Embouchure Contradictions

[gododdin]

I'm very new to the flute (3 months or so) and still trying to develop my embouchure and the best way to hold the flute. I've been reading Paul Mulvaney's flute tutorial over on woodenflute.com and was wondering if you could help me clear something up...

I don't have a teacher (yet - I'm working on it) so I have to try to work these things out for myself. Grey Larsen gives advice on embouchure and to cut a long story short says your bottom lip should cover about a quarter of the hole or so. Paul Mulvaney on the other hand, whose advice seems at least equally sound, says cover two-thirds to three quarters of the hole with the bottom lip. When I try that the sound goes very wooly, with lots of what he calls 'white noise'.

I can get reasonable tone sometimes up as far as A in the second octave, but the high B sounds awful - like a young man's voice in the process of breaking . Any advice you could offer to get over this hurdle (one of many to come I'm sure) would be much appreciated.

[Aodhan]

I'm very new to the flute (3 months or so) and still trying to develop my embouchure and the best way to hold the flute. I've been reading Paul Mulvaney's flute tutorial over on woodenflute.com and was wondering if you could help me clear something up...

I don't have a teacher (yet - I'm working on it) so I have to try to work these things out for myself. Grey Larsen gives advice on embouchure and to cut a long story short says your bottom lip should cover about a quarter of the hole or so. Paul Mulvaney on the other hand, whose advice seems at least equally sound, says cover two-thirds to three quarters of the hole with the bottom lip. When I try that the sound goes very wooly, with lots of what he calls 'white noise'.

I can get reasonable tone sometimes up as far as A in the second octave, but the high B sounds awful - like a young man's voice in the process of breaking . Any advice you could offer to get over this hurdle (one of many to come I'm sure) would be much appreciated.

I've been having a lot of trouble with my embouchure lately, and I found that for some reason (Most likely trying more to blow "down" into the flute), I've been sucking my lower lip in and under. Once I worked on putting it back out where it belonged, bam. Flute was vibrating again.

When I first started, i took coffee stirrers, and when I was driving, I'd practice breathing in, then breathing out as hard through the stirrer as I could without blowing the straw out, and without biting it with my teeth. It helped a lot.

The other thing I've been working on lately is "rolling" the flute in and out slightly depending on what octave I'm trying to play in.

John

[gododdin]

Hi John

Sounds intriguing... Could you explain that a little more? I guess you mean those white plastic thingies which have a flattened area with an oval hole in the end, but that leaves me wondering what you mean by "blowing the straw out"

Also, are you holding the stirrer vertically or horizontally?

Thanks

G

[Aodhan]

Hi John

Sounds intriguing... Could you explain that a little more? I guess you mean those white plastic thingies which have a flattened area with an oval hole in the end, but that leaves me wondering what you mean by "blowing the straw out"

Also, are you holding the stirrer vertically or horizontally?

Thanks

G

The red ones that are basically like a small, flattened straw. I just hold it in my lips, flatten my lips kind of sideways (Much like the trumpet player I used to be), as opposed to pursing like a kiss, and blow hard through the straw. I try to blow as hard as I can without blowing the straw out of my lips onto the floor.

The high B prob is either too loose an embouchure, or not enough airspeed, or both. (Others can probably tell you better than I can, though.)

John

[gododdin]

Thanks - I'll certainly give that a try...

[Guinness]

I liked these...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HWWQpueRvY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQg0vScn ... ed&search=

[Cubitt]

Here's an easy way to get the embouchure just right. Place your hand with palm facing the floor and first finger against your chin. Position your lips so that the airstream hits around your middle knuckles. When you place the flute in position, simply adjust the flute up or down against your lips until you get the strongest and clearest tone, and there you are. The important thing is how you direct the air; everything else is relative to your own lips. Get the airstream right, and the rest is easy.

[meemtp]

I think how you direct and focus your airstream is more important than how much of the hole you cover. The hole-covering thing is a good way to get some immediate results, but long-term, at least in my experience, the best tone comes from a well focused airstream and the hole not very covered. This gives a far more rich, focused, and powerful tone plus gives you more flexibility to shape said tone and produces less white noise. I also find this approach to provide more resposiveness. Again YMMV but it's worked extremely well for me.

[jim stone]

Right. go with Grey L, especially as the other advice
isn't working for you. Grey's methods may not
be where you end up, but they're not a bad place
to begin. I've taken lessons with him (i've been
playing avidly for four years, by the way).
I don't agree with everything but I believe
he's got this one right.

Embouchure takes quite awhile to develop.
If you stay with it and keep practicing,
these things will sort out. Patience.
It may take a few more months.

[crookedtune]

Another YMMV tidbit, which not all agree with:

People are unique, and so are flutes. Some may suit you better than others, and it may take trying a few to find one that really suits you. This doesn't necessarily have to do with price, maker or material. It has everything to do with physical shape of the bodies (yours and the flute's), bore, and finger and embouchure holes, and just general "chemistry" between flute and player.

I won't name them, but I had a lot of trouble getting good consistent sound out of my first two well-made, popular and respectable flutes. I liked them, but they didn't really steal my affection. Something just wasn't clicking with them. But the third one, (of comparable value and reputation), was a charm. I don't think I'm doing anything much different, but the new one moved my playing ahead light-years almost overnight. Others may do better with what I switched away from, who knows?

