The basics

One of the many ways to learn pan flute and to play pan flute itself is to play well-known melodies, they are much more rewarding than boring exercises I think, melodies are entertaining, fun and enjoyable, this applies to the listener if any.

Quick Tips

1# Break down the tune in measures, every melody follows a structure based on contrast and repetition, if you look closely you will see some phrases or notes are repeated often, break down these into measures

2# Learn first , embellish after, it is quite easy to get caught up in trying to learn the whole song at one time, as well as with all the embellishments and basically create a final product out of the blue, best thing is to learn and stick to the notes raw, plain and simple, then build up the other aspects, because is in this phase where most mistakes are taken and if included in the tune, you will have to unlearn after.

3# Take your time, some tunes takes just 20 mins to learn them , while others can take you hours!, of course it depends of the length of it, but every tunes has its own character and difficulty, in fact composers take this into consideration, they try to make sure it’s not hard to play for your instrument, however, it’s a challenge for them to create something beautiful and yet easy for you to play, so take your time

4# Mark down, if you have the sheet music available or even if you are learning it by ear, it is very useful to mark down a comma or something to remind where you can take a breath, so you know in advance where you have to focus and for how long you can hold your air.

5# Record yourself, by recording yourself , not only you will improve in general but will be able to hear how you really sound and also where your mistakes are being played into, in other words, listen to yourself, correct, listen again, correct, that’s the science.

I just realized today that many of the ideas I play every now and then come and go, and some of them can be a good source to be developed later on.

Here is my approach to create and shape your ideas into song. First of all , if you know how to read and write music, it’s a big advantage to your work, if you don’t , not to worry, just make sure you write them down in a way that you can play it back.

Write down in a blank sheet music paper

I have found that, writting the chords and put the melody after is the approach which works mostly and for most people, however you can do it the other way round, but personally I think, melody is hard to develop if you don’t have a base or foundation to lie on, like a chord progression.

So, I suggest to write a chord progression in a blank sheet music paper first, choose the key and tempo, choose the theme and try to stick to your idea, don’t worry about seeing any music at this stage, the song is developing.

It could be a progression like this: A Bm7 C#maj E7 for the first four bars, I start laying a chord progression, trying to keep it simple, usually in 4 bars and in a 16 bars page, the good thing about this , it’s that you can edit it as you go.

After you’ve created the chord progression, you can start laying down the notes, which will be your melody, you may have a melody first, however I have found that very often ideas morph and change as you work along, so be versatile and ready to modify the original source.

Some rules to take in consideration.

These are some rules of thumb every musician knows at some point,

• Don’t play a minor third over a major chord, you will get a very dissonant sound if that is what you are after.
• Same goes the other way round, don’t play a major third over a minor chord.
• Try to match or make a close rhythm which fits with the chord rhythm, if the melody is fit in 8th notes rhythm, your chords should be a bit longer, or the same rhythm, it depends on what you are after, but try to keep it simple.
• Improvising with pentatonic scales and the scales of that chord being played is a safe bet to get a harmonized melody
• Make sure your phrases has a beginning and ending, playing a V chord or I is the simplest way to it.

Take your time

You may have been working some time in developing your idea for your song, and found that you are not getting that sound you were looking for, or just want to sound different from the usual, take some times and come back to your saved song when you get new ideas, ideas come and go often, some it’s worth catching them others just don’t serve your purpose but they may be quite good in other keys or situation.

Improvise

What I like to do some time, is to create a chord progression and improvise along, it’s interesting the different themes you get, depending on what chord you use, there are many available, and if you give first a structure to what you are trying to play, the song itself develops, whether others like or not, that’s a different story and it goes out of any creative endeavour my friend, do your stuff without worrying, enjoy your music while it lasts.

I know there are lots of healthy advice and info nowadays, but there must be a reason for that, people are hungry for it, hungry, no pun intended.

