I’ve been a whistle player for several years now and have just started on the flute. I seem to have found the sweet spot and can get a really solid first octave. I’m not doing so well on the second octave. I can’t seem to hit the notes right. Something in the way I’m blowing I suspect. Any advice? I’m starting on a tune that I’m very familiar with on the whistle namely Planxty Irwin. I figured a nice slow tune would be good for starters. Thanks for any help anyone may have to offer.
Hampster 
Dear Hampster,
It took me about 6-months to be able to play to the 2nd C (even then it was thin and rather shrill). Some flutes are harder to play high than others.
What is your flute?
Keep at it and improvement will come!
All the Best!
It’s a Tipple 8 hole PVC in D. Right now I’m going to try to simply get the scale down on both octaves.
Seeing as how you are just beginning the transverse flute (and my personal congradulations to you on your choice), and that although you apparently have a good grip on the bottom register, the second register seems to be giving you some temporary trouble. OK, so, just for the fun of it, try doing nothing but the second register. Forget about the first (bottom) register for the moment, and just focus on the second register. Try to get as good a grip on that as you seem to have on the first register. Go for it!
After that comes the matter of shifting between the registers, but let’s not get too far ahead, at this time. Frankly, it sounds as though you are making good progress, right now.
For the second octave the air stream needs to be more focused with a slightly faster air steam. Tighten up those lips.
It takes time and persistance. Right now you may feel stalled and frustrated, but when you get the feel of it your progress will suddenly fly. I think for everyone learning an instrument has this pulsatory trajectory of starts and stops that continues for…well forever. Well, I guess at least as long as you keep asking more of yourself.
Clark
I’m a little over a month ahead of you. At this point, most days I can get into the beginning of the third octave most of the time now. Every couple days I seem to lose my point of reference and can’t seem to hit the second octave reliably, but a little practice gets it back.
Honestly, the best advice I’ve gotten so far is long tones. For getting the second octave well, I try A and G on the second octave. The secret is to play them as softly as possible. This works your embouchure and keeps you from just blowing with more pressure.
I think it will be a couple months still before I’m happy with the degree sharp or flat I’m playing each note, but it’s a journey.
The second octave is about shaping your mouth differently and NOT just blowing harder like with the whistle.
Not say this is how it is done, but try this: Try blowing a nice easy note like G. As you blow it jut out your lower jaw. As the sound starts to leave you, tighten your lips so the air is coming out of a smaller hole faster and aiming higher across the hole than the lower note. You should hear the note go up to the next octave.
Try it in reverse, too. Try to get a nice upper G and then see if you can drop it down keeping the same amount of air, but a bigger opening in your lips and pull your chin in toward you so you are aiming the stream lower toward the inside of the hole.
Try going back and forth, upper to lower and back. Try to keep the higher ones at about the same loudness and using the same amount of air. The point is to learn that it’s not about blowing harder but about aiming the airstream and changing the opening of your mouth.
And don’t feel bad if some days you can’t do it. Other days you’ll feel invincible about it.
Amen. You got that right!
My teacher told me to bring down my head a bit when playing the second octave. It’s a bit hard to explain, but think of it as looking low when playing high, and looking high when playing low, or “nodding”. It changes the angle of the embouchure hole to the lips and sweetens (and eases) the second octave, at least for me…
Thanks to everyone for the great tips. I’ll start implementing these techniques right away and see what happens. I’ll probably be back for more advice later.
My teacher gave me two exercises and a tune when I was having trouble with the second octave. I’d been noodling on the flute for close to a year.
The first exercise was overtones: blow a bottom-octave D, then, just by reshaping your mouth and increasing the breath pressure (preferably not the amount of air flowing), turn it into a second-octave D. Continue doing that till you get the second-octave A (the second overtone), and third-octave D, and possibly the third-octave F# (I think). It’ll take awhile before you can get four or five notes.
