Greetings and welcome to a new Flute Friday! Today’s blog features a beautiful guest post by Emilia Genito, whose journey into a music career led to a number important lessons that will resonate with all of us. Please be sure to follow her website and blog https://egpianist5.wordpress.com/ and connect with her on Instagram @egpianist12. Thank you, Emilia, for sharing your story and inspiring other musicians to create truly fulfilling careers in music on their own terms. I couldn’t agree more! Happy Fluting! -Dr. G. ****** Sharing My Story: My Experience Transitioning to a Music Career I’ll ad ..read more

Greetings and welcome to a new Flute Friday! As we enter the holiday weekend, many of us will be tackling our Spring-cleaning list. I, myself, have started cleaning out a few corners in my closet and was reminded of a conversation I had earlier in the week with a student about how to properly clean their new flute. After cleaning my flute consistently for the past 30 years, I realized proper flute care isn’t always an intuitive process. In today’s blog, I will be discussing some of the basics for keeping your flute spick and span and sparkling brighter than this weekend’s Full Moon. Consistenc ..read more

Greetings and welcome to belated Flute Friday/Sunday. One of the pain points that many of us teachers face is how to encourage our students to practice regularly. Unlike other extracurricular activities such as soccer and gymnastics, learning a musical instrument involves a lot of individual focus time, often away from friends and family (save the occasional pet who loves listening to flute music) in a room by themselves. Sounds a lot like music jail, I get it. This may come easier to more introverted students and finding a quiet space to practice may be challenging in larger family home envir ..read more

Greetings and welcome to a brand new, yet super belated, Flute Friday/Monday. It’s been a while. I know. I have been dealing with a lot behind the scenes lately. Overwhelmed is an understatement. Depressed is not far off. My health has been garbage and my attitude has been worse. Today, however, I have been trying to connect back to the things that make me the infamous Dr. G you all know and love (or at least mildly dig). And that includes writing this blog. Nothing helps me find my way back to me than a blank word document, a soap box to hop on, and the time and space to say what is on my min ..read more

Greetings and welcome to a new Flute Friday! I’ve discussed perfectionism a lot on this platform in several past blog posts. Performing musicians are often tasked with somehow achieving excellence/near perfection in our performances, whether that objective is self-imposed or demanded by a conductor or well-meaning teacher. On the path to perfection (which, let’s be honest doesn’t exist as the definition of “perfect” is really based on different perspectives), we often meet perfection’s annoying little sister, criticism. Before I launch into today’s discussion, I just want to offer the disclaim ..read more

Greetings and welcome new a new, yet belated, Flute “Friday.” I had a completely different topic planned for this week until I attended a meeting yesterday where we discussed how best to prepare for grad school interviews. I was reminded that my experience outside of music at a day job in HR, coupled with my background as a mentor in a University staff mentoring program, and my personal climb up the staff payroll ladder over the past decade, has left me with a bit of expertise when it comes to interviewing. Interviewing is a skill required for entry into numerous industries, including teaching ..read more

Greetings and welcome to a new Flute Friday! Some of you may have noticed that I vanished from the internet for the past several weeks. The holiday chaos and a nasty cough (that lasted over a month!) forced me to take a step back and focus on healing and reflection. My own body begged me to take a break! I had indeed been doing too much in the last half of 2023 and reached a breaking point. Normally during the first couple of weeks in January, I, like many, create an impressively long list of New Years Resolutions, both in my flute and personal lives. And then I roll up my sleeves and get to w ..read more

Greetings and welcome to a new Flute Friday. Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com As we round the corner into The Holiday Break, I find myself reminiscing on the past year. I don’t know about you, but I’ve learned a lot about the person that I am and the person that I want to be. I’ve also learned a lot about the teacher I want to be. Some of these lessons have been introduced through super awesome sessions with my students and others through observations in various other environments. One of the biggest puzzles I’ve struggled with is the value of being “direct.” Today I am sharing some o ..read more

Greetings and welcome to a brand-new Flute Friday. Each year around this time I publish a list of great flute-based gift ideas for those of you shopping for the flutist in your life (or for you to hand to various family members searching for fun gifts). This year’s list will also include a few fun items to hand out to your students. If you have other recommendations for flute gifts, please comment below! Happy shopping! Photo by George Dolgikh on Pexels.com Dr. G’s Annual Flute Gift Guide Flute Hats. These are all the rage with my students! You can purchase some great basic flute hats at the C ..read more

Greetings and welcome to a new Flute Friday! A few weeks ago, one of my new beginning flute students asked me about the correct way to align her foot joint with the body of the flute, a topic we had discussed at our first lesson. I showed her my own instrument and explained that the rod on the foot joint is typically lined up with the middle of the bottom key on the body of the flute, which she already had aligned correctly on her own flute. She explained to me that her band director at school had told the class to instead align the rods on both the body of the flute and the foot joint. We wil ..read more