While you may or not want to include these in your life, I am sure there is some benefit you can take off them.

It is well-known that body and mind are connected, this is not whishy-washy stuff, everyone knows you mind has to be clear if you want your music to be soft and clear.

Early rise

It is not always easy to wake up early, let alone the fact our daily jobs and ruts, and so on, but starting by organizing yourself and spending less time at night doing the things you usually do, skip them for once and leave them to do in the morning, you will see the difference, re-program your internal clock,it is in the morning time when the body is clean and fresh and empty like a vase, all excesses from yesterday have been purged and we wake with new energy, or at least this is the way you’re supposed to wake.

In the morning, the mind is at its clearest point, you can focus easily on your ideas, also, look at the window, and see what tone the day is in, this can give you ideas about what to compose next, maybe it’s raining and grey, try including a minor scale, it’s sunny and looking bright, something happier maybe. Morning is the best to practice as well.

Food and Drink

I am not going to talk about food or drink choices , but it is good to know that these don’t mix well while playing, first it’s the cleanliness issue, some instruments are quite expensive, if drinks are spilt, well, you can figure out the results, I wouldn’t let any drop of wine or whatever drink on my pan flute, it will spoil the surface as well as the voicing if i gets inside the pipes.

While you are playing you want to stay away from any eating or drinking, specially caffeine or stimulant drinks, as this has an effect in the mind, making it difficult to focus or concentrate though the main believe, caffeine doesn’t help concentrate or gives a boost of energy, it just wears you down. Also food, even if it’s a healthy piece of fruit, it’s an stimulant added to the body, specially if late at night, so I think it’s best not to drink or eat anything at all, there is a time for eating and there is a time for playing.

Kick off Smoking

This is specially true for woodwinds players, smoking reduces the capacity of your lungs drastically making it really hard to play a whole passage entirely without taking a break/breath again, if you are not a woodwind player, the fact is not much different though as, again, smoking stimulates and quicken the pulse, making you feel alert and unfocused,there are incredibly resources nowadays for those who still want to quit, if you don’t want to quit, make sure you don’t smoke while playing, though you won’t believe it, there are many folks who smoke within the field.

Have a walk

Sometimes when you’re practicing you don’t get the results you were expecting, and that’s fine, or you may be in the middle of a song or composing, and have just run out of the next idea, it’s wise to take a break in the form of a brisk walk, you may get new ideas and your body will have the time to disconnect and stretch.

Meditation, Yoga and Calm

You will be quite amazed if you start practicing or playing your next jam after a relaxing session, be it in a spa, yoga center, or just after a meditation in your own home, if you don’t know how to meditate, you can sit down, close your eyes, and leave your thoughts pass by in your mind, feel calm and play soft music, after a session like this, again, the mind is clear and productive, you will play relaxed and easy, and you will feel that ideas flow easily in your head.

Basically, the idea, is create the right conditions for you, starting in your body and mind, since music comes from within you, what do you think will sound best? a polluted body and stimulated mind or a clear mind and  simple fit body?.

Leave your comments below if you know more healthy choices and tips for us musicians

I just thought today it would be useful to share some of the stuff I know about tuning your pan flute in the scale you like.

I tuned mine the other day to A major, because I like the mood of F#minor, this is a personal choice though, a pan flute in the key of G, it’s usually the standard and it’s what most folks are used to hear, if you want to switch to the minor sound of E minor, that’s great, specially for Celtic tunes.

One thing I stumbled upon a year ago, it’s a little fancy tool , really useful, a program designed to tune a shakuhachi, which it did the trick for me, it’s basically a simple accurate tuner that it works with a mic input and it tells you whether your note is sharp or flat.

http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~tuner/tuner_e.html .

You can use a standard chromatic tuner, a gadget, I have personally found them too expensive for what you get, as the built-in mic they come with is pretty cheap, best source is to rely on your ears.

