Where it All Started, The Legend of “Kiss and Roll”

Tags

beginning flute, embouchure, flute embouchure, flute pedagogy, flute students

It has been a really busy week for me at the Chicago Flute Festival helping flutists learn about the Rhino Flute Resonator. There has been no time to blog this week, but I would like to share with you the very first article I wrote on Dr. Cate’s Flute Tips, entitled The Legend of “Kiss and Roll”

“For many band teachers who learn to teach beginning flute, the so-called “kiss and roll” method of teaching students to form an embouchure is what they are told is the quickest and most effective way to learn to direct the air into the blow hole at correct angle. From my perspective as a flutist who has taught many beginning flute players, this method is based on a fantasy. The fantasy is that we all have the same size and shape lips. If we center the blow hole between then lips and roll it down, it will be in the best position for making a focused sound on the flute.

In reality, the “kiss and roll” method causes more problems than it solves. For the majority of flutists, the end result is that the flute winds up too high on the bottom lip. This results in a small sound which is often sharp. It is also impossible to develop fullness and power in the tone because the transit time (the time from which the air exits the aperture to when it hits the blowing edge of the embouchure hole of the head joint) is too short. Another persistent problem is that students continue rolling the flute down into position long after the need for such a crutch has passed. It becomes an annoying and unnecessary mannerism at best, and a real impediment to developing a mature, characteristic tone at worst in more experienced students.

So what to teach instead? Bring the headjoint into playing position from below by bring the curve of the lip plate to rest against the chin. Then bring the edge of the blow hole up to about the bottom edge of the lip. The crisp edge of the lip plate is very easy to feel at the transition between the lip and skin of the chin. Then teach the students to aim the air at the opposite edge of the lip plate to make a sound. Depending on how full the bottom lip is, the best position can be higher or lower on the lip.”

If you find these entries useful, please subscribe, share with your colleagues and come back regularly for more flute tips. Feel free to comment. If you have a topic you would like to see explored more fully, you can contact me privately on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

When Do You Start Teaching Dynamics?

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dynamics, flute embouchure, flute intonation, flute pedagogy

The short answer to that question is, “It depends”. What does it depend on? It depends on a student’s ability to blow with a steady air stream and to differentiate between air speed and air quantity. Learning to differentiate between air speed and quantity takes time for the student and an understanding of sound pedagogy from the teachers who work with the student.

When a kid starts on the flute, the first job is to learn to direct the air properly to hit the strike edge of the blow hole. Then they need to learn to change the blowing angle to play in the different registers. Often at this stage the student is blowing through a large aperture, expending a lot of air, huffing and puffing, making a fuzzy sound and having trouble sustaining anything longer than two or three beats. As they continue practicing, most of the time the student learns to blow through a smaller aperture, control their breath and make a clearer tone.

Is this a good time to start introducing dynamics? I would say no, absolutely not and here is why. You can do more harm than good for your kids because they start trying to do what you are asking without having the skill set to play with dynamics correctly. Kids will pinch the aperture, which can make them play sharp. They start rolling the flute in and covering more. This will make the pitch flat. They try to control the air by squeezing their throats. Do you really want your students to sound like they are strangling? And they don’t really know anything about managing the air stream so they wind up trying to control the dynamics with their lips, tongue, throat, size of the oral cavity, etc. Kids are enormously creative in their solutions but the results for both pitch and tone can be devastating. And they wind up building in habits that they may never overcome.

A few pointers for teaching dynamics:

• Never mind about dynamics for a least the first year to two years of playing.
• Teach them to blow with a steady, supported air stream always (using their abdominal muscles to drive the air).
• Teach them that the size of the aperture stays pretty much the same throughout the range of the flute.
• Show them that the air speed and air quantity are not the same thing. You can play very softly provided that the air column is moving quickly enough with enough pressure.
• Dynamics on flute are controlled by a steady air speed and varying the quantity of air, not with the embouchure. The embouchure’s job is merely to point the air in the correct direction. Think of a garden hose. The actual source of the water pressure is far from the nozzle. The nozzle directs the water wherever it is pointed.

