Good morrow all! I was wondering if i could get some advice from all you good flute players out there. i’m self taught, been playing for a year an change, rockin a keyless casey burns now.its amazing, needless to say. I consider myself a good player, im pretty committed to it, but when i listen to professionals (if you want to call them that) play songs, im always impressed by the seeming ease and cleanness of sound they play the upper register. Ive come a long way on the upper register, but i still feel like theres alot i can improve on. what techniques do you guys use when playing the upper register to make it sound clean like the lower? i usually have to push alot more air out to make the sound and results in a much louder sound. it also is quite challenging as i get up to A and B., and so on. I’d appreciate all the help i can get, thanks a bunch.
Be Well,
Evan
Evan,
A tight, focused embouchure helps. Push the lips forward. Work at playing long notes softly and clearly in the upper (2nd) register. Then work at playing octaves, up and down, cleanly without tongueing.
Everyone starts by simply overblowing to get the second register, especially if coming from whistle where there’s little choice. There are prettier ways on flute.
Once you have the upper register under control, and can play loud or soft as you wish, I think the fast passages and tight ornaments will come much more easily.
A teacher, even an orchestral Boehm flute teacher, can help with this.
– Don
There’s an UPPER REGISTER??? WOW!!!
Thanks for adding some perspective on this subject.
Its a funny thing but when I am playing a tune and have to go into the scound octive its no problem. When I have to start in the secound octive thats a whole other ball game. I practice playing as quitely as I can and no doubt it helps but one thing that doesn`t help is moving my lips. When I am getting a good secound octive note it seems as though my breath is coming from deaper in my throat or I am opening my throat more. I wish I knew. Sure hope there are more suggestions to come.
Take care
Tom
Yes, also this does improve with time–you’re still closer to the
beginning than to the end.
One helpful exercise, IMO, is to play a low D then a second octave D.
A low E then a second octave E, and so on. It’s fine to tongue
or glottal the second note; also you can practice just blowing
your way up there.
Something else helpful is to play a higher pitched flute,
like a G, an A, a high Bb, etc. This really improves
your embouchure, which is what gets you control
in the second octave. The Sweetheart flutes are
very good and not very expensive.
In addition to the helpful exercises already suggested, try overtones. Play a low D, then, without blowing any more volume of air and without lifting any fingers, a second octave D, then, same thing to get an A, third octave D, and possibly the third octave F#. The A and F# are more difficult on some flutes, but you should be able to play all of them eventually. First concentrate on being able to play them all, then on playing them all clearly.
I begin most of my practice sessions with this and two-octave scales in D and G.
I’ll second the overtone exersize. Once you get the 3rd and 4th overtones working the 2nd starts to be pretty easy.
also, try to get your harmonics in tune (overtone, to me at least, would more refer to the overtones in the tone, which may or may not be harmonic). now, this may be a radical idea in irish music… to use a tuner at all 
. i say this because if you can get your harmonics in tune, not only will your second register be in tune, but it will be made with proper embouchure. that is to say it is easier to tune your second octave with bad sound than it is to tune your harmonics with bad tone and embouchure.
the simple system flute is limited, so you would have to try to tune your a (that is, try and get a second octave a to sound while fingering a lower octave D) and your b (while fingering E). the exercises the other members mentioned should be done hand in hand.
make sure that your upper lip is loose and that your jaw is not too far forward. if it is too far forward, your b and your a will be out of tune, and if you try to get them in tune like that, the tone will suffer.
OK Im going to try all those but, instead of going to bed when I should have tonight I discovered a hole new excercise. Just start playing "Some Where Over the Rainbow", start it on G. Play it over and over again until your ears start to bleed, then stop. Repeat daily until your ears stop bleeding and you will have comand up to, oh I dont know, a maybe. 
Now I am going to bed.
Take care
Tom
Our current problem is keeping notes in tune through a scale. Using a tuner ( 
) things go pretty well up to about A or B and then things go REALLY sharp. It is frustrating the heck out of my wife since the whistle I play stays right in tune and we want to do duets together. I thought maybe it was her but got the same results - on THREE different flutes (Bleazey, Jon C and Burns).
Help!
Where`s the cork?
