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Woodwind Awards 2025
27th December 2025Celebrating the Best in Woodwind for 2025
Each year, we take time to reflect on the instruments, accessories and innovations that have genuinely stood out in our woodwind department. The Woodwind Awards 2025 are chosen based on highlights, excellence in manufacturing, and products that have truly impressed us on the shop floor.
The Ultimate Gift Guide for Flautists
19th November 2025Finding the perfect gift for a flute player can be tricky – you want something practical, inspiring, and tailored to their musical needs. This blog brings you the ultimate gift guide for flautists, covering a range of options across different budgets and requirements for every player.
Master Your Flute Vibrato: Simple Steps to Improve Your Vibrato, Fast
23rd October 2025Vibrato is a defining element of flute tone, adding warmth, colour and expressive depth to the sound. Vibrato is a controllable skill that develops through focused breathing, air control and consistent practice. With the help of pro player, Thom Conroy, the following simple steps and exercises are designed to help improve your vibrato in both the mechanics and the musicality.
The Art of Breathing for Musicians
22nd September 2025Breath is at the heart of music-making. Whatever your instrument, the way you breathe shapes your tone, stamina, and expression. It’s tempting to think that “more air equals more sound,” but in practice, the opposite is often true. In this blog, ‘The Art of Breathing for Musicians’ we offer a range of advice to get your diaphragm working and start improving your sound and stamina!
Improve Your Flute Tuning Today! With Thom Conroy
3rd September 2025Getting the flute in tune isn’t just about pulling out the headjoint or rolling it in. Improve your flute tuning fast today with the help of pro player and multi-instrumentalist Thom Conroy. He reminds us that the quickest way to improve tuning is to understand how your own setup affects pitch, and how each note requires precision. Small adjustments in flute placement, embouchure angle, and the direction of your air stream can make all the difference.
Back to School: Picking Up Your Woodwind Instrument After a Break
28th August 2025As the new school year begins, the music bags are being dusted off and practice routines are starting up again. Whether you’re a student returning back to school or an adult player getting back into the swing after some time away, picking up your Woodwind instrument after a break can seem a challenge, but easing yourself (and your instrument!) back in carefully makes all the difference.
Exploring Extended Techniques on the Flute
25th July 2025The flute is often associated with elegance, clarity, and soaring melodies – but there’s a whole world beyond the standard classical tone. Extended techniques push the boundaries of what the flute can do, opening up an exciting palette of sounds and effects. Whether you’re a curious student, a composer, or a flautist looking to expand your expressive range, these techniques offer new ways to interact with your instrument.
Let’s take a look at some of the most exciting extended techniques, and listen to Thom Conroy’s amazing demonstrations!
Finding Your Musical Voice
16th July 2025Five Steps to Make Your Playing Truly Yours
In the world of instrumental playing, it’s easy to get caught up in perfecting the technical aspects – clean articulation, accurate intonation, and solid rhythm. But great players don’t just play the notes – they say something with them. Finding your musical voice is about making your playing unmistakably you. It’s a lifelong journey, but here are five steps to help you start carving out your unique sound, inspired by brass supremo Christopher Bill.
Top 5 Upgrade Flutes: Features, Benefits & What to Consider
10th July 2025Upgrading your flute is a pivotal step in evolving as a musician. Whether you’re transitioning from a student model or simply refining your sound, the right instrument can dramatically enhance tone, ease, and expression.
In this blog, we explore the top 5 upgrade flutes – each offering distinct technological innovations and tonal profiles. Alongside features and benefits, we’ll point out what to consider when evaluating these instruments. Don’t forget to watch our video with flautist Thom Conroy to hear his wonderful demonstrations and reviews.
A Self-Care Guide for Woodwind and Brass Players
24th June 2025World Wellbeing Week 2025
During World Wellbeing Week 2025, let’s shift the focus inward: from performance to presence. Woodwind and brass players know the intense demands of their craft – daily pressure on the breath, fine motor control, long practice hours, and often, physical tension. We’ve put together a self-care guide for musicians with 5 tips on slowing down and taking a moment. Whether you play oboe, saxophone, trumpet, or tuba, you’re constantly balancing technical skill with physical stamina and emotional focus.
We’ve also included some invaluable resources from the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine at the end of the blog to support all musicians through their journey.
Technician Tales: Common Flute Faults And How to Prevent Them
17th June 2025The flute may look sleek and simple, but it’s a delicate and complex instrument, and even small missteps in handling can lead to frustrating and expensive damage. We spoke to Head Technician, Abi Taylor about the most common flute faults they see come into the workshop, and advice on how to prevent them.
How Much Do Flutes Cost?