Your students will develop a wide palette of dynamic expression if you spend time helping them learn to control the air column in the first couple years of playing. It all comes down to how you manage the air.

If you find these entries helpful, subscribe, share with your colleagues and come back regularly for more flute tips. Please comment and feel free to ask questions. What do you want to know about flute pedagogy? Maybe the answer to your question will be the next flute tip. Find me on Facebook or email me your questions at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

Flute Embouchure and a Teardrop Top Lip

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beginning flute, flute embouchure, flute pedagogy, flute tone

What do you recommend for a student who wants to play the flute and has a prominent teardrop in their top lip? Can a prominent teardrop limit the student’s ability to produce a characteristic tone or their future success on the flute?

A prominent teardrop in the top lip is not an obstacle in any way for a student who wants to play the flute. However, the student probably will not be able to play very well through an aperture shaped in the middle of the lips. This is because the extra flesh of the teardrop will split the air stream so it goes in two different directions on either side of the teardrop.

So what can you teach the student instead? Instruct them to blow through an aperture shaped on one side or the other of the teardrop and seal the other side of the lips. It is generally more desirable to shape the blowing aperture to the left of the teardrop rather than the right, but I have seen it work either way successfully. It doesn’t really matter as long as the student has good control of the direction of the air stream. The primary reason to encourage blowing to the left side of the teardrop is because of how embouchure holes are cut on headjoints. They are not cut symmetrically because the flute is played transversely. Consequently, even someone with a symmetrical embouchure is actually blowing slightly to the left of center. Therefore, the sweet spot for maximum resonance and response on most headjoints is slightly off center to the left.

In evaluating a student’s potential embouchure, besides the obvious observation of having a prominent teardrop, the other thing you can check is the shape of the vapor trail on the outer edge of the lip plate when the student is blowing. If there is a neat triangle with the wide edge of the vapor trail at the outer edge of the embouchure hole, then the student can easily develop a characteristic sound. On the other hand, if there are two triangles side by side, it is vitally important to direct the student to play slightly off center (usually to the left, as mentioned). The split vapor trail indicates that the flesh of the teardrop is interfering with directing the air in a concentrated stream when it hits the blowing edge of the embouchure hole. Finally, you will also see kids with a prominent teardrop when their lips are relaxed which disappears when they shape a flute aperture. Encourage these students to blow through the center, since there won’t be any splitting of the air stream.

If you find these entries helpful, subscribe, share with your colleagues and come back regularly for more flute tips. Please comment and feel free to ask questions. What do you want to know about flute pedagogy? Maybe the answer to your question will be the next flute tip. Find me on Facebook or email me your questions at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

Why do my Flutes Sound Thin and Squeaky in the Third Octave?

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flute embouchure, flute intonation, flute pedagogy, flute tone

It is no secret that band flute players struggle with sounding thin, shrill, sharp and squeaky in the third octave. Knowing alternate fingerings to correct pitch can help, but won’t entirely solve the problem. What do you need to know to help them overcome these tendencies? The answers lie in what you can show your students regarding embouchure, air speed and a supported air column.

