Posture and body position are important because they effect tone, breathing, technique, and almost every other aspect of flute playing. Make sure you always:
1) Stand or sit up straight. Sit on the edge of the chair when sitting and lean slightly forward when sitting or standing up.
2) Keep your shoulders down and relaxed and your head and chin pointed straight ahead, not up or down.
3) Elevate your body as if you were a marionette puppet on a string with your feet just touching the ground. An elevated body will help you to take deep breaths.
4) Keep your flute angled slightly downward and away from the body. Good marching band posture (ie flute parallel to ground and shoulders) is very constricting to the body. The flute should almost form a 45 degree angle with the shoulders.
5) When standing, keep your feet spread slightly apart with the left foot about half a foot length in front of the right. Weight should be on the balls of the feet.
Hand Position
A relaxed hand position will improve your technique as well as prevent hand cramping from lots of practice. Remember to:
1) Keep your hands and wrists relaxed. To find correct wrist position, hold your flute up above your head with your fingers on the keys and qradually lower it down to proper playing position.
2) Make your hands into a "C" shape with fingers curved over the keys.
3) Support the flute with the first joint of your left hand index finger, your right thumb, and counterbalence with your right pinky. Do not squeze any keys; these three contact points should be enough to balance your flute. If this feels awkward, try holding the flute from just these three contact points.
4) Keep your right thumb curved. The tip of your thumb should rest on the bottom of the flute directly under your right index and middle fingers.
5) Keep your fingers close to or on the keys at all times. Never lift them too high off the keys. Press down the keys with the bottom of the last joint of the finger, rather than the finger tips or the first joint of the finger closest to the hand.
Preventing Bad Habits
Everyone seems to have a couple of bad habits concerning flute posture or hand position. To prevent these, always play with great posture and hand position. It is much easier to learn the right way the first time than to have to try to correct a bad habit. It is possible to correct bad habits, however. To correct finger position, you can put a small piece of masking tape on your flute where the finger should go or put a note on your music stand or in your music reminding you of the habit you're trying to correct. Correcting a bad habit is dificult but possible with hard work.
