Hi peeps first post so hi to you all

I have just bought a flute of ebay (risky i know ) its a yamaha yfl 21n flute, as soon as it arrives I will take it to a repair bloke to check it over as I have no clue about flutes.

Well what I want to know is what should I start to practice first, I have never even held a flute so where should I start.

Just a bit of background on me, I am a mature starter (30 years old)and play the trumpet as a principal instrument, I am grade 8 + on this. I have always loved the sound of the flute as my old man is a pro woodwind player, I suppose (sax clarinet flute). I would ask him for lessons but I am sort of keeping it a suprise for when i get to a decent standard in a number of years Hopefully.

Russ

Hi Russ,

It looks like you are going to get a good start. If at all possible, you should get some private lessons from a qualified flutist. This may make a big difference in tone and technical things such as hand position and embouchure.

The other advantage of private lessons is that the lesson initself is a performance and performances involve working towards a goal, improvement, analysis and the actual playing of music. All are good things.

That being said, you might want to mention to your dad that you know somebody that is starting on flute and what books does he recommend. You may want to look for something in a beginnner book by Rubank, Trevor Wye and such that is geared towards private lessons for a beginner. I wouldn't use a band method book. They go rather slowfor your situation.

Hi and welcome to the forum !!

My advice is to take Bilbo's advice

lolol

xx

Well, I have learnt almost all what I know by myself.

I have teachers at school, music teachers, and they "teach" us how to play flute.

What I have learnt from them is just the fingering I need, and with a baroque flute. I play a transversal flute, a Yamaha Fife.

My teacher didn´t teach me how to play it. I just checked the fingering chart and i started practicing. I was having trouble with the E6 note(quite difficult to play with my flute), but I just had to practice. I just asked my teacher how it sounded, it sounded bad, he told me to move the flute a bit, didn´t work a lot, had to follow that advice and practice a lot.

So, here is what I did:

I started learning the fingering. Then I practiced a song with A bemols, g#, and other notes, so I could start using my fingers, moving them around, let´s say.

So, that is what I would do.

For starters you might want to play with just the headjoint. As soon as you get a decent embouchure with it, add the rest of the flute.

The following web site has a good fingering chart.

http://www.wfg.woodwind.org/flute/

^^^ what they said.

As for the flute, es, get it adjusted. It's an older student model and as such is pretty much a decent flute to learn on and is pretty rugged once it's been properly adjusted and possibly re-padded.

A couple of hundred dollars and a few years use, easily, before you even begin to outgrow it. My similar Gemeinhardt lasted me about 6 years in junior high and high school. I was able to play he major pieces by Vivaldi and Holst and others with my high school orchestra just fine.

The others have good advice, and I would strongly encourage you to take Bilbo's advice about private instruction. A good teacher is invaluable.

congrats on the new flute. my advies is to buy ed sueta band method book one for flute and look at the frist note.

Thanks for the advice guys, the fingereing chart doesn't really make much sence to me. I am used to using threee fingers and not two hands, hopefully when I have the flute it will start to click, looks bluddy complicated.

With regards to the teacher, I would get one straight away but I have two for trumpet at the mow (jazz/classical) and finances are tight due to me emigrating in 8 weeks. Therefore, the teacher will have to wait until I get to New Zealand.

So I sort of wanted advice for the preceding period (8-12 weeks). Which I now have cheers.
Russ

Yes I am indeed moving to Auckland , just trying to find out about doing a degree in music at auckland uni, that will be in trumpet though. Can't wait 8 weeks left.