• “Looser lower, tighter higher” is a myth with regard to flute embouchure. A close corollary is “warm air low, cold air high”. Neither is correct or even accurate. How it really works is that basically the size of the aperture is pretty consistent from octave to octave. What is changing is how the air is being directed, higher or lower, with the lips moving independently of each other. Reach with your top lip to blow down more in lower octave or playing forte, push the bottom lip more forward to raise air stream to go up the octave and correct flatness when playing softly.
• Place the flute lower on the chin and open the blow hole slightly. No more than a third of the blow hole should be covered by the bottom lip. This increases the transit time (the time from which the air exits the lips to when the air strikes the blowing edge), which increases resonance and depth of tone.
• To create an open resonant tone in all octaves is the most compelling reason why you want to teach students to bring the flute up into place on their chin rather than the old “kiss and roll” method.  The “kiss and roll” places the flute too high on the lip, with a small, thin, shrill sound being the result.
• Teach your students to open their teeth and relax their throat behind their embouchure. The flute needs to rest against your chin and consequently, your bottom teeth, but the jaw and throat need to be relaxed and open as possible. (Shhhh….Don’t tell the orthodontists, but I frequently tell students wearing rubber bands on braces to take them off when playing so they can relax their jaw, provided they put them back in as soon as they are done playing.)
• BLOW, doggone it! Let me qualify this….there is a big difference between the quantity of air and the speed of the air. The quantity of air has to do with dynamics. On the other hand, the speed of the air is pretty consistent in all registers and at any dynamic level. The speed of the air is controlled by our supporting muscles (abdominals and muscles of the pelvic floor). Providing the supporting muscles are driving the air column, one can maintain an open, clear sound in any octave or at any dynamic.
• Students often think they can “support” their sound with their lips. They pinch or bite down on the aperture, clench their teeth or close their throat rather than use their supporting muscles. Think of how a garden hose works. The actual water pressure come from pumps that are far removed from the nozzle of the hose. The nozzle is responsible for directing the water wherever it is needed. If you close down the nozzle most of the way, the water sprays out in a wide pattern. If you open the nozzle most of the way, you get a strong directed stream of water because of the force of the water pressure.

Bottom line? The basis of good tone in the third octave is based on developing a good tone in the other two octaves. You can’t really separate the third octave out as a separate entity. If you have a strong, supported tone in the lower octaves, you will have an open, clear and supported sound in the third octave as well.

If you find these entries helpful, subscribe, share with your colleagues and come back next week for another flute tip. Please comment and feel free to ask questions. Maybe the answer to your question will be the next flute tip. Find me on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

The Benefits of Good Tone in the Low Register

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beginning flute, embouchure, flute intonation, flute pedagogy, flute tone

You might think that it doesn’t matter if your beginners and intermediate flute students can play with a good sound in the low register. After all, most band literature written for the first three years of playing rarely goes below an A or G. However, flutists know that good tone in the low register is the basis for a full, singing sound in the other two registers. Without some focus and body in the tone in the low register, the middle and high registers can sound thin, reedy and pinched.

Let’s just say at the outset that the philosophy of flute tone that recommends a “looser” embouchure in the lower register and a “tighter” embouchure the higher one goes doesn’t work. The result of this approach is that the low notes sound unfocused, wooly and without projection. The upper register sounds pinched, thin, sharp and strident. With such huge tonal defects, the flute section doesn’t blend well with the rest of the ensemble. The tone color is too different. You may find it surprising that, in fact, just the opposite is true. A strong low register is based on gripping the aperture firmly and blowing with a supported airstream. A clear open third octave still depends on a supported airstream, but also a somewhat more relaxed grip on the aperture. You can let the speed of the air do the work for you.

How can your students develop these skills? The classic exercise is the long tones devised by Marcel Moyse after he heard Nellie Melba vocalizing. Let me say though, this exercise works best with students who have been playing several years. The kids need to have a little maturity to understand why they should take the time to work slowly, evaluate what they are doing, compare and experiment with how they are blowing and shaping the embouchure. In my experience, this exercise is good for mature 14 year olds and up. 

What can you do with the younger students? The old standby octave exercise is unmatched for helping beginners and intermediate students learn to focus and direct the air in every register. Because one is playing a lower and higher note, naturally it follows to compare the sound quality of the two registers. Both registers improve. The student doesn’t even really need to be terrifically self-aware to benefit from practicing octaves. If done regularly, it can just improve without a lot of conscious effort of the part of the student. It does help to be able monitor the students periodically and comment on ways they can experiment with the exercise.

When you help your students develop their low register tone, your entire ensemble will benefit because the flutes will have a more characteristic sound that blends better with other sections and they will play better in tune in all registers.

