Questions from beginner flute players

Hi Jen, its me again! Thanks for the answer! I think I was ahead of myself by asking that question (of how to tune a flute)... gosh.
Ive only had 2 lessons and none now, and sort of teaching myself for awhile while settling into my new place. I'm actually struggling to produce a tone with the headjoint alone, especially the covered-lower tone. I'd find it and loose it almost instantly!
This got me wondering... do all students/beginners find it hard to produce a tone ? If so, usually how many lessons/weeks/months does it take for them to produce and sustain a tone (with practice, of course) ? Or, do they actually get to do it pretty quickly (first lesson) ?
For now I'll be just blowing into the headjoint and hopefully start to develop a sustainable and consistent tone...
I hope I'm not alone !
Thanks! J.

Dear J.

Are you kidding? ((:>)
Have you ever tried to sustain a plain, simple, but nice-sounding tone on any other instrument? Trumpet? Violin? Cello? Tuba???
For that matter, have you ever put on a baseball mitt and learned to consistently catch a baseball?
Hand-eye co-ordination takes time and practise.
And then there's arm-hand-flute-face co-ordination.
hahahhhahahaha!
Cheer up, dude. :>)
Give yourself three weeks minimum of ten minutes or more a day of headjoint only.......then see how you go...

As an adult your ears are FAR ahead of your ear-mouth co-ordination.
Be patient, and stay encouraged by even the most minute improvements.
Optimism is everything. :>)
Best,
Jen

Another commenter wrote:

I've just started last week to learn flute.
My memory is the worst!...is there any easier way to possibly learn the flute fingering? it really takes me FOREVER to learn just ONE note to memory.
HELP!.......

Dear "Help!"
A week isn't very long at all when it comes to learning a new skill. Think how long it took you to memorize the alphabet when you were a child. Didn't it take more than a week? Fingerings are the same. Take one at a time, learn it really well.
Then add the new fingering to the one you learned most recently, and go back and forth between those two notes (B and A for example.) Play little tunes with two notes or three notes ( The beginner book: Abracadabra Flute by Pollock with CD is a fun way to do this.)
And I might add, definitely sign up for some flute lessons. Good flute teachers know how to make this kind of thing easy for beginners; get lessons for sure.
That's what lessons are for, to make things EASIER for you.
Best, Jen

How to tune a flute

Dear Jen,
I love watching and learning from your flute videos and I want to thank you for taking time to actually make them. Your passion for the flute is very inspiring.
I just started learning the flute but I had to move after two lessons for my college studies. I was hoping if you could teach me (us) how to actually TUNE a flute ? Once again, thank you! J.

Dear J.,
That's a good beginner question.
You'll find the basic beginner instructions for flute tuning are in this pdf article.

A list for beginners who need to break down the basic steps of tuning a flute is below.

How to Tune a Flute

1. Check that the headjoint cork is in the right place using the cleaning rod's tick mark, lining it up with the center of the embouchure hole. If unsure about this practise, read about headjoint corks here.

2. Set up your headjoint-body relationship:
Pull out your headjoint 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch (the amount of headjoint draw will change millimeter by millimeter, especially as your tone quality and centeredness of tone develops. So stay flexible and experimental about the amount at first).

3. Next: Take the daily practise time you need in order to develop your tone. In general:
Obtain your best possible tone quality over at least a month of focussed daily tone exercises(or a decade, why be stingy? hahhaa). You cannot skip this "finding a good tone" step.
Tone is part and parcel of the tuning process.
For example, flabby breathing, warbley flutey warbles, unsure embouchure (or a too tight embouchure) and/or possible whispy haunted house flute noises can not be played IN TUNE.

4. After a centered tone (a pure, singing sound) is established in at least the low and middle octaves, start working with a tuning drone during your practise, just like you work with a metronome. Simply work at all your flute pieces and studies, and longtones/scales etc