Question:
advice on next instrument after flute
My daughter (age 10) has been playing flute for 2 years and is fantastic! (plays in a jazz band, great tone and vibrato etc.) Her school has mandatory music program next year and they have to choose an instrument among flute, clarinet, T-sax, A-sax, trumpet, trombone. Anyone have advice on what would be a good instrument to double. I heard piccolo is same fingering as flute....anyone ever been confused with fingering/embouchure adding a new instrument?:treble: :lowbd: :space0: :space1: :space3: :space2: :space0: :lowbd:

Answer:
I would suggest clarinet. Saxes will be easy after flute and clarinet.
With practice at changing, the mind soon gets used to a automatically and instantly changing the set of fingerings along with the different feel of the instrument in the hands.
"Doubling' pit musicians often have 5 instruments around them, and often make 60 plus changes during a performance, many of them in under 5 seconds.

Answer:
I agree with Gordon's suggestion of clarinet for the next instrument.
One drawback, however, is that saxes are a more common instrument for a jazz band, so if your daughter is playing in a jazz band already, she might fit in easier on sax than clarinet (or flute). I agree that sax would be easier to learn after clarinet rather than clarinet after sax.
Regarding flute/piccolo, the fingerings are virtually identical, so there shouldn't be any confusion there, but the embouchure and air stream are different. Other woodwind instruments fingerings are similar to flute, but each instrument has differences. There is a period of awkwardness when learning a new fingering system, but people get past that after a while.

Answer:
Personally, if she is that good on flute at that age, I would NOT have her learn a new instrument yet. I would have her devote all her time to the flute. She is reaching a critical age where she could really make quick leaps and bounds on her main instrument and be a real monster by the time she gets into junior high (after age 9 a child's ability to learn and progress on a new instrument starts to diminish). I think it would be a mistake to have her lose precious practice time on another instrument.

Answer:
I agree that she should probably stick to flute a while longer before moving on. If she is still young, even though she has a good sweet tone she probably doesn't have a proper flute embochure set yet. If she does need to make a choice I would probably disagree and say she should pick up a saxaphone first. To me a clarinet embochure can really be an extreme change for a flute player.
Any doubly is going to have a major impact on her primary instrument at first. I am primarily a flute player and I could pick up a flute at any time of the day and play, but I remember after my first saxophone lesson my teacher asked me to pick up my flute after 10 min. of saxophone playing and I couldn't make a sound. It took me a few months to be able to make changes with very little problems.
Fingerings within the woodwind family cross over fairly well. There's just a few difference but any difficulties are overcome with practice. It depends on how much she practices. Saxophone came very easily to me because I practiced it a lot because I was involved with 2 different jazz bands. I believe she would probably feel the same.
Whatever she chooses to do just make sure to remind her that she needs to focus on her primary instrument. She should never forget that she's a flute player first. I have a student that has been playing piano since she was 7 and I make sure to encourage her piano playing more than anything.