LFP 007 | Tips for Great Tone

Hey fellow flute friends, it’s me Rebecca here on the Learn Flute Podcast for episode 7.

Intro

Well Hi, and welcome again back here for episode 7 of the Learn Flute Podcast. I’m excited to help you along with another quick tip for better learning how to play the flute, and I’m  sure you’re just as thrilled because this is going a brief discussion that will help you while learning how to get better tone on the flute.

Now, I’m always happy to teach you something. In fact, teaching people how to get more enjoyment from playing their flute is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world to do. I’ve been teaching since I was pretty young, and it’s always been something I felt ‘called’ to do (If I can put it that way).

So, today I wanted to discuss with you one of the many pieces and parts of the recipe for good tone.

I use this word ‘tone’ a lot and if you’re not quite sure what I mean, let me give you a quick, but  easy to understand definition.

So, the word “tone” is used to describe what we sound like. For example right now I’m using a wispy, feathery tone, and now I’m using a nasally tone. haha, Basically we flute players need to pay the most attention to our tone – because it’s ultimately what we and others listening ‘hear’.

Now, there are several parts to our tone, and once we spend enough time getting to know what we are listening for we can see some improvement.

So, the first part I want to point out is ‘strength’ of our tone.

Many people feel that in order to get a really clear sound out of a flute they have to make a teeny tiny little hole in their mouth and then blow really softly as well. I’m here to tell you that this is not true, in fact that will affect the quality, size, and pitch of your tone – which are also other parts of our sound.

You’d be surprised at how strongly you can blow and still keep the integrity of the note. Now by integrity I mean by keeping the note where it should be – like if it’s a low A, you need to keep it in the lower octave. 

By blowing harder, you may find that it’s more difficult for you to keep the right octave.. you might accidentally blow so hard that the note pops up to an octave you weren’t expecting or even you may get an awesome squeak – which is usually an unrecognizable note.

So, the strength of our tone is important because it affects quality, pitch, and size of your tone.

Now remember we are going to keep it simple today and just stay with one subject, so now let’s keep going with that visualization of the word ‘strength’ in tone and see if you can close your eyes and visualize an air stream. In my mind it looks like a long, round ribbon or rope. 

But, I don’t like to think of the word rope because the ropes we use here on our little farm are dry and fringy. They cause blisters and I don’t want to associate the word with my musical ‘tone’. But, if I could take a silky ribbon and shape it like a rope where it’s thick and slick, I might enjoy imagining what it would ‘sound’ like even more.

Do this for me now, blow a medium sized quarter note. Like this: twhooooooo

You may just be hearing one thing, but when I listen to that note I hear three distinctly different parts.

The first, is the entrance into the note – in this case it’s the tongue. when we go from silence into the note by using our tongue to release the airstream that’s come shooting out of our mouth. Now, if you have questions on tonguing and the different styles or ideas, or which way is best – that’s something I teach in the lesson modules over at Learn Flute Online dot com.  So, you can go over there and get yourself some lessons where I go waaaay into depth with that.

After the entrance, or tongue, I hear and feel the substance of the note – like the body of it. I feel and hear the shape and size, as well as the texture of it… like when I was mentioning that I’d rather hear a silky smooth rather rope than a fringy dry one.

Now, after the body of the note, I hear how it ends. Yes- this is a part of tone that many and most people forget about. They are so focused on the next upcoming note that they forget all about the fact that ending a note in a certain manner is just as important as the start the note itself .

And again, these are things that I take you way into depth with over in the lesson modules online. But, I think that just having this quick discussion here today can put your focus and attention on the fact that there are indeed three different parts to each note which all combined with a few other things create our tone when we play.

I hope you enjoy visualizing what each of your notes ‘look’ like as you practice. Keep it slow, steady, and exactly while you listen.

If you have a question or comment about today’s episode, you can leave it in the appropriate place over at the Learn Flute online dot com website in the Podcast section on the Bonus Content page or by typing this address in your browser bar: LearnFluteOnline.com/007. That’s because this is episode 7. And, I’m excited for you to learn even more!

If you haven’t thought about it yet or just didn’t know, I have a nice Learn Flute Online facebook page. You’d probably love to check it out since I put even more extra content there including some videos, flute funnies, and roll-call pages once a month when you can all check in with me. I personally am the one answering and commenting there. So, come check it out. Don’t forget to click ‘like’ so it has a better chance of making it into your newsfeed for the day.

Love you all and your efforts – see you next time!