If you find these entries helpful, subscribe, share with your colleagues and come back next week for another flute tip. Please comment and feel free to ask questions. Maybe the answer to your question will be the next flute tip. Find me on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

Piccolo for Flute Students

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beginning flute, embouchure, flute pedagogy, flute students

The conventional wisdom is that is necessary to wait two or three years before starting students on piccolo. Actually, I think starting flute students on piccolo is more a matter of measuring readiness by evaluating embouchure and blowing skills rather than the amount of time a student has played. What are these skills? First of all make sure the student is blowing sufficiently fast air. Also it is important that the student has good control over the size and shape of the aperture. If the student meets these two criteria, they will do fine with piccolo. On the other hand, if a student is already pinching, rather than supporting, to play higher on the flute or trying to overpower the piccolo by blowing harder, it can actually be detrimental to their flute playing. This is why it is so important to make sure embouchure and blowing skills are well developed before introducing piccolo.

How can you help your flute students adjust to playing piccolo? In several ways. The piccolo should be placed higher on the bottom lip than flute. This is because the transit time (the time from when the air exits the aperture to when it strikes the blowing edge) is somewhat shorter than on flute. Conversely, the larger the instrument, the lower on the lip it goes for the same reason. The other major thing to get used to is the different register of the instrument. It is an octave higher, so the low register sounds like the middle register of the flute. Have the students play tone exercises like octaves or long tones and slow scales to acclimate themselves to the differences.

What about starting students on piccolo before transitioning to flute? At the risk of upsetting my flute playing colleagues, I would like to put it out there that this may not be as crazy an idea as it seems. After all, the student gets to learn immediately about a well shaped aperture and moving the air fast enough to get a good sound. Though I have to admit I have never started anyone on piccolo, I have started students on an $8 fife made by a major manufacturer of school recorders with good success. This fife is in the same octave as piccolo and when the students transition to flute, it is a breeze. There is none of the usual struggle to either shape the aperture or figure out how to direct the air at the blowing edge. It is a very easy transition. A respected former classmate of mine started on piccolo and has agreed to talk about her experiences as a beginner on piccolo. Look for her remarks in the comments.

If you find these entries helpful, subscribe, share with your colleagues and come back next week for another flute tip. Please comment and feel free to ask questions. Maybe the answer to your question will be the next flute tip. Find me on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

A Few Thoughts on Articulation

Tags

articulation, embouchure, flute pedagogy, flute tone

On the flute, good articulation comes down to two things: a well shaped embouchure and a lively, energized air column. What it is never about is tonguing harder. In fact, tonguing on flute should always be soft. Let the force of the air column create forceful articulations such as accents, not the tongue.

First of all, where in the mouth does the tongue strike? The best place for most people is where the upper teeth and gums meet on the roof of the mouth. The trick to good articulation on flute lies in making sure the embouchure is well shaped before one blows and tongues. And, of course, the articulation and air have to happen simultaneously.

It is practically ubiquitous among young players that they are not shaping the embouchure completely before they blow, resulting in a more diffuse ictus to their articulation, especially the first few notes they play. Once they have been playing for six months to a year, if you spend time with your students on learning to shape the embouchure with breath articulations, you will see amazing results in the quality of their articulation and tone in a very short time. You can use any technical exercise to do this using a “HA, HA” articulation. It is best if the exercise uses the same duration notes throughout.  Any exercise in quarter notes (crochets) or eighth notes (quavers) is good. Working on exercises based on the “HA” articulation clearly demonstrates the importance of a strong, supported air column to create a palette of articulations such a lively staccato, forceful accents, lifted releases, energetic detaché, bell tones (indicated by staccato under a slur), etc.

