today I viewed the cd rom from madfortrad, with seamus egan playing flute.
I noticed his under lip is inside out…what is the use of this?
berti
Some players, myself included some of the time, place the flute higher on the lip than placing it just under the line of the lower lip and chin. I thnk that is what you are seeing.
BillG
i wonder if he can turn his eyelids inside out, especially while playing, now that would make me buy the video.
My (Bohm) flute teacher is always telling me to get my lips forward and blow across the soft, inner parts of the lips. Sounds pretty much like you’re describing. Embouchures vary, and people work through the variations and find something that works.
Yes, looking at close ups of Egan playing (performance video), you can see he plays with what looks like a surprisingly “loose” embouchure, relative to what most folks would describe as the typical IRtrad lip. This would seem Egan and JMV in the same category regarding the soft/hard lip thing: JMV is a firm believer that many people (in an attempt to get the hard “Irish” sound) play with far too tight an embouchure, leading to, ironically enough, weak tone and much less flexibility where octave changes and range are concerned. And JMV can play with as hard and reedy a tone as anyone, when it’s called for.
Food for thought.
Loren
I just bought the Solas live DVD so I’ll watch carefully and let you know if there is any strange eyelid shenanigans going on. Wouldn’t surprise me if he could…he does freaking everything else. I just admired his flute playing on the Solas albums I had for a time and then started to find out all of the other instruments he played. Yeesh. I’ll be thrilled to master just ONE instrument in the Irish tradition.
~Crysania