A long seige of pneumonia put me out of commission - flute and everything else wise - for about five weeks. I’m back into the stream of things again and rebuilding my embouchure on the flute. I had a problem with the Healy, a more difficult flute to get on with, so I went back to my Ormiston. It played (me too!) easier and little if any hissssss. After a few days I went back to the Copley and a lot of hisssss in the low register. Why would that be? Not Hissss in general but little to none on one flute then quite a bit more on another - during the same practice session.
I cut back on the amount of air streaming through and that helped somewhat. I’ve noticed that less air directed better is a strong suite. My embouchure must be getting tighter again as if I put too much wind into it I jump to the next octave too easily.
Maybe the amount of air AND tighter embouchure have play here.
Every flute requires a slightly different embouchure. When you spend time training your lips to play one particular flute well and then use that lip embouchure on another flute, it will behave differently.
Charlie, thanx for the record yourself comment. I did and it was still there but not as predominant as I had thought. Then I played around with the emboucure some more and found that pressing the flute somewhat tighter against my lower lip (I have a somewhat larger lower lip with a protruding lower jaw due to Titanium implants) that the hiss was disapating. Skip Healy suggests playing with the flute further up on the lip and not down under it which I do. But now that I’m pressing firmer causing the lower lip to be “less in the way” of the air stream, better sound. Thanx again for all the folks on this list and the many comments on all subjects flute.
Bill, I also wanted to say my condolances on the pneumonia. I had it last year, and felt like I just about had to re-learn the flute afterward. But I thank my lucky stars – 100 years ago, we both almost certainly would have died.