I was advised by my first teacher not to particularly
roll in the head of the flute. So I didn’t.
I noticed Mike Rafferty was playing with his Olwell;s
headjoint pretty radically turned in.
Anyhow I’ve been playing my Bryan Byrne keyless,
a fascinating flute, and I’ve turned in the head
a good deal. Bryan also wasn’t much keen on
doing this, and advised me not to move the
outer edge of the embouchure hole
past the center of the finger holes.
Indeed, he wanted much less than that.
Anyhow I get a loud, ‘aggressive,’ very edgy, sound.
The flute sounds like an oboe.
I think I like it but I’m not sure. It certainly
changes the flute. I’m going to try this more,
also on other flutes.
How much do you’all roll in your headjoints,
if you do? Opinions?
Optimums do vary from flute to flute (and of course from player to player), but in general I currently go for the outer edge of the blow-hole being roughly on or a little out from the centre-line of the tone-holes, but never further out than the outer edge of the top tone-hole. I’ve never turned it inwards of the centre-line on any flute at any time in my playing life, and I have gone through several phases of embouchure style and (painful! - well, aurally, if not physiologically) style-change upheaval!!!
I just make sure that all the air i blow out goes right into the flute and there’s nothing lost, so i get a nice strong tone. The only way i can do this is by turning the head inwards. I don’t worry too much if someone tells me this is the wrong way, for me it’s the most comfortable position.
Jim -
I roll the head joing in a bit but I don’t know exactly how much. I think the midway point of the flute is in the middle of the emboucher hole. I would say, if you get a tone you like - regardless of position - go with it!
On my wooden flutes, I play with the outer edge of the blow-hole being in line with the centre-line of the tone-holes. I used to play with all holes in line, but I think this works better for me. On my Boehm flute, I play with everything in line.
Skip Healy attempted to have me play with the embouchure hole and the tone holes all in line. I tried it for a while but found my fingers - and the tone holes were curled in towards me too far and made for an uncomfortable strain on my wrists. So I lined up the tone holes just about straight up and adjusted the embouchure hole in a TAD. This made my wrists comfortable and the blow hole just right. By a TAD I mean about a 1/4 inch or less in toward me or in from the outer line of the tone holes.
That continues to work for me with the shape of my chin, lips and hands. YMMF.
I don’t roll it in at all. I started on the simple flute a few years back and found I got the best sound with a straight headjoint. I also can get more of a variety of tonal color this way. The same goes for the boehm flute, which I play mostly these days. (maybe a phase, I don’t know.)
I use a straight headjoint and then experiment with pursing and frowning my lips to achieve a dark windy sound or a reedy tone respectively.
Jim, I don’t know how bent out of shape you should get thinking about this particular problem.
The discussion is +/- useful from the sense that it implies that we all play with the tonehones in the same spot. I know that I don’t do that because my wrists don’t have the best flexibility in the world, so I know that for me the UH toneholes (or all of them on a single-body flute) are turned outward somewhat to improve ergonomics.
So is my embouchure hole turned in? Yeah. Much? No. So I wonder if my wrists were different I would be in the fully-in-line camp.
It’d probably be a lot more useful to see pics of people in playing position to see exactly how our lips are touching the flute.
Jim, I think the qualifier for all these answers has to do with how the flute is positioned, too. If you turn the headjoint radically in, you really need to play/hold the flute at a different angle – usually dropped low. Most modern players advocate keeping the flute parallel, or close to, to the floor. Much better for your back and arm/wrist positions. If you follow this advice, the embouchure really needs to be more in-line (although turned a bit, probably more the prescribed end-of-finger hole turn). A lot of the old-time players turned the head way in, but many also dropped the flute more dramatically, blowing into the embouchure at a real angle - the flute equivalent of a bluegrass fiddler. Maybe this felt more like pipes, or a whistle, dropping down, rather than parallel to the floor. Another style of holding is to perch the flute on your shoulder – again, the hole can be turned way in, the flute holes whereever you’re most comfortable. n any case, whatever you do, you need to work your embouchure for the best sound – if you move around the head, or the flute, you’ll need to readjust the way you blow. Most players that have put in a few years find it harder to rethink every aspect of their playing, and so they don’t. From a physical standpoint, tendonitis, open windpipe and all that, keeping your neck fairly upright with just a slight turn to the left (assuming you’re a righty), and your flute relatively parallel to the floor, is probably better for you all-round. Since a lot of modern players play this way, most modern makers cut the embouchure for maximum effect if played/held this way, too. But this will vary from flute to flute, particularly when you start messing about with antiques.