I am going to give you some instructions about what to do to tune the pipes to other scales, however I must tell at first to be careful, modifying the original tuning of your pan flute is not harmful at all, you can always tune it back to default, but the stoppers are delicate and if you insert sharp or pointed objects in them, you may pierce them , making a leak of air, and getting no sound at all.

I am assuming your pan flute is tunable, some aren’t, Romanian pan flutes are usually tuned with beeswax, and they come with special stick to add or remove wax, but some pipes , come with rubber plugs, this means they are tunable by moving the stoppers up or down.

If you have just taken a pan flute, I recommend you to stick to the normal tuning first, and then experiment in other keys later on.

a wooden dowel is the perfect tool to move the plugs up or down

As you can see in the picture on the left, the stopper found at the base of every pipe, it’s the piece responsible for retaining the column of air and making the pipe resonate, also it’s what it gives the pipe the corresponding note along with the length and diameter of the pipe of course.By moving the stopper up, the pitch goes sharp, moving it down will make it flat.You may want to use a wooden dowel, don’t use a pencil, a pen or something with a point, the stoppers can be easily pierced or damaged.

1. Start blowing and put the wooden dowel inside touching the stopper, as you blower push it up and you will immediately hear the pitch going up, keep going until you hear the desire note,the same goes for the flats.
2. If you using your ears, it’s recommended to use a external source, like someone playing the same note in another instrument, after all, this is what being in tune is, to sing, or play the same exact frequency, concert tune or concert pitch A4 440 hz is just a standard tuning in western music used widely, there is however another tunings, which gives different colours.
3. If you are using an app or program then keep on pushing until the needle gives the exact note, not very sharp or flat.
4. If you are using your computer, it’s recommendable to use a decent microphone so the input is clear and the reading is accurate, make sure there are not noises around.

The good thing about tuning your pan flute to a certain key, is that it gives more possibilities, some songs have just too many flats to constantly making flats in the usual technique, so I encourage you to experiment. You will notice that some times you want to stick back to your old tuning, then some day you fancy something more jazzy or maybe a harmonic scale, or an exotic scale.Experimentation is a really creative juice.

5 Completely Free Programs every musician must have

I must admit that one of my favourite hobbies and ways to spend my time while I am online is checking out and trying new pieces of software due to the practicality we can find nowadays, here is a list I have compiled with great software that you can download just for free, while you may be music related and interested in the filed , you may not use any computer at all, that’s fine, but you must be a rare case then, a tuner, a metronome and some sheet music tools and an audio editor if you are into home recording are perfect tools for anyone who enjoys playing music out of an instrument.

• 1 Weird metronome

As the name suggests, it’s a weird metronome, well, it’s not weird at all, in fact it’s so functional and simple, first you can customize the sounds of the beat and sub-beats, but its best feature is that you can enter virtually any time meter and tempo and play any length of measure you want, it comes with pre-defined sounds, unlike most commercial metronome which only allow you to have simple measure with disabled functions. You can grab it and try here http://www.pinkandaint.com/weirdmet.zip or check out the web of the author http://www.pinkandaint.com/weirdmet.shtml

• 2 Musescore

Free composition and notation software.I completely fell in love with this app the first time, why? because it can do exactly the same than other programs and you don’t have to pay a penny, simple. One of the best feature I like is that it exports to Pdf , supports XML format , it’s friendly to use once you run for a few times. http://musescore.org/download

• 3 Audacity

This is an audio editor, well-know for its easy use and functionality which takes minimum resources out of you CPU, it records and edits wave files and can export to mp3, while there are other expensive alternatives , sure abit more professional, if you just use it to record clips, projects and edit basic tracks, then this is just for you. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