Second exercise was short notes. Pick an easy note like the bottom octave G and blow short puffs of air till you get the attack on the note that you want. Once you have the G good, go to other notes. You might want to combine this with long tones, in which you blow a single note for an entire breath, shaping your lips and rolling the flute till you get the sound you want.
The tune he gave me was entirely in the bottom octave. Even though you need to work on the upper octave, it’s easier to develop your musicality, phrasing, whatever, when you’re playing notes that are easier for you.
Best of luck – as frustrating as it is, it’s a wild and fun ride.
Let me add another plug for the Fliuit Tutor book. I’ve been working my way through, learning a couple of tunes a week. The earlier tunes seem to keep the notes below the high G. They are fun to play and sound harder to play than they really are. It’s a great confidence-booster playing tunes out of this book. I’m a newbie myself.
Doesn’t answer your question, but sometimes learning just needs to be fun and confidence-inducing and not all struggle.
Here’s an easy way to distinguish between octaves: Lower octave is more of an exhale than a blow. Hold your hand in front of you and exhale: the air is warm and moist. Now blow: the air is cool and dry. Most people have trouble in the lower octave because they tend to overblow, but if you concentrate on the distinction I have outlined, you may find it easier to control which octave you’re playing.
I’m trying this and it seems to be working. Still a little trouble on the last four notes or so on the second octave. I’ll keep working on it. Thanks! 
One of the wisest things I remember Jack Coen ( http://www.firescribble.net/flute/coen.html ) saying, back in my own early days of flute playing 15 or so years ago when I took class with him at Augusta, was that you play the flute in exactly the opposite way from how you play the whistle. On the whistle, you blow harder in the second octave than you do in the lower octave. On the flute, you blow harder in the lower octave and softer in the second octave. Jack was never one to explain things in depth, but after many years of playing myself I know what he meant and he was exactly right about that. You do indeed need to blow harder in the lower octave, but the trick is to focus your airstream so it gives the hard low note, rather than simply overblowing as many players do, which by the time they get down to the low D ends up popping them up an octave to the second D instead. (Even the best players, such as Matt Molloy, pop up a lot of their low Ds, but the difference is that they do it knowingly and on purpose, not just because they don’t know how to blow hard and still produce a low D.) And on the second octave, you do indeed blow softer, in that you move a smaller amount of air per second than you do in the lower octave. But you don’t do that by just slacking off on your blowing, because if you do it that way you end up either not hitting the note at all, or playing flat. And if you simply overblow to get the second octave as you would on the whistle, you end up playing sharp in the second octave and your tone will be very harsh. What you need to do is move less air than in the lower octave, but with the airstream supported by just as much if not more back pressure. This requires a great deal of embouchure focus. Shifting from lower octave to higher octave and back quickly, as is required for a lot of tunes, exacerbates the need for pinpoint control of the embouchure muscles. This is not a skill that can be learned quickly. The overtone exercise that chas mentioned up-thread is a great one to use for this purpose. Keep at it, and eventually it will click for you.
The embouchure gets tighter the higher you go, so practice and experience will see you through. Glad the suggestion helped!
It’s worth noting that muscle tone makes a big difference to how tight your embouchure can go, and with how much (or little) effort and wind.
If you keep trying, paying attention as you do not to your technique but to the tone you’re producing* you’ll soon get it and never have to think about it again.
*By this I mean being using ‘active listening’ to stay aware of when you sound good and when you don’t. Don’t think analytically (ie, “it’s too breathy, I need to tighten my lips,” etc.) but rather let muscle memory to handle decision-making at that level. If you notice when it sounds good, your fingers, diaphragm, and lips will work out the how-to on their own without conscious help from you.
Try this…
It actually got me get a decent tone on both octaves within 3 weeks, with no real problem switching back and forth between octaves (I have a wonderful Phil Bleazey black wood flute).
Hope this helps.
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Damn, what a great video. I’m gonna have to watch more of those.
Very good to see that recording of James Galway, thank you! Although his career has not been ITM centered, he is a great player.
He also wrote an interesting, flute oriented book, a worthwhile read.