Secondly, the very nature of articulation is that it is percussive in the mouth.  This may not be as big an issue for an instrument with a mouthpiece and/or reed (I would be interested to hear more about the nature of articulation on other wind instruments). It is a HUGE issue for the flute because, if you recall, our lips are our mouthpiece. In fact, my teacher, Thomas Nyfenger used to tell me, “tonguing is the anti-tone”. If one tongues too hard, it makes the lips flare resulting in a less focused tone. Tonguing too hard makes for a lot of cracked notes and a harsh, strident tone on the flute. Take it from me, a recovered over-tonguer in my youth. But then I didn’t have the intervention of a flute specialist to show me differently until I went to college. It’s critical to be sure to grip the air stream firmly, especially in the low register, to maintain the tone. Generally, good tone is strong air correctly directed for maximum focus and projection.

Finally, please notice that I don’t use the word “attack” to describe articulation. What gradually occurred to me in my own development as a flutist, was that the word “attack” implies violence in any other context besides music. As a habitual over-tonguer, I realized for myself this was exactly the wrong word to use for articulation. I’ve found it is more challenging to find ways to talk about articulation without using “attack”, but the musical result has been worth the effort.

If you find these entries helpful, subscribe, share with your colleagues and come back next week for another flute tip. Please comment and feel free to ask questions. Maybe the answer to your question will be the next flute tip. Find me on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

Flute Embouchure for Beginners

Tags

beginning flute, flute embouchure, flute tone

The problem with the flute is that there is no mouthpiece so to speak. In fact, our lips are our mouthpiece. If your primary instrument is any other wind or brass, you are used to engaging with something you either put in your mouth or that is in direct contact with both your lips. How do you teach beginners to shape the aperture and direct the air properly in the absence of a mouthpiece?

First of all, let’s start with something we all can relate to: a coffee straw. It’s about the same size and shape as a good flute aperture. Another good visual reference is the opening of an oboe reed.

Take the coffee straw and put it in between you lips and seal your lips around it. That’s pretty much it, except we are wrapping our lips around the airstream rather than something we can hold in our hands. You can even try blowing through the coffee straw. Keep blowing and remove the straw so you can feel the airstream moving through the aperture you just made with your lips. Then take the headjoint and bring it up into position from below, feeling the edge of the blow hole against the edge of your bottom lip. Aim the air at the blowing edge with the aperture you are making with your lips. You should get a sound right away.

Another way to understand how to shape the aperture is to study the shape your lips make to say the sound of the letter “W” in English, like “water” or “weather”. Blow the air through this opening. You can even have the kids say “woo woo!” to get the idea.

Some important points to keep in mind with shaping the embouchure:

• It is all about orbicularis oris
• Anything that involves stretching the lips laterally is to be avoided. This includes smiling and even frowning.
• See all those other cheek muscles? Forget about them
• Channel the air through the wet inside of the lips.
• You may need to purse your lips slightly as you would when giving someone a kiss.

Actually Bogey and Bacall said it best, “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and…blow”. Check it out when he whistles. Bogey would have made a great flute player! You can’t smile and whistle or smile and give someone a kiss at exactly the same time. The muscle groups are working against each other. Same for playing the flute.

If you find these entries helpful, subscribe, share with your colleagues and come back next week for another flute tip. Please comment and feel free to ask questions. Maybe the answer to your question will be the next flute tip. Find me on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

Solving the Problems of Releasing on Flute

Tags

articulation, flute embouchure, flute intonation, flute pedagogy

You would think that releases are an easy thing on flute. After all, you just stop blowing.  It seems simple enough, but as we flute players know, there can be a bit more to it than that. There are two basic kinds of releases — short and long — which obviously depend the on tempo and style of what is being played.

Surprisingly, the short release can be fraught with the potential for picking up some really nasty habits for beginners and less experienced students. This can happen very easily if you don’t give the kids some direction about how to release but just ask for a quick release. I’ve identified two main problem releases among flute students: the tongue stop and the jaw drop. In both cases, the higher the note, the more pronounced the effect; neither attractive nor musical. The tongue stop is created by jamming the tongue into the aperture to stop the air. The jaw drop is created by abruptly opening the jaw, which also stops the flow of air.

