Intermediate Flute Etudes
If you’re an intermediate player, it’s high time you start working on weekly (or biweekly) etude practice. If you’re taking lessons, it’s likely that your instructor is going to start working with you on your etude practice, but if you’re not taking lessons, I’ll walk you through the best way to incorporate etudes into your weekly practice.
First and foremost, HOW are you going to plan to work on etudes? Remember, etudes are “studies” so they’re designed to learn some technical lesson in a melodic way. It’s important to remember that we’re looking to learn a lesson, but not necessarily to completely perfect etudes. So, we only work on etudes for a short period at a time. Typically, I would recommend working on one etude per week and moving on to a new one every week. That said, if a particular etude is giving you trouble, working on it for two weeks is fine. After two weeks, though, it’s fine to say “see you later” to it, moving on to your next etude and coming back to it at a later time. You don’t want to spend a ton of time because if you’ve worked at it for 2 weeks and haven’t perfected it, you’ve learned what you’re going to learn from it for the moment and you’ll have an opportunity to learn more from it later. Perfection is obviously a goal with everything we do, but if you don’t reach it in a week, be prepared to move on and work on something else.
Now, as for WHAT to work on, there are tons of options, but I’ll give you a few of my favorites to start working on:
Melodious and Progressive, Book 1
This is one of my favorite progressive etude books. It’s definitely a favorite in the community, too, as it circles through Kohler, Gariboldi, other studies that can seriously help aid a developing flutist.
These can actually be found on IMSLP, so if you’re looking to find some free etudes, these are a great place to start. These would also be a good next step if you’re finishing up M&P.
These are slightly more advanced, but beautiful in nature. They’re melodic and fun and certainly a challenging next step.
Again, the best way to approach and etude is with perfection in mind, but being okay with moving on after a week or two if it hasn’t reached the level of perfection you’re hoping for. This will help build skills, adaptability, and the ability to keep moving forward when necessary. Whether you’re working with a teacher or not, you should absolutely be working through an etude book at any given time. It will build skill quickly.
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