Building Flute Technique

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flute balance, flute fingering, flute pedagogy, flute students, flute technique

Technique is one of the more straightforward aspects of playing the flute, and relatively easy to teach. As with every other aspect of playing, it does need to be monitored carefully as students develop. Probably the most important thing to monitor regarding technique is the student’s set up  with regards to balancing the flute and left and right hand positions. This makes all the difference to long term success for building useful flute technique for kids. And, of course, that the students are using the correct fingerings, i.e., 1st finger up for middle D and Eb, using right hand little finger for everything except D, right hand third finger for F#, correct high note fingerings (they are all different, see The 5 Most Common Fingering Mistakes)

We all know scale and arpeggio exercises are essential. In my own studio, I introduce scales and arpeggios as soon as the student knows Bb and can play all the naturals from low F to middle F. Depending on what flute method I’m using, the first scale students learn is either F or Bb major. I prefer to use method books that introduce flats and sharps equally. (My favorites for working with band kids are the Gekeler Flute Method and the Flute Student books by Fred Weber and Douglas Steensland. There are also really good flute specific methods available now, notably by Kathy Blocki, inventor of the PneumoPro, and Patricia George/Phyllis Louke). So the order of learning scales becomes F, C, G, Bb, D, Eb, A, Ab, E, Db, B, Gb/F#. As students learn the scales, we always review them in circle of fifths/fourths order so kids get functional harmony in their ear, even if they haven’t got a clue about music theory. So, for example, if we are learning Bb, we will play G, C, F and Bb so our ear is grounded in Bb for all the melodies we will play at the lesson in Bb. Likewise, if we are working on the key of D, we will review scales starting on Bb, F, C, G and then D, which nicely sets us up for the D major tunes we are studying.

If you have an organized way of introducing both flat and sharp keys, students can be playing all twelve major scales and arpeggios one octave within the first year of playing. I also strongly encourage you to have students read notes rather than just note names when practicing scales and arpeggios. It really reinforces key awareness to have them also play simple melodies in the keys they study. Depending on how quickly the students assimilate the third octave fingerings, you can expand scale and arpeggio practice to two octaves. It might take two to three years to get to the point where they can play all twelve scales two octaves, but when the students have that kind of technical mastery, they will have tools for dealing with more advanced band/orchestra literature, MEA audition etudes and solo repertoire.

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

Solutions for Common Third Octave Problems

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embouchure, flute balance, flute embouchure, flute fingering, flute intonation, flute pedagogy, flute students, flute technique

The third octave on the flute is an interesting phenomenon because of the embouchure issues it presents and because of the technical and acoustic properties of the instrument. It is definitely not as straight forward as the lower two octaves in terms of the mechanics of the flute. The reason for all the cross fingerings and venting in the third octave is because each note is combining the harmonics of two lower pitches to reinforce the sound of each note. One of the easiest to conceptualize is the fingering for high E: T12|12(Eb) It is combining the overtone series of both E and A. In fact, if the air speed is insufficient, an out of tune A will sound below the intended pitch with this fingering. You can get to the high E by playing harmonics on either E or A. For E it will be the 4th partial and for A it will be the 3rd partial. The two combined make the standard fingering for third octave E (among flutists it is generally agreed that the E is better in tune without the Eb key).

Be sure your flute students know the third octave fingerings. It isn’t enough for them to just overblow a 1st/2nd octave fingering. They will be playing harmonics rather than the correct third octave fingering. The real fingerings will always sound more solid and will be easier to play in tune. Give them a way to practice these fingerings and test them on the practicing you assign. The kids need concrete ways to build their facility in the third octave.  Here is one way to practice third octave technique.

Then there are the common embouchure issues you see with kids. It is common for students to struggle with buzzing rather than playing the desired pitch in the third octave. What causes the buzzing? Their lips are stretched laterally, from corner to corner. If your kids are pulling their corners, there is a really high probability that they will buzz in the third octave. Have them pay more attention to how they are shaping the aperture in the middle of their lips (like how your lips are shaped to blow a kiss or to drink through a straw), and forget about the corners. Remember to blow!

