![smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile_144.gif)
I've recently become a bit of a woodwind maniac. In the past few months I've been playing recorders, tin whistles and flutes. I've been having such a ball exploring all these different instruments and playing with their beautiful sounds. Just last week, I acquired a Dixon Student Flute in D and it's been an interesting experience thus far. This is my first time ever playing a transverse, side-blown flute and though I have surely been learning, I'm still in the stage of try to get a good, solid tone out of the thing. I wanted to bring up a few small issues I'm having in hopes that someone can give me a pointer or two.
The first couple days I struggled a lot with getting any sound what so ever out of it, but now I can get a somewhat decent tone out of all the holes, though I still struggle with that last hole (D). I keep wanting to put my ring finger on it, but I keep forgetting there isn't a hole for my ring finger! For some reason that last hole is tough for me to reach with my pinky, and I have pretty long fingers. It seems when I struggle to get my pinky on that hole, the flute will move slightly and then I can't get a good tone out of it anymore because it's not positioned correctly under my lips. I'm wondering what you experienced flute players do with your ring finger and your pinky on your second hand with these simple-system flutes?
Also, I feel like I could make some improvement to my lip embrochure. I experiment with making my lips tighter, but I still feel like I'm using a little too much breath to get a sound out of the thing. I find my self running out of breath quite quickly, at least compared to when I play a fipple instrument. Perhaps I should try to locate a teacher to guide me along at least this stage.
I hope to move onto other flutes in the future. Perhaps a Irish Boehm-system flute or a standard European concert flute. I still have a lot more to learn until I make that decision however!
Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.