I play flute for my school band. I love playing, but reallllllllly want to play something else. Any advice?

Do you mean you want to give up flute? You can always play both I play 7 different instruments

On my first audition for band this year, the wind ensemble director recommended I switch to oboe or a less popular instrument. I refused because I didn`t want to waste my summer working on a new instrument when I could do an audition just fine on flute.

I want to learn how to play more instruments, though.

I recommend you young people try other instruments if you want to, you won`t forget to play the flute

I know, but I will someday.

Yeah, that happened to me a while ago, I just got bored of there being so many classical flutes everywhere, so my parents decided I could try something else for a while. I started the traditional flute and practiced it every day and totally forgot about the my classical flute. Then gradually I began to realise that I had never really wanted to play the traditional flute that in fact the classical flute was a huge part of me and who I am. Although I still have my traditional flute and I still play it I came to realise that classical flute was my first and only real love.
Trying diffenert instruments is a good way to not only learn about them but also make you appreciate the flute so much more than you alredy do. It`s a good idea to try something that isn`t as easy to listen to as the flute something like the.....bagpipes lol...

Leprachaun

Hi Sam!

There is no reason to feel guilty for wanting to expanded your musical knowledge. I picked up Bassoon in 8th grade and tried it out for quite awhile. I actually had short fingers though, so I hard a hard time playing it, but I still love the instrument. I also adore French Horn, so I thought I would try that out. Needless to say after it sounded like I was slaughtering cows for a few months I kept playing flute .

Oh...Another thought. Lots of flute players also double over onto sax. I am not one of them, but I hear that the sax embouchre is not too different from the flute, and the fingerings are also very similar. Not to mention if you play in pit orchestras later, a lot of theater companies are requiring people to play flute, clarinet, sax, and even sometimes oboe!

If you have a band director that will let you dabble with all the instruments available, by all means try them all out.

It gets expensive trying out all the istruments when you`re out of school.

I doubled on oboe when I was 16 and it kinda became my primary instrument, though not entirely by choice, but it eventually grew on me. When I graduated I found that not actually owning an oboe kind of sucked. I eventually decided that I couldn`t afford an oboe at all and picked up a new flute to replace my aging Armstrong, my current Gemeinhardt.

I did finally get a student Yamaha oboe for $600 by sheer luck. One day I saw it in the newspaper and picked it up. Since then I`ve invested a couple thou in student oboes... can`t stay out of Ebay.

I bought an Alto sax when I was 20 just to play it in a musical and I learned it well enough to play it in the music (1940`s radio hour), but never touched it since. 6 years later I just decided to donate it to my local band to clear closet space.

I bought a Clarinet a while back and I found it produced a very interesting tone. It struck me as rather cute and I liked how its sound can wash over you. I however just played with it for 10 minutes and put it away never to touch it again for many months. One day I hope to get it a proper overhaul and attempt to learn it... but naw.

So... experiment early and get it out of your system.