Learn Flute Podcast SHOW NOTES:
In this episode, you’ll discover three essential flute techniques that actually work. These are perfect for beginners and also helpful for experienced players who want to improve their tone, control, and playing speed.
What this podcast will be all about
- Why breath control matters more than breath volume
- What “embouchure” means and how it affects your sound
- How finger coordination improves fluency and speed
- A simple practice to help you play faster and smoother
- How to train your body for beautiful, confident tone
Learn Flute Podcast - Flute Techniques That Actually Work: 3 Essential Skills Every Beginner Needs.
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Podcast Transcript
Well, hey there, fluties, and welcome to another episode of the Learn Flute Online podcast. It’s the Learn Flute Podcast. Now, I’m your host, Rebecca, and today we’re diving into something that’ll help every beginner or even long-time striving flutist sound better right away. And if you’re not exactly a beginner anymore, no worries. These tips on essential flute techniques will help you tighten up your skills and speed you towards even more progress in your flute playing.
If you’ve been wondering what flute techniques you should focus on first, or if you feel like your sound just isn’t quite there yet, don’t worry. I’ve got you covered.
Today’s episode is all about three essential flute techniques that actually work, and I’ll walk you through each one of them step by step.
We’ll talk about your breath. We’ll talk about your embouchure. And yes, we’re going to break that word down because it’s kind of complicated-sounding. And we’re going to talk about your finger coordination in a way that makes sense and feels doable, even if you’re just getting started.
So perk up and listen in. Let’s get going.
Segment 1: Why These 3 Techniques Matter
So why do these three flute techniques matter? Well, when I first began as a new flute player, I, of course, did not know what I was doing, and that was to be expected since we’re not born with instruments in our hand, right? Well, I wanted so badly to play that shiny flute. It was just so pretty and so elegant, and I couldn’t wait to get going.
Well, much to my complete dismay, I definitely did not sound like the more accomplished players or the recordings that I had heard. We had some albums from back in the day, and my soul was just jumping to play like I was hearing.
Well, the first thing I noticed was that no matter how much I wiggled around and tried new positions, I really couldn’t quite get all that fuzz out of my tone, and my fingers were really kind of uncoordinated and stiff. Now, if I had access to Learn Flute Online back then, I would have sped around the learning curve corners, just like you will be able to with what I have here for you and in the members area.
So let’s talk about why these three flute techniques are such a big deal. When most people start learning the flute, they think, okay, I just blow air and wiggle my fingers, right? But what they don’t realize is how you do those things is what actually makes you sound beautiful, or not so beautiful.
And I promise, the difference between frustration and fun usually comes down to just a few key habits and techniques. So today, I’m giving you the real foundation. No fluff, just what works. And let’s get going.
Segment 2: Technique #1 – Breath Control
We’re going to first start talking about breath control. Now, this first essential technique is all about your breath. And here is a fun fact: playing the flute isn’t about having a ton of breath like you may have heard before. It’s really about having control over your air, your breath and your air as it leaves your body.
Now, most beginners blow way too hard and get an airy, fuzzy sound. And there are reasons for this. They get squeaky bursts. It’s normal at first, yes, and I’ve heard it, and yes, I’ve done it myself. So no worries. The first thing we need to do is understand how to get the air out. I’m going to explain right now.
Sitting or standing tall is a really good starting point. It’s normal for people to think that they should probably, like, bend over their instrument as they try to make a sound. This will actually cause a bunch of those squeaks that I was talking about just a second ago.
And I want to remind you that no matter who you have seen playing the flute before, what person online or whatever, whatever position they were in, all over the place, right? Your job is to strive for natural, good body position. This will not only help you breathe better, but it will help you keep away from neck aches and backaches and overuse injuries that are actually quite common amongst musicians.
Okay, enough said about that one. So we are going to move on to the next one, which is to take a nice deep breath that goes deep into your lungs. We do need a lot of air, but we really have to learn how to control it.
So I like to use this imagery: imagine a toilet paper roll after the tissue is all gone off of it, and it’s just that empty brown cardboard part. And picture this as, like, the size of your throat, that toilet paper tube, like the size of your throat, and open your mouth wide enough and inhale the air into that toilet paper tube.
We need to keep going so that it inflates way down into our lungs instead of just stopping right here at the throat. So keep it all the way, and we get it down into our lungs, kind of like a yawn when it sneaks up on you and you’re just sitting there and really inhale.
Now, doing this allows us the ability to move into the next part of breath control, which is to exhale in a calm, focused stream of air. Now, I say calm because it’s really normal for some people to think they have to really force it out with their throat muscles, like I’m making this sound in there, and it happens to a lot of people. It may actually even be happening to you.