Another common problem is trying to control the third octave by flattening the aperture, rolling the flute in and pinching. Usually what goes with this is insufficient blowing. Oh no! High notes! Cue the Psycho shower scene music! The results are going to be really sharp and likely unsuccessful beyond high E or F. They will be lucky to get to a G. You have to help unwind them. Flute lower on the chin, roll the flute out a bit, relax the corners, shape the aperture (think of saying “W”) and blow more. Make sure the flute is aligned properly, check hand positions and balance. It seems paradoxical that rolling the flute away from you a little bit would improve the response and intonation of the high notes, but it works like magic. Check out this device (Flute Tutor) that can help enforce this positioning with your students.

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 via IM/Messenger on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics, workshops and performances,  click here.

Getting the Cart Before the Horse

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beginning flute, dynamics, flute embouchure, flute pedagogy, flute students, flute tone, vibrato

And the unintended consequences

There is no question that developing a wide dynamic palette and intelligent use of vibrato are essential skills for any aspiring flute player. Dynamics and vibrato add dimension and polish to the playing of individuals and within a flute section. However, I advocate waiting a bit before introducing these skills with your youngest players. Why? Because it is so critical for beginning flute players to master good embouchure and blowing skills first. Keep in mind that flutists don’t have a mouthpiece per se. We are relating to a simple hole that sits under our bottom lip. Our lips are our mouthpiece. Lips need to be trained to provide proper resistance, as we have discussed in other entries on this blog. And strong, supported blowing is an issue for any wind instrument beginner. Give your students the opportunity to solidify these skills before you introduce dynamics and vibrato.

When you ask your flute students to play with dynamics before they have mastered the basics of blowing and embouchure, the consequences can be quite dire, even to the point of them quitting altogether. Short of quitting, kids get into all kinds of compensating behaviors in order to do what you are asking of them. The kids resort to various kinds of constriction of the air stream, all of which sound really bad. They include pinching or biting down on the aperture (think about the sound of letting the air out a balloon while stretching the opening of the balloon), clenching of the teeth (also a tight and constrained sound, in extreme cases can lead to TMJ problems), and closing the throat. Once kids form the habit of constricting the air to play more quietly, it is a huge task (and often unsuccessful) to convince them that there is a better way to control their dynamics by controlling the amount of air and the blowing angle. Kids are smart. If it sounds bad and feels bad (which is how any kind of constriction feels), why continue? It is discouraging and frustrating for them. They will find other outlets for their creativity that are more rewarding.

There are similar problems that occur when you try to start kids playing with vibrato too soon. It has been shown that flute vibrato emanates from the epiglottis, the flap of tissue that blocks our wind pipe for us to swallow. It pulses but doesn’t completely close off the wind pipe when we play the flute. Again, it is absolutely essential for a student to develop a strong, steady, supported air column before introducing vibrato. If they don’t, the vibrato will be the most noticeable thing about their tone and it will not be possible to control the speed or amplitude of the pulse. Too heavy a vibrato is definitely worse than playing with a straight but supported air column. Teaching vibrato too soon is also a distraction and discouragement to ever learning steady blowing. Why set kids up for failure and disappointment?

Teach your students to blow and how to develop a flexible, sensitive embouchure first. This can take a year to two years of playing. Then adding in dynamic control and vibrato is a relatively simple job. In fact, there’s a good chance that these skills will just magically appear in your flute players if they are well grounded in the basics of sound production and musical phrasing.

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 via IM/Messenger on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

Transitioning to Open Holes

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flute balance, flute pedagogy, flute students, flute technique, step-up flutes

There comes a time for more ambitious young flute players when they need more flute than their beginner instrument can provide. They need a better headjoint to continue to develop their tone, a lighter mechanism for more technical facility and open holes both for sound and to be able to play more advanced literature. What frequently happens when a student gets a step up instrument however, is they play their new flute with plugs in the holes and never fully make the transition to open holes.

First off, let me say there really isn’t a right or wrong way to introduce playing with the holes open. It really depends on the student. If you have a kid who has good basic hand positions where their fingers are gently curved and centered over the keys, the transition will be relatively quick and painless. You can recommend they go ahead and try playing without the plugs right away and see how they do. Some kids do this quickly and pretty painlessly. They experience a few days of having a little trouble covering everything, but also have a developed enough sense of observing themselves to figure what they need to cover every hole accurately.

