Today I try to “move” my throat while playing for the very first time.
But, the very big problem is that anything is moving inside (t)here!!
and I just hardly menage to cut a note but not really consciously…
swallowing is the mainly movement I can controll right now.
can you advice me Exercises or Ideas to improve my physical controll of my B.o.T.
I think you’re trying to do what’s called ‘glottal stops’. I use them a lot.
The closest thing I can suggest for starters is to try to make a sound like “uh” in your throat. but without using your voice-box (larynx). I’m sure others can give a better explanation than that, though.
cough
This one has puzzling for me, a beginner. If I hold my breath, as if you asked me to hold my breath for 30 seconds, it feels like a valve that closes instantly and with complete quick control just behind my collar bone or slightly below. The way I’ve understood glottal stops after hearing and reading about them from several sources makes me feel more like I’m contracting muscles in my throat, closer to my tongue than the point from where I would hold my breath. In my playing I use a combination of those two, and also sometimes cut off breath lower, possibly the diaphragm, in articulation. Usually the way I breathe into the flute relates to how I would sing the tune; I assume that’s a fault. Any opinions?
as Denny suggested a little cough, pay attention to keep the the throat wide open before and after the glottal stop
I think that what I do is a glottal stop. If I do it whilst speaking the english vowels A E I O U. The E and the I sound normal, the A is a bit odd, the O slightly awkward and the U wrong. What I am doing isn’t quite what I would do when speaking normally, but not far off. If I whisper the vowels what I do seems to be in the same place in my throat each time except for U and close to what I use when playing. Does that help place the action in the the throat ? Its hard to describe.
I think it’s this:
mouth-whistle a tune, any tune. ‘Play’ individual notes when you whistle, the only
way to articulate notes while mouth-whistling. Play a scale that way.
What you are doing in stopping and starting the notes are glottal stops.
So it’s very simple.
Great help in playing flute, IMO.
I remembered that there was a brilliant example…couldn’t pull up what it was 
oh, yer wrong about “only”, I can tongue 
yeah, both in and out 
I found this really impressive (look from 1:25): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_BLcC4Mr1E
I’m starting to move my body when playing, but I can’t tell if also my throat is moving. I don’t think so actually 
seems like time to drag this out…
Oh my! is Impressive! she REALLY compress air with trouth while playing…
that’s what I need to learn! now Fitness! and Fitness! but how?
some of them Boehm folks don’t a bit mind graphic content 
I’ve become rather uneasy at any mention of glottal stops. When I was a beginner (well… more of a beginner than I am now) I somehow developed the habit of using WAY WAY too many glottal stops in my playing. The worst thing was I didn’t even realize I was doing it, although I could sense that something wasn’t right. When I had my first actual flute lesson and proudly demonstrated to my teacher what I could play he looked at me like I had three heads. I no doubt sounded terrible and tried to articulate far too many notes using this method and completely ruined everything that I tried to play.
Him pointing this out to me (along with a few more words of advice) was an extremely important event in the development of my playing. It only took about 30 minutes of intense practice to completely break this habit, but I remain wary of this tendency to this day. Even today, that “click” in my throat always sends up warning flags not to repeat this early mistake, although I realize that with some tunes it’s necessary. I would advise beginners to realize exactly what glottal stops are and use them infrequently, at most.
As in the video that Danny show us (thank you!) I can see her using her throat and B.o.T. not only for Glottal stops , but mostly for to compress the air flow, also through different octaves…
Am I Correct?
ps I still cannot use no Glottal stop at all… sigh!
Catherine McEvoy taught us glottal stops at her workshop last year at the St. Louis Tional
and wanted us to use them instead of tonguing or any other ‘mouth-based’ articulation.
That isn’t saying one should use them a lot, as cuts, taps, etc are available.
But glottals sound a good deal better than tonguing, IMO, and also I find glottals
can be helpful in learning to breath in interesting places
in the tune. The beginning of a glottal stop, the breath stopping,
is often a good place to take a breath.
Let me say this again: preferring glottals to tonguing isn’t proposing that we use
glottals A WHOLE LOT.
Jim (compliments for your 14444 Posts!) do you already used
glottal stops before McEvoy workshop?
has she gave some good advices you that can help us (well mostly me maybe…)
No, I didn’t use them before she taught us how. I didn’t really know what glottal stops are.
Again, here is what I think they are. This works and it simplifies playing and
sounds good and creates opportunities for small breaths…
mouth-whistle a tune, any tune. ‘Play’ individual notes when you whistle, the only
way to articulate notes while mouth-whistling. Play a scale that way.
What you are doing in stopping and starting the notes are glottal stops.
So it’s very simple. Just do that on the flute where you would have
tongued.
heretic alert
there are lots of different ways of tonging.
you can tongue up at the front, back a ways,
glottal is way back
it is softer/less attack as you go back
Now I’m getting confused. The one time in mouth-whistling when I don’t use a glottal stop is before a breath. Snatching the breath stops the note. I think I do the same on flute. Although stylisticly dubious I sometimes blow myself into a corner and have to do a whole string of them. The glottal stop seems more like tonguing on a whistle - the starting again is more conspicuous than the stopping.
The idea is that the stopping of the breath at the beginning of the glottal stop
MAY mark a place where you can take a breath
INSTEAD of proceeding with the glottal stop.
Stopping the breath provides an opportunity to inhale, to take a ‘sip of air,’ and you may see that
this is a good place tin the tune to do just that. Tonguing doesn’t stop the breath so it doesn’t provide
that opportunity.
A glottal stop isn’t an inhalation, but it readily could become one. Breathing is itself
a form of articulation, and using breaths as articulation is a lot of the art of
flute playing. Glottals help you learn how.