Need advice for getting a reedy tone

Irish Flute
1

Although I’m really new to the Irish flute, I have some years of experience on the silver Boehm flute. I’ve only had my Copley & Boegli slideless blackwood for a week and a half, but I have become quite comfortable with it. I have been practicing scales, long notes, cuts and long rolls, and a few simple tunes.

Most of all, I have been focusing on my embouchure and tone, and it isn’t as reedy as I would like it to be. I’m not sure of the correct terms to use here, but I like that reedy, almost honkish quality that many ITM musicians have, especially when they are playing the lower notes. I can get a nice richness in the lower notes, but it seems more round with less edge, perhaps sweeter, than I would like. I know that many folks would tell me to give it some time, which I understand, but I also think that considering the level of playing I am currently at, that focusing on the tone I would like to develop is not premature.

Is there any general advice anyone could offer? Any particular exercises that would help develop that reedy tone?

How much does the particular style or make of flute influence the reediness of tone? I’m sure it is a combination of the player and the flute, but are some flutes inherently more reedy in quality?

It would be great to hear from any Copley owners, or others who have played them, about your experiences with it’s particular tonal qualities as well.

Best,

2

You mentioned your having practiced long tones, and that you are looking for a certain sound. Well, simple, try finding that sound WHILE you are practicing long tones, tones for as long as you can hold them in tune in one breath.

You’ll find what you are looking for, just that way, but be flexible of embouchure, and be patient.

EDIT: Even a cheap, junk flute has a range of tones available, and yours is no cheap piece of junk.

3

It may be that, coming from the Boehm background, you are accustomed to blowing across the embouchure hole, rather than more down into it, which increases the harmonic content. Try this little experiment:

Fingering a low G, blow in your usual way, listening to the tone colour. Use plenty of flow, more than you would normally use with the Boehm. Now, while blowing, deflect your jet downward by pushing your top lip out or pulling your lower lip back. You can imagine you are aiming for further down the chimney of the flute. You should hear the tone harden a little. Push it further and further down, until you are aiming at the centre of the flute, or trying to blow a piece of rice off your chin. The tone should harden more and more until it finally extinguishes (the jet is now too far offset from the edge to produce a sustainable oscillation). You’ve gone too far, so back up a little.

Now practice alternating between the soft and hard sounds by adjusting the lip angle, until you can produce either at will. Then take it down to the low D and up into the upper octave. Using that approach, you should be able to get a hard-edged, reedy low D and even a considerably more prominent low E than the soft-toned approach will give.

Let us know if that helps.

Terry

4

all of the above true, imho.

try experimenting with the angle of the headjoint]/ebouchure, relative to the rest of the flute.

some players find success in moving the bottom lip further over the hole, and focusing the breathstream more.

many ways to skin the cat - experiment!

cheers,
dave

5

Great explanation, Terry, but would you be surprised to know that a “reedy” sound can also quite easily be produced on the Boehm flute, by the same means as you have just described? That is, the Boehm flute really is quite flexible in that regard, please, and I’m tempted to think that many people have the impression that a Boehm flute could be less than so flexible, largely because much of its traditional uses simply don’t call for such a “reedy” sound, or at least not to the more consistent extent as that of ITM flutes, apparently.

6

True, but nothing beats a wooden flute. A year or two ago I took a class with Joanie Madden and at the end one day she played one of the students flutes to tell him what she thought of it. Now her tone on boehm flute is great but when she played the wooden flute it sounded more like a pipe chanter than a flute, almost to the point of being too woody. I would imagine that would have to be the flute, right?

7

Bob,

To answer one of your questions: I’ve owned a couple of Copley flutes, and played several more. They were all excellent - Dave makes top quality flutes - and everyone was capable of a strong reedy tone, as is your flute, I’m sure.

As Terry mentioned, try moving your lower lip closer more in the direction of the embouchure hole, and re-direct your airstream more downward than you normallly do.

Hope that helps.

Loren

8

The arguments go on and on.

For instance, which flute design plays better, cylinder head with conical body, or conical head with cylinder body? And, what flute material works best?

Frankly, my reasons for liking one flute design over another comes down to just what I am going to use it for on that particular occasion, and having about nothing to do with either of the above two questions.

Please, see the recent thread posted by Cathy Wilde about “Nice tunes on the Forbes site!”, with Kevin Crawford playing a few clips, while playing one of Rob Forbes’ flutes, and note the responses on that thread. Now, it so happens that the flute KC is playing has a cylinder head with conical body, which is typical of a wood ITM flute, but it also has a rounded rectangular embouchure, more like a Boehm flute, and it’s also made of a hard plastic known as Delrin, not wood and not silver. Again, please, see what the other posters had to say about what they heard, and then judge for yourself.

As I began saying, the arguments go on and on.

9

First of all, thanks to all on this forum. You have made me feel very welcome to this wonderful little world of the wooden flute in the short time since I joined.

