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The flute is both an ancient and modern musical
instrument. Various versions of flutes have
existed throughout history in virtually all
cultures: Indian, Chinese, South American,
Irish, African. In some parts of the world
their flutes been have transposed into their
own national art form, like the Japanese shakuhachi
and the Native American flute. In the Western
world, Theobald Friedrich Boehm is the man
behind the their modern adaptation (what most
westerners think of as a flute). Flutes come
in all sizes and shapes and are made of any
of a number of materials like clay, wood,
nickel, silver, gold, pearl, plastic, ceramic
and bamboo. Some are small, like the ocarina,
penny or tin whistle, pan flute, recorder
or nose flute. There are many different fingerings.
Some play chromatic and some are pentatonic
scales, and how they finger varies with the
model. Chromatics can play each sound in major
or minor keys making them quite versatile.
Some are players by ear while others playing
primary by sheet music. Alto, tenor, bass...
you name it. You can play solo, in duets or
a trio, in an ensemble, in a jazz band or
brass band, opera, or orchestra...(continuted below)
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How a "Difficult" Piano Student Actually Showed Me How to Teach Piano
By: Edward Weiss
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I'll never forget the time I was giving lessons to this one student. Talk about difficult. She just couldn't get it. And the "it" I'm talking about is not reading music or playing Beethoven or Bach. I'm talking about improvisation. No matter what I showed her she just froze up. I then realized something. This student really wasn't having problems getting the technical aspects down, i.e., chords. The problem was she didn't think she could do it! It was all attitude. I then had a lightbulb moment. If the basic problem with most adult students is not technique but attitude, then I had to come up with a different approach to reach them. And that approach turned out to be mentoring. Listen, what people really need is to believe in themselves. If this aspect is missing, no amount of technique or theory will help. In order for me to be helpful, I had to act as a therapist so to speak... gently guiding students to believe in themselves! Once they could do this, the rest was a piece of cake. Look at it this way, if you don't believe or have the slightest faith in your own abilities in anything be it writing, painting, whatever, your chances for success are slim indeed! What I did to help these "shaky" students was basically a two-fold procedure. First, they needed to relax and not worry so much about what was coming out of them. Performance anxiety can happen even when we play for ourselves. The critical parent shows up even when we're playing alone. I had to help them overcome that critical parent first. The second prong was simply to build up their confidence by showing them how easy it could be to create once that critical voice was eliminated. They watched me play and saw that I didn't care if I made mistakes or if the music was "good enough." My mentoring allowed them to see that the joy of the process was far more important than any product they could come up with. |
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...flutes will
play in harmony with other woodwinds, strings,
guitar, piccolo, and percussion instruments
when used to accompany. As a flute plays one
note at a time (can't play chords), the flautist
can make beautiful melodies by playing with
others. Flutes have been used with just about
every genre of music imaginable, new age,
classical, rock, punk, hip hop, country western,
Christmas, wedding, sonata or folk... any
song. From Jethro Tull to the virtuoso composer
Mozart who wrote his famous Magic Flute masterpiece...
to Beethoven (who was blind in his later years).
Are you a student, teacher or both? If you
are a self learner, you could study a free
lesson found on the Internet. Or you could
learn and buy sheet music, a chart, and perhaps
a complete curriculum from a company that
specializes in correspondence courses. There
is no shortage of companies that you can buy
accessories from like cases, printable sheet
music, stands, new or used flutes. Gemeinhardt,
Armstrong and Yamaha are each a popular flute
maker today.
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