trying to learn to relax…when your right hand is relaxed, your left hand is not.
when you manage to relax your neckmuscles your hands tense up.
when you finally have managed to relax your hands and have found your optimal posture then your embouchure runs amok.
relaxx!!! ok…how.
I hope to get the moment someday that I realize I can make the flute float in front of me and send fingers flying without having to think everything through while starting to play.
for me the base lies at finding myself comfortable to hold the flute with no tension in my body and experiment a lot with how you have the flute set up.
but yet, it seems to be a struggle some days to get esp my hands relaxed.
how did you more experienced players learn to relax.
does anyone want to share tips, we also have a lot of newbies here lately who would also appreciate I think.
This is a great question.
Tension usually comes from playing too fast - which is another way of sayng that you’re trying to do too much. Most intermediate players (you’ve been at it for three years, right?) can hear more than they can accomplish comfortably.
If you always play within your comfort zone you will be relaxed and the music will be better.
When you try to keep up with faster players you’ll get tense. The same is true if you push the tempo when playing by yourself. The best advice I can give my students is to slow down and make the music pretty. Concentrate on playing slowly and beautifully, breathe comfortably, and speed will take care of itself.
Hi Berti
For teaching oneself how to address these issues (I am obsessed with such things…) I recommend Lea Pearson’s book ‘Body Mapping for Flutists: What Every Flute Teacher Needs to Know About the Body’.
cheers
Trish
I am a strong believer in the power of positive thinking. To help relieve the symptoms of tension as a result of holding and playing the flute, I will recommend a short mantra mentioned by an unnamed pundit. I am not sure that I completely understood his reasoning, but the mantra that he suggested for this is, “I must relax”. You are supposed to say it over and over whenever you feel unwanted tension in your body. I think that I would do away with the word “must”. “Must” and “relax” don’t go together very well. Merely thinking the word “relax” on the exhale seems to help me.
I agree. I usually find that when I try to play too quickly, particularly when learning a tune, in the end I’m frustrated for not having played it “up to speed,” and that I didn’t learn it very well.
Sometimes playing with a metronome helps me–just going slow, but steady and measured. Then after that I can play more rapidly.
Mb
There should be no physical difference between fast playing and slow playing. While working on tunes and technique slowly, one has time to concentrate on relaxing, developing good rhythm and tone, etc. Then, when you speed up, bit by bit, make sure nothing other than the tempo changes–if tension creeps in, or fingers begin to fly around, or breath control changes, you’re going to fast. Slow it down until everything’s under control, and then bump up the speed again, little by little.
A weird relaxation technique a teacher had me use years ago was to gently toss the flute up into the air in front of me (roughly from stomach level to head level), catch it with both hands, and promptly begin playing. It’s odd, and it initially disturbed me to see my flute airborne, but it does help the the upper body relax.
Disclaimer: I will not be held responsible for any dropped flutes.
I still grapple with this same thing. But I will recommend the Inner Game of Music, a book I need to re-read. Also, something which works for me - when I remember to do it - is to get my embouchure set with my body relaxed before launching into tunes. I’ve found that it’s the balancing act going on with the tone which creates the most tension. Then the point Bill Ochs made to me once - he said “practice with a feeling of ease”. The way we practice is the way we’ll play.
I relax best when I just sort of give up and say “screw it”, and let playing happen on its own without me having to police everything. After all, everything I know how to do will happen anyway, and relaxation - when I’m doing it - allows me to try for improvements on the fly with greater ease, too. Sort of a Zen approach, like, I suppose.
This talk about relaxation has gotten me thinking. While I think that the “screw it” manta may be a real winner, I can’t help but think that there may be something completely different that could be used along with the mantra for a synergistic effect. To further this end, I propose to soon offer at a nominal charge an add-on device called “relaxation booties”. They are little bags of lead shot that you wrap around the flute with velcro. The name is not firm at this point, so I am open to suggestions. The way the booties work is that you start with the half pound weights and gradually progress up to the master-class weights at 3-4 pounds. The idea is simple. The weights will work just like ankle weights for the runner. You train with the weights, but when you perform or compete, you remove the weights. After playing with the training “relaxation booties”, when they are removed, the flute will literally feel like it is floating in mid-air, making for effortless, tension-free playing.
Haven’t finished reading it (read most of it) but effortless mastery has been a good read… There’s some stuff that you can take or leave but the whole book is centered around the idea of playing effortlessly so it might be worth picking up… It was in stock at Borders when I was looking for it… Kenny Werner is the author… Too much content to try to rehash here…
thanks cocusflute for this excellent point. put another way, we can only play relaxed what we know very, very well. and this knowing must be in the the body, which only comes from lots of practice. in particular, we can only play relaxed as fast as we can play the hardest bit of a tune easily. otherwise we tense up at the hard bit, stumble, tense up more to catch up, & so on. this is how train wrecks happen. :^)
the challenge, as cocusflute says, is that we tend to hear a tune in our mind the way we wish to play it, instead of listening to how we are actually playing. by playing in our comfort zone, even for the hard bits, we can notice how it feels to be relaxed as we play. as we come to recognize this relaxed feeling it becomes more & more natural.
now if i can only get that sonic image of Matt Molloy’s playing out of my head… :^)
Interesting idea tossing the flute in the air. Perhaps tossing something else like a coin has a similar effect. It gets the muscles moving, the brain focused on motion, the breathing more relaxed. For those who are always tense, it sounds worth a try, tossing something like a coin or a pillow or something. An expensive wood flute, I would not do it either.
I like it!