But this actually causes, like, a jerking sound that comes out kind of like almost even a really, um, slightly machine-gun type of a tremolo in the sound. So when we learn how to play the flute, or when you’re relearning or you’re just getting better at learning how to play the flute, it’s best to just allow the air to exhale out just like you would in a long sigh.
Try it. Try it with me. Take a big breath.
And just exhale nice and straight without trying to help it from anywhere else in your throat.
We’re actually going to learn to use our lips to control and shape this airstream, we call it, that’s coming out of your mouth so that it’s appropriate for nice sound on the flute. And we’re going to talk about that a little bit more in a second.
But I’m going to give you an example on my flute. Here, let me grab it here, and I’m going to just kind of give you a nice, calm exhale.
See? Nice and straight.
Now, if I take that breath even a little bit too shallow, and then I try to help it out with my throat like I was talking about, it might sound like this:
Now, of course, I’m trying to overexaggerate so you can understand. But you can learn and even practice blowing into your hand and feel it. You don’t have to use your flute. So let me put my flute down here and just feel it. Is it nice and steady? A nice, long exhale.
Now, let’s close our lips more and try again. Close the hole even more so we get that resistance behind there, and then we can try practicing. How long can we make that airstream last before running out?
So close the lips even more so there’s just a small part.
And practice finding out how long you can just let it go out until you don’t have any more.
Now, there are people who play for decades, literally decades, without learning how to control their airstream. So this is actually an exciting start.
Also, we can relax our shoulders and our face so we’re not pinched up. And this is also helpful to the magic as well.
Segment 3: Technique #2 – Embouchure
Okay, well, let’s just move right on because this leads us to talk about our embouchure, which is a really fancy word, right?
Embouchure: spelled with an E-M-B-O-U-C-H-U-R-E. Embouchure.
Now, let’s move on to this technique, which naturally comes right alongside that long exhale. And this is embouchure. It’s our fancy French word for what your face, basically your entire face, and your mouth is doing while you blow.
Now, it’s common for newer players, or even those who haven’t had a lot of instruction, to have either really large open holes in their mouth while blowing, like really big, or super, super small, pinched-off, like really, really slammed shut and everything all tight.
Now, either one isn’t optimal for a good sound on the flute. If your lips are too open, your tone is going to be really airy. You’re going to run out of breath really fast. If it’s too tight and tiny, you’re going to sound pinched, flat, or weirdly small.
What we want is a relaxed, natural shape. So try this: pretend you’re sleeping, relax your face, and just sigh gently with your lips relaxed, but basically closed, and let them naturally part in the middle as you kind of let it exhale. Kind of with that “pee” like a “P”, almost like a “P” in the alphabet letter.
What I’m showing you is that this is helping our lips naturally part in the middle, and it’s actually a great start to embouchure. And I teach a really great technique inside the modules here at Learn Flute Online.
Module number one is actually the day we start the ball rolling for beautiful tone. I teach a method of exhaling the air out of your mouth and using your tongue, actually, to start it. And this is actually a huge key to learning how to have a wonderful sound on the flute.
Now, we aim to form a smaller aperture. Now, aperture is the hole in your lips. So embouchure is the whole face, including the mouth and the lips, and the aperture is just the hole and the shape and the size in our lips.
I like to say it’s about the size of a pen tip or a marker tip, maybe just slightly bigger, depending on what we’re doing. But it kind of depends on what we’re aiming for at the moment.
Now, blowing across your hand or a mirror to check the direction and the shape of your airstream by raising and lowering your jaw while you’re blowing, ooh, it’s kind of a cool way to learn what we can do with our flute sound.
So I’m going to hold my hand in front of me here, give myself three fingers, and give a nice relax and exhale with the lips closed but parted naturally in the middle. And if I close my jaw and then open it more, I can actually feel my airstream go moving up and down.
Now, we need this to learn how to play with really nice technique and have easy flute playing. Now, this changes the direction of our airstream. And very much like a garden hose, our lips being more closed allows us to get more of a pressurized airstream coming out of our mouth that we can use to get different sounds on our flute as well.
And yes, I teach this step by step in the members area since it really is just too much detail to go into here right today. But I want to give you a good introduction to what there is, and it’s all set for you there inside the modules in perfect learning order. It’s so much fun.
Segment 4: Technique #3 – Finger Coordination
All right, let’s go ahead and move on to flute technique number three, which is all about our finger coordination. Now, our third technique and placement of our fingers and coordination is what we’re going to talk about here.
