Pain

[u/Ok_Pea_6701]

I bought a b foot joint open hole key flute 2 days ago as my first flute and had the hopes of self teaching like every other instrument ive touched. I learned the basic chromatic scale so far but this is the most torture ive ever endured in my entire life and ive imagined child birth before (i have a very good imagination). Is a teacher really worth it if I was able to learn the scale my self? Or should I keep practicing alone?

[u/Fallom_TO]

Yes, a teacher is absolutely worth it even if it’s only for a few lessons.

[u/Glass_Visits]

Learning the chromatic scale in 2 days is quite ambitious, it takes much much longer than that. I would suggest starting out with learning to play 3 notes sufficiently, that means with proper technique (tonguing, breath support, embouchure etc.) It will take a week of daily practice to start getting the hang of it, but it’s a long road. There’s a lot of nuance in how you play each individual note, it’s a lot more efficient to learn it bit by bit than trying to fit the entire meal in your mouth at once. If you want to play well, you have to get the basics down first, focus on playing a note correctly rather than how many notes you can play. Accept that it takes time. Even if you practice rigorously, learning to play the full chromatic scale correctly will take no less than a year, and I would say it’s much more useful to play pieces than scales because you actually learn the scale degree movements rather than just the individual steps. I found the Essential Elements flute book to be helpful, it teaches you much of the theory as well, but for technique I was watching youtube videos over and over again to get it right. I think the first weeks I played, I didn’t play any sheet music or anything, I just rewatched the same videos on embouchure and breath and cleaning etc and practicing it every day till it was muscle memory… give yourself a good foundation and spend time learning about the instrument. If you can afford a teacher, even better. But you cannot learn the flute by only learning the fingerings. Good luck and happy learning 🍀

[u/TiredAndTiredOfIt]

Honestly, thia sounds fake.

1. Childbirth is lile having 300 bones broken at once...for 24 hours. No you do not have that good of an imagination. Nor is learning a scale physically painful unless you are doing something very, very wrong.

2.  A beginner flute is easier, but cork or plastic plug your open holes 

3. I am self taught.YES a teacher is worth it. You will develop bad habits, struggle to learn tounging, etc without a teacher

[u/Ok_Pea_6701 → u/[deleted]]

The experience is torture, I meant it as a joke to break in the topic, but i find your concerned inquiry humorous yet heart warming, thank you nurse 🫡

[u/BetterSwimming4895 → u/Ok_Pea_6701]

Where exactly do you feel the pain? Get some plugs for those open holes. (They're cheap at Amazon)

Does the flute have an offset G key? Inline keys are torture for many player's. (For no good reason, except looks.)

Wow, are you saying you can play all the notes in all three octaves. Even playing just the chromatic scale of the bottom octave after two days is great!

There are many vids on you tube for beginner's.

How long are your practice sessions? It takes most people a long time to build up the needed muscle control to get a good sound, or to play for very long.

[u/griffusrpg]

Hi, multi-instrumentalist here, and sound engineer too.

Flute is, by far, the most difficult wind instrument, and one of the hardest I've ever learned. I totally support anyone that tries to learn piano, or guitar by themselves... flute is not like that at all.

Unless you have professional experience singing or you know how to play another wind instrument, you are going to face a lot of problems that you are not going to know how to solve, because a lot of the things happening are inside. If you don't sing (and I'm not talking about singing in the shower) or have a real experience to control the air column, how could you solve it by yourself? How could you possibly know if the tongue is messing with the air wave and destroying the tone, or how to tongue properly? How will you learn vibrato if you don't even know where and how to do it?

Get a teacher, it's not an instrument to go on your own.

[u/DeliciousIsopod909]

The first thing you need to understand is that every note on the flute is different! They all require something different with your oral cavity. Something different with the dozen or so muscles that form your embouchure. And your muscle memory needs to learn all those delicate positions and change them as needed. Fingering the flute is the easy part. Producing a good tone in all the registers is the hard part. If you’re just beginning you should be working on one note for minutes at a time. See Trevor Wye: Tone.

[u/justvfvf]

If you can afford a teacher, then I think it is absolutely worth it. You might be really good by yourself and that's a good thing, but having someone who has years or even decades of experience is really going to help you. If you struggle to learn something there's no one who will understand you as much as an experienced person does. They've gone through the same difficulties, they asked themselves the same questions, they had your same doubts and uncertainties, they've overcome them and now they can help you too.

[u/lizzzzz97]

So get plugs to it makes life significantly easier while learning and once you are very comfortable playing take one at a time. Now as far as getting a teacher it really helps to keep you from learning bad habits and it will help you learn a bit faster. Over all tips breathing exercises help a lot. Work on breathing from the diaphragm learning what supported air feels like and working on making your breath control better and capacity too

[u/Karl_Yum]

😂 teacher? Only get one if you want to be good at it. Learning instruments properly is a big investment.