The best way to do a short release is indeed to just stop blowing. Tongue stays low in the mouth, maintain the shape of the aperture and position of the jaw. Also, let me say that while using the tongue to release may be correct on other wind instruments, it is not correct on flute in most cases. The only cases in which it might be correct would be in certain advanced jazz/popular contexts, and then only in the hands of an already thoroughly trained flutist. Here is a quick demo of correct and incorrect short releases.

Have you ever noticed that in slower and more lyrical contexts, your students let the pitch drop when doing a slow release? Why is that and what can you tell the kids that will help them do that tapered release without sacrificing pitch? The answer to why the pitch can droop is that as you blow less, the speed of the air column is also diminishing somewhat. To compensate, you need to raise the blowing angle either by pushing out your bottom lip a tiny bit or even raising your head slightly. Personally, I’m not a big fan of raising your head, but for some people, this works well. This skill is the same as being able to change the blowing angle to change register (as discussed in The Very First Notes), though a bit more subtle. Here is an exercise your students can do either on their own or in a class setting to learn how to control the pitch in slow, tapered releases:

If you find these entries helpful, please subscribe, share with your colleagues and come back next week for another flute tip. Please comment and feel free to ask me questions. Maybe the answer to your question will be the next flute tip. Find me on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

What to Look for in a Beginner Flute

Tags

beginning flute, flutes

What brand of flute do you recommend for the beginners in your band program? Why that particular one? If your response is, “That’s the one we’ve always gotten” or “This was the one that was recommended by my woodwind methods teacher when I was in college”, it might be worth reevaluating your choice because there have been so many improvements in student flutes in recent years. There are also brands on the market now that didn’t exist even five years ago.

There are three main things that you should consider when making a choice of which brand to request from your local dealer. First is whether flute has a modern scale. There are old and venerable brands who haven’t changed their scale since they started making beginner flutes back in the day. The problem with the older scale is it was designed to play in tune at below A-440. In order to get the flute to play at A-440, the headjoint was shortened. Consequently, the low register is flat and the high register is sharp. When a beginner starts on an old scale flute, the student becomes acclimated to hearing the flute out of tune. For example, a screaming high Db and low Eb doesn’t bother them because that’s what they are used to. On flutes with an updated scale, the entire key schematic is slightly shorter so the entire range is better in tune. The newer quality brands have a modern scale. And slowly, the older brands are retooling and incorporating better scales in their beginner flutes.

The second factor to consider is sturdiness. Like the proverbial Timex watch slogan of old, can the flute “take a licking and keep on ticking”? There has been a disturbing trend in recent years to use softer metals to save money in manufacturing. I’ve had way too many experiences in the past few years of seeing bent Ab keys, as in wrapped around the flute body, bent trill keys, twisted main line keys, footjoint keys bent open a 1/4″ or more. While it is true that these things happen because of mishandling by students, it is safe to say that the metals are too soft if the keys can be bent back as easily as bending a paper clip. Another dubious manufacturing trend is having adjustment screws anchored in a nylon slug rather than into threaded metal. In my experience, these screws slip much more easily and constantly need to be adjusted. Lastly, check the quality of the plating. Does it hold up well or does it pit or start to come off, showing the copper under layer?

Thirdly, the quality of the cut of the blow hole can make a huge difference in developing a characteristic sound. There have been huge innovations in headjoint technology in the time I have been a flutist. Most flutists will tell you that the newer brands tend to have better sounding headjoints, though there have been recent improvements in the older brands as well.

In conclusion my suggestions are: Learn as much as you can about all the quality brands available on the market today, both old and new. If you are intensely brand loyal but have concerns about some of the issues raised here, talk to the manufacturer representative in your area and voice your concerns. They do listen. If they hear the same concerns from enough people, things change for the better.

If you find these entries helpful, please subscribe, share with your colleagues and come back next week for another flute tip. Please comment and feel free to ask questions. Maybe the answer to your question will be the next flute tip. Find me on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.