Whether you are a university music major, professional musician or amateur musician, you need to be fit enough to play your instrument. If you are spending 20 minutes, 60 minutes, or even 3+ hours practising music, you are likely to run into problems.

Forward head posture, strained wrists, a sore back and carpal tunnel syndrome are just some of the regular complaints of musicians of all instruments. On top of these ailments, wind musicians must have excellent abdominal endurance – that is, strong core muscles. [Read more…]

This is entirely dependent on you, your goals and how it fits into your life.

Children and Adult Beginners

I always suggest 30 minute lessons for children for two reasons. Partly because there is so much to learn and it can be overwhelming, especially if some of the concepts are difficult to grasp. Also because most children do not have the attention span to focus for extended periods of time.

Beginner adults should also start with 30 minutes. [Read more…]

The flute is quite a delicate instrument so there are a few simple things you need to do to ensure it is in top playing condition.

Handling the flute

The keys and rods are very delicate and easy to bend out of adjustment. When putting your flute together and packing up, hold it by the body and never grip hard on the keys or rods.

If your footjoint or headjoint is difficult to put on the body, you can use a drop of [Read more…]

You’ve probably heard people mention the word support. But do you really know what it means when someone says “You need more support”? They might explain it by talking about their diaphragm wile pointing to their lower abdominal muscles but it still doesn’t make any sense. It took me many years to finally ‘get it’ and I’m so sick of hearing teachers use this term but still not fully understanding it themselves! [Read more…]

Why purchase sheet music?

It’s important to purchase sheet music rather than photocopy it. Firstly, photocopying music breaches copyright. Secondly, composers would stop composing, arrangers would stop arranging and publishers would stop publishing because they’d all go out of business. Then there wouldn’t even be anything left to photocopy!

Where can you buy sheet music?

[Read more…]

Tools

You will need to bring your instrument, any accessories required (such as reeds and neck strap), the music you are working on and a notebook for your teacher to write in.

Your instrument needs to be [Read more…]