20th June 2022As with any instrument, the cost of flutes can depend on a few factors. These can be split into features like playing level, keywork styles, age and silver content. We’ll break down the features of a few highlights at different playing levels to help you understand the differences of prices on the market!
Mail Order: 14 Day Home Trial
2nd November 2020As fellow musicians we understand that sometimes it’s important to compare similar items back-to-back and/or just get a few days to make sure something is right for you. Our 14 Day Home Trial option is there to help you find the right item and test it in an environment you’re comfortable in. Here’s how it works…
Auxiliary Woodwind Instruments
19th February 2020This is a term you may have heard before, but what exactly does it mean? In short, an auxiliary instrument is any ‘non-standard’ version of the common members of an instrumental family. They’re often used in orchestras and other ensembles by the specialist players. Today we’re looking at the auxiliary instruments in the woodwind family, as well as a few that we sell in store!
Five Flute Maintenance Essentials
28th November 2019Playing your instrument is even more fun and rewarding if the instrument is working at it’s best! Here are a few flute maintenance must-haves to keeping your flute looking good and working perfectly.
Pearl 665 Flute – Special Editions
8th October 2019The Pearl 665 flutes remain a staple step-up flute with the added interest of a solid silver headjoint. Exploring their own tagline, Tradition of Innovation, Pearl have produced two interesting additions to the existing 665 range, all around the popular £1,000 upgrade price point…
LefreQue Part 1 – Introduction and Flute
1st October 2019Musicians of all abilities, new learners to professionals, are endlessly hunting for that ‘perfect’ tone and intonation. Of course the most effective way of achieving this is through hours of practice! However there are a number of products on the market that may be able to help you in this journey. We’ve been looking at the LefreQue, the ‘acoustic bridge’ that could get just get you one step closer to that dream sound.
Flute Features – B Footjoints
28th February 2019Many flutes have the option of adding a number of different features, one of the most common being the B footjoint. As well as exploring what this does and how it affects the instrument, we’ll be demonstrating the differences in a video with a pro Flute player.
Flute Features – Open Hole Keys
24th January 2019A major factor to consider when upgrading your flute is whether or not to buy an open or closed hole flute. Most student flutes are only available with closed holes, whereas intermediate and professional models can be bought with either closed or open holes. Is one option inherently better than the other? Today we take a closer look at why the open holed flute might be right for you.
Woodwind Instruments in the Orchestra
15th November 2018The name ‘woodwind’ for this family of instruments refers to the wood from which these instruments were once exclusively made, as well as the need to blow air – or ‘wind’ – into them to produce a sound. Woodwind instruments in the orchestra are no longer solely made of wood, with metal and plastic also now being used.
An orchestra’s wind section can consist of various combinations of such instruments as the piccolo, oboe, flute, clarinet, cor anglais (literally French for ‘English horn’), bass clarinet, E-flat clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon and saxophone. Below, we have sought to answer some of the most common woodwind orchestra queries that our customers here at Dawkes Music have.
Flute Playing Videos: TONE EXERCISE with Krzysztof Kaczka (2/10)
23rd June 2018This is the second of a ten part video series we recorded with top international flautist Krzysztof Kaczka. Throughout the videos Krzysztof will talk about various techniques and exercises to help improve your flute playing, whatever your level.
Upgrade/Pro Flute Offers – December 2017
4th December 2017
We’re delighted to be offering an extra 5% discount off any upgrade/pro Flute (or Piccolo) over £1,000 until Dec 31st 2017.
British Flute Society Convention – Day 4 FINAL
23rd August 2010[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59ZX5qdIEB0[/youtube]
Day 4:
I must say that despite barely playing a note over the past few days I am totally fluted out! Today started with a brilliant beatboxing session with Greg Pattillo (SEE VIDEO ABOVE – COURTESY OF YOUTUBE).
British Flute Society Convention – DAY 2
21st August 2010Well, needless to say I didn’t make it to the warm up this morning at 7am but I did manage to catch an early lecture on performance anxiety with Mary lee Cochran from the psychology department of Kansas State University. This was followed by a recital by two horribly attractive and talented flautists, Kayoko Minamino and Zsuzsa Vamosi-Nagy, titled fresh faces – fresh music.
British Flute Society Convention – Day 1
20th August 2010
Julia Bentley Dawkes is a local flautist and flute teacher specialising in the suzuki method of teaching music. She is attending the British Flute Societys seventh international convention at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.
Bass Flute – Have a sit down!
1st May 2010Well, we waited eagerly (at least the flute players here did!) for the arrival of our Jupiter Bass Flute – 1125ES…seen for the first time last year ‘stood up’ at a trade show.
NEW! Pearl Flute Info Videos
15th April 2010
Hi all. We’ve just uploaded 2 new videos on the splendid Pearl 695RBE CODA and 795RBE Coda Flutes.