So, while you don't ever want to "blame" the flute when things aren't popping, it's also important to make sure you have a tool that suits you, and not outrule the option of switching instruments in search of the magic.

[meemtp]

crookedtune is right...I've had the same experience. I had two flutes that were all well-made and that many excellent players played...just not a good match for me and/or my style...

The flute I have now did the same thing for me as crookedtune...leaps and bounds....it's a lot like dating.

[cocusflute]

The James Galway clips on youtube are great -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQg0vScn ... ed&search= and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcXRzZZv1mE&NR). I think there are six altogether. They were made by Larry Krantz and show Galway in a master-class this March.
Galway starts by showing how to get a good tone. Although what he says is relevant to the metal Boehm flute, it’s very much worth hearing what he has to say about making a good tone.
It is enormously helpful to take just the head-joint, as Galway does, and try for a pure tone without worrying about the fingers or making a sound with the whole flute, which is harder. You should be able to get a clear, pure tone, and from that learn where to put your lips. His approach is very different from the woman in the first clip-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HWWQpueRvY .
When I was learning to play (from Eugene Lambe and Michael Hynes) I was told to press the flute hard against my bottom lip. Now that my embouchure is stronger I don’t have to press it quite so forcefully. Blowing hard is no help at all- in fact it gets in the way of tone. As Seamus Egan says, playing the flute should take no more air than talking.
(I haven’t been able to get the two octaves from just the wooden head-joint alone. Has anybody else been able to do this? Is this possible only on the Boehm head-joint?)
I’ve been playing the flute for about twenty years now. It’s only in the past few years that my embouchure has given me the clear, ringing tone that I want, and only because I’ve been able to play every day.
If you start with just the head-joint and roll it in and out you’ll learn a lot about where to put your lips and how best to focus the air-stream. By and large, the smaller the aperture your lips make the better your tone will be.
BTW, Galway says he has over twenty Boehm flutes and a slew of other flutes, including all sorts of wooden flutes.
On another note, he touches his finger to the far edge of the blow-hole on his metal flute. On a wooden flute this should never be done. The sharper the far edge the clearer the tone will be. Touching the edge will eventually dull it.

[Meadhbh]

(I haven’t been able to get the two octaves from just the wooden head-joint alone. Has anybody else been able to do this? Is this possible only on the Boehm head-joint?)

Hi cocusflute - It is possible to get the octaves with the wooden headjoint. I don't have a problem with it. Maybe, try covering the end of the headjoint so that you get the lower sound and then the octave before blowing the open headjoint.

FWIW....Many years ago I had to make the conversion from the pinched, tight and drawn back embouchure to the more relaxed and corners down embouchure. It made a world of difference with flexibility.

[cocusflute]

Thanks Meadhbh - I did get the upper octave- but I had to work to get it. Galway makes it look so easy.

[johnkerr]

I’ve been playing the flute for about twenty years now. It’s only in the past few years that my embouchure has given me the clear, ringing tone that I want, and only because I’ve been able to play every day.

See, now this is the absolute key piece of advice here, no matter what anyone else may write on this thread. PLAY EVERY DAY. We've all heard the term "muscle memory" used a lot in discussions about flute playing, but it's usually invoked for the fingers, e.g. finding a tune or a pattern again after not having played it in a long while, thanks to muscle memory. But flute embouchure is all about muscle memory. You are taking muscles that you rarely call upon for any other conscious purpose (unless you happen to be a real Casanova or something) and using them to form your lips (which by the way are not the same as everyone else's, are they?) in such a way that the airstream will be directed into your flute to produce a good tone. You can gather all the info you want from Grey Larsen or cocusflute or me or anyone else about how to do this, but the reality is that you are going to need to figure out for yourself how your own particular anatomy needs to operate in order to get a good tone out of your flute. And in the words of that shoe company, the only way to do it is to JUST DO IT. Once you've been at the flute long enough that you no longer pass out from dizziness, experiment with different lip positions until you find the sweet spot that gives you the good sound. Once you find it, hang out there as long as possible. Then pick up the flute the very next day and do the same thing over again. Lather, rinse and repeat for the rest of your playing life. Early on, you may spend 15-20 minutes before you find the sweet spot, and even then it may not be the absolute best tone you'll ever be able to get. But be patient. As the days wear on, you will find that the sweet spot comes a lot quicker, and your best possible tone is better than it was days or weeks before. It's all about muscle memory, and the more often you get your muscles into the place they need to remember, the easier it will be for them to remember it. They also need to remember all those other places they don't want to be going along the way, so they can quit going there. Thus the key is to PLAY EVERY DAY. It doesn't have to be long sessions every day - 15 minutes or so is enough to keep your muscles reminded of where they need to go. Of course, you are going to want to practice more than 15 minutes a day if you ever want to be a really good player, but for those days when you don't have the time at least take 15 minutes and work on your tone. You'll be glad you did.

Unfortunately, the flute is not like other instruments. A piper friend of mine, a guy who has way bigger problems getting his instrument to behave than any flute player ever will, said when he picked up the concertina This instrument is great! You just push a button and the note comes out! The flute is not like that. As you may have noticed, it doesn't even have any buttons.