Giving Flute Lessons

jkchristine · Post by **jkchristine** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 6:15 pm

I''m a senior in high school and I''m going to
start giving an 11 year old girl flute lessons next week. I took lessons a
couple years ago but have never given lessons before. I was wondering if anybody
had any ideas on what to do so I can be prepared. For example, where we should
start or what kind of exercises we should do. Thank you!

tarzaflute · Post by **tarzaflute** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 6:02 am

Hi. I don't teach, but I can remember my first
lesson with a professional flute teacher and I also help some of the students at
school with stuff. Has she ever played before? If not I'd just familiarise her
with the flute itself, let her make attempts to play and basically just aim to
get any sound through the headjoint, making sure her embochure is correct, its
frustrating having to go back and relearn things. You could play some pieces so
she can get an idea of the basic sound of the flute, and show her how to
essemble it. If she has played before you should get her to play a piece that
she is familiar with to see what level she is at, from there you can help her
with sound production and give her some basic exercises like one octave scales
with easy key signatures eg. C major or F major, but if this is too much you
could just give her some easy little tunes to work on to help with technique and
tone. Find out what her abilities are first and work from that. Hope this has
helped in some way. [8)]

fluteluversmom · Post by **fluteluversmom** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 8:09 am

Hi, I have daughter that started lessons at that
age. Her teacher was also new to teaching when she started. I also suggest
having her play a few pieces for you to see where she is at skill wise so that
you can assess what she needs to work on. You might also want to have a few
ideas of books that you might want her to work out of. When my daughter started
lessons..the teacher could see that the book that the band department is using
is much to simple but really didn't have any idea of what book to have my
daughter use. Another idea would be to be plan on having her set up a practice
notebook so that you can write down what she needs to work on and so that you
remember what you worked on at the last lesson. I hope this helps. They are just
a couple of things I noticed that were missing when my daughter started taking
lessons. Good luck [:)]

Emma · Post by **Emma** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 1:53 pm

If she is absolutely new to flute, C major will be
impossible for her. (Low C impossible, overblowing for every note tricky.) I
remember my first few lessons were on reliably getting some sort of sound out of
the headjoint only at first, then the whole flute. The beginner book I have
starts off with A1, B1 and C2, then G1, F1, D2, etc etc. It says teach Bb long
fingering a long time before the thumbkey (and make sure you demonstrate
correctly every time, no sneaky thumbkey usage!). It doesn't teach D1 or below
for quite a long time, the entirety of the second octave has been taught before
it. On exercises, as Tara says, F major, and I'd say G major as well as soon as
she can get all the notes. My flute teacher says long notes for everyone
whatever standard. Good luck.

tarzaflute · Post by **tarzaflute** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 11:14 pm

oh yeah, i forgot about that, and if she is new to
flute, playing from the C above middle C to the next C would probably be too
high (remembering middle C is the one below the staff) thanx for pointing that
out!