LFP 074 | An Unexpected Positive Side Effect from Flute Playing

Hey everyone it’s time for another Learn Flute Podcast. This is episode seventy four-  and I’m Rebecca, your host and the expert at Learn Flute Online where I will help you through all things related to learning how to play the flute – and doing it really well. Let’s get started today with another episode.  Today we’ll be discovering an unexpected positive side-effect from flute playing. Yup- let’s get started.

I hope I’ve peaked your interest today because I wasn’t quite sure how to title this one. Haha, let me give you a little background so you understand: first of all, I started this conversation years ago with my first son (who is all grown up now), but this was from back when he was in the sixth grade and had to take his first official keyboarding class. 

Now, I didn’t think anything of this and actually, neither did he- until he started to hear all of the other kids in the school complaining about how awful the keyboarding class was. By the way, this is the same as a typing class for those of you who haven’t heard it called keyboarding before. Since we don’t actually have typewriters anymore, they call it keyboarding. It’s a generational term. Haha.

The secretary at the school was our good friend and told us that more calls came in from parents complaining about the difficulty of the keyboarding class than any other subject taught in the school. Interesting?? Yah, I thought so, so we had a discussion at home about it.

I asked my son if the teacher was unusually hard or mean or unfair or something, and his answer stuck with me for a long time. He said, “nope, mom- the other kids just haven’t ever had to use their fingers one at a time before so it’s really hard for them. I get an A without even trying.”

Now, the story doesn’t end here because four years later my next child went through the same school, same keyboarding class, with the same teacher. And, you guessed it! It was still the most talked about subject amongst all of the students. They absolutely hated it, and as usual, the secretaries were still getting a lot of calls. Haha, I asked him what he thought about it: 

His response was similar to my older son’s; he said something like, “well, for some reason I do the assignments in the first ten minutes and then I get to read my library book for the rest of the class period.. While the other kids grunt and groan.. And some even cry about it.”

Huh, I thought. So, I started to ask my other students of similar age what their experience was in that dreaded keyboarding class since most of them were from the same area. And, they all said, “it’s easy. I get an A without even trying very hard at all, but almost all of the kids in the class struggle very bad.”

This started me on a quest of research. Is is just my boys who are good at typing? Nope, it’s my other flute students who really good at it  as well.  It turns out that the pianists in the class also had no troubles.

Are you seeing a common theme here today?

Now, this story hasn’t really ended because I have other children and they’ve all had the same experience.

Now, I’d like to point out that my case-study didn’t end there. I’ve as nicely as possible noticed that my husband cannot type for the life of him. He’s poky slow, and has to even look at the keyboard while he types. And… you guessed it- he never had any music lessons in his whole life.

When he was about forty years old he asked me if I would teach him how to play the guitar. I was SOOOOO excited that he came to me, of course I said YES and got him totally set up. Well, difficult times he had to the point where he decided to move on a little and I helped him learn to play the harmonica instead. Haha, he needed an instrument that didn’t require fingers!

Well,.. He CAN learn – his is very smart, he just hasn’t had the patience it takes to repeat the proper ‘one finger at a time’ motions enough times to feel comfortable yet.

When’s the last time you took a keyboarding test for speed? Kinda curious? I dare you to take one right now. I took one in preparation for this audio and am happy to say that I had a final speed of 91 words per minute. Pretty good? Yup I think so. All three of my boys are speedy typers, and you should hear them play the flute too! Flight of the Bumblebee is one of their favorites. 

I’m so glad we have brought instrumental music into our family and lives here because there are so many great side-effects… I dare you to take a type test now if you are a beginner in flute and then in a few years after practicing the flute as an instrument and learning how to use your fingers one at a time. I dare you to take the test again then and see if you’ve improved. 

I explore many of these great side effects in other articles, lessons, and audios here at Learn Flute Online.  And, if learning how to play the flute well can perform miracles such as making sixth grade type class a breeze, then I’d count that as one of the top unexpected positive side-effects from flute playing. Don’t you think?

Well, I appreciate you and your journey. I also hope that you will come to the comment sections of these audios and let me know what you think. I’m releasing these all week by week, and will be pointing students at different discussions at different times by either linking in a module lesson or sending it out via email.

So, if you haven’t had time to get signed up for the membership here at Learn Flute Online where all of the lessons are and even more information that will help you learn how to play the flute really well- it’s definitely time to do so! We’d love you to join us.

I’m Rebecca Fuller, your flute instructor and expert in helping you get to where you want to go. We’ll be seeing you soon!