How to play
1. Sit down comfortably and make sure you're relaxed. Your body shouldn't feel any tension, especially your fingers.
2. Prepare your flute with you breath by covering the sound hole in front of the block with your finger and blowing into the mouthpiece. This should remove dust from the channel and warm up the flute.
3. Now you're ready to play. Cover all of the fingerholes with your fingers and slightly breath into the mouthpiece. Now this is very important - keep in mind that you don't need to blow into the flute, but breathe, as you would normally breathe. Slightly and accurately, with no pressure or tension. If you blow too hard - the flute will overblow and you'll hear a high pitched sound one octave above.
4. Take your time to experiment with that. Remember that each flute needs its own particular amount of pressure, and you're about to figure that out for yourself doing the following exercise. Relax and breath into the flute as slightly as you can, while keeping all holes covered, gradually increasing the pressure. You will notice how the sound changes. Thus find the breath pressure that works perfectly for you, where the sound is clear enough and the flute doesn't overblow.
5. If you have any problems at this point and the sound still doesn't seem right - try adjusting the block, that is above the sound hole. It shouldn't be too far from the sound hole or covering it. Normally it is located right in fron of the soundhole or fractions of mm away from it. Just try moving it a bit around and see how the sound changes, finding the one that works best.
P.S. This isn't applicable to ocarinas though, as their blocks are usually glued to the body and can't be moved.
​
If the sound still isn't right, make sure you decently cover the fingerholes with your fingers. Any leakage of air from the holes will cause the flute to sound poorly. Also try to direct your breath flow strictly into the mouthpiece hole, preventing it from scattering around. This is especially important for ocarinas, as they don't have a precise mouthpiece and you have to be more accurate with that.
6. Now that you've managed to make your first sounds with the flute, try opening fingerholes gradually one by one from downside to the upside. If your flute has 6 finger holes, keep the 4th one (counting from bottom) closed for now, because this is an additional note which you can experiment with after you've mastered the basic pentatonic scale. The pictures below are here to guide you.
Basic minor pentatonic scale on a 6-hole native american flute
Mouthpiece
Bottom
Basic minor pentatonic scale on a 5-hole native american flute
Mouthpiece
Bottom
Basic minor pentatonic scale on a 6-hole ocarina
Mouthpiece
Bottom
Basic minor pentatonic scale on a 5-hole ocarina
Mouthpiece
Bottom
7. Another important tip - the first note on the flute is the most fragile one and needs the least of breath. As you go up the scale uncovering the holes, your breath pressure should gradually increase too. Thus, the lowest note needs the least breath and the highest note on the flute - the most breath. Experiment with your breath pressure while playing the scale from downside to the upside increasing the breath pressure and find what sounds best.
Then try playing the scale from upside to the downside gradually covering the holes and decreasing your breath pressure.
With practice, your body will remeber how much pressure is needed for each note of the flute, but for now keep that in mind.
8. Now that you've mastered the basic sound of the flute, let's try to add some accents to it. When blowing into the flute, try making it as you're saying 'tu', but without a sound, just whispering 'tu' in your flute each time you're playig a note. First try this with a single note, whispering 'tu' in your flute a couple of times. Then try to play the whole scale like that, accenting each note.
This will add more liveliness and rythm to your playing and you can alternate between these two techniques - a simple one and the one with 'tu' accent.
9. Now that you can play the scale up and down, it's time to make your own improvisations. Try opening and covering the holes not gradually one by one, but a few at a time for example, thus seeing how different notes of the scale sound together. But for now still stay withing the range of the basic scale you've already learned. Bit by bit you'll start to hear how one sound combination sounds worse and another one much better. Combine different sound combinations that sound good and you'll get a melody.
The beauty of minor pentatonic scale is that it is pretty hard to get a bad sound combination with it - almost anything would sound right. Experiment with rythm and accents, and let the music flow from your heart.
10. If you have a drone flute, the techniques described above would be all the same. But here you can also have more creativity, by either blowing into two mouthpieces at once, creating beautiful conconances, or only into single one, playing it like a normal single flute. Alternating between these techniques you'll get a lot of freedom and variety in your improvisations.
11. Yay! If you've come so far, you already should be doing pretty well composing your own improvisations. If not, don't hurry - practice makes perfect. When you finally feel like you're already comfortable with playing the basic minor pentatonic scale described above, and ready to move on, here's what you can do next (but this is for 6-hole instruments only).
Remember I told you about that 4th from the bottom additional hole? Well now it's time to master it :) You can use it to add some extra flavor to your playing, it's just like spices for your food to make i tastier. But just like any spices, it should be used mindfully, because not everywhere in a song it would sound relevant.
So now I'll show you the pictures with the full scale containing this additional flavor note and your task is to first play the scale from bottom to top and backwards, to make your fingers get used to it. Then start experimenting by playing the already mastered basic scale, from time to time adding this new flavor note and see how it sounds there. Take your time to do that exersice patiently and accurately, until you find the sound combinations that you like. Keep experimenting like that each time you play your flute, making your ears and fingers remember the good combinations.
Complete scale on a 6-hole native american flute
Mouthpiece
Bottom
Complete scale on a 6-hole ocarina
Mouthpiece
Bottom