| How to play the flute
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How to play the flute
It takes practice if you want to become a great flute player. It is impossible to pick up a flute (or any instrument for that matter) and expect to become a great musician right away. You must be able to breathe properly, obtain a beautiful, clear tone, and learn how to play flute with expression.
The first things you need to do are breathing exercises. The following are some helpful breathing exercises you can do to help improve your stamina and to help how to play the flute when playing a long piece of music. It is important to spend at least an hour each day doing breathing exercises.
1. Take a deep breath. Does your stomach rise when you inhale? If not, practice breathing in while expands your stomach muscles. You will breathe more efficiently this way because every time your stomach rises, your diaphragm moves downward, giving your lungs more room to fill with air. If you keep on practicing to breathe this way, it will become so natural that you will eventually do it without thinking about it.
2. Another great exercise is to sit in front of a wall, hold up a piece of paper to the wall, form your embouchure, then breathe out through your embouchure, using your breath to hold the paper up against the wall. Try to see how long you can keep the paper on the wall. Stand further back from the wall and try the same exercise again. See how far away you can be from the wall before it becomes impossible to hold the paper up with your breath. This would help you learning how to play flute.
3. Most new flute players take a breath after every four measures. More experienced players take a breath after more measures. Sometimes it depends on where it is more convenient in the musical score. For example, it may be better to take a breath in between a measure if there is a rest sign. As you practice each piece of music, focus on where you should take your breath. Experiment with different places to take your breath to find out which way works best with the music.
4. Always breathe in through your nose and out from your mouth. This way you will be able to play more efficiently because people who breathe in through their mouth have a tendency to lose their embouchure as they play and the music might sound choppy.
Buy or rent a flute from a music store. When first starting to play an instrument, you should consider renting to be certain that you enjoy it enough to purchase. Also beginners should get a closed-hole student flute. Expensive, professional, open-holed flutes are for more experienced and careful players.
Consider paying a private lesson flute teacher for lessons. Ask your band director or a music shop employee about it towards the beginning of the school year. This resource will be infallible as you learn to play.
Assemble the flute and then go for how to play flute. Insert the open end of the headjoint into the wider end of the body (usually closest to the printed brandname of the instrument). Align the embouchure hole with the first key on the body. Take the footjoint from the case and connect it to the other end of the body. Align the main rod of the footjoint with the last key of the body. Adjust the alignment if needed.
Practice on a bottle to learn how to blow into a flute. Glass or plastic works equally well. Blow across the opening to produce a sound. You should also be blowing slightly downward and then learn how to play flute. The less liquid in the bottle the lower the pitch and the more liquid the higher the pitch. This blowing technique is the proper way to ease notes from a flute.
How to play the flute >
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