Free Flute Sheet Music

Tune of the Day: The Cat and the Bacon

This jig is taken from George Petrie's The Complete Collection of Irish Music, published in London in 1905, where it is given as “A Cork jig. From P. Carew's MS”. Researcher Nicholas Carolan of the Irish Traditional Music Archive records that P. Carew (or, as collector William Forde gave his name, Paddy Carey) was a musically literate professional uilleann piper living in Lag Lane, St Finbarre's parish, Cork, in the mid-1840s.

Tune of the Day: Study in B minor by Berbiguier

This common-time Moderato in B minor is the sixteenth étude from 18 exercices pour la flûte traversière by French Romantic composer Benoit Tranquille Berbiguier.

Tune of the Day: Moderato by Köhler

This duet from Volume I of Ernesto Köhler's Forty Progressive Duets is written entirely in 2/4 time, but starts out with a long succession of triplets that makes the piece sound as if it were in 6/8 time. Then, at measure 17, binary rhythms suddenly make their appearance. In order to maintain a steady tempo, you'll need to be very careful when you reach this spot.

Tune of the Day: Minuet and Trio

The French Suites are six suites which Johann Sebastian Bach wrote for the harpsichord between 1722 and 1725. The suites were later given the name “French” as a means of contrast with the English Suites, whose title is likewise a later appellation. The name was popularised by Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, who wrote, “One usually calls them French Suites because they are written in the French manner.” This claim, however, is inaccurate: like Bach's other suites, they follow a largely Italian convention. There is no surviving "definitive" manuscript of these suites, and ornamentation varies both in type and in degree across manuscripts.

The Minuet we present today can be viewed as an exercise in turning a B minor chord into a series of arpeggios that constitute a moderately fast eighth-note melody. The Trio that follows stretches out its melodic material more, and the movement ends with a final reprise of the Minuet.

Tune of the Day: The Woeful Widow

One of the earliest appearances of this jig can be found in the manuscripts of Irish artist George Petrie (1790–1866), which were first published posthumously as a complete collection in 1902.

Tune of the Day: Study in F-sharp minor by Andersen

Here is another étude by Danish flutist Joachim Andersen. This 3/8-time Allegretto in F-sharp minor is study No. 8 from his Twenty-Four Etudes for Flute, Op. 33.

Tune of the Day: Allegro by Telemann

Here is the second movement of the first of Georg Philipp Telemann's Sonatas without Bass for Two Transverse Flutes, or Two Violins, or Two Recorders. This common-time Allegro in G major does not present any particular technical difficulty, but should be played at a moderately fast tempo.