classical flute question

does anyone have tone development through extended technique by robert dick? a teacher that practices across from me at school copied a couple pages of harmonics exercises out of it for me, and i am not the same. i knew how to use harmonics before, and sometimes used them, but now that i start every day’s practice with harmonics work, my tone is stronger, i can play in tune, and i can hit any note as hard as i want without cracking.

i was just wondering if anyone else had it, because i’m thinking about buying the book. i just want to know if it would be worthwhile. i’m interested in learning throat tuning as well. i messed around with it the other day and got it to work, but throat tuning whole notes is a bit different than throat tuning full speed. anyone here throat tune?

No, but your post did make me curious enough to spend a few minutes searching. I found this interesting snippet. I’ll have to give it a try.

http://www.larrykrantz.com/rdick.htm
Robert Dick from the FLUTE list - December 1997
About the tongue position and resonance in the mouth

The vowel shape formed in the mouth while playing is the primary way of making tone color on the flute. Try playing while forming open vowels like “Ah”, “Ooh”, and “Oh” (as pronounced in network TV news generic American English). Then check out some other vowels too, like “Eee” and “Eye”. You’ll here a remarkable change in tone color. Then try changing between these and as many other vowels as you can think of while practicing those classic long tones. If you can speak more than one language, use the vowel sounds from them all to explore a large range of colors.

A great way to decide what vowels to use when playing music (a more complex challenge than tone studies) is to sing a passage over and again, trying different syllables and gradually forming the vowels that feel most natural and expressive to you. And as you “scat” your way through Bach or Berio, you’ll find more of the inner phrases emerging.

The “marimba tube” effect of resonance is well proven in the acoustics literature. For all wind and brass players, not just flutists, that resonance comes from the throat more than the mouth. If you hold your vocal chords in a position where they are ready to sing the note you are playing, you will maximize this resonance, which I named “throat tuning”. The vocal chords do not have to be pitched in the same octave as the flute; throat tuning will work very powerfully even if the silent voice is pitched one, two, three and in rare cases four octaves below the flute. To try it out, sing a note softly and gently with an open vowel like “Ooh” at the same time as you play that note. Then play the note without singing while clearly hearing your voice in your inner ear and feeling like you are singing that note. After working with some single notes, go on to short phrases, etc.

For those who might have alarm bells going off for fear that singing will lead to a tight throat and/or strained vocal chords, please remember to always sing softly and, while singing, use open vowels. (Practicing singing the open vowels is often the solution for people who have throat noises when they play.)

The “open throat” concept was a milestone in the development of 20th century flute tone. It certainly blew the old tight throat and rapidfire vibrato right off of the musical scene. And good riddance.

The drawback to the open throat concept is that it limits sound colors if it is used without variation in syllables – as is so often taught. The evolutionary successor to the open throat is the tuned throat. And when throat tuning is done well, the effect of the vowel formed in the mouth is magnified.

Every person who has ever played a wind instrument with a beautiful tone has done throat tuning to some degree, whether they were conscious of it or not.

More good stuff from that same site. I feel good if I can hold a flute note pure and steady for ten seconds, 50 minutes!?
http://www.larrykrantz.com/rdick.htm

Robert Dick from the FLUTE list - January 1998
LONGEST NOTE:
I have no idea who has played the longest note, and I don’t care either (unless an opportunity to make some real bread out of it comes along). It wouldn’t be surprising if Kenny G’s PR people encouraged him to go for a record. The longest I’ve ever help the sound (not just one note, but a piece of music) is over fifty minutes without interruption. This was when I played William Hellermann’s “Three Weeks in Cincinnati in December”, a minimal composition that deals with how musical inflection changes as we take our bodies to their limits. In terms of breathing, I could have gone on for much longer, but my lower lip, never released from the lip plate, simply had had it. When I was learning circular breathing and was in the phase where endurance was being developed, I used to watch baseball games on TV (Let’s Go METS!) and play one note per inning. If the Mets or their opponents had a rally, it redefined the meaning of long tones!

If you want to learn circular breathing, please check out “Circular Breathing for the Flutist” (by Robert Dick; Multiple Breath Music Co., 1987) I created a new method of learning circular breathing on the flute which works a lot better than the traditional approach. The flute uses the most air of all wind instruments (more than the tuba!) under the lowest pressure, so its the most difficult to learn circular breathing on. My method deals with developing the embouchure needed for all phases of the circular breathing cycle first, then applies the breathing. This solves the “where did all the air go?” problem that traditionally has held flutists back from circular breathing. Hope you’ll get into it.

kind of makes you feel insignificant, doesnt it? trying to use the air from your cheeks to make a note, i can currently do about 2 or 3 notes in the second octave for about half a second. i can play most of my scale with cheeks puffed out (how you’re supposed to build up embouchure for circular breathing) but it sounds like garbage.