It can be more complicated if the student is bracing the flute against the rods with the thumb in front on the right hand or their left wrist is in front of the flute and left fingers straight and on the edges of the keys. What’s great about getting a new flute with open holes is that it is an opportunity for students to develop better hand positions, provided they are properly supervised and encouraged. With a kid like this, I think it is better to gradually wean them off the plugs one at a time. Give them a week per plug to adjust. And slowly you will see that their hand positions improve as they learn to cover each new hole.

What order do I recommend for removing the plugs? F key, A key, E key and then either of the fourth finger keys, D key and G key. The last two are by far the trickiest. It’s actually not such a big deal if the student never takes either of the last two out. A lot depends on the size and shape of the fingers and palm of the hand. Another factor is whether the flute has an inline G or offset G. It is generally easier to learn to cover the G key hole with an offset G.

Finally, encourage your students to use the pads of their fingers to cover the holes rather than the tips. There is much more flesh to cover the hole on the pads of the fingers. If students are trying to use the tips of their fingers, it is going to cause a lot of hand position and balance issues. Make sure the headjoint is aligned between the keys and the rods. Check that the right hand is behind the flute with the thumb under and somewhat behind the flute. The left wrist should be under the flute, not in front and the thumb should be open to the rest of the hand and relaxed. It will likely mean that the thumb engages the thumb key closer to the first knuckle than the tip (that is why the Bb key arm is recessed on most flutes as it travels above the B key).

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 via IM/Messenger on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

Developing Better Breath Control

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beginning flute, breath control, flute embouchure, flute pedagogy, flute students

Good breath control is an important issue for any wind instrument, but can be especially problematic for flute players because we don’t have a mouthpiece like the other winds and brass. As I tell my own students, everyone else has a mouthpiece and we have a hole. It is no wonder that breath control becomes such an issue for flute students, especially in the early stages.

A long time ago, a voice teacher pointed out to me that breathing to sing or play a wind instrument is different from regular breathing in one significant way. The relative speed of the breathing cycle is reversed. Here’s what this means. As you are sitting there reading this post, notice that you inhale relatively slowly and exhale quickly. When we sing or play a wind instrument, we need to inhale quickly and exhale much more slowly, and at a controlled rate. Teaching this to youngsters is a tricky thing. If you ask kids to take a deep breath, they will probably lift their shoulders and tense their necks. As you know, you have to relax through your trunk and allow everything to open up (ribs and abdomen) and allow the diaphragm to contract downwards. (N.B., you can’t make your diaphragm contract anymore than you can make your heart beat. The diaphragm has the same kind of nerve endings as your heart. It just does it’s job. It will work most efficiently in the breathing cycle if you focus on being relaxed and open through your chest and abdomen.) To demonstrate to kids how to breathe naturally, I have them lie on the floor on their backs with their knees bent. Then I have them pay attention to how their abdomen rises and falls with their breath. Finally, I have them reverse the cycle by inhaling quickly and exhaling slowly while still lying on the floor. When we sit up again, they have a much better sense of how to take an easy, full breath.

In orchestra, I’ve always been envious of the ability of oboe players to spin a long line. They can seemingly sustain their blowing forever compared to what we can do as flute players. Why is this? It’s because they have the natural resistance of blowing into the tiny reed opening. We flute players need to create more resistance in order to have better breath control at every stage of our development. For beginners this means learning to shape a really small aperture with our lips, about the size of the opening of an oboe reed in fact. The aperture needs a fair amount of firmness to create the resistance necessary to spin the air column and sustain our blowing. As young players develop, they need to learn to pay attention to how efficient they are being with the air. Even if the aperture is the correct size and firmness, it is endemic to the flute that we frequently blow more air than is necessary. Provided the flutist is taking in enough air, the trick is to get more sound by using less air more efficiently.

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 via IM/Messenger on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

Flute Balance and the Left Hand

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flute balance, flute pedagogy, flute posture, flute students, flute technique

Several months ago we looked at balance and alignment issues with the right hand and how that can impact the development of solid technique and good tone. Today we are going to look at left hand balance and alignment issues. When you look at how this young man is holding his flute, what do you see?