• 4 Functional ear trainer basic

Ear training Software.I stumbled upon this little program by reading this interesting article http://www.advancingmusician.com/hear-all-12-chromatic-notes/ some days ago and I just can say it’s excellent, if you want to take your musicianship to a decent level, then you should check this out, it’s not a commercial piece of junk, in fact it’s completely free and unlike most ear training software it’s not based on a game of simply guessing random notes but rather have a theory and scientific explanation behind, with a bit of practice in weeks you will develop  a really good ear without much hassle. http://www.miles.be/FET_Basic_Setup.exe grab it here or go to the web homepage http://www.miles.be/fet.html

• 5 GNU Solfege

Ear training Software. Another ear training software under the licence of gnu software, well known , and pretty functional, lots of features and easy to use, it’s also an excellent to learn sight reading and solfege if you are still in that stage. Grab it here: http://www.solfege.org/Solfege/Download

If you know any other little simple app which can do the job a piece of paid software can do, don’t doubt in letting us know, use the comment section below to share, many thanks

Everyone has its own little corner and time to practice, be it every day or once a year, we all know it’s important to keep practicing but many we don’t know about little details that we may be missing and that it could improve your practice, after all, practice is not much different than performing in front of an audience, you have just simply put aside some conditions, don’t you think?

1# Keep motivated and constant -

I know you have probably heard that you have to practice every single day, well, that’ s not true, or at least for me and many, the secret is to keep constant, sometimes you are just too busy and your life doesn’t revolve around the whole pan flute experience that’s obvious. Just do it at regular times, preferable at the same time, if you skip one day, ok you’re not perfect, you don’t have to be, but be honest with yourself and see if you still keep the passion for it, if so, that’s great, next time you will pick it up with a smile, if not, there is a bunch of other things you can do…like the one which kept you busy last day so you put the practice forward!

2# Set your own atmosphere -

You don’t have to play in a place where everything is cluttered or it’s not yours, go to the place you feel the best , that will be reflected on your playing, make sure none disturbs or there is no chores from the day to interrupt, it’s your own space, remeber this.

3# Breath, breath -

Before you start doing exercises, it’s a good idea to warm up your lungs a bit , start by taking a deep breath in with your belly, don’t raise your shoulders ,, then blow out with your mouth and pushing with the low muscles of your stomach, do it 3 or 5 times with your eyes closed, in minutes you will feel a sense of relaxation, you are ready to enjoy practice.

4# Focus on the exercise -

I sometimes end up improvising and playing ramdonly, while this can be fun, with the time becomes a habit and it puts me apart from the goals and exercises that I could learn, if you focus on the basics even if they are boring, then it’s worth the effort, later you will realize it was good for you to know.

5# Look for inspiration -

Beauty and inspiration is everywhere, if you are willing to see it, this is very true, you can listen the melodies you like off a cd, or you can just open the window and look at the landscape then think about it and imagine you have been given a pan flute to express that what you see, whatever it is, your inner creativity will sure kick in, if you are not fortunate enough and live in a scummy dirty area, go back to tip 2#

6# Set a time -

Some wish they could be playing all day under the sun and nothing else happens, some think 3 mins a day it’s just enough, this all depends entiretly up to anyone as you can see, but it’s much more worth 10 mins when you have relly learnt something and it has sunk in, that having spent the whole evening cursing and repeating the same wrong method again and again

7# Stick to what it works -

Yes, this is crucial if you don’t want to end up frustated and cursing, every day people quit an instrument for good because they didn’t make it sound the way they wanted at first, but who said it was easy? it actually is, it’s just the wrong method and prejudcies and issues in your mind preventing you to enjoy playing, if what you do works for you, then stick to it, if the method or something you’ve read doesn’t work for you, then try something else!

Of course you don’t have to take this list as a must do but if what you read it’s valuable for you, then make avail of it, I got my own “ritual” when I practice as I guess you have yours too, I like to play nature sounds as a background noise, I like my room to be sunny and light , when it’s cold outside I put my heater on , it does a little noise from the fan but I don’t really mind I just practice and don’t think of anything else -

What is your  routine practice like? do you think you could include something new to it? or what is most  important, do you practice at all?

Use the comments section below as a forum to post your own experience, opinions and thought in this subject, share your ideas and enjoy what others share with you

Handy tools for you panflute experience.

Is there any piece of software of special tool that you use for your practice?

or maybe you love a program that is so handy and great and want to share with us? feel free to let know then

There are loads of pieces of software out there which can help you musically in many ways, not all of them are good and handy, in fact the majority are a piece of junk I have found myself.

I always used the computer and still use every time I practice or play or try to create a melody with the panflute, the sole reason is because, first when I practice I always record myself, so I can play back what I have been playing and then whatever the result I will get an idea of what I am doing at the moment.

I stumbled some good handy tools and programs I use every now and then with my panflute playing experience, there are the basics ones, like a metronome and recording software. I used to use a mechanical classic metronome, which, if you prefer to stick to the classic, go for it, in fact the one I had was good and did the job , however , it lacked of the technology and the practical use that you can only find in computer software.

So then I started to use a metronome program, not only you can customize in a second, you can change the sounds played for the beat, and the sub beats to the sounds you like so it’s easier for you to feel at ease as well as  following the beat and timing.

Then I always wanted to have a backtrack along my playing, playing solos is great and it really enhances your abilities to create a melody but it can get really dull after a while, don’t you think?

I came upon another good piece of software which makes it all easy and automatic for you, including the harmony and instruments, and apparently it’s used by many professionals, I don’t play a keyboard, but the program comes with los of styles and substyles so you don’t have to worry about creating your own stuff from scratch though you can I am sure and that it must be a nice creative experience.

To record my clips, and practice I use Sonic Foundry SoundForge, this program is a recording, multi-track professional software, if you have a decent microphone, you don’t have to spend millions of pounds actually to get a decent one, you can record your stuff at a really good quality so you can listen to it and improve your ear too. Then if you think you succeeded this time, you can play with the effects, like adding reverb, equalization and even master it to create a clip or a track.

One other cool and extremely useful and customizable app I use is this one:

Fine Metronome, it’s a metronome with customizable beats, you can choose what sound to play for the bear and sub beats, you can play at any meter and up to a tempo of 250!, it also comes with a flash animation with a number for every beat, a visual metronome so you can look how your timing is while you hear the clicks of the beat.

And finally, this is one of my favourites, you probably heard of it, as it is quite popular among both Mac users and Windows users, Band in a Box 2009, it’s multi-track amazingly complete piece of software, the program basically allows you and gives you all you need to create backtracks and whole songs, starting by inputting the chord progressions to edit the melody in real time, along with music notation and much more, the version comes with tons of different styles and substyles, and there is loads of resources and tutorials out there and in the main homepage so if you get stuck and confused by the so many features you can always ask and read the documentation.

One of my favourite ways to spend my time after some practice is to choose a song, most of the time a jazz song, and either improvise something or play-along the melody while I have the backtrack playing in the background, it displays any score,it’s one of those elemental handy apps you can’t miss in any musician’s repertoire, I would give it a five-star.

I use sometimes other apps, mainly music notation editors, I never liked to have a sheet music in front of me and I always try to save paper in any possible way, so instead of getting the score off a book or bought from somewhere I try to get the midi file, or create one myself or get on a pdf.

I use Sibelius as my main preference, Finale the main competitor is quite good too, but I find Sibelius much handier and well designed than the last one.

Here are some links that you can check and you may find some handy applications to suit your needs.

If you think this post added a value to yourself and/or  your panflute music experience , make sure you subscribe to RSS, what is it RSS? you can do it by clicking  the link at the bottom of the page or just here, anytime a new update or new post is post you will be automatically notfied, either by e-mail, or by just clicking at the bookmark on the toolbar in the explorer.

http://www.finemetronome.com/download.html

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/soundforgesoftware

http://www.pgmusic.com