First Post Here

[PhilO]

I've been posting on the Whistle Board for several years and never thought I'd subject myself to the difficulties of the transverse blow. Well, hi, I just got my first flute, an Olwell bamboo F. I also had the Grey Larson book for whistle and flute. I have just a couple of questions for you guys, if you wouldn't mind.

First with respect to embouchure. I'd always (apparently mistakenly) thought that you blow across the hole one way and once you find that way that's it. Duh! Well, I was able immediately to get a nice warm low to moderate volume and full tone from the first octave, most easily with all tone holes covered. However, I have to keep adjusting each time I pick it up to find and then to maintain the tones. The upper octave is more difficult and I've only gotten one or two notes once or twice so far.

I then read in the Larsen book about the subtelties of embouchure and how different notes have different embouchures. I've been told that it can generally take months to establish and consistently recognize these varying proper embouchures. Larsen also remarks that it is this varied embouchure that gives the flute its greater than whistle richness potential.

Second I visited the HMT site for care and feeding of the Olwell, but it seems mostly directed at two or three piece flutes of other woods. Some have stated that only internal swabbing is needed but no oiling. The HMT site talks about oiling in dry climates and removing moisture in wet climates. I'm in a mid sort of climate in New York where it's currently very cold and we have radiator heat throughout. I've had wood on custom knives and whistles, always leave them out in a case and oil occasionally and when played with almond oil. Over the past ten years two pieces have cracked (never blackwood).

Any suggestions (or encouragement) would be appreciated with respect to both care and play.

Although this is probably better directed to the whistlers, I was wondering how many try and give up on flute before achieving effective consistent embouchure and return to the relative ease of the whistle? And here I was just getting totally involved in getting the lilting feel of the music down...geez

Best,

PhilO

[peeplj]

Sounds like you're off to a good beginning to me!

One mistake beginners make is they look for a single embouchure that works all the time. There's not one, and what you've read is true, in that as you play up and down the flute your emcouchure changes a bit for every note.

What you want to learn is twofold: you want a stable, repeatable embouchure, and then you want to learn the changes that different notes and registers require.

A good way to start getting a well-centered, focused embouchure is to start with low G, and play it with only moderate volume. Hold it out, and try to get it as pure and resonant as it will go. (Breath as necessary. Breathing is a Good Thing.) When the tone is as good as you can get it, move up to the A, and repeat the process. Then to B, etc.

I would work the G to g scale the hardest. You don't want your baseline embouchure to set to the low D, for instance, because that will come back to haunt you later with difficulties with high notes.

After the G scale is good, start extending your range downwards towards D and upwards towards high d.

Don't try to get a "hard D" at first...that's something for later, and it requires you to already have a good embouchure and good air control. Just play low D like a regular note.

It sounds like you are already off to a solid start!

I'm going to let someone who has a good bamboo flute address your flute care concerns.

Best of luck to ya, and I hope you enjoy the flute!

--James

P.S. When practicing, you may want to sit down. Beginning flutists get dizzy easily, even those who are athletic.

[Father Emmet]

I am a beginner on the flute too, about 3-4 weeks. The first week I got no tone at all, then started to get sound all of a sudden after about 5 days. The second octave D came easily but that was it. Then last night I was suddenly able to acheive the second octave all the way to A by making putting a sort of whistling feel into it (lip whistling not tin whistle). This may or may not be the correct way to do it (I've never even seen anyone play Irish flute) but it worked for me. I just hope it will work again tonight.

[jim stone]

Again there are several months of struggle, during
which you may consider that this isn't for you.
So if you find yourself there, welcome to the
club. But once you're through the beginning,
there's no going back.

Whistle is wonderful and flute, IMO,
while much harder to play, is in another league.

[Blackbeer]

Hey PhilO; bamboo flutes sometimes have a sweet spot as yours does. Try and picture your airstream hitting the bottom edge of the embouchure.
You want to blow more into the hole then directly accross it. On Olwell bamboo flutes I every once in a while use almound oil on the inside because I am in a very dry climate. The out side won`t ubsorb oil but it does clean up nicely with it. You can rub some in the tone holes too. Try not to get any on the membrane at the end of the flute. Don`t want to soften that up. Also, it doesn`t take all that much air to get good tone and volume out of those cridders. It does take a while to build up the muscels in your lips to focuss the air stream so you just have to be patient and try and work every day on it and all of a sudden it will happen. Try not to get discouraged and on the days that the stupid thing just won`t work DO NOT grab a whistle. Just work through it. Tis the devils tube ya know

Tom

[PhilO]

Thanks to all.