I see the flute is rolled back toward him, his right wrist is under the flute and his left wrist is in front of the flute, with his fourth and fifth fingers almost completely straight. Also, his head is forward of his shoulders. Can you see that the headjoint is rolled forward more in line with the front of the keys?

What kind of problems will this type of positioning cause? In terms of ergonomics, he’s going to be fighting the flute because it will always feel like it wants to roll back. If you are fighting the flute, developing a fluid and relaxed technique becomes much more difficult. The flute isn’t well supported and always feels unstable. Holding the flute this way can also lead to strain in the neck, left elbow, wrist and shoulder. In extreme cases, I have heard of players developing problems with nerve impingement in the left elbow.

Notice in the second photo how much better the alignment is for this young man. We turned the headjoint back a bit to between the keys and rods. Now the left wrist is under the flute, supporting it. The right hand is behind the flute and the flute is resting on his right thumb. His finger positions are more relaxed. The weight of the instrument is distributed evenly between both his hands. His ears are now over his shoulders. Now that he isn’t fighting the instrument, his technique improved immediately. The other thing that improved right away was his tone. He could place notes in a big interval much more easily and maintain a focused sound.

To put it in the simplest terms; if the flute is balanced between the hands, the player can get on with the business of developing good tone and solid technique. It’s really difficult to do this if you are always fighting to balance the flute in your hands. Biggest clue there is a balance problem with the left hand is that the left wrist is in front of the flute rather than under it. Check the headjoint alignment and make sure the blow hole lines up between the rods and keys, as we’ve discussed in the past.

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 via IM/Messenger on Facebook or email me at dr_cate@sbcglobal.net. For information about clinics and workshops click here.

 

Being the Flute Police

Tags

embouchure, flute embouchure, flute pedagogy, flute posture, flute students, flute technique

Now that your students aren’t beginners anymore, what do they need to keep developing their flute and musical skills? The flute police! I’m joking, of course, but in a way I’m not. The interactions with and interventions by their teachers, both their band directors and private instructors (if they have one), during their first two or three years of playing are really critical for determining how long they continue playing and the level of competency they achieve.  In order to keep my own students on track, here’s what I have to be constantly vigilant about for them:

• Embouchure, embouchure, embouchure – make sure they are shaping the right size aperture, know where the flute is placed on their bottom lip, and that they understand how to change the direction of the air without changing the size of the aperture.
• Blowing – as important as embouchure. You can have a great embouchure, but it’s not of much value if you’re not putting air into the instrument. Likewise, a student can have great technique, but it is of little use if you can’t hear them due to insufficient air. Be sure to teach kids to drive the air with their abdominal muscles (often referred to as “support”).
• Balancing the flute and hand positions – turn the headjoint back and turn the mechanism more forward just a little so the weight of the mechanism is more on top, rather than dragging the flute back. Left hand and wrist under the flute to support the weight, right hand behind the flute with fingers extended. Right thumb under and more on the back side of the instrument.
• Posture – align shoulders over hips, whether sitting or standing. Turn head left about 45 degrees and bring the flute up into playing position. The plane of the body and plane of the flute intersect near the left shoulder. The end of the flute should be in line with your nose rather than in line with your right ear (you will be amazed at the difference in the sound with just this one simple adjustment).
• Technique – teach the kids the patterns of music including scales and arpeggios in all major keys. Teach your flute students to play in sharp keys. I get it! Band repertoire puts the flute parts into flat keys in order to accommodate the transposing instruments. However, you severely limit the playing options available to your flute students if they never play in any other keys besides F, Bb and Eb until they get to high school. And teach them the correct fingerings in the third octave.
• Counting and rhythm – be sure to teach kids to count for themselves rather than learning rhythm by rote. In more than 30 years of teaching lessons in schools, I have seen band teachers whose students have excellent counting skills and those whose students couldn’t count their way out of a paper bag until someone “shows them how it goes”. The student who understands rhythm and can figure out music they are learning on their own is much more likely to stick with playing long term. They will be able to benefit from your instruction about ensemble skills more readily because they will be more flexible and adaptable.

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.

Stories My Band Director Told Me

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flute pedagogy, flute students

When I was a kid, we moved around a lot because of my dad’s work. I think I went to schools in seven different towns growing up. Consequently, there wasn’t much in the way of consistency with my musical training until I went to college. A band teacher got me started for a few months in third grade, but we moved to another town over the summer. The new school didn’t have any music program at all, just a closet full of band instruments that were not being used. I had lessons one summer from a college music ed major somewhere between fourth and fifth grade who turned me on to the Rubank Method books, but otherwise was on my own for most of those two years. In sixth grade, I again had a band teacher and remember using the old Master Method books. In junior high, there was a teacher that came once a week to our school, but it was such a weak program, I gave up on it. My dad found me a community orchestra to play with. The director was a saxophone doubler who had a teaching studio nearby. I took flute lessons from the doubler for maybe a year and a half. In high school, my musical instruction was solely from my band teachers.

It was when I got to college that I began to learn very quickly that most of what I had learned from my band directors and the sax doubler about playing the flute was, at the least, inaccurate and in many cases, just flat out wrong. It took many years to overcome the playing deficiencies I acquired because of my own ignorance and a lack of exposure to solid pedagogy. Some of the stories I was told by my band teachers and have heard over the years include:

• Smiling or stretching your lips to form an embouchure
• Playing with firm corners of the mouth
• Using the “kiss and roll method” to teach kids to place the flute on their bottom lip
• Rolling in and out to correct intonation problems
• Being careless about using correct fingerings – 1st finger up on middle D and Eb, using 4th finger for F#, using correct third octave fingerings

I diligently practiced many of these mistakes before I got proper training. Consequently, when I did finally get the correct information, I had to practice ten times as much to overcome those old habits and create new habits. My own students, and many other kids, still tell me either, “My band director said to do it that way,” or “My band director never corrected me.” It puts me in a delicate position with kids, and their parents, when I have to find a way to offer them better information about playing the flute without undermining the authority of their band teacher.

For me, it always comes back to the kids. If you, their teacher, have good information about flute pedagogy, the kids who want to pursue the flute seriously have a better chance of succeeding if they don’t have unintended obstacles in their playing to overcome. And your flute section is going to sound better. That’s a given.

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.

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.

Warm Air, Cold Air: Sense or Nonsense

Tags

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

Very frequently when I’m doing clinics, I ask flute students the difference between blowing a note in the low register versus blowing a second or third octave note. They will report to me that they were told by their band teacher to blow warm air for low notes and cold air for high notes. I’ve been pondering the veracity of that assertion for a while now. Initially it seemed to me like it could be a good way to conceptualize the difference between the registers. However, the more I’ve mulled it over, the more problems I see both with the concept and with how it manifests in students’ playing.

Let’s first look at how this concept is presented. If you open your mouth in an “O” shape and blow gently on your hand, the air hitting your hand is indeed warm. Then if you shape a flute sized aperture with your lips and blow at your hand, you will feel a much faster, concentrated, cooler air stream hitting your hand. So far so good. Seems like a good analogy until you actually put a flute on your face.

If you blow on a flute with a large enough aperture to have a noticeably warmer temperature in the air stream, the low notes are guaranteed to be soft, unfocused, lacking projection and likely flat. If you know a flutist who can play with a strong, focused sound in every register, ask to examine the temperature of the air column while they play in different registers. I’m sure you will find there is no appreciable difference. What you will find is that they blow with a uniformly strong air column that varies in intensity according to dynamics, but maintains the speed of the air column regardless of dynamic. This is how the finest flutists can play with a strong, focused, projecting sound in the low register and can play an exquisitely soft high note with control. They know how to maintain the speed of the air column and change the direction of the air for different registers and for different dynamic levels.

As always, playing with a strong, focused, characteristic flute sound is understanding how to change the direction of the air while maintaining the speed of the air column. The PneumoPro is an invaluable tool for visualizing this concept. Another demonstration you can do with your students is to have them pair off. One student plays and the other holds their hand close to the face of the other student and reports whether the direction of the air is changing and whether the air column feels concentrated or diffuse. You will find that kids pick up quickly the difference concentrating the air stream can make for their sound in all registers. Even your beginners will have a focused and characteristic sound if you teach them to always concentrate the air coumn and effect changes in register by changing the direction of the air.

Now you know why I think the whole warm air, cold air analogy doesn’t have much value as way of conceptualizing register changes and dynamic control. It causes more problems than it solves for the students.

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.