How Do I Play This Thing?, Part 1 - The Flute - Amro Music

Congratulations on picking the flute!

The flute is one of the most popular instruments in the band. It has a beautiful mellow tone and is a lead instrument, often carrying the melody. Producing a tone on the flute is similar to blowing across the top of a bottle. Once you can make that sound, simply use the keys to change the notes. Flute isn't hard to learn — like all the instruments, it just takes some practice. Many girls choose the flute, but boys can also play flute.

Here are some tips to help get you started!

So you can understand this article, make sure you can identify all the parts of the flute, first:

Making Your First Sound

It's important to learn how to make a good tone on the headjoint before you try to add the keys of the flute.

Place the lip plate on the head joint against your bottom lip, so your mouth lines up with the embouchure (fancy name for the shape of your mouth) hole. The open end should be facing to your right. Cover the open end and blow air across the open embouchure hole. Many player make the mistake at first of blowing air into the flute. Instead, sound on the flute is created by blowing across the embouchure hole.

Blow across the hole as if you were saying "tuuuuu" and adjust the angle until you get a sound. It's perfectly natural for this to take some experimentation and adjustment. If you get light-headed, that's normal too. Take a break, and then start again. We reccomend you practice this sitting down.

Once you make a sound, practice this until you can sustain a smooth, unchanging sound for 5-10 seconds. Practice changing the speed of your air and the size of your embouchure opening (called the aperture) to create different notes, like a bugle player. Practice this until you can control it, also.

Holding the Flute

When holding the flute properly, your left palm should face behind you and your right palm should face in front of you. Form a "C" with each hand and allow your thumbs to rest against the flute, supporting the weight of the instrument.

When you play, the instrument will balance in these three places: your mouth on the embouchure hold, your right thumb, and your right pinkey. Your left thumb will remain relaxed and free to play the thumb keys.

Learning the Notes Using a Fingering Chart

A fingering chart helps you know which fingers to press to create different notes. Black or grey circles tell you to press keys, white circles tell you to leave them open (most of the time, you'll press the grey, "optional" fingers). Here's a good first note to learn. It uses almost every finger! This is "D." (By the way, if you aren't sure how to read music yet, you can click here for our lesson on reading music!)

Amro Music has also created for you a FREE full range flute fingering chart. Click here to open it in a new window!

Playing Songs

Guess what? You just learned to play the flute! Congratulations!!!

But of course, there's a lot more to playing the flute than this. After all, how many "one-note songs" can you name? It's time to learn lots of other notes and techniques.

The best way to do this (other than your band class) is in a method book. Amro Music has more flute method books for band classes, individual learning, and even method books specifically written for adults than all other music stores in Memphis, combined! After you learn more notes and how to read music, you've opened up the door to a world of music! We also carry fun pop music, movie music, Broadway, classical, and jazz books to suit every taste!

Here's a great video with a demonstration of a lot of the info above!

Need a flute? Click here!