I just got my new Eb flute today, and I’m trying to make it make noise, but I’ve only gotten it to make faint noises. Everything I’ve read about making flutes make noise indicate I’m supposed to smile and make a little hole in my lips, but when I smile, the little pointy part of my upper lip comes down and splits the hole I’m trying to make in two. I’ve just learned this is sometimes called the “Cupid’s bow” part of the lip. My greatest success has been when I rolled my lips outward (when I could then make a little hole), but I could not smile like this without the CB coming down and getting in the way.
Do I have anti-fluting lips or is this something everyone deals with? How do I deal with this? Oh, and when my lips were shaped enough to get some sound out, I only lasted for about a minute before my lip muscles got very tired.
Don’t smile. There’s nothing funny about playing the flute.
In fact, your dog just got hit by a car. Also, there are crumbs on your chest. Tighten up your lips and blow off the crumbs. Now hold that pose and play your flute.
“Physical Characteristics: Flute players should have a slight “frown” to the upper lip with NO tear drop shape in the middle. Flute tones are produced by being able to focus an extremely small air-stream to an exact location on the tone hole. The tear-drop-shaped lip will make it difficult to direct the air so precisely.”
That’s what I have! A “tear-drop”! Drat!
I guess I’ll just keep working to see if I can overcome my disability. Otherwise, I’ll just have to be satisfied with low whistle. Wish I had a flute teacher.
There is nothing the matter with your lips. I was dissuaded from playing flute for decades by such a book,
and my embouchure is just fine. Please do not, on the basis of a couple of hours playing and some
rubbish in a book, reach conclusions about a disability! It is very hard to get a sound out of a flute,
initially, and lots of people decide it’s a physical defect.
It’s going to take you a while. It will take patience. It can readily take months to get a consistent tone.
This is not for the faint of heart, I was told, when I wrote my version of your post to this board a decade
ago. But if you practice and keep at it and don’t blame your lips or whatever, I promise you you will
get it.
I also have a tear drop lip. I’ve played whistle for years and began flute a couple of years ago but have only really been giving it reasonable attention for the last year. There is no doubt in my mind that the dodgy lip is a disadvantage to start with and it’s taking me a fair bit longer than average to get a good embouchure. However, there are good flute players with this affliction - some of them get round it by creating their embouchure to one side. This can be tricky too but just takes a bit more time. I found it a bit disheartening at first but am gradually getting round it and am reasonably confident it’ll cease to be a problem at some point. I’ve analysed it over and over again but in the end decided not to think about the shape of my lips and keep playing and let nature take it’s course.
I would be keen to hear the comments of other flute players who are either getting over or who’ve got over the tear drop lip problem.
Just hard to get a good embouchure for most everybody, and easy to blame it on one’s
body. Seen it when teaching guitar. Most students at some point explained to me that the problem was
the way their hands/fingers were shaped. Just couldn’t do it. Wrong sort of hands, dont you see?
Innevitable (I did it too, toward the beginning), but
silly. No ‘affliction’, just patience and practice.
Here’s an interesting article that mentions tear drop lip… http://www.fluteline.com/Embouchure.htm
Jim, I agree with patience and practise but everyones lips are different and some will physically have more difficulties than others. I think that recognising a problem is the first step to dealing with it.
Crookedtune’s post is brilliant - providing you like dogs,…
More seriously, have a look at this http://www.larrykrantz.com/embpic.htm on embouchure shapes observed in professional level classical players – if they can do it to a high orchestral standard…
From personal observation I can also say that a good many top quality trad players also use eccentric lip-apertures of various kinds. If you can use a central aperture that is probably the best thing to try to do, but not being able to does not disqualify anyone from playing.
The James Galway video already linked (and I think there are others linked from that one) is also recommended viewing.
you are being coherent again… 
