Chiff and Fipple Forums

Ha, ha, I turn the head too - I hold the body & twist the head to the position that I want it in.

Then I put it to my lips......

This way it is also possible to "sharpen" up the note by twisting the whole flute slightly away from you if needed while playing. Baroque flute players do stuff like that all the time as there are a lot of notes that need to be corrected as they are either too sharp or too flat on a baroque flute.

There is a "we," as every flute player, on a simple system flute, blows into the embouchure hole. Different players blow into it at different angles. The rest of the flute, whether it winds up with the holes in line with the embouchure hole or forward or behind the embouchure hole, has nothing to do with tone production. It is adjusted for physical comfort.

Ah, I think we just had a misunderstanding then. I see the point. Very true.

Stuporman wrote:There is no turning in or turning out the head joint; we play the head joint. We then turn the rest of the flute in or out to make playing comfortable on our hands, arms and bodies.

Well said. I like this way of putting it.

I think I have an extremely tight embouchure. Probably because I play a lot and because of thin walls I usually play very quit. With this really tight embouchure I can play really quiet at home and with a reasonable tuning so I can still play in with records, but I somehow can also play loud at sessions..
One (Irish) flute teacher shew me that I move my lips forward a lot, when playing in the second octave She said I shouldn't do it, because it looks weird and nobody else is doing that
Only then I realised, that most flute players don't do anything with their lips - now it often amazes me, that basically nothing is going on with the lips of many flute players! I also played silver flute for some years, before starting with ITM. But I somehow completely forgot what my teacher back then said about embouchure or lip movement...I think she didn't say a lot about it...
However, it happens regularly that people tell me, I have a good, strong and loud tone, especially a really loud bottom d...therefore I don't plan to change anything with my embouchure. But at least for aesthetically reasons I would love to be able to play like Eamon Cotter! He always has this cheeky smile when playing This looks so cool
And yeah I agree, that it is also really important to be able to push air out controlled and explosively. For example for a Matt Molloy hard bottom D or any other more percussive effect it's mandatory I think. I assume Will Woodson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01spYiF_2ZY) also uses this a lot.

Does someone else here developed a very tight embouchure and a lot (allegedly weird looking ) lip movement as a result of having to practice quietly?
How does it affect your playing when you can/ have to play louder?