It's been since I have been on here, but Ugh I am going to be first flute in my highschool, and I'm only a sophmore, and I am honestly incredibly nervous about it? I'm afraid of messing up with solos, and having people look down at me. Anything to help?

*its been a while; sorry.

Think about it this way: if your always playing 1st flute, it's always a solo! Same goes for any other instrument from piccolo to tuba.

Have no fear =]

If you're worried, you shouldn't be. Everyone makes mistakes. All you should do, is play solos and your band music, slowly. I'd say start very low, play it 3 times without mistakes. If you make a mistake, you should start again until you get 3 solid runs. Next, move you metronome up a few more bpms.. and keep playing it 3 times solidly. This way, it might not be very fast, but your at least practicing correct notes. Gradually you'll get everything up to speed. Don't take on more then you can chew. Take it easy and don't stress your self, everyone there is also going to need time to perfect things too =]

focus on the music only and not on those around you...I was always first chair when I was really young but I earned their respect because I didn't say much, but I played really well

All the above is good advice. Let me add a little more. You like to play flute right? Then just go ahead and play it, enjoy it. When you find yourself getting nervous just remember that you actually like playing your instrument. And people like hearing you play.

It's a good thing.

Here's one thing that I always considered when in the same position:

Imagine how nervous the other players would be if you were absent from a band practice (or concert) and they had to play all your solos! Trust me, they're always nervous because they haven't practiced the solos as much as you have.

i know i dont give great advice, but this is kindof a random thing that might help.

when you get really nervous and your mouth starts to get dry (i think its called cottonmouth), kind of bite(not too hard) on the inside of your cheeks so your mouth wont dry out. It helps me.

My experience was simply that if I had a piece of music that I had to learn, just playing it 30-50 times often was enough(mostly to build muscle memory - few things in high school are actually "impossible" to play). Most students in high school do maybe half the work that they should, so just playing the piece more times is often enough to keep ahead of them by a large margin.



<Added>

Actually, most students hardly practice a song at all outside of class. And they wonder why they don't get the solos...

Actually, most students hardly practice a song at all outside of class. And they wonder why they don't get the solos...

lol, thats so true... it makes you want to go slap them with the music and be like, "Practice, so you can stop complaining about how you never get the solo!"