How to Practice Flute WITHOUT Your Instrument!

Sometimes we unfortunately end up without a flute to play, like while traveling or when your flute is in for repair.  But don’t lose hope, you can still practice! 😀  There are several ways to effectively practice flute without your instrument.

Get Your Flute…

First of all, are you TOTALLY SURE you actually can’t play your flute?  One of the best benefits of being a flutist is that your instrument is fairly portable compared to many other instruments.  So maybe there is room in your suitcase when traveling…  And if your flute is in for repair, perhaps you can borrow or rent one for a few days, or better yet, get a backup flute to have for such cases.  It doesn’t have to be as nice as your main flute, because any flute is better than no flute!

But perhaps you have injured your hands or arms, are in a plane or car for a long period of time, or only have a few minutes between activities without time to take your flute out, and you are positive that you can’t play your flute.  Then you still have practice options!

Practice mentally

Mental practice is THE BEST!!  So many studies have been done to prove the effectiveness of just practicing an instrument mentally, where you can almost get as much done as if you had your actual instrument out.  If you think about it, most of our issues when playing result from us not having things figured out in our head first, so getting it all mentally straight will solve a lot of problems.  

If you don’t know all the notes of your piece, you can learn that without an instrument.  You can go through the music and write down any notes you need to be cautious of or circle anything you want to make sure you notice.

Theory practice is also great mental work.  Test yourself on your note reading, key signatures, chords/arpeggios, etc.  A great tool is musictheory.net.

You can even practice fingerings and blowing without moving a muscle.  If you can clearly imagine what fingers have to move or what direction your lips have to go, then you will be plenty ready to play the music on your instrument later.

Do some pencil practice

While you technically don’t need to move your fingers to still practice fingerings, some people find that pretty challenging at first.  You could move your fingers by themselves, but sometimes it can be nice to have something to hold on to, like a pencil!  Even if you thought your flute wasn’t very portable, you can’t deny that a pencil is.  Try practicing your scales or your piece of music “playing” your pencil.

Do breathing and embouchure exercises

You can also practice your breathing and blowing without your flute too. There are lots of exercises that you can do (more on this topic later), but for example you could do box breathing (ex. in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4 with a flute embouchure, hold for 4 and later increase the time for each one) or start to do breathing practice where you inhale for shorter times and exhale for longer (ex. in for 3 and out for 5, then in for 2 and out for 6, or in for 1 and then out for 7 then increasing lengths of time for exhalation while keeping the inhalation at 1).

Or for embouchure flexibility, you can practice moving your air up and down your arm only moving your lips, or by changing the air size by blowing on your palm using pinpoint air then expanding to cover the whole hand and back.  Or you can even practice on a Pneumo Pro, a plastic headjoint with fans where you can work on controlling air direction and speed.

Read or Watch Instructional Videos

Time without your flute is a great opportunity to learn something new!  Pick up a book on music history, composer or performer biographies, or musical treatises by flutists like Quantz or Boehm.  Remember, you are a musician, not just a flute player!  It is important to be well-rounded and knowledgeable about a variety of musical topics.

Or read books or watch videos on body mapping (which is also another great way to improve breathing) or on Alexander Technique or the Feldenkrais method.  These are somatic methods of learning about the anatomically correct and effective ways to use your body. Remember, you are a human and not just a musician, so it is very important that you know how to not injure yourself!  Yes, you can injure yourself making music, and it is unfortunately very common…

Take a digital course or watch YouTube videos.  These are links to ones connected to Skye Flute Music, but there are SO MANY amazing ones out there.  You can easily go down a rabbit hole and spend hours going through all the awesome flute material.  Plus there are flute magazines, podcasts, and more.

Do Rhythm Exercises

You don’t need your flute to work on rhythm!  Try clapping and counting any difficult rhythms in your music.  Come up with names for different rhythms (ex. triplets equals “straw-ber-ry”).  Try playing recordings and walking (or dancing!) to the beat!  Or watch videos on Dalcroze Eurhythmics.  Among many other possibilities!

Listen to Recordings and Practice Aural Skills

Speaking of playing recordings, time without your flute is a great chance to do some active listening.  This means that you really listen for details in the music and not just have it playing in the background while you do something else, which would be passive.  

Play recordings of different flutists and compare their sound, phrasing, and approach to historical or contemporary music. Listen to how the other instruments relate to the flute part, assuming it is not a flute solo of course.  Or if you are working on an excerpt of a larger work, say a symphony, listen to the whole thing so you better understand context.  Or watch the whole thing if it is from a ballet or opera or musical, which can be lots of fun in itself!

You can also practice your aural skills.  Look at the sheet music of a new piece and try to hear the music in your head without listening to a recording (this is known as audiation).  Or sing a phrase and practice your solfege (do, re, mi…).  Or use difference online resources like musictheory.net to test your knowledge of intervals or types of scales.

Go to a Concert or Music Store

Who says you have to stay home or be in a practice room to study music?  One of the best things you could do without a flute is to go see a concert!  Ideally one with flute in it of course, but going to concerts in general is good to expand your horizons and support local musicians.  It is also a great chance to hear something you might not normally think about listening to or have the opportunity to, especially if you are traveling.  

And if you are traveling, go to a local music store or especially a flute store if there is one and see what kind of instruments or music you might find there.  That doesn’t mean you have to buy anything of course, unless you want to, but you might get an opportunity to try out instruments you couldn’t at home.

By the way, if you are traveling, then you might be on a long break like summer vacation.  Please see the blog “How to Practice Flute During Summer Vacation or Other Long Break” for more tips on how to flute during your time off.

Set goals for when you get your instrument back

Take this opportunity to figure out what your plan of action will be when you get your instrument back.  Set some goals.  Practice sessions with a purpose are far more effective than winging each one.

If you need help organizing your thoughts, try filling out our free fillable “Flute Goals Chart” where you can write down both your short and long-term goals in the many different aspects of flute playing.

Incorporate some of these techniques into your normal practice sessions

As you can tell, there are a lot of ways to keep yourself busy without an instrument.  But these techniques are great to do all the time, and you should try to incorporate some of them regularly into your practice sessions even when you have your flute back.  

But hopefully you get your instrument back soon and can start fluting again!