Is 7 too young to learn the flute?

[zog]

...as our school are saying it is but have never come across this rule before.

Anyone know?

Well, how about renting a wooden piccolo for a year or two?

The fingerings would be very similar (extra on the flute) btu learning the piccolo first would be such an advantage.

Flute can be a bit awkward to put together and a little bit fiddly to clean out the saliva afterwards!!!! TMI? sorry. But it must be done. Also it is quite delicate. Less fiddly breakable bits on a piccolo.

Am going swimming but hopefully someone can help

no

you can get a curved head if your child's too small

ds started learning at around this age

go private
go single lessons rather than groups

I have a feeling they need to have their adult teeth for some instruments, perhaps that's it?

ds learnt with a curved head - borrowed and then onto a normal flute

was very simple and easy

I would echo what Hanaflower says. Starting early is not always the best thing.

My daughter started flute at age 12 and will soon take Grade 8, at age 15. All of her contemporaries who started playing at age 7-8 have made much much slower progress.

Recorder is an excellent first instrument, and fife would also be very good.

DD wanted (and still wants) to play the flute, but was advised to start with recorder. She is currently having lessons on recorder (learning to read music, fingering, mouth position [is that the correct way to describe?], and will switch to flute when she is big enough/strong enough.

amazing to be invisible sometimes

ds goes to a specialist music school but obviously they are wrong

Green Elizabeth - do you play the piccolo? did you when you were young? I ask just because I always found piccolo much, much more difficult than the flute - certainly the sheer amount of puff you need is more, and the embouchure needs to be tighter. I'd be amazed if it was suitable for a child but I'm prepared to be wrong.

Curved head sounds good to look into if it is working for Beety's DS.

I did play the flute, but I didn't start 'til I was 11. So I know nothing about what you do when your are too small.

I jsut gave a really stupid answer. I should just have said, keep playing the recorder and learning music for another year.

I had completely forgotten about those curved heads. I don't know why I mentioned Piccolos! I apologise for talking sh1t.

I started at 8 and had no problems. If the school really won't let you, then start her on recorder as it is the same fingering (descant recorder), and will get her started.

Piccolo is tons harder than flute - I did both, and piccolo is REALLY hard to get a sound out of!

Dd2 started when she was 7, but she had her front adult teeth, adn had pearned recorder for a year first. We bought a Jupiter flute whcih has both curved and straight heads, adn ahe had no probelms swithching form one to the other. if you're in the SE, I can highly recommend Just Flutes in South Croydon, who took a good hour or so with us on a Saturday mornign trying different models to see whcih suited her best.

either curved head as beety suggested or start with the fife and recorder as dd did then when she was big enough we got her a flute,think her 9th birthday

i wouldn't think so. my niece started on a recorder at that age and moved on to a flute from there.

she's now 13 and moving on to piccolo at 'flute camp' in a couple of weeks.

she's like to have a go at the bagpipes at one point! i spoke to a pipe player who plays with us sometimes, and he said her background is perfect for moving on to the pipes.

Fantastic advice here thank you. Think I'll have a word with the flute teacher and mention curved heads and see what she thinks.

Solo lessons not an option sadly - £££££££

I learnt recorder first then went on to flute when I started secondary school. Agree with the others recorder is a really good grounding for the flute.

DD2 started at about 7½ on a curved head flute, which came in a larger case with space for a straight head later (cost extra of course!)

She had been doing recorder since she was 5, and had also been having piano lessons but had to give up those when she got a mental block about playing chords - anyway she had some musical knowledge when she started.

For 2 or 3 years she had fixed braces and that slowed her down because her embouchure (?) kept changing but she took Grade 7 at about 15-16 (I think - was a long time ago now), and although she stopped doing exams at that point she went on playing until she went to uni at 20, so she had 13 years of enjoyment out of it and is definitely leaning towards picking it up again now (at 23)

Hi, my dd who is 8 is learning the flute and she had to wait until her 2 adult teeth came through. she is not using a curved head flute and is getting on fine.

GreenElizabeth - I didn't mean for a minute to suggest that you were talking rubbish - it's just something that's been suggested on other threads on here and I was interested to know whether you had any experience. I think we're all agreed now that piccolo is tricky (and not pleasant to listen to!).

Zog - glad we gave some good advice.

Zog,

I would echo what a lot of people have said about not rushing into it. One of the main considerations is how physically demanding it is (when played correctly), and so it's not just about length of arms and so on, but ability to breath well, use your diaphragm effectively and just sheer stamina. Starting early is possible, but not necessarily recommended, because if she isn't physically quite ready she will develop bad habits in order to circumvent her weaknesses.

Playing the recorder will teach her
a) to read music
b) to coordinate what she's reading with what her fingers are doing
c) to breath properly
d) posture
e) tongueing
f) musicality

Plus a recorder is much cheaper, so if she goes off it, you haven't forked out a fortune.

Piccolos shouldn't be played until flute has been mastered, IMO.

Start flute around 11 years old.

BTW, I am a qualified flute teacher, for what it's worth. I'm not saying the above is gospel, it just reflects what I've found to be the case.

Good luck.

yeah, piccolos are definitely a skill for later!

as i wrote earlier, my niece is just picking it up and she'll be 14 this summer.

but she did recorder - clarinet - flute and now this.

lol beety