Doctor Flute Blog
Musings on the Flute
Finding the Musical Line
When you practice do you just play the notes on the page, or do you make music with those notes? It is okay to just play the notes on the page. But it is much more rewarding to make music with those notes. Finding the musical line in your music is a wonderful exercise...
Always Warm Up Musically
A lot of times when we are warming up, we just play our exercises to get through them. We play them to warm up the lip, and to warm up the fingers. But we are not really thinking our way through them. Every time you have the flute up to your lip, you need to be making...
10 Commonly Asked Questions About the Flute
People ask many different types of questions about the flute. They ask about types and posture and performing and many other areas for flute interest. I decided to answer some commonly asked questions. What questions do you have about the flute? Send them to me or put...
5 Ways to Improve Your Technique Today
Do your fingers move at lightning speed? Would you like them to really move? There are several things that you can do to help train your fingers to move with greater dexterity. Here are five that you can work on that will help you make dramatic improvements. These are...
What is Nuance?
Have you ever wondered what making good music is really all about? What makes those professionals have that extra something special in their music that is missing in others? That something extra that they have is called nuance. A nuanced performance has special...
Play Your Scales Slowly
Who says that? We all need and want to have our scales going at a good clip. Scales are meant to help your fingers move faster so that you can play those fast passages in Mozart and Bach. They all use fast scale passages somewhere along the way. What I am talking...
Professional Flute Extras – Do You Need Them?
Professional Model flutes offer extra options such as the C# Trill, the D# Roller, and the Split E Mechanism. But do you know what these options do for you? And do you really need them? Over the years flute makers have come up with some add-ons to the basic...
Why Do I Play Out of Tune?
Intonation issues are the bane of our existence. No matter what innovations that flute makers come up with to make the flute better in tune, we still have problems. One of those problems is that the scale a flute is based on is not perfect. Plus, the different metals...
Does My Flute Need to Be Straight Out?
The answer to that question easily is no. I can always tell when my private high school students are in marching band season because they come into flute lessons, and they are ramrod straight both with their own posture and with the flute. Their elbows are out, and...