Standing Through Centuries: A Historical Study of Flute Playing Posture from the 18th Century until today

Mischa Marx

Classical Flute

The Royal Conservatoire The Hague

June 6, 2025

Contents

Introduction

Why it matters/what is described as a good posture

Flute playing movements and posture over centuries

Foot position

Flute posture now

My conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Posture is a highly individual and dynamic aspect of human physiology. Posture can be simply defined as the way in which we hold our bodies while standing, sitting, or lying down. It is about how your body adapts and interacts with different situations than a fixed ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ state.

In flute playing, posture is important to prevent body injuries.

In humans, posture can provide a significant amount of important information through nonverbal communication.

If you are a flutist, you can probably also remember it, your first flute teacher tells you to stand straight with your left foot forward, right foot clockwise and your head turned to the left. I was always asking myself if this is the right way for me, so now I finally decided to dive into it.

While starting my study at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, I started watching other flute students, teachers and other instrument performers, and started thinking about my own body posture in comparison with them. I had a huge backpain always after sitting or standing in the same position for a long time. When I talked about it to my flute teacher he told me to try to stand with two foots to the same direction. A week later, I started talking about it with another flutist, instrumentalist, teachers, my own students and a physiotherapist. After research and all these talks, I found it a huge eye opener for me, I was questioning, why haven’t I thought about having another position before?

This research I chose to not include arms and hand- position to focus more on other parts of the body.

Why it matters/what is described as a good posture

A good posture in flute playing is one of the most important things to learn. With good posture we want to achieve the following things in flute playing:

Feeling free (being able to move easily), being balanced, a good tone (standing open), a better technique (fingers), bigger breathing (with standing open, you can inhale more air), showing emotions better and it just gives more comfort.

Flute playing movements and posture over centuries

The position of standing while performing or practicing flute has been an important topic for over decades and is still on until today. In almost every flute book (if it’s Quantz, 18^th^ Century Boehm, 19^th^ Century or Moyse, 20^th^ Century or flutist now) one of the first things you read is about position.

Traverso players in the 18^th^ century agreed on the following things:

Whether one plays standing or sitting, the body must be kept straight, the head high rather than low, turned slightly toward the left shoulder. When in a standing position, one must be firmly fixed on one’s legs, the body resting on the right hip, all without strain. One must, above all, refrain from making any body or head motions, as some do in breathing time.

When this posture is achieved, it is quite graceful and will gratify the eye no less than the sound of the instrument will delight the ear.

The traverso was often held slightly lower and closer to the body than a modern flute.

In the 19th century, the Boehm flute was invented. The mechanics made the flute heavier, which required a more active and stable posture. A new repertoire also emerged, which became more romantic and dramatic than before. The idea of the baroque dance disappears during flute playing, the movement now becomes more dramatic with more physical movement, individuality, feeling, and expressive freedom (romanticism). The left arm needs to be positioned a bit further away from the body than in the 18th century.

In the 20th century, the movement while playing the flute becomes somewhat more graceful again, with no large movements unless intended expressively. 20th-century flutists learned to play with maximum efficiency: posture had to minimize physical strain. New music emerges again: expressionist and modern music. This also required new movement techniques; one had to switch quickly between techniques, dynamics, and colors. How you stood on stage became even more important; your posture had to appear visually professional, yet also authentic and relaxed. Flutists move less theatrically than in the 19th century, but more functionally than in the 18th century.

Before the 18^th^ century we see flute, players being even more different, with playing on the other sided, and not thinking a lot about posture.

Foot position

Frederick II (18^e^ Century)

Flute posture now

What is different are the ways in which we investigate what the best method is for us. Whereas in the past we had to read a book (often without pictures) or ask a teacher how to do it exactly, now we can easily look at an online instructional video (even before the first flute lesson) or just search for it. We are used to copy the practices of others instead of studying ourselves and thinking about the position that is best for us.

It’s about relaxation and body awareness now. We now often move elegantly with the phrasing, consciously using our bodies (no automatic or theatrical movement), but it now also varies more per person. There is also an increasing emphasis on training through yoga, breathing techniques, Feldenkrais, Alexander technique, etc. And there is attention to asymmetry, injuries, hypermobility, or tension complaints.

The question ‘what is the ideal flute position?’ continues to be asked and will certainly not be answered anytime soon, or perhaps never.

My conclusion

I asked some flute teachers at the Royal conservatoire The Hague and a physiotherapist about their thinking of a ‘‘ideal’’ flute posture and got a lot of different answers. Some where really into one position of standing, others said things like ‘‘see how your foot are when you land after jumping’’, ‘‘while sitting you must not sit straight with your body, but be sided to the right’’ or ‘‘stand like the singers’’. The thing that mostly came forward in almost every sentence was: ‘‘you must’’.

Of course it’s important to stand straight, have your knees bend, but it shouldn’t be forced. When saying you must do this, you often get the result of students overdoing it, wich create other problems.

My conclusion is that there is nothing such as a perfect posture, but you have to find a good position that suites your body.

Playing flute is just heavy so you can’t just prevent all injuries with standing or sitting hours ‘‘the right way’’, but you can find a position that works for you and your body, wich will make it way more comfortable to play the flute and enjoy it even more without stressing about injuries.

Bibliography

The book: Hotteterre: Principles of The Flute, Recorder and Oboe - Scribd, https://www.scribd.com/document/499445037/Hotteterre-Principles-of-the-flute-recorder-and-oboe-parte-flauta.