I’m finding that I can’t just pull out my flute and immediately play my best. Do any of you have any warmup routines or hints that help you get good tone and breath control?
Also, in terms of moving my fingers, I’m wondering if actual body temperature is a factor. In a room that’s below 60 degrees F. (as my house often is), my hands don’t seem to want to move very gracefully or quickly. Does anyone else find that poor circulation to their hands is a factor in playing? I’m considering fingerless gloves.
Well, yes. Mornings especially. It warms up during the day some. But when I have the time to play I hate to have to go to the woodpile and spend all that time starting a fire. I’d rather just play.
Soon the snow will be all melted and it won’t be such an issue. But I still get stiff, cold fingers outdoors, even in summer.
Try to blow very long tones to get your embouchure and breath control going. Pick notes both in the first and second octave and make random jumps over quite big intervalls.
Fingers do tend to move very slowly if they are cold. I had a gig at an outdoor stage just a few days ago, it couldn’t have been much more that 50F outside cause it was late in the evening. Ornamentation was really hard to do well the first couple of tunes but it got going as my fingers warmed up, the stage was pretty hot as usual luckily.
It’s really bad when you have to play on a metal Boehm piccolo in marching band in a cold drizzle for a few hours. I’ve found that it helps me, especially when my fingers are really cold, to stretch them. It sounds stupid, but I think that it works. Also, I find that if you put lots of air into the flute (not necessarily playing loud, just filling it up really well) warms it up faster.
Which is why I played tuba instead of clarinet when I had to be in a marching band. With a loose, stretchy knit, you can play tuba with mittens on!
I think most of the warming up process is more necessary for me than for my instrument at this point. Though the condensation in the flute seems to build up less when it’s warm.
Henke, the long tones and the octave jumps were both recommended to me by a classical flutist. And I do like etudes, so I’ll try to incorporate both of those exercises into a warmup routine.
Probably more women players are troubled by cold hands than men. Am I right?
I have terrible trouble with cold hands. It’s my last residual symptom of nervousness… Even if I FEEL fine when performing, my hands will suddenly get cold and stuff minutes before the performance and there’s not much I can do other than wait for it to go away.
No, I don’t have a problem pulling out the flute and playing. In fact sometimes the flute sounds the best when I first pull it out. It’s always exciting to take out the flute and see what it will sound like.
No, I won’t tell you to move!
Most folks don’t like our heat & humidity, but I am odd, b/c I do!
I am sure this is a no-brainer, so I hesitate to even bring it up, but just run your hands under hot water right before you play. Let them get all nice and limber. I think that would really help.
Scales are helpful, simple things, fundamentals,
and probably should be part of every practice
session, anyway. Arpeggios. Also methodically practicing rolls and crans,
up and down the octaves. Practicing slides too.
I play a lot in cold weather–the problem isn’t you
but cold. I’ve used fingerless gloves with whistle,
but it’s harder with flute because the flute slides
on the wool. Maybe leather would work better.
But I think scales, rolls, crans, slides, a few minutes
at the beginning would help.
Thanks Jim, thanks Mary. Now that school’s out, I’m finding some practice time, which is also helping a lot! And I have started by warming my hands some on a hot water bottle or a hot mug of tea. Maybe I should just go for a run first and get the blood pumping! Or go chop a huge supply of kindling just for those rainy day or early morning practice times.
I hadn’t thought about the slippage issue with fingerless gloves. Hmmm, maybe it’s time to knit a set of those Goth-looking wrist warmers, the ones with a thong at the thumb. I’ll let you know if I develop a pattern that works.
Just took out a book of classical flute etudes, and I think I’ll use some of those for warmup too. But I think you’re right, Jim, though the exercises will help it’s a physical thing with the cold. And when I’m cold I tense up, which helps nothing.
On the topic of fingerless gloves …
I have a pair that I doctored in order to play my fife in those chilly late fall/early spring parades. The slippage-on-wool issue only rears its ugly head at the first joint of the left index finger (if you hold your flute/fife that way, as I do). I got around it by cutting another hole in the glove.
I doctored a photo I googled to show you (The black is where I cut a hole):
The handeze gloves are good; often recommended for people with repetitive strain injuries.
Speaking of which, playing with cold hands might set you up for injury…you’re trying to make your fingers do a lot of work in a situation in which they’re somewhat starved of blood. Doing exercises to warm yourself up is a good idea, even just swinging your arms around for a while to get the blood flowing into your hands, or taking a hot shower, is a good idea.
Also, as others have mentioned above, you’ll find that the flute itself will change in subtle (or not so subtle) ways after it’s warmed up…my flute sounds quite different after 20 minutes of playing than it does when I first pull it out of the case.
I use bicycling gloves. They are designed to grip so slippage isn’t a problem, though they are not the warmest. A harp player I know found a pair of wool blend gloves with the fingers cut off plus a mitten like cap for traveling to the venue.
Warming up the whistle with body heat before playing also makes for a different experience. At a minimum some kind of light stretching is a good idea before playing in cold (cold being relative). Rolling and squeezing a tennis ball is an inexpensive option, though these days are any number of hand exercisers.
I’m wary of hand exercises, beyond really careful, slow stretching or basic strengthening. A musician friend of mine told me (this is where the memory of details would come in handy) that one of the gifted composers–Strauss? Schumann?–ruined his hands doing exercises.
But the gloves, yes. I have some qiviut (musk ox) wool that is really warm and light. That would be fun.
Looks like it’s not mostly women who are concerned about cold hands. Guess that must be feet. Way off topic, definitely.
It was Schumann, and he didn’t wreck his hands doing excersizes, he wrecked them by using contraptions to stretch (contort) his hands unnaturally. You see, he was a pianist, but his hands were too small, so he tried increase his hand spread using mechanical stretchers. This essentially destroyed his hands.
