A sweet 3rd octave

treeshark · Post by **treeshark** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:59 am

I've recently been invading the 3rd octave, (I have a keyed R&R style Flute) At first I was just trying to help focus my 2nd octave which it has helped with. Now I have a strange urge to use them in playing tunes. Though the notes are there up to a and in tune they are not what you would call musical! At the moment I am trying just to focus my airstream even tighter and reduce the amount of air, but wondered if any of you folks could offer advice!
Rob

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:01 pm

Well, offhand I'd say try to focus the airstream even tighter and reduce the amount of air. Keep doing this a lot, and it will get better, probably pretty soon.

Good luck and have fun!

Steven

artsohio · Post by **artsohio** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:01 pm

I am very, VERY new to traditional fluting, so if this is wrong please correct me. This is how I was taught on the Boehm flute. It might have to be changed, it might be horribly wrong.

One of the big parts of good tone that seems to be forgotten is your mouth and nasal cavities. We worry a lot about the acoustical properties of this wood or that metal, but done correctly, your jaw bone, teeth and nasal cavities all act as resonance boards and are integral in making a beautiful tone.

On the low and mid octave this seems more natural, although most people could relax the jaw more. On the high octave, we tend to concentrate so much on narrowing the air stream that the mouth and nasal cavities clench up and the resonance is dampened. The correction for this is to play lots of long tones in the high register, concentrating on completely relaxing the jaw immediately everytime you feel it tensing up.

My college teacher used to say to practice long tones with the image of 50lb weights tied to your bottom teeth. The goal was to get as much room between your teeth when you played as possible. I still think of that everytime I do long tones.

I found that when I started relaxing like this, my tone (and often the note itself) went down the crapper. After a while though, something clicked and I was able to keep the air stream at the need pressure and still get "the buzz" going (think of singing with a head voice). It took some time though. The great thing was, once relaxing through the third octave was second nature, I was even more relaxed and with even better tone on the lower notes.

As I said, this is advice for a modern flute. I don't know how/if it translates on other instruments. If I'm completely out of line, please let me know. I don't want to be the stereotypical newbie offering dumb, obvious advice. I've played flute for over 20 years and have only recently crossed over to the dark side of traditional instruments. I know I have a lot to learn.

djm · Post by **djm** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:41 pm

All I can get for the 3rd 8ve is harmonics, not the notes themselves. Am I blowing too hard?

djm

norseman · Post by **norseman** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 3:04 pm

Am I missing something? Probably!

I thought any notes above the first octave in a simple system flute were harmonics.

Bob

chas · Post by **chas** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 4:33 pm

I don't play much at all in the third octave, plus I'm just barely breaking into what I consider intermediate-level playing, so take this with a grain of salt.

One thing that helped me at the time I was really making rapid progress was finding tunes that I liked which included what I was working on. A rolls, B-c-d triplets, whatever. The Fairy Queen is a good tune that goes up to third octave G. Hugh O'Donnell goes up to e3. Both are on Chris Norman's "Man with the wooden flute" album (albeit played in C). He offers a great example of what a Rudall can sound like in the third octave, too.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 9:38 pm

I use the third octave D occasionally, and less often
the E. Above that, while I know the fingerings, it's
hawking--I don't like the sound I get much and,
as I virtually never need to go there, I don't.

Lots of Irish flutes are made to capitalize
on the first two octaves. I beleive the third
octave is compromised in the process.

Chris Norman is a mutant. Best

treeshark · Post by **treeshark** » Sat Aug 14, 2004 1:27 pm

Artsohio, I was a little sceptical about having a jaw dropping experience but after experimenting you are correct: the sound is cleaner and somehow fuller with the mouth cavity kept wide open, definately less hiss in the very high notes as well. Just to test I wasn't imagining it I had my partner witness and she could tell the difference between jaw dropped and not... she then asked me to carry on my practice in a far distant room. A long way to go yet but thanks! I suspect that the effect has nothing to do with resonance and everything to with turbulence; the air is just passing through the mouth cavity with fewer obstacles.
Rob

Post by **Nanohedron** » Sat Aug 14, 2004 1:41 pm

Thanks for the tip, artsohio! It can't hurt, and I'll give it a try. What the heck, I'm revamping just about everything right now, anyway. Anything to improve.

phcook · Post by **phcook** » Sat Aug 14, 2004 3:12 pm

You're right, Norseman; for the second octave and above, we blow faster (not stronger) so that the flow reaches directly the 1st harmonic, and avoids the fundamental tone.

artsohio · Post by **artsohio** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 9:46 am

I suspect that the effect has nothing to do with resonance and everything to with turbulence; the air is just passing through the mouth cavity with fewer obstacles.

Could be. I would think there are worse pieces of advice than "don't trust a music teacher when it comes to physics."

I'm glad it seems to be working for you. Keeping the jaw relaxed can be a real challenge on certain notes, but it makes a big difference in my playing.

The Sporting Pitchfork · Wed Aug 18, 2004 1:40 am

After I had been playing flute for about two weeks, I went to a flute workshop with Chris Norman. He advised the players there that a good warm-up for when you're practicing was to play a major scale from the first octave G up to the third octave g. Said it would not only benefit our embouchres on the high notes but also give us more oomph on the low notes (actually, I think he used a more colorful analogy, but this is a family forum so I won't repeat it here...). When he told me this, I thought he was out of his mind. Granted, at the time, I could hardly get any notes out of the flute at all. Much, much later--once I could play reasonably well, I gave this some more thought and it's become a habitual warm up for me whenever I get the flute out. I for one have found it helpful.

A few months ago I was playing some music at a friend's wedding and her husband to be (a cellist) composed this rather "Celticky" piece for string quartet and wooden flute that went all the way up to the third octave g. Hitting the g wasn't a problem, but the f# was a bit flat. I tried my damndest to lip it up, but it was still a few cents flat and this dude totally started losing it and throwing a hissy fit (granted, it was the day before his wedding, so I guess he had reason to be on edge). It sounded fine to me and the quartet, but he insisted on re-writing the piece and removing the offending third octave f#s.

So go off and explore the third octave to your heart's content. It will certainly do you no harm. You might want to pack a tuner though...

treeshark · Post by **treeshark** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 2:30 am

There is no doubt noodling up there helps your tone in the other octaves and I'm definately getting the notes with much less effort. Some of the fingerings are a little difficult to arrive at in a hurry though, e3 especialy. I'm using the fingerings from Terry McGee's site which seem to work fine. It's a good warm up regime, it get's that stream of air well focused from the start.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 7:17 am

Interesting exercise. I can do it going up, but, oh my,
going down...