Terry wrote:

It may be that, coming from the Boehm background, you are accustomed to blowing across the embouchure hole, rather than more down into it, which increases the harmonic content.

It’s interesting to note that when I first got the Copley, I would switch between playing it and my silver Muramatsu and was surprised that I could play both with essentially the same embouchure. I had anticipated having more difficulty with the wooden flute embouchure. The more I played the wooden flute, the more difficult it became to instantly adapt back and forth, and I began to notice that there were indeed differences in the direction of my air stream.

As I tried to get a more reedy tone, I did try directing my air stream more downward, but in order to do that, I seemed to be making a more pushed out, “kissing like” shape with my lips. This felt radically different and unnatural. My typical embouchure on the Boehm flute is more of a very thin elongated oval with a bit of downward tension at the corners of my mouth. With this shape it is not easy for me to “try and blow a piece of rice off my chin” (actually off my white beard, like yours, but much shorter). :slight_smile: Is the shape of the embouchure for the Irish flute more round, or can I essentially maintain the same shape as I use for the Boehm flute but get it directed more downward?

I generally feel for the edge of the flute embouchure hole and align it with the “edge or line” of my bottom lip. I have read here where some folks say they cover more of the hole with their bottom lip for the Irish flute. Is that generally true as well?

I will certainly work on what you have suggested and report back on how it goes. Thanks so much for the detailed information.

Loren wrote:

To answer one of your questions: I’ve owned a couple of Copley flutes, and played several more. They were all excellent - Dave makes top quality flutes - and everyone was capable of a strong reedy tone, as is your flute, I’m sure.

Thanks, Loren, to be sure, this is a beautifully made flute. Since it is the only one I have ever had the opportunity to play, I was curious as to whether some flutes are designed in a way as to make them sound more reedy than others. I was assuming that obtaining this tone is more about me than the flute, but it is nice to hear that you’ve gotten that nice reedy tone with the Copley.

10

:smiley: http://youtube.com/watch?v=NcXRzZZv1mE :wink:

11

Thank you, Denny, that was wonderful! Sir James is just delightful and hearing all of those flute headjoints being played together made me break out in a huge grin. :smiley: Aren’t flutes great!

12

ya! I do like flutes…
(I’m on a PC what can’t play the youtube things right now…I just remembered the Master Class vids and thought that how much of the hole is covered and the blowing angle together with your “typical”. Boehm players are quite a bit more varied in the techniques they use the Irish Trad group. :smiley:

13

Here you mention that when you first played the wood flute, your experience was that the embouchures, relative to the Boehm flute, were essentially the same, but that with some practice you began to see some differences. Fine, that makes sense. Yet, then you ask whether you could use essentially the same embouchure for both flutes. Well, although you have already noted that their are differences to the embouchures, and even though I just said that it makes sense that you would see some differences, the short answer to your question is yes, you indeed can use essentially the same embouchure for both flutes, with the understanding that we both agree that there indeed are some slight differences. However, about blowing rice from your chin, you indeed should be able to do just that no matter which embouchure you are using.

14

now that I’ve gotten the other PC for a minute…

Wrong lesson…try this one!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VQg0vScnQ8E&feature=related

15

Gee, it almost sounds like he could know what he’s doing. :smiley:

Seriously, however, it sure sounds like him, even on just the head joint!

16

Wow, Denny, I’m sitting here a little stunned at the moment after watching that second video. The amount of the embouchure hole that Sir James is covering with his bottom lip is astonishing to me. That is a complete departure from the way I line up the flute! The close-up shot where he shows the line imprinted on the lip plate from his usage is nearly in the center of the embouchure hole. That is freaking amazing to me… :boggle: Now I’m really amped up to do some experimenting!

Then again, I have a niece who won several competition titles in Indiana, and she would actually turn the headjoint significantly outward and then roll it back on her lower lip. Completely unorthodox. Of course, she did this at the great dismay of her teachers, but they couldn’t fault her playing, plus she has a nice little stubborn streak in her to boot. Anyway, I guess it illustrates that there is more that one path to the center so to speak.

17

This has little to do with getting that reedy tone, at least not directly, and although in that clip Mr.Galway jokes about where his lower lip goes, just as revealing is his laugh about where he spits, and please note that he does not spit straight across the flute, but slightly toward the foot. In short, he’s not wasting power.

18

yep…did I forget to mention that?

nope…it was about

:smiley:

19

Actually, Denny, I was only apologizing for my going off topic, nothing on you, please.

20

Cork wrote:

This has little to do with getting that reedy tone, at least not directly, and although in that clip Mr.Galway jokes about where his lower lip goes, just as revealing is his laugh about where he spits, and please note that he does not spit straight across the flute, but slightly toward the foot. In short, he’s not wasting power.

I’m a bit confused about what Sir James means when he differentiates between where his air stream is directed and where he spits. Aren’t they the same? And, how does directing his “spit” toward the foot save power?