When I decided to take up the flute I found myself right back where I was as a child, unable to afford the lessons or the flute. This time I decided it wasn’t going to stop me. I would learn to play the flute by myself. I’m a big believer that virtually anything is possible if you want to do it so I decided to give it a go. The problem was knowing if self-taught flute was viable and if so was it even a good idea?
You can learn the flute completely on your own without a teacher. You can teach yourself the flute by using a variety of different methods such as books or online videos, or even lessons.
I found quite a few things that were in favor of playing the flute on my own and a few reasons not to. In my experience, there are certainly challenges and advantages to the self-taught flute route. I share this below for you to better understand if this is the right course of action for you including actual examples.
Is It Hard To Teach Yourself Flute?
While the flute is the easiest to play of the main woodwind instruments (personally I believe the ocarina is way easier but it’s not classed as a main instrument) it is still quite a complex instrument to play. There are still many fine parts to learning the flute which make it advisable to get a teacher if you want to progress swiftly and more easily if you can. I show why below in examples from my own learning experience.
Why Do You Want To Learn To Play The Flute?
This is an important question because the answer may be what decides how you learn. If you want to be a pro or an armature that plays in their local band, getting a good teacher is a must.
If like me you want to just try out the flute or play the flute purely for pleasure and have no ambition to play concerts you can teach yourself. A word of warning though, most people need some form of accountability or they don’t continue. I’ve spent years learning different things on my own so am used to it.
Can You Read Music?
For the flute you do need to be able to read music. If you can’t this shouldn’t stop you from learning. It simply means there’s something else for you to learn. I recommend that if you can’t read music you get a beginner’s book like Trevor Wye’s excellent book Beginner’s Book for the Flute Book 1 or Abracadabra. These two books teach quite different from each other.
There are also music theory-specific books you can learn from if you prefer. I haven’t used these but a popular one is Discovering Music Theory, The ABRSM Grade 1 Workbook. This book looks fantastic it’s very clearly explained with visual guides.
Why Do You Want To Learn To Play The Flute On Your Own?
There are lots of reasons for learning to play the flute on your own without a teacher. The reason why of this is important to how to choose to proceed.
You Don’t Want The Pressure
You may not want the pressure of lessons, time scales, and exams. In which case you can choose any method from fully to partially self-taught to a full teacher as online tuition may not lead to exams anyway.
Is Your Location Location An Issue To Getting A Flute Teacher?
You may not be able to get to a teacher because of your location. If this is the case there are flute teachers that teach online over Zoom and Skype, etc.
Here are three examples. Please note that I have not used these as yet so cannot recommend them personally so it’s up to you to check them out for your needs. I recommend that if you are interested to try each of them out and see how you get on.
Are You Going Tutor Free To Save Money?
If it is to save money and you’d really prefer a teacher there may be different options that you can try that give you some help without breaking the bank.
You could take a basic course without feedback to get you started Udemy courses are very good for the money. Wait and get them on offer.
You can get online tuition over Skype or Zoom. The first lesson is usually free. This is quite an expensive way to learn because it is one-to-one tuition. The advantage of this you can opt for the occasional lesson just to help you while learning by yourself most of the time. This is a good combination because it gives much-needed feedback while giving you the freedom to learn at your own pace.
You May Be Nervous
You may be nervous especially if you are older and have been out of education for a while. Don’t let stop you though lots of older people take up the flute.
Accountability Keeps You On Track
I have studied many different subjects over the years on my own. or distance learning I run my own business. So I have to be self-driven and find my own solutions. Not everyone is. Even when you are it’s easy to lapse. If you aren’t the type of person or don’t think you can be that can make sure they practice every day without that teacher accountability in a week then it’s likely you won’t progress. In which case a teacher is a good idea.
While the flute isn’t the hardest instrument to learn (the clarinet is harder) it’s not the easiest either. It’s not just a case of picking it up and learning the fingering.
You need to get the basic elements right to gain progress with your instrument
It sounds a lot but once you break it down into small chunks you can work through it.
These include:
- Putting flute together
- cleaning and maintenance
- Breathing
- Embouchure
- How you stand (you should stand if you can)
- head position
- height of music
- music learning
Getting all these things right takes time and practice. You will know if you get it wrong as several things will happen. You will get no sound, your sound will be very airy, Your body will ache/hurt.
