Tips for Beginners

So you’ve just gotten your first flute, you’ve never played before, you don’t know what to do, how to get a sound out of it, or even how to put it together. Here are some tips to get you started. Before you read this though, keep this in mind: it is better to actually have someone physically around who can help you than just to read it off of this site. The first few months, or even days, of playing are crucial to your talent as a flutist and it is easy to develop bad habits when you first start playing that can stay with you and cause you grief, and sometimes even physical damage for many years. If you have somebody to help you, like your band teacher, a private flute teacher, or even some of the older and more experienced flute students from your school, they can prevent these habits from developing.

1. Putting it together

Number one most important point: Do not open your flute case upside down! It’s usually quite easy to figure out which way the case opens. If it has the traditional latch system, make sure the latches are flipping up upwards or if it has the sliding latch system, make sure the thinner part of the case is on the top. Congratulations, you have opened your flute case. Now, we move on to something a bit more challenging: putting the flute together. There are three parts to your flute: The head joint, that plain metal tube with an opened end, a plate, and a closed end, the body, that really long metal tube with the complicated key systems, and the foot joint, the shorter metal rod with only a few keys. Step number 1, pick up the head-joint, making sure not to grab it around the lip plate, and the body. Now, hold the body near the top (the wider open end that has a big empty space), gripping your hand around the empty space (note: never, ever, ever grip your flute by the keys. This can cause serious alignment problems which will cost a lot to repair), and insert the head-joint into the upper part of the body. On newer flutes it should go in smoothly while sometimes on older flutes that have grime built up it will be very difficult to get in and should be cleaned before putting it together. Line up the hole on the head joint with the keys of the body (this can be adjusted, but this is generally the alignment that works best for most people). Now, holding the body in the same place (with the head-joint now attached), pick up the foot-joint near the end , around the space where there’s no keys and attach it to the body, line up the rod of the foot joint with the keys of the body so that the keys of the foot joint are on a forty-five degree angle. There, now you have a fully put together flute.

2. Making a Sound

Start by only playing on your head joint. Take it and move it up to your mouth, your lips should be shaped like you were starting to saying the beginning of a “whee” sound (the beginning of the “W” should be the shape of your mouth) and your lips should be fairly tight but not overly so. Now, take the lip plate (the part of the head joint around the hole) and place it under your bottom lip so that the hole is centered on your mouth, your bottom lip covers about 1/3 of the hole, and be sure that the longer end of the head joint (the part that will eventually attach to the body) is pointing to the right. To make a sound, take the hand that is not holding the head joint and cover up the open end. Make a “too” sound and blow air across your flute and you should get a tone. It is very important to remember the “too” part and the beginning of each not. This is called tonguing and must be done at the beginning of every note that you play, even when the notes move very quickly in succession. Tonguing must be learnt as soon as you start because it is easy to get into very bad habits of not doing it that are nearly impossible to get out of. Experiment by rolling your head joint slightly and see which position gives you the strongest sound. Once you find this “sweet-spot”, try and stick with it all of the time.

3. Keys and your Fingers

I’m not going to go into exact fingerings here, but rather where and how you should position your fingers and hands. It may look like there’s a lot of keys there and there’s no way that you can possibly play all of those with only 8 fingers and 2 thumbs but some of these keys are never even touched at all and move with other keys. Since your flute is pointing to the right (or starboard for you navy people out there) your left hand should naturally go in front of the flute, and closer to the head joint while your right hand should go behind the flute and closer to the end. Now, as for keys, on your left hand, your index finger should be on not the first key, but the second one, the un-textured one. The next key down is skipped and your middle finger goes on the key after that (so that’s four keys down now) with your ring finger on the next key. The pinky finger of your left hand plays the longer key that sticks out from the flute and the thumb goes underneath and plays the longer, sideways teardrop-shaped key on the side. This should leave the upper portion of the flute resting between your thumb and index finger. Your three right hand middle fingers (index, middle, and ring) play the three keys closest to the end of the body of the flute. The pinky finger plays the little tear-drop shaped key at the top of the foot joint and the thumb just goes underneath the flute to support it (your right hand thumb never plays any keys). For more information on where your fingers go and how to finger different notes, see our flute fingering chart in the “Resources” section.

It’s not just where you place your fingers that’s important though, it’s how you place them. You should be pressing down the keys with the PADS of your fingers- not the tips, and not the joints, the pads. This is very, very, very important. If you develop a habit of playing with a different part of your finger, it will be hard to break and you will have difficulty playing faster pieces as your skills advance. Ensure that you are playing with the pads of your fingers.

4. What to Play

Now that you now how to put your flute together, how to make a sound, and where to put your fingers, try playing a few notes. Stick to things in the middle range (don’t attempt really high or really low notes at first). Get your trust fingering chart out and try playing a C (not the first C on the chart but the second one on the third space of the staff). Now try all of the other notes from an A below to an Eflat above. Now that you have a few notes you need some music. In my personal experience, I’ve found that the Standard of Excellence books are the best to start out with because they lead you from the very basics of first starting to play to more advanced levels while teaching you all of the necessary theory, music reading, and notes along the way. For more music ideas for beginners check out our “Repertoire” section under “Recommended Repertoire” and then under “Beginner”.

Now that you know the basics of flute playing you can gradually improve your skills. If you have not already done so, check with someone who knows how to play the flute to make sure that you’re doing everything properly and that you haven’t developed any bad habits. Even if you can’t afford flute lessons full time, maybe try going to just a few when you’re starting out to set you on the right track, or get your music teacher to help you. If you’re not sure about anything ask them and if you don’t have access to them, e-mail us at arwenandjustin@hotmail.com and ask us.

Hope this article has helped you get started and that you will continue to enjoy flute playing for many years to come.