I haven’t heard someone play the Irish flute in real life much. I went to the session last night and a couple of times the flute player there played during a lull so you could hear him. He has a really nice flute and it makes a nice reedy sound. Ah ha! So that is what it is supposed to sound like. It sounds so much different in real life than on a recording.
Which kind of leads me to my problem. I am trying to make my sound better but it’s really hard to hear it. It may sound ok to my ear but if I record myself it doesn’t sound the same at all. And I have no idea how it sounds to someone else.
How do you adequately assess the sound you are making?
(P.S. I would ask the flute player at the session but he kinda gives off a “don’t bother me” vibe.)
Did you have your flute at the session? I generally find that any other fluters will at least chat with me about flutes. I would be surprised if he isn’t at least polite enough to spend a minute or two with you.
Good comment you make about the difference between real life and recordings. Supports CocusFlute’s comments about learning from books in another thread.
There is a post somewher else by Terry McGee that is worth reading - an exercise for finding the right tone.
Something that works for me is to find a room and a spot with good acoustics - amazing how quickly you can improve your tone when you have the audible feedback a bit of room reverb will bring. For me, it’s just inside our front door, in the hallway with polished tiles on the floor.
You also might try standing in a corner between two walls, about 2-3 feet away, playing right into the corner. The sound reflecting back at you is similar to what an audience would hear. I used to use this to practice singing.
I’ll offer two observations that are helping me:
(1) don’t put up with any old sound coming out - get your strongest tone and try and keep it throughout the tune. If it goes ‘fluffy’, then stop, find your better tone and start again.
(2) there has been an interesting thread over on thesession.org recently re improving your level and something that I have picked up on is the importance of listening to oneself as you play. Really listen and know when it’s going well and when you’re botching it.
Sure, you may have heard this before but there’s a difference between reading something and saying ‘that’s a good idea’ and actually putting it into practice.
Thanks. I was under the impression that the wonderful sound in the bathroom or stairwell fools you into thinking you are better than you really are. I sound great to myself in the kitchen. But record myself with my laptop in the kitchen and it sounds nothing like what I am hearing.
That flute player never takes a break! And he plays everything. He is strumming something when I arrive, fluting and strumming other things along the way and never getting up for a break for 3 hours, then poof! He’s gone. I really think he just wants to play (he looks so happy doing it), not chat.
Maybe someday he’ll take a break and I can talk to him. He has nice flutes, too. I would like to look at them. The only Irish flute I’ve ever held in my hands or seen with my eyes is my own.
I was just bouncing around on some different flute makers sites, and went to Skip Healy’s site. On his site he’s got some excellent tips for learning the Irish flute.
Was it Elliot playing the flute at your session? I played with an Elliot once (he was at a conference in our town)…remarkable player, board member, strummer of guitars from time to time, too.
If it was him, he’s a nice guy who I wouldn’t hesitate striking up a conversation with.
I gotta say something here. I agree with Flutered that you shouldn’t put up with any old sound, assuming you have a flute that you can be reasonably certain is capable of the sound you want.
Thing is, what you hear and what others hear are not likely to be quite the same thing (yes, I’m repeating what others have already said, including the original poster). Case in point: myself. What I hear tonally while I’m playing has been fine, in the ballpark more or less, but less than the ideal to me and something of a frustration at times. Still, one soldiers on in the meantime and continues the quest. But last evening a fellow recorded me unbeknownst (a good thing; who knows what sort of selfconscious transports of shyghte I would have taken to otherwise) while I was at some hornpipes, as he wanted to learn them. I had a listen to see if the tunes were learnable enough thru the ambient noise also recorded, and I suppose they were, but I wasn’t paying so much attention since what struck me more was the tone I was hearing. It was quite different from what I hear when the flute’s actually on the chin. That can’t be me, I thought; that tone’s really nice. I like it. I can go with that, no question. Gave me a bit of a lift for the evening even though I was back to hearing myself per the usual mode of experience; just knowing that there was a difference made a difference.
It was something of a revelation as I don’t record myself. I don’t know if that will change, now; probably not. BUT: if you want to assess your tone with some hope of objectivity, try recording (and on a variety of devices, as fidelity varies, and variation should provide some balance in assessment, I think). It isn’t a bad way to go. I recommend it.
(Even though I’m unlikely to take my own medicine. )
I have been recording myself using my laptop and garage band. I just press the record button and play and the laptop records me. I don’t know if garage band is meant to have you use a microphone or what, but the sound is very quiet in the recording yet I’m able to clear the house in real life. I can hear improvement over previous recordings, which is good, but to me it still doesn’t sound like what I hear.
What kind of recorder did this person have? We brought a little memo-recorder to the session last Thursday, a type of recorder that is intended for you to record little voice memos to yourself. Needless to say, that was a total failure. Sounded like a jet plane engine, not music.
I didn’t ask. It was one of those new electronic thingums, silver-colored, thin, and very small. Although I’m sure it’s not meant for anything other than simple utility, what I can say is that the flute sounded altogether like a flute, no question. And I was listening directly to the device’s bitty output speaker, not by way of an earphone. I was surprised; I expected much less out of the device. I’ll see if I can find out for you what it was. The ambient noise - loud chatter in a dance hall during a break at a céilí - was a fright on the recording (it usually is when unrecorded, for that matter), but the flute cut through like a laser, nice and reedy and warm. I’m pretty sure the fidelity wasn’t greatly innacurate. I asked the fellow if that was how I sounded to him, and he said that it pretty much was.
I had one fellow record me on his mobile phone once, and it sounded like utter crap. Jangly and horrid. Your description of a jet plane engine fits pretty well.