What If You Don’t Know Musical Notes/Theory?
This isn’t a problem a good student book will take you through each stage from the beginning. It will explain and show how you play your notes and what they look like and mean on a music page. If you find this difficult you can also get a book specifically on musical theory.
You can get these books from reputable flute dealers general music stores and from Amazon here
How To Learn To Play The Flute By Yourself
If you are determined to learn a self-taught flute method here is how to go about it. This is what I did and some alternatives I’ve come across a well.
First, decide what are your goals and aims so you have something to aim for and keep you on track. You need to know what you are aiming for. Next, make sure you have a good quality flute.
1. Get A Good Quality Flute
First, you need to get a good quality flute. It’s even more important if you are learning on your own because you need to know you can rely on your instrument and that when you play correctly your flute sounds right. Without this knowledge, you could be learning completely wrong to compensate for your flute defects. Without a teacher to help you, you cannot have a dodgy flute. I recommend the following flutes to start (closed hole):
- The Yamaha YFL 212. It s a great beginner’s flute. Yamaha is a well-known brand. You can get earlier versions of this flute like the YFL 211 2nd hand (be very careful though as there are many fakes on the market go to a reputable dealer and get a recondtionsed flute if you can)
- Trevor James 5X or 10X Flute. These are excellent beginner flutes and not so expensive as the Yamaha. This is the beginner flute I chose because my budget didn’t run to a Yamaha or open hole (not for beginners). Its brilliant I am really pleased with it.
- Then there’s the Jupiter JFL511 & 700 Flutes These are quality student flutes. They come between the 2 Trevor James flutes in price.
2. Decide On You Method of Flute Learning
Decide on how you want to learn, book CD, YouTube, online lessons without teachers, a combination of self-taught with occasional tuition,
Books and CD
The books I love and highly recommend are the Trevor Wye Series. They are brilliant. They along with the Abracadabra book are what I used. They take you through step by step. They teach each note then you do the practice of what you have learned then some tunes. It’s very well structured and takes you from beginner up to level 4 grade in the first two books. You can also get CDs to accompany the books.
These are also good because if you are learning on your own these books can take you through to level 4 exam level. Then there are lots of options for practice books in the series that teach you specifics like tone, intonation & vibrato, etc.
If this style isn’t for you then I recommend the Abracadabra Flute learning. This is learning by playing songs. At first glance, this is the easier way to learn. I didn’t find it progressed in such a methodical manner and that meant some harder notes before the easier ones. It’s still a great book with lots of practice tunes to play. Again you can get these with the CD. You can also get this book from reputable dealers or off of Amazon: Abracadabra Flute Book.
Online Courses Without Tutors
If you are learning online Udemy always does excellent courses. I’ve done various courses with them and they are always excellent value for money. They do flute courses.
James Galway does an online flute course.
Free YouTube Lessons
There are some excellent beginner lessons for the flute on YouTube. The advantage of using YouTbue apart from that it’s free is that you can explore different teachers and methods before picking one. Some offer free beginner courses then they have their own courses, some would mean then going onto teacher-based learning.
Dr. Sefridge Music does an excellent beginners course. It starts with the very basics and progresses. It’s very well explained with clear instructions.
3. Daily Practice For Flute Players
Daily practice is a must for flute players. If you leave huge gaps it will slow and even halt your progress. Make sure you can make time to play your flute. You want to find ways to enjoy playing so your method of learning choice is very important. Set goals.
Make sure that you find a way to evaluate your practice and progression. You can record your playing and play it back.
You can use online apps to help you with your timing. Ie you can get metronome apps. I have Metronome Beats (it’s free on google play)however you might prefer one of the others.
4. Have Fun Playing Your Flute
You must have fun and enjoy playing your flute. If you don’t you won’t continue. As you have no feedback nor commitment to lessons you have to drive yourself. You must have fun. I always do a mix when I learn. I start warm up with something easier then I practice my scales then play some music I love. Some days if I’m not feeling up to it I keep it easy and I keep it short. But I still practice
You might want to learn differently than this. It’s about finding what works for you.
5. Keep Safe While Playing Your Flute
Make sure that you are holding and playing the flute correctly. If not you can end up in pain. If you do find you are in pain for any reason you need to find out why and stop it.
The Challenges of Learning to Play the Flute On Your Own
I learned this way as it’s a continuing process I should say am learning. It’s not for everyone. You have to be able to teach yourself which isn’t a learning method that suits all learners.
