flute
the flute book.
The main impetus for writing a flute-book-as-blog was to fill in a gap I saw in teaching people to read music: there aren't enough easy folk tunes. And when I say easy, I mean really easy — using only, say, do re mi and whole, half, and quarter notes and rests. You might think, "Well how many tunes does that take before you get it and can move on?" More than you might think. And every student is different. So I started putting this together to provide more materials per musical concept. This gets worked on very sporadically. In the meantime, there's a good amount to get you started.
How to beatbox and play flute at the same time = A Fluteboxing Workbook.
other instruments
For beginning band directors, a helpful set of how-to sheets for basic band instruments.
A one-sheet detailing how to slur on trombone in three complicated steps.
If you play guitar, bass, banjo, or mandolin, I got scale tabs for you.
Two giant chord charts, one for piano and one for guitar. These are diatonic chords in major and minor (in minor, I do make one non-diatonic substitute, using the true V7 dominant instead of the diatonic minor v; otherwise, I stick to natural minor for simplicity's sake), arranged from left to right in the circle of fourths. Piano chords are for one hand, so that one can use the other hand for playing melodies and soloing. Not being a pianist or a guitarist, I am certainly open to gentle and reasonable suggestions at the email below.
Chord charts are often arranged alphabetically, which makes the chords easy to find. I wanted one arranged by keys in order to practice them in a musical context. If a student knows a song is in, say, Bb major, then the chords most common to Bb major are right there. These are certainly not the only way to play these chords, or the only chords that sound good together; yet these charts should work as a source that will help a beginner become more advanced.
Folks who play other instruments can simply play the arpeggios on their instrument, reading from left to right. I find going up two chords, then dropping down an octave makes for a nice sounding exercise. I discuss this idea as a preparation for jazz improvisation (or any improvisation) here.
practicing