are a beginner flutist or a pro, whether you play flute jazz, and other instruments in a band, whether you look for an actual flute job or you need to prepare any other flute genre, you will have asked yourself if there was a more efficient way in a short amount of time to become confident with the sheet music or the Jazz solo.

You will already have created your very own and personalized flute practice with the help of your teacher’s or colleagues’ tips. Whatever flute you play, even the pan flute, which flute tunes you are trying to study or if you are preparing for an audition with orchestral backing and piano accompaniment, you will need to make sure, you don’t waste any time or are even studying in a way that actually diminishes your performance.

So the question is:

What do they really mean when they say “you better go, and study some more at home”?

How to study effectively in short time at home 5 flute practice tips

You only have 20 min now and then? Make sure you use them wisely. You don’t need your flute for the first two flute practice tips.

—-> Flute Practice Tip 1

The very first step is to get an idea about how it should sound in the end. In your head, without playing any of it, look at the flute sheet music and turn the flute notes into a sound in your mind.

Breathe with the imagined melody and give it a direction. Is the phrase leaning forward or backward? Would you play it bold or intimate? Do you wish for a clear, warm, mystical, deep, seductive sound or are you just telling a story? Is it narrative or contemplative? Does the phrase consist of a question and an answer? Or just one big feeling?

Try to identify the inner meaning of whatever you are about to study and sing it inside your body. Try to locate the sound. Does it come from your belly, your feet, your back, your elbows, your head? Does it move? If you have trouble imagining any of it, listen to recordings on YouTube.

—-> Flute Practice Tip 2

Sing it! I know you won’t like it, but you should try to sing whatever you study, in any register or octave, but sing it. This part you can do in the shower, car, elevator or on a walk.

—-> Flute Practice Tip 3

Now you will probably know why you became a flutist and not a singer, and be thankful that the flute can produce any sound in more than 3 octaves.

While keeping your flute in your hand, go over the sheet music again imagining the flute sound. Then move your fingers on the flute while still playing the piece only in your head.

—-> Flute Practice Tip 4

At this point you actually put your flute in a playing position, breathe and sing with your flute, yes I mean really sing and play simultaneously. This will get your air support system ready, open your throat and connect what we have done so far with the flute playing.

Don’t skip this step, it is very important to link playing the flute to the things you can do to study flute music without the flute. You will gain deep understanding of the music and intonation.

—-> Flute Practice Tip 5

Play the piece just once and don’t judge any of the aspects. You will wish to play it again, but I recommend not to. Leave it there and go practice 20 min of scales and arpeggios. Then another twenty minutes of sound quality. Then sing and play again in the third 20-min portion of your time.

And only after that go and play it. You will have played it only twice (without singing) but it will sound like you played it all your life. Because it has phrasing, breathing, direction, meaning and all the musical expressive elements that are available to you at the present moment.

Flute yoga – whole body flute practice tip

Have you ever noticed that they use flute music for yoga? It’s because it is deeply connected to our air stream, so the basis of our life. Whenever we breathe we express ourselves, we take in and produce a certain type of energy. This happens independently whether you think about it or not.

Actually most people don’t and live in constant reaction to something they can’t seem to control. Whenever we control our breathing, match it to the result we wish, we are in charge, controlling our life. So we flutists actually have a gift. We can use that to calm down others and make them aware, but also for ourselves.

Let us own our choreography of airflow,

let us decide its velocity, pressure, angle, volume, directness or indirectness. Whether it circles in our mouth before getting out, whether it does that inwardly or outwardly (clockwise or anticlockwise).

Does it resonate in our head and gain harmonics or just leave our body? Or maybe it creates a very direct flute sound?

We can choose whether our inner mouth and neck position matches an “o” or an “i”, where we use a decisive or soft consonant to start the sound and to end it. Whether we use one at all.

We can decide the dance the air performs before leaving our body and the vibration it creates in the flute and surrounding area. If you feel intimidated by all these possibilities, do some more of the 5 steps for effective flute practice and when you get excited about expressing the feeling and sound you now understand try some flute yoga again.

Breathe and be excited of what your air stream does to express your melody. Just observe, don’t judge. Be excited and curious. There is no right or wrong at this moment.