Hi there,

I have a beginner flute pupil, aged 11, started in October. He's actually doing really well, very very enthusiastic, practices loads and is a generally nice kid to teach. However.... his posture is shocking!!! Every time he starts his lesson I get him to stand tall and nicely, but as soon as he picks up his flute, his chin goes straight on his left shoulder!! We've talked about it lots, I've showed him that I can't make a nice sound out of my flute like that either! He is trying, but just not getting there. I've tried to get him to play just 3 notes and see if he can keep his head forward, but it always goes back down. He's not that small and I've had (and have) smaller pupils who don't struggle with it.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Perhaps if he played whilst looking in a mirror that would help. All of my singers and recorder players do this and it makes a lot of difference.

All you can really do is reinforce correct posture every lesson. After several years of saying the same thing to the same pupil it can get very boring! I sometimes hang a light soft toy on a ribbon on the end of a flute for persistent offenders - the younger ones don't like 'killing' the mouse. Not sure that it would work with an 11 year old boy though.....

There's a kids game where you have to hang a series of plastic monkeys on a tree...we used to use these to hang on the guitar as long as the posture stayed good. Aim to make the string of monkeys reach the floor by the end of the piece! It worked for us.

Tell him his left shoulder is not a flute rest and every time he puts the flute there he can pay you a pound!!!!!

I know how frustrating this can be but all you can do is just keep correcting it. With kids who have the flute pointing roughly towards the direction of the Earth's Core I uses jelly beans in the tube....

Bag x