Stay tuned,

PhilO

[Crysania]

James, great suggestion there...I've been working on going between G and A, and then A and B, trying to match the tone and make them both sound as good as possible. It takes me WAY back when I had to do this on clarinet...I forgot how hard it is, but it paid off on clarinet, it should pay off on flute!

So far I'm getting a decent tone out of the instrument...still very much a surprise to me! And after about 3 weeks of just randomly blowing into the instrument, I've got an idea on how to practice to get better. Yay.

~Crysania

[Jens_Hoppe]

I've been told that it can generally take months to establish and consistently recognize these varying proper embouchures.

Or years...

Although this is probably better directed to the whistlers, I was wondering how many try and give up on flute before achieving effective consistent embouchure and return to the relative ease of the whistle?

The flute is a whole different kind of beast difficulty-wise. Much as I love playing flute, being a lazy bugger I still occasionally revert to playing a whistle when I just want to relax.

Also, in case you get discouraged at some point, I believe the concensus is that cylindrical bamboo flutes are harder to play (as in requiring a more focused embouchure) than regular conical wooden flutes. Also, the higher the key of the flute, the more focused an embouchure will be needed. At least, that's been my experience: My Olwell bamboo F is much harder for me to play than my wooden D flute...

Cheers,
Jens

[chas]

Although this is probably better directed to the whistlers, I was wondering how many try and give up on flute before achieving effective consistent embouchure and return to the relative ease of the whistle?

After a few flute lessons, I've begun to wonder if having become pretty competent on the whistle does more harm than good for flute playing. On the one hand, knowing all the fingerings, having much of the hand mechanics down is a definite plus. OTOH, I'm having a dickens of a time getting out of the habit of blowing harder to get the upper octave. I've pretty much decided to work only on octave transitions at constant volume till I'm sick of it.

I'm not gonna give up, although there are days when I'm so frustrated on the flute that I switch to the whistle just for a respite.

[Blackbeer]

No fare Charlie, flute practice is flute practice
The habit of blowing harder to achieve the secound octive is a bugger to overcome, I also discovered that I change my embouchure on the whistle much more than I thought. I also get so raped up into listening to the flute that I forget whose playing it and then it all goes to ............
There are a million reasons not to take up the flute and I have butted up against most of them. But the payoff for hanging in there is almost better than sex

Tom

[BMFW]

... I also get so raped up into listening to the flute that I forget whose playing it and then it all goes to ............

But the payoff for hanging in there is almost better than sex

Tom

Tom, time to stop reading the offers for on-line Viagra - it's messing with your mind

[Nanohedron]

Hey, PhilO. That's the thing about flutes: you don't have wonky reeds or brutish blades to blame when things go awry (assuming the embouchure hole is free of gunk or damage). The good news is that lips are flexible. The bad news is that we have only ourselves to blame, if blame we must. Blackbeer's advice is good. Keep plugging away, discover all the paths your stick leads you to. Flutes rock.

[peeplj]

One last thought:

When you are first starting flute, everything seems a struggle, and most flutists especially during their first year feel like for every step forward they take a step and a half back.

The irony is that usually they are learning quite quickly and picking up on things quite well. It's just that their ears and expectations develop a lot faster than their lips or fingers can keep up with at first.

Then one day there comes the point of "epiphany"--they pick up their flute and suddenly it seems everything just falls into place. Of course, while it feels like it's a sudden leap forward subjectively, in objective reality it is merely the result of gradual cumulative improvements.

Usually in a flutists' lifelong obsession with their instrument, there are many of these epiphanies, like signposts down the road by which they mark their progress. But like so many other things in life, the first one is often remembered the best: The Epiphany, the day it all came together just right.

--James

[PhilO]

Thanks to all here and to Loren and Brian for their encouraging helpful e-mails as well. I have ordered the Wooden Flute Obsession Album and a Matt Molloy cd as well for starters.

Regards,

PhilO

[Loren]

Phil,

You're gonna dig that Wooden Flute Obsession set, best bang for the buck I've gotten in CD's in years.

Loren