Still, experimenting for a darker sound you like is all part of getting your own, individual sound, so there is no absolutely correct way. Better you’re comfortable first – assuming you’re getting a solid, firm tone, the rest will follow.
Gordon
My opinion, Jim, is that once again you are asking an irrelevant question and trying to glean from it some knowledge about how the flute should be played. It does not matter how any particular player lines up the blow hole with the finger holes of the flute, because that is something that should flow directly from how the player chooses to approach the embouchure hole with the lips and how then the finger holes need to be positioned for ergonomic comfort. In other words, the degree of rolling in or rolling out is a side effect, not a cause, of the sound any particular player produces. However, this does not stop many players (apparently including you) from messing around with how they align the headjoint to see how it affects their sound, in the hope of finding the perfect or sweet spot. And some do find the sweet spot that way, but that does not make it the best or most efficient way to do so. The better way is for the player to line up the holes, and then adjust the roll of the flute with the wrists until the desired sound is found and can be maintained consistently. Then if there is any ergonomic discomfort once a consistent sound is established, the head joint can be repositioned relative to the body of the flute to relieve that discomfort.
Why is this way better than the “roll it a bit, try it out, and if you don’t like it roll some more” method? Because the relationship you are trying to develop is between your lips and the blow hole, and even minute differences in positioning will make big differences in the sound you are able to get out of the flute. By varing the flute-lip relationship continuously via wrist movement rather than discretely by removing the flute from the lips and rolling differently, you are able to explore all possible positions of the flute relative to the lips, not just a few discrete ones. Then, once the sweet spot is found the wrists and the lips will both need to do some work in order to keep you at the sweet spot, and in so doing muscle memory is established that will help you find that sweet spot the next time you pick up the flute, and the next time after that, and the next time again. If after a while (multiple playing sessions, not just a few minutes) the wrist position feels wrong to you, you can safely adjust your roll a bit to get your wrists comfortable, because your lips will remember how they’re supposed to feel up against the hole and they will naturally assume the right position to get your desired sound even at the new rolling spot.
But even though I’ve never heard you play, Jim, I’m sure all this is lost on you because you seem to switch flutes - from Pratten to Rudall to Boehm to whatever else strikes your fancy - nearly as often as you raise one of your irrelevant questions here. Which seems to be about once a week or so, on average. If you are really serious about learning how to play the flute well, Jim, I’d advise picking one flute and sticking with it for a good long time (like years, or even decades) rather than the constant switching you seem to favor. And also, every time you have the urge to write more about flute playing on Chiff and Fipple I think it might be a good idea for you to instead pick up that one chosen flute and practice a bit. Then one day you might realize how truly irrelevant most of the questions you raise here are.
Thanks for these responses.
I can’t tell you how much I learn from you’all–
even small things about the relation between
the angle at which the flute is held these
days and the way modern flutesmyth’s
carve embouchure holes.
I just tried this ‘rolling in’ stuff yesterday,
after a hiatus of a couple of years.
What most interests me right now is
the difference in the flute’s sound.
I wrote: ‘Anyhow I get a loud, ‘aggressive,’ very edgy, sound.
The flute sounds like an oboe.
I think I like it but I’m not sure.’
It seems I get a darker, louder, edgier sound by
rolling in the headjoint. I appreciate from the responses
that headjoint position may be determined by a whole
lot of other factors, e.g. what your body will do
comfortably.
And I wonder what people think about
that sound? Some responses speak to it.
The byrne flute has a sweeter and more
‘flexible’ sound with the
headjoint in line with the holes. Some responses
favor THAT sound. I think I know why.
What about the other sound? The flute sounds more
like a clarinet or an oboe.
My fife is one piece and all holes are inline. I must lower my head a bit in order to blow into the hole and only then do I get a clear, strong sound. It is similar for my flute but with that, instead of lowering my head a bit, I can turn the hole toward me.
If you watch any flute player put their flute together they always at one point line up the holes. Lining it all up right I think is important. But what do I know.