And this one doesn’t sound as glamorous as breath or the fancy word like embouchure or aperture, but it is so important. If your fingers aren’t working smoothly, you’ll feel and sound really sticky and clunky, and speed will never be your friend.
And now, I want to let you know that when you hear someone talk about flute technique, it’s kind of like an umbrella term for how you’re playing the flute. And this could have to do with your face or your hands or basically anything else used to operate the flute.
And I hope you’ve heard me talk about balancing the flute before. And if you have, then you are primed and ready for this lesson right here. And for right now, I’m going to talk about a technique, a flute technique that will help with fluidity in playing so that you don’t hear those clunky sounds that also keep you very slow on the slow train.
So what we’re going to do here is we’re going to practice our finger changes in a new way. And I’m going to grab my flute here. We’re going to be practicing our finger changes slowly. And I’m talking super slow, like flute tai chi, and you can quote me on that.
So once we know a few flute changes, finger changes, for example, when we move from one note to another, that’s called a finger change. And I’ve used this example for a video just previously, actually.
Let’s do it again. We’re going to move up a short scale, let’s say F, G, A, B-flat, and C. And once you’re really comfy and you know exactly what you’re doing with these notes, then we get to start practicing them in this ascending order going up: F, G, A, B-flat, C. The pitches will go up, and we’ll be working on moving into our new positions before we actually blow the next one.
Hmm, okay, that’s an interesting thought. Let me say that again. We’re going to move our fingers into the new position before we blow.
Now, we’re going to play like an F, and then we’re going to change our fingers to G. Then we’ll blow the G, and then we’ll change our fingers to the A. And then we’ll blow the A, and then we’ll change our fingers to the B-flat. And then we’ll blow the B-flat.
I think you get the point, right? I’m making sure that we have it down.
Over time, and with repetition of this skill, you’ll become a faster and a faster player because you’ll be anticipating those finger changes. It’s going to make you a faster player and help us really think faster.
Now, this is a good one, and I’m glad that you’re here today. So speaking of being here, question for you: how many episodes of this podcast have you already listened to?
Now, I know many of you like to binge listen while you’re gardening or cleaning the house, commuting, or out on a walk. There’s plenty for you to have fun with, and I hope you be sure to give this and the other episodes a big thumbs up and leave a comment to show your support for Learn Flute Online.
It’s so great having you here. There are endless little details that we can and will talk about, and everything will move the needle, your needle, your learning needle, towards really great flute playing and musicianship.
So let me give you an example of that finger moving change that we’ll do really slowly.
F, change, change, change, change, change.
So changing in between is going to give you the ability to do things like this:
So what I’m doing is I have this memory and this muscle reaction to thinking before I get somewhere. Okay, that helps me play faster. And so what we just did today with changing our fingers between the notes, it’s going to move you forward so that you can learn how to have more speed.
There’s a lot more to it, and I can’t wait to get into it with you.
Segment 5: Bringing It All Together
Alrighty, so let’s bring this all together. There you have it. We had breath control. We talked about embouchure development. And now we’ve talked about finger coordination and an exercise that we can do to be able to move faster.
Now, today I’ve given you a peek into these three essential flute techniques that I recommend every beginner and ongoing flutist pay attention to and learn a lot more about. They are your golden ticket to sounding confident, clear, and actually enjoying your flute journey.
Come and do it with us and me here at Learn Flute Online, because hey, this should be fun, right?
And here’s the truth: you don’t need to learn everything at once. You just need the right guidance in the right order. And that’s exactly what I’ve created for you at Learn Flute Online in the levels.
Now, I’ve designed a complete learning path full of step-by-step videos, printable sheet music, audio play-along songs. I have many, many educational videos that go right along with it where I get a really close-up look, and I talk about exactly what to do, and also play-alongs and friendly support with a stellar community that meets you right where you are.
So when you’re ready for more, head on over to learnfluteonline.com and make sure that you get started today. And if you’re already a member, congrats and thanks for being a part of the most wonderful, supportive community on the planet. I mean it.
And I encourage you to get in and start a new module in the members area today where I’ve done all the thinking for you. It’s all set and ready for you.
Now, if this episode has helped you or given you new insights, feel free to share it with a flute friend. They’re the best, and the more listeners, the better.
And hey, let me know: which of these flute techniques are you going to focus on this week? Send me a message or a comment on the episode post here. I’d love to hear from you.
And until next time, keep breathing, keep positive, and keep fluting beautifully. You’ve got this. Bye for now.
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