Keith Underwood Masterclasses
Keith Underwood Master Classes
About Flute Master Classes with Keith Underwood
Join Keith Underwood in a class series that can take your flute skills to the next level. A respected educator, Keith has covered everything from body position and Alexander Technique, to tuning and articulations, to extended techniques. Check out this list of previous class topics!
Advanced and Retracted Tongue Root, and Vowels
Vibrato
Tonguing and Facilitated Fingering
Body Part Positions
Sitting and Standing Posture
Circular Breathing and Alexander Technique
Breathing and Articulation Exercises
Creating a Pearly Sound
Chirping, Single Double Tonguing, and Single Triple Tonguing
Pitch Bending and Other Techniques
Left Hand, Breath Support, and Other Techniques
Finger Breathing and Other Techniques
Tongue and Lip Placement
Breathing
The Pharynx
Articulation
Tuning
Keith Underwood 98-Class Pack
Enroll in past classes for immediate, lifetime access to the class recordings.
See below the list of classes included.
Keith Underwood - Summer 2025
5 sessions, first session on June 23, 2025.
Keith Underwood - Fall 2024
4 sessions, first session on October 14, 2024.
Keith Underwood - Summer 2024 Series
4 sessions, first session on July 8, 2024.
Keith Underwood - December 2023/January 2024
4 sessions, first session on December 5, 2023.
Keith Underwood - Fall 2023
4 sessions, first session on October 2, 2023.
Keith Underwood - Spring 2023
4 Session, first session on May 8, 2023.
Keith Underwood - Winter 2023
4 Session, first session on March 13, 2023.
Keith Underwood - November/December 2022
4 Session, first session on November 7, 2022.
Keith Underwood - August/September 2022
4 Session, first session on August 15, 2022.
Keith Underwood - May/June 2022
4 Session, first session on May 9, 2022.
Keith Underwood - Spring 2022 Series
4 Session, first session on March 14, 2022.
Keith Underwood - December 2021/January 2022 Series
4 Session, first session on December 20, 2021.
Keith Underwood - October/November 2021 Series
4 sessions - 1st session on October 4, 2021.
Keith Underwood - May/June 2021 Series
4 sessions - 1st session on May 17, 2021.
Keith Underwood - Winter 2021 Series
4 sessions - 1st session on February 22, 2021.
October/November 2020 Series
4 sessions - 1st session on October 12, 2020.
August/September 2020 Series
4 sessions - 1st session on August 13, 2020.
June/July 2020 Series
5 sessions - 1st session on June 1, 2020.
Winter/Spring 2020 Series
4 sessions - 1st session on February 20, 2020.
10/24/18-12/12/18 - Fall 2018 Classes
Includes Pharynx Intro and Review, Brazilian Articulation, ATR, RTR, Teeth, and more, and special Choro Class with Hadar Noiberg.
07/24/18 — Class in Portuguese - Uma Esquina Brasileira
All other classes taught in English.
07/10/18 — Advanced and Retracted Tongue Root, and Vowels
06/19/18 — Vibrato
05/03/18 — Tonguing and Facilitated Fingering
04/19/18 — Body Part Positions
03/22/18 — Sitting and Standing Posture
2/15/18 — Circular Breathing and Alexander Technique
This class covered a lot of information on Alexander Technique, and also touched on circular breathing (incl. Linda Ronstadt) — Linguistics — Whispering — "Catbacking" vs "Barrel-chesting" — Using gestures to succeed in auditions — Joe Allard — Pharyngeal Observations. Next time: Retroflex and pearly tonguing.
12/12/17 — Breathing and Articulation Exercises
11/15/17 — Creating a Pearly Sound
10/19/17 — Chirping, Single Double Tonguing, and Single Triple Tonguing
10/4/17 — Pitch Bending and Other Techniques
7/13/17 — Left Hand, Breath Support, and Other Techniques
Keith Underwood shares tips for proper fingering and balancing for the left hand, as well as essential articulation exercises for single and double tonguing. Keith also addresses possible problems with popular teachings on breath support, and discusses some interesting flute-related concepts such as finger buoyancy and intraoral air pressure.
6/27/17 — Finger Breathing and Other Techniques
In this masterclass Keith goes over finger breathing exercises and using a chromatic etude. He also discusses tongue positions for the low and high registers of the flute and goes over various exercises to visualize and apply the tongue movement. In addition, he emphasizes playing low notes lowder and high notes softer when practicing. He also talks about how to relax your embouchure when you play to prevent fatigue and generate good sound. Keith also discusses bringing out the melody of a tune with specific examples.
He also discusses intonation/tuning.
5/25/17 — Tongue and Lip Placement
Keith goes over tongue and lip placement as well as the best position for the flute to rest on the chin. He also talks about achieving a concentrated air stream through a good embouchure. Additionally, Keith talks about how physics relates to air stream and flute sound through examples on the Bernoulli and Coanda effect. Lastly Keith talks about how you can activate a variety of facial and throat muscles to achieve different sounds.
5/2/17 — Breathing
Keith demonstrates finger breath exercises to work on pulling sound out of the flute, minimizing lip movement, getting better articulation and achieving evenness of sound on short and long tones, and addresses air-flow and embouchure. He talks about aiming the air flow downward to obtain a resonant tone and mixing outward air-flow between the nose and mouth when playing in the high range. As a final topic Keith gives a great exercise for double tonguing to create the freedom to accent any beat when playing lines.
4/4/17 — Tuning
Keith talks about how to tune the flute and keep your intonation intact. He describes tuning the flute against a drone versus a piano.
Keith also talks about tongue position and how it affects sound and range. He provides exercises to create efficient tongue movement and position to produce better tone and range. He points out which muscles to focus on and tells you how to manipulate them to create a tighter air flow.
Keith also addresses circular breathing as well as semi-circular breathing in this lesson.
2/28/17 — The Pharynx
11/29/16 — Articulation (+bonus class)
This session focused on how articulation leads to better sound, including working on famous tongued passages and with examples that influenced Underwood's approach.
As an additional bonus to signing up for Articulation, course enrollees will also receive access to recordings of Keith Underwood's Master Class at the Bloomingdale School of Music which was also recorded in front of a live in-person and online audience, in October 2016.
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Past Classes
Sign up for the Keith Underwood 98-Class Pack, and get immediate and lifetime access to every class taught by Keith on Lessonface from November 2016 through July 2025. Access it by clicking the dropdown menu above.
How It Works
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Book 1:1 online lessons with Keith Underwood on their Lessonface profile.
Keith Underwood
Renowned flutist and educator Keith Underwood has been an active flutist in New York musical life for three decades. Underwood serves on the faculties of Mannes School of Music, New York University and Queens College. Each year he travels internationally to Japan, Mexico, Italy, Brazil and London to teach workshops and perform.
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