Tom
In the flute? I don’t know, really. It is just odd that all three of them do the same thing. The Bleazey is ours (back from a possible sale where the cork was moved, but reset). The other two are on loan from Doc. We hope to visit with him today or tomorrow to try some things.
In the meantime, please expound.
I am currently working on Shakuhachi as well as flute. Getting the Kan (second) register is much harder on the Shak. Recently, I suddenly found I was getting all the Kan notes cleanly with ease, no harder blowing. It didn’t last for long, it comes and goes. What was happening is that my emboucher was smaller and tighter, so the air was coming out faster without me blowing harder. When I went back to the flute, I found the same thing, only it was easier to get. I think it is just a matter of keeping practising so your mouth muscles get stronger and more controlled.
Yes, Somewhere over the rainbow should help. For me, the second part of “Danny Boy” is a good workout in the second octave, plus the harmonics exercise everyone has mentioned already.
a and b (second register) is where it starts to go sharp on any flute. combine that with the fact that those notes are tuned differently on simple system to get the cross fingered c natural and you have a lot of problems.
there are four things that i can think of that can make those notes sharp, not having enough air in her cheeks, ditto for the upper lip, having the bottom jaw too far out, and having her throat too tight (i.e. not open enough).
to work on those 3 problems, she needs to work on those 2 notes with harmonics. when she sits up and plays a and b til the cows home to work on her tuning, have her work on those notes instead with D fingering for a and E fingering for b. the amazing thing about the flute is that if she can get the tone and the tuning perfect on the harmonics for those two notes, the normal notes will be in tune and in tone as well. the harmonic actually will refuse to let you do anything but proper embouchure. once she gets a and b with the harmonic fingering in tune and in tone, then she can use the SAME EXACT EMBOUCHURE on the normal fingerings. if she’s feeling daring, see if she can switch between the regular fingering and the harmonic one for those two notes until she can get it without even a blip.
glad you found something that worked! just keep attacking those notes and bleeding those ears and you’ll get it eventually.
Wish it WAS the second register, probably wouldn’t be worried as we rarely play up there. It is actually the FIRST register that is causing the difficulties.
To say some things that probably have already occured to you,
tuners and flutes are often oil and water. That is, flutes
are often out of tune according to tuners, especially as
you ascend the scale, even when they’re in tune in fact.
So, of course what matters is whether the whistle and
the flute sound dissonant.
Also you probably know that turning the headjoint in lowers
the pitch and might make the A and B flatter. This can
be done by simply twisting the headjoint or by rolling the
flute in when you reach the notes. Blowing down and into
the hole lowers pitch, blowing out and across lifts pitch,
so your wife might simply practice blowing down and in.
Generally it’s possible to learn to blow sharp notes flat,
you search for the note by focusing your embouchure.
It only SEEMS impossible. Also this is a good way to
develop embouchure. Aint’ nothing like a flute that’s
unplayable unless you improve.
If I may return to my earlier suggestions (having profitted a good
deal from other posts on this thread), it’s much harder
to play a higher flute than a lower one, generally. It requires
a more focused embouchure. A G flute is really nice because
it sounds good and you can play in G, C, and D–so it’s
pretty useful. These are worth having for their own sake,
in fact, not just for the exercise.
oh, i’m sorry that i misunderstood! jim’s suggestions seem to be a better fit.
i have found this to be true with piccolos, but not flutes. however, i will agree with you in that tuners are fallible. i dont rely heavily on a tuner. only every couple of months do i take it out for a day or two to check my playing. i believe in it more as a tool to learn from, not a tool to live by.
Somewhere around here lately I was reading about adjusting the cork in the head of the flute if your are chronically out of tune in the upper register. I wish I could remember where it was.
I’ve been playing flute for almost 10 years. In the past two, my pitch in the upper register was horrible. I kept trying to blame it on the wife’s fiddle but she kept pointing back at me. Anyway. . . long story short, adjusted the cork earlier this evening. Wow!! What a huge difference. It must have slipped just slightly out of place during travel or when it was dropped or something like that. Whoever posted it, whereever it is, you probably saved my marriage.
Thanks,
Mark
not that this is the one…
the thread
Thanks Denny, I knew it was somewhere.
Mark