Some major drawbacks need to be overcome if you want to learn this way.
In the beginning, there are a lot of things that you need to know.
There are lots of challenges to learning to play the flute whichever method you pick either with or without a teacher.
You need to learn how to put the flute together. how to hold the flute, how to position the flute, how to create sound, how to create an embouchure, where you should blow in the hole (called an embouchure as well). And we’ve not even got to actually playing a note yet!
Can you do all of this without a teacher? Yes absolutely. I have. Is it a good idea to do that? That depends on you as a person and your goals. It is better at the start to have a teacher if you can.
You can easily find all the information mentioned either in books or online. However, there are things that a teacher can do that the internet can’t – give you feedback and correction. And that can be vital to your success. If you are not getting feedback and correction from a tutor you need to be able to do that yourself. Allowing that you do not actually know the answers, you then have to find them
How You Need To Correct Flute Playing Mistakes When Learning Alone
Here’s an example from my flute playing practice of something that I needed to correct.
Positioning the flute was a challenge for me. Every YouTube video said the same thing. Stand up straight, hold the flute straight. Which I already knew from before. Could I get a sound nope! All I got was a strangled screech followed by hissing sounds.
First, check you are blowing into the hole correctly. It looked like I was. I removed the head joint and blew into that with no problem.
Check you are standing correctly. I was. So why wasn’t it working? As it happens I was watching James Galway videos and it looked like he holds the flute at an angle and he’s a world-class flute player. This led me to think there was an alternative.
Then by pure chance, a came across a podcast that answered the question. Although I looked like I was standing straight I wasn’t and this was throwing off the sound. All it took was to drop the flute angle slightly and I could play. I could have chosen to correct my head as well.
All this process took quite some time. This is where a teacher helps so much. 1. They could see what I was doing wrong and 2. They would already know how to correct it without a mass of YouTube and podcast research.
Advantages Of A Flute Teacher And How To Progress Without One – A Real Life Example
The advantage of a good teacher is that they can show you where you are going wrong. Yes, you can look it up online and that will give you a general idea. but they won’t say specifically what you are doing wrong, you have to figure that out for yourself. That can save a lot of time.
A perfect example is I had difficulty in getting the higher notes of EFG, and they aren’t even that high. But they are controlled by airflow and mouth shape/movement not fingering (they use the same fingering as the lower notes). This isn’t something you can just see and copy. To start with I just couldn’t get them. Or I’d get them and they’d drop back down. A quick YouTube search and some suggestions and, I was more able to get them.
But I found it gave me a sore throat every time I played. I was doing it wrong. I thought you just had to blow harder. I was constricting my throat to get the high notes and most likely damaging it. This is where a teacher would have saved time effort and potential injury. They could have explained what I was doing wrong and how to correct it. And they could have done it in 10 minutes!
How Many Years Must You Learn The flute?
That really depends on where you want to go with it what you want from playing the flue and what you are willing to put in. You can learn a simple tune in only a few days maybe less. You can be fairly proficient in a few months and playing reasonably well in a year.
But to master the flute is a lifetimes practice. James Galway has been playing the flute since he was 9 years old. He is now in his eighties and still practices daily. 70 years playing and he still practices.
This video improved my playing and I got the high notes but it wasn’t until I went back to my book and re-read it that I finally got these notes more consistently. With what I learned in this video plus a slight readjustment of my jaw I could play the higher notes with little effort.
This teacher is Jane from the Flute school what she taught her student in 10 minutes took me over a week to learn.
You need that feedback, especially in the early stages. If you don’t have it you have to become a flute technique detective.
One of the biggest dangers besides throat damage is getting into bad habits and using wrong techniques and bad habits.
Avoid Bad Flute Playing Habits
Bad habits develop early and once you have them they are hard to break. A good way to learn is to start with a teacher if you can, either in person or online even if you only have a few lessons. This gives you a head start and makes sure you are playing correctly. There are a lot of things that can go wrong especially at the start. You can do short 30-minute lessons if you are on a budget. Then spread them out until you are learning on your own.
If you don’t want to do this then you have to check on your own bad habits. You can do this by watching closely the various tutors on YouTube then applying those methods to your playing.
Get a sound recorder and record your playing. Check your playing in the mirror or video record it and play it back on your phone.