One of the most essential things you need to learn as a flutist is how to tune your flute. If you do not tune your flute correctly, it could leave you sticking out in an ensemble and even sounding worse in a solo setting. Tuning is what really seperates a good sounding ensemble from a bad one... that and tone. But in this article, you will be learning how to tune your flute.

There are a couple things you will need for this:

1.) Your flute obviously.

2.) A tuner or a reference note.

Put your flute flute together like you normally would. Now if you are using a tuner, play an "A" and if the tuner says you are sharp, then pull out your head joint a little bit. If the tuner says you are flat, then you need to push in your head joint a little bit. If you are using a reference note, this is harder. You have to play the reference note and play the same note on your flute until you do not hear any difference in what you are playing and the reference note. Now with this, if you are new to playing the flute, hearing whether you are sharp or flat may be hard. In this case, just mess around with it until you get it right. For example, if you are not sure so you pull out and it gets worse, than you know that you went the wrong direction, so you need to push in.

REMEMBER: Warm up your flute before you try to tune, otherwise you will tune while your flute is cold and you will begin to go sharp as your flute warms up.