Please, please someone tell me that they also have trouble with a fleeting embouchure: now you have it, now you don’t. I’ve been playing with my
Tipple for a year now, and I have found the sweet spot (for me), and a lot of the time I can hit it just right. Then it sounds great. Other times, it’s just a pallid ghost of a sound, wheezy and faint, and I can sound like this during the same practice; all I have to do is take the flute away from my lips, and then re-position it, and I’ve lost it!
So is this normally part of the learning roller coaster?
BTW: I highly recommend the Tipple as a first flute. Once you find the sweet spot, it will help you work on keeping it (I haven’t got it nailed quite yet) and also to be precise with your fingering. It’s gorgeous to look at, and it’s a really marvelously ingenious musical instrument. If you haven’t tried one, give it a whirl.
Steve, it happens for a lot longer than a year. I play mostly for short spurts lately, and now if I play for something like half an hour straight, my mouth muscles just kind of go spastic and my embouchure goes to hell. Kind of like it used to be before I became comfortable playing the flute.
I gave this response to another person on the forum, because I think it’s quite effective. BTW I have a Tipple as well. It’s a great flute.
Don’t pucker your lips as if you’re saying “oooooo” when you blow.
Shape your lips as if you’re saying “eeeeeeeeeee”
I don’t mean to actually voice the sylables. I’m only talking about the shape of the lips. Try it. When you say ooooo (rhyme with dew) your lips are round. When you say eeeeee (rhyme with tree) your mouth is elongated.
This will keep you from going really flat and bring the reedy sound out, as a result of wasting less air.
it used to come and go like the wind when i first began years ago. then it was ok, until about two weeks ago? damn lips. the more i thought about it, the worse it got. so i went away and played world of warcraft for a bit, and came back to it, and got better. it’s still a mystery to me.
If you find you often have problems routinely getting good results from your current flute, you might want to consider something with a dramatically different embouchure profile. Over the last 500 years the embouchure has developed from the renaissance/baroque circle, to the 19th century ellipse and finally the modern rounded rectangle - it would be silly to imagine that you would be equally happy at either end or in the middle of that development. And just because some famous players prefer one over the other, your mouth and your capacity to manipulate it may be very different.
The modern metal flute provides a good opportunity to try out the modern embouchure. Any music shop will have one - just express interest and they’ll let you try it. The fingering is pretty similar - just remember to close the thumb key. If you find the modern metal flute easier than your usual flute, it suggests your usual flute is not ideal for you. If your flute is easier, then it probably means more practice is called for!
To clarify a little, it does go on for years, but the ratio of good time to bad time or on days to off days should keep getting higher. Not uniformly, but you should be making progress over the long haul. If you go a few months without your embouchure getting somewhat better, then it’s time to look up a teacher. There should be some teachers in Charlottesville.
I think the longer you play, the level of embrochure control you want to achieve gets higher. Sure, I can always get a pretty good tone, but I don’t always get the edge I’m striving for. So the challenge of embrochure can go on for years, if you are fussy enough.
I think Terry’s suggestion of trying a different flute is a good one. It will help give you perspective. Just make sure it’s a good flute.
Well, again, what’s being described is hardly abnormal one
year in.
As to embouchure holes, the Tipple’s is circular.
It’s remarkable the sound Doug gets out of his circular
embouchure holes, as these have often been associated
with less volume. I find these satisfying to play.
However the standard oval embouchure gives you more
surface–not that it’s a slam dunk, you know.
But it seems to me the first place to go as an option,
especially as it tends to give a dark sound much
associated with Irish flute playing.
I’ve tried the rounded rectangle embouchure hole you get
on Boehm flutes. It’s probably easier to play but I
don’t much like the sound–I’ve played a wooden flute
with this set up. It’s very bright. To me it sounds like
another instrument entirely from the Irish flutes
I like the best. Your mileage or preferences may vary,
obviously.
There is something to be said for trying, at one
year or so, a wooden flute with a standard oval embouchure hole,
IMO. Whether or not one’s embouchure is fleeting.
Man, I really have to disagree, this is not the sort of problem that should go on for years. I’m going to respectfully suggest that the reason it goes on for a very long time for some folks has to do primarily with one or two practice habits:
\
Playing more than one flute as a learner
Lack of consistent (daily), well thought out (proven) practice plan.
As soon as I quit dicking around trying to play a bunch of different flutes (be it changing every month or three, or having several lying around that I’d play during a given practice session), and stopped fooling around during my “practice” sessions, my problems with embouchuric consistancy curiously abated post haste.
And I’ll disagree with you, too, Loren (at least partially).
I’m only playing one flute (and have been practicing serial monogamy for several years now), have a steady practice habit, but I do have problems with lost embouchure on rare occaisions…for example:
When I’m really, stinking tired…my muscles just don’t get the lips working right at these times.
When my ears are really stuffed up due to a cold. allergies, etc. For some reason, since I can’t hear myself well, I’m constantly tinkering to find the embouchure that should be giving me the sound I’m accustomed to.
When I’ve had a few too many beverages…
Seriously though, I have annoying mold allergies, and reason #2 happens more than I’d like it to. 99% of the time if I don’t think my tone is good, my ears are stuffed up. If I take a decongestant, I miraculously sound better about 1 hour later.
I’m still inconsistent 1.9 years in. No surprises there!
The difference is that I am more often able to figure out why it sounds bad and approach a solution. Yesterday was a rough day - I played for probably 90 minutes and got what I would consider “good tone” for maybe one 20 minute stretch. BUT - as one improves, one’s expectations rise. 12 months ago I probably would have been beaming at the sounds I was getting yesterday. Hopefully, five years from now I’ll pull out a current recording of myself and say - “wow, there’s been improvement.” There is a lot of perspective involved.
At six months, I’m having little trouble with embouchure, (at least to the extent that I can always be producing sounds). What happens with me is that my left hand starts cramping up on my D Seery, at which point I move over to my Tipple D, or down to my F Sweetheart to finish out the practice session. The F is easier on the hands, but requires a tighter embouchure, so I end up having given both hands and lips a good workout.
I see Loren’s point about sticking with one instrument, and I reckon I’ll fall into that pattern once my hands (hopefully) adapt to the rigors of low flute playing. In the meantime, I find that the variation seems to be helping.
Yeah sure, those sorts of things can interrupt a normally good result.
I really can’t imagine though, that folks learning to play ITM on the flute over in Ireland, have this same sort of ongoing problem with the “amazing disappearing tone” that we more isolated learners experience - I seriously doubt that after playing for 6 months to a year, the average Irish flute player with have any difficulty picking up their own flute and baging out a set of tunes cold. But then, they have direct access to good role models and typically won’t have a house full of flutes to distract them either.
Hmm, “Variation seems to be helping”… not very scientific. I mean have you tried just playing the one flute for a few months, simply taking a break, when your hands start to cramp and the lip gives out? If not, it’s impossible to say if what you’re presently doing is helping or hindering your progress.
You may feel that by switching around to other instruments you’re helping yourself by “getting in more practice time”, however you may simply be adding confusion to your neuro-muscular memory/response system by hopping between instruments with different requirements.
It’s interesting to note (although some here will no doubt say it’s an irrelevant example) that world’s undisputed, greatest technical juggler Anthony Gatto, became so great by practicing, on average, only 1 hour a day. He started that way as a child, because his father (who had a lot of experience with coaching) wouldn’t allow him to practice longer, because he understood that physical and mental fatigue seriously impair the ability to do and learn things properly, and as he would often tell young Anthony “We don’t want to practice mistakes” Remember, practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent.
I think this offers some food for thought for you current situation crooked - I know it seems counter intuitive, but why not try simply practicing with only one flute, stopping when your embouchure begins to fail, and/or your hands cramp, then either taking a break and having another go later in the day, or simply leaving the flute till the next day to practice? It’s entirely possible you’ll find yourself actually making more progress, with less practice time, within a few weeks.
Also, if your hands are constantly cramping, you should seriously consider paying more attention to relaxing your grip, and put concious effort into that. My flute teacher suggested playing for 3 minutes straight, at the beginning of my practice session, purely concentrating on playing with my grip and the rest of the body, as relaxed as possible. Your playing will suck at first when you try to do this, but you must continue, and not care about how you sound, just focus most of your attention on being relaxed, particularly your hands. 3 minutes continuously, without stopping. Then go on with the rest of your practice as normal.
I agree with Loren totally about only playing one flute, not practicing too long, etc.
I played with multiple flutes for the first couple of years I played (my wife is correct that this board is a corrupting influence), but didn’t really progress as a player until I moved to only playing one flute, period. Give what Loren suggests a try for a few months and let us know how it goes.
This multiple instrument thing seems to be a newish fad. I played sax for years in jazz bands (that made money & played in local jazz festivals), and I never once thought of having more than one sax…the few I knew who had multiple sax’s only had different types (i.e. - soprano & tenor for example). I can’t think of anyone having 2-3 altos they switched between. I knew older musicians who grew up playing battered old sax’s who never changed instruments even when they could afford a better one…and lots of the old Irish flute players many folks admire had flutes held together with rubber bands and electrical tape (some still do).
