Hello. I'm a saxophone player who dabbles in flute and clarinet, and the music school I work for has decided to dump a bunch of flute students on me last minute since their other woodwind teacher quit. I guess I'll have to go and get a stack of books and actually teach myself flute properly instead of just fooling around with it.. but in the meantime - what are those + and o 's I see above flute music? Is it something about alternate fingerings? help! is there perchance some website that contains a crash course in reading flute music? haha.

thanks

In modern music the 'o's are for harmonics and the '+'s are for key slaps usually. I don't know if that is what you are looking at though. Some baroque stuff uses '+'s for short trills...I think I have seen those in a couple of duet books. But usually those give instructions as to what you should do. Hope that helps...

I've never seen +'s and o's in plain flute music.

Perhaps you're looking at chords, + means augmented and o is diminished.

Diminished is a minor chord with the 5th of the chord lowered a half-step.
Augmented is a major chord with the 5th of the chord raised a half-step.

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If it's string music the o & + symbols have no meaning for flute.

Oh, I hadn't thought about chords...I rarely see any markings like that!

hah, no no, it wasn't chords.. that stuff I'm used to reading.

it was a flute book brought in by a chinese lady, and the whole book was in chinese. so maybe it explained the notation, but I can't read chinese.. she got frustrated with me for not being able to tell her what to do with it, so I got worried that the o and + was some sort of common flute notation that I'd just missed out on. I guess not. thanks for more or less clearing that up

Sometimes in certain pieces of older flute music they use the O and the + to indicate whether or not to use the thumb Bb key.I have a set of studies by Furstenau Op 107 which does this.

Sometimes in certain pieces of older flute music they use the O and the + to indicate whether or not to use the thumb Bb key. I have a set of studies by Furstenau Op 107 which does this.