This month’s flute warmup is borrowed from the many wonderful exercises compiled by the renowned English flutist and teacher, Paul Edmund-Davies. After a long career as principal flute with many of London’s greatest orchestras and a first-call studio recording artist, Paul has in recent years increasingly dedicated himself to teaching and as such, has created the most useful website for flutists worldwide—www.SimplyFlute.com. (A video interview with Paul is offered on this site and I encourage everyone to also consider joining the Simply Flute website.) Along with the many original publications and recordings made available through his site, Paul has composed literally hundreds of exercises to be used as part of a flutist’s daily warmup routine covering all the fundamentals of flute playing. The warmup featured below is titled Sequence #1 from the Simply Flute website. I have found it extremely beneficial to work on in the early stages of my warmups.
While it is understood that working on tone production is essential during any practice session, it is often the case with woodwind doublers that it takes time for one’s lips and facial muscles to re-acclimate to the flute, especially after a hard blowing gig on saxophone or a show with multiple woodwind doubles the night before. In those cases, we need to be patient and forgiving regarding our flute tone. An exercise like Sequence 1 allows our “chops” time to recover while at the same time helping our fingers get comfortable with the flute keyboard. It also helps us fight the tendency to play ascending lines louder and descending lines softer. It is advisable to play each 5-bar pattern slowly at first and gradually increase the speed as one becomes more comfortable on repeated attempts. While many of the patterns can be played effectively in the third register, I would suggest delaying do so until the embouchure and first two registers are well established and the coordination between the fingerings is secure. Play this exercise by memory in all 12 major and minor keys. It is an enjoyable way to start a day of flute playing.