You’re not the only one, Christian. I generally just try to clear it with my tongue at a time when I might otherwise take a breath (and maybe get a little air at the same time if I can).
Steven
One of my big Ah Ha moments came from an exercise my friend (who I sometimes take lessons from) gave me. Like many of us, I started on whistle and then moved to flute, so I was used to the upper octave being louder than the lower. He told me to play DdD, EeE, F#f#F#, GgG, etc. up and down the scale, each note being roughly a half note in duration (doesn’t matter much, but not too fast), while trying to keep the upper octave notes quieter than the lower octave notes. This was great on many levels – it helps me work on octave transitions both up and down, improves breath control, makes me really think about my embouchure, and lets me see what kind of volume control I can have.
Steven
I JUST HAD ONE!!!
I had my first lesson last weekend, and I’ve been listening to the tape. Toward the very end, the teacher was talking about the important notes. This was originally in the context of saving breath, i. e., not wasting breath on notes that don’t need to be accented, but turned into a discussion of important notes to the flow of a piece. (I should point out that I had told him I was interested not primarily in Irish session music, and he has had lessons from Chris Norman, who is basically who I want to emulate. In my dreams.)
I have, of course, been aware that one of the primary differences between the whistle and the flute is the expressiveness of the flute, which arises to a great extent from the ability to play the flute loudly in the lower octave and quietly in the high register. Until just now, though, this has been something that I knew intellectually but had not really applied.
I’ve been playing a tune called “Slan leat go brath” or “Farewell for evermore,” which is #26 in the Joyce collection. It’s a lovely little tune with a nice melody. But I just tried to imagine the “important notes,” and also the feeling it was trying to convey. And, bingo, I played it several times through and thought, “I wonder if Chris Norman would play it that way?” And the answer was, “He’d still sound an awful lot better, but that might just capture a little of his style.”
And the way I was able to get the modulation in the volume wasn’t by concentrating on the embouchure or anything. It was by thinking about the music.
Congratulations, Charlie! In my experience, that’s a major one. You can have all the technique and perfect ornamentation and yadayadayadayada in the world, but until you have the feel, that other stuff is just technique and ornamentation and yadayadayadayadayada.
I did this too, one thing to look forward to is that it goes away after
awhile on its own. Other thing though, you may be tipping your head
forward. The solution sounds bad, but, if you keep your head up it will
run down yr throat with gravity and not forward to your teeth etc.
Anyway now you know why there are all the flute player-spit jokes.
Cheers Lesl
Hi there, I have just read through all of your ah-ha moments and they’re great but way further down the road than I seem to have made it. I have just started trying to play the flute. I can sound it - not so sweetly, and because I have played the tin whistle for a while I can already play a few tunes but…I am having major difficulties with the breathing - it takes so much more lung capacity than the whistle, other than the obvious that is practice anyone got any tips on basic exercises? I can hold a single note pretty well, it seems to be in playing the tune that I am losing the breath - does that make sense??? 
Welcome, Jac!
Yes, it makes sense. Be patient. Your embouchure will prove to be a thing of discovery; I still can’t decide if it’s good or bad that lips are as flexy as they are!
Assuming you’re playing a trad-style flute: try keeping the corners of the mouth firm, and a tiny and focused -but not tense- opening in the center. Also, aim your breath direction as if toward your chin, and somewhat into the flute as opposed to across it. Eventually you’ll find yourself “breathing” your flute instead of “blowing” it, and you should be good to go for longer and longer phrases. Focus of the embouchure is everything, and makes for different voices on the same flute.
What is it you are playing?
Yeah jac, like Nano hinted - your embochure is the key. You can become extremely efficient with that tiny stream of air without needing the lung capacity of a triathalete (although a decent level of cardiovascular fitness would definitely help).
I’m regularly amazed at how little air it takes to sound my flute loudly…when I’m playing well, that is. Keep practicing!
Regards,
- Ryan
Nano and Spittle
thanks for the tips. I tried to implement some of the instructions last night and I could feel the difference immediately, just need to keep up the practice. I got interested in the flute after seeing Kevin Crawford playing with Lunasa about a yr ago. I bought the instrument through a buy and sell mag, three months ago (for very little), from a guy who was clearing out his house. He knew nothing about it other than that his daughter used to play it when she was in her teens. It’s a traditional flute (I think), key of D although it seems to be playing the D sharp (it took me ages to discover this as it took a while for me to be able to sound each of the notes successively, and my ears are not so hot to be able to pick it up without immediate/direct reference. I found the low D really difficult to sound too and it can still give me a bit of bother, but I’m getting there), slightly tapering either end. Polymer or at least synthetic (I don’t know what else they make 'em out of but this is not natural or wooden) although of two types, the head is a really dark greeny tone, (and it lightens after you have been playing, particularly around where it has been touching your lips/chin) and the barrel and foot are both black. It has eight keys, which I am exploring but my fingers are still working into the stretch to keep the basic six holes covered at the moment, and the embouchure (where you blow into?) is rounded oval in shape. No makers name or mark anywhere to be seen, so that description is the best I can do. It’s a bit battered - poor thing- but it doesn’t seem to be leaking air from any of the connections, or the head bung, and, well it lets me try to play tunes, if not so well 
. It’s definitely not hi tec hi spec but it is helping me to learn and I love it! I guess you learn to drive in a jalopy and you will just love it when you get to graduate to hot wheels!
Thanks again for the info and encouragement, makes all the difference!
jac
I’m very cautious nowadays when describing an Irish embouchure to beginners, and would really refrain from using words like tight or even focused embouchure. I believe that it often creates this misconception in the beginner’s minds that tends to lead to unecessary tensing in the cheek/mouth/lip muscles. Disclaimers like tight but not tense embouchure may seem even more paradoxical especially to someone who is just picking up these pointers just off the forums.
A better imagery/description is perhaps, a focused air-stream or even a focused aperture in the embouchure. There is a subtle but significant difference. I feel that it is a better description of what happens in flute playing and encourages the beginner to pursue the ends not the means. Pursue the production of a focused air stream that creates the tone but not blindly aim for a tensed embouchure or an embouchure that is tight in all the wrong places. Or imitating someone else’s embouchure form when that might not work well with one’s individual facial structure. Fellow fluter and C&F lurker Mike Spicer is to be credited for sounding me out on this.
Absolutely true, Eld. That’s why I tried to be quite careful in what I offered and how I offered it. You might notice that I wrote “tiny and focused” - not “tight”; I did use the term “firm” for the corners of the mouth, as I didn’t want a counterproductive tension or rigidity to be implied. I would add that the usual caveat for this is that the mouth not be stretched taut, but, as you say, facial construction makes for variations, ultimately. That brilliant Doorley fellow is an example of that, and that is why I used the word “try”, keeping in mind that my suggestions were only that! It’s true that I see a different facial result on each flute player.
A really great thread going here so I can’t resist joining in. I recall as a beginning clarinet student (age about 12) when my teacher - and my father - implied, “Dis is da vay ve do it und dis is da vay you vill do it alzo” (the old school German philosophy). That became da vay!
Now to a few years ago on the wooden flute I recall reading this or that person’s description and trying to emulate it EXACTLY AS VAS WRITTEN! WOW, what contortions I was making in front of the mirror. Then another fluter’s opinion and another mad mirror session.
FINALLY about a month or two ago I said, “Just play the music!”. I began to relax and let the lips and body do what felt comfortable and the music flowed.
“Ve get too soon oldt und too late schmart!”
BillG