But just to mention that however I’ve been recorded, it’s never sounded like what I hear when I’m playing. I don’t think that’ll ever change; after all, the flute’s right there stuck to your face, and to say nothing of the proximity of your ears to it, no doubt there’s tone being vibrated through the bones to your inner ear to some degree, too. Having other people tell you if a recording is accurate in reproducing your tone would be best, of course.
I guess I mentioned it on a different thread, but I’ve been using a Zen mp3 player that I bought at Best Buy. It is the 2G model, and cost me about $110 USD. The “voice recorder” is surprisingly good, and allows me to upload in mp3 format to my PC. I record my sessions this way, and my own practice playing. It actually records better than my PC with its built-in mic, and it’s very convenient and versatile. (Has an FM tuner, holds pictures, files, music, etc…). Not a bad option, if you’re not up for buying a high-end recorder.
Well, my take on this (based on my own experience) is this: if I am playing in the lounge (carpets, curtains), I sound dead as you would expect. I find it difficult to make the embouchure changes I need to make to get the sound to improve. If I then walk into the hallway, sure the sound improves because of the natural reverb, but what I notice more is that any slight embouchure change has an immediate audible effect - and within seconds I am making the changes to improve the tone way beyond what I already had. When I go back into the lounge to resume my practice (only a few minutes later) I can still hear the better tone, and I know what I am looking for. I use this approach quite often when I feel I am not making any progress in my practice - get up, play in the hallway until I have it right (and enjoy the great sound) then back into the dead room again. The walking and playing standing up probably helps as well.
To add to this - since attending a workshop a month or two back, I am working hard on increasing the rate of airflow I can deliver into the flute, particularly on low D. It’s a combination of trying to work on breath capacity and diaphragm support on the one hand, and just trying to get a higher velocity, more focused airflow into the hole. I normally play fairly quietly, so this is good for me, working on trying to play much louder and harder than I normally would - so when I back off to “normal” I have a tone that is starting to get fuller and brighter - like the tone of the guy who ran the workshop (he blew me away with his tone, so I asked for some tips for working on this aspect of the flute).
You have the right idea. Ask a teacher or experienced player. Part of a new player’s conundrum is the inexperience of having a clear idea of a decent tone. “Yeah, I already KNOW what a flute is supposed to sound like.” Right and people who remark positively on their ability to speak a second language always seemed a bit optimistic to me upon hearing them actually speak it.
I have been recording myself using my laptop and garage band. I just press the record button and play and the laptop records me.
I guess you are on a Mac then? Garage Band is okay, but it may be introducing artifacts that you don’t want such as reverb (if you choose ‘flute’ as the instrument for example).
If I was you, get hold of a copy of Audacity - it’s free software and there is a Mac version. Regarding volume, this should all be adjustable before you start recording,and with Audacity you can adjust the overall volume of the recording afterwards.
Most important of all, get yourself a decent microphone - it needn’t cost the earth - do some online research - I have a Sennheiser mic which cost around £50 (about $100) - the difference it makes to the recording is astonishing.
I’ll check when I get home tonight, but I thought that even with ‘real instrument’ you still have to choose voice, or guitar or flute or whatever and if you choose ‘real instrument’ then ‘flute’ you’ll get some reverb. I may be wrong though - won’t be the first time…
Some of the best advice I got on flute playing came from a very frank Irish fiddle player. I learned to play more gently with him, and his advice was very good. He made me aware that I was play very loudly, almost overpowering - a style I had gotten used to playing in the middle of the night at loud bars.
If you always play at the same volume and with a harsh tone, you can’t vary the quality of the sound very much, and not varying the quality and volume of the sound limits you in terms of expression. I learned to back off a little and open my embouchure a bit, and it just opened the flute’s sound beautifully.
If you can play with good musicians, especially the ones who have been around for a long time and know what they are talking about, that will teach you about tone. I have never had good results from recording myself. It always sounds different than real life.
I know the “don’t bother me” vibe. Most of the best music I have played over the years has been with the open, humble musicians who contributed to the session rather than constantly taking from it. The self-centered musicians find the humble ones intolerable, and often get up and leave when they sit down and blame them for stealing the session!!
When learning Irish flute years ago, I often admired the sound that “classical” flutists got from their flutes. So I thought, “these guys know something I don’t- let me try to learn something from them.” I took some lessons from a “classical” flutist, she working exclusively on my tone quality. Then I spied a book at a “normal” music store, titled something like “Building Tone On The Flute” or something. I looked in it, and the entire book was nothing but the same execise over and over, done on various notes! I didn’t need to spend $15 on it. What this exercise consisted of was starting on a given note as softly as possible (pp), slowly increasing the volume until the note was as loud as possible (ff) and then slowly decreasing the volume until the note was as quiet as possible, all on one long breath. The crucial point is to keep the note ON THE SAME PITCH the entire time. So, I did this over and over on various notes on the Irish flute, but especially bottom D. I found that, at least for me, doing this exercise on bottom D was all that was necessary for building good tone on the whole range. Yes my high B’s improved by doing this exercise on bottom D. I actually watched the needle on an electronic tuner to make sure that I was staying exactly on pitch during the exercise.
Sounds like Ro buki on shakuhachi. Ro is the lowest note (D on a 1.8 shak). Many students (and masters) spend up to an hour each day just “blowing Ro”. The aim is as you say, start so quietly that the sound seems to come from nowhere, and fade out so it disappears imperceptibly into nothing, with no pitch wobbles.
I would spend around 15 minutes just doing this execise on bottom D each day, and the improvement on my tone was tremendous. Take the note from the slightest whisper to the most powerful possible honking hard bottom D back to the whisper. It not only develops your lip but also improves breath control, gives you more stamina, and refines your ear for pitch.
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Garage Band is okay, but it may be introducing artifacts that you don’t want such as reverb (if you choose ‘flute’ as the instrument for example).