I am learning to play The Flight of the Bumble-Bee. It is super fast. Can anyone give me tips on how to get it up to speed? It is so hard and I have been playing for less than a year.

I've been playing the flute for three years or so, and what I've found is doing it over and over and over and over helps you get up to finger-speed. Honestly, there's not special trick that I know of. Sorry, not great advice, but I hope it helps a little.

Play is S-L-O-W with a metronome and slowly (very slowly) work it up to speed. Don't bump up the speed until you have all the notes and rhythm under your fingers perfectly.

wow, i want tolearn flight of the bumble bee but i can't find it and i can't get it here as i am not a subscriber- oh well, good luck anyway

i find the best way is to start slow, get it perfect and then do it faster.(i did it with an exam peice last summer and got it about right)

try practicing your chromatic scales every day

Get some of that Power Putty - the second lightest stuff they make(light blue). Use it to strengthen and make your fingers more flexible. It works better than those guitar type ones with the springs. Try to make rapid squeezing and fingering motions with it. I find that even a few minutes a day makes a noticeable difference after a week or two.

Also consider a thumb wrest for your flute. If you have better leverage/it's easier to hold, then you can get more on top of the keys and that helps, too.

Play it SLOW!!!!! SLOOOOWWWWWWWW... When you make no mistakes, you're comfortable playing it try to increase the speed, with metronome! And the speed comes by itself!!!! It won't be 1-2 day.. it could be 3 months to play it super fast! The secret is slow with metronome but Kara also has had a good teacher like mine. ))Giving very good advices

also, make sure your fingers are close to the keys. If you lift them up too high when you aren't using them to hold keys down when you finger, it can make it much harder to play fast.

You make a good point. Wow, i feel dumb now.

Hence why getting your fingers off of the body and over the keys is a huge advantage. A thumb rest or similar gizmo improves your leverage so that instead of creeping over the keys with your right hand, you are slightly more forward and on top of them.

Without it, you generally have to grip/press against the body with the upper edge of your palm and that limits travel to a few mm.

It's similar to typing. If you use one of those wrist rests or put your hands too low, yes, you'll get sore. If you come down on them and hold your arms like you play piano, no carpal tunnel or other worries.

Can't hurt - most people say it's the best $5 they've spent on their flute.

Actually, I bet a thumb rest on a flute actually encourages bad form...
But don't quote me on that.

I think the normal speed on the original score is only 144 bpm, that is not fast! In my country it is only around grade 5 level piece, and maybe grade 6 level piece for ABRSM. If you do your scales everyday for 1 year, you can actually sightread it at tempo 144!!! every kid in my country with grade 5 can play it.

But at Sir Galway's tempo 220 then accelerate to 260/270, that is called HARD!!! :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI3wIHFQkAk

I can't even catch up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW7cmd3HJeE

http://www.tonkooiman.com/index.php/en/publications/13-the-kooiman-prima-thumb-rest

The problem that I was describing was when you are only holding the flute with a couple of fingers for certain notes - it wants to roll on you and you have to stop it with some sort of contact from your palm or lower fingers(or press harder on your lip, which is a no-no). This means that your wrist tends to twist a bit as well. It's really simple ergonomics combined with the flute being fairly top-heavy. A flute is not an easy thing to hold onto and keep from moving on you, to be honest. So adding a couple of leverage points can be nice fix.

There also is a left hand rest as well - no idea whether it works or not, though. Anyone tried this?

http://www.justflutes.com/pages/product-detail63913.htm

***
oh - sorry for the small side-discussion... the Power Putty really does work wonders as it responds in a dynamic fashion compared to a spring which just compresses. ie - you can squeeze it and it's mushy but throw it and it bounces like a superball. That gives it a velocity-sensitive feedback that is very similar to a piano or an instrument.

I agree with micron! when I first learnt the flute, my parents bought lots of those things and thumbport etc. I used them once or twice then never used them again.

use traditional 4-point holding or new 3-point holding is enough.

These steps work wonders to increase speed
First just do this one phrase at a time.
1) play it slowely with a gap between each note, move your fingers in the gap before you play the next note.This encourages the fingers to be always slightly ahead and not cramped.
2.in a group of four play first note long,second very short, third long, fourth short.Keep the short note as fast as possible.
3.Play first note short,second long,third short,fourth long. (with the last two steps you are playing half the notes up to speed!)
4.Now play straight but in groups of 3,5,6,7,9,
Then back to step one just to space out the fingers.
Now try play that phrase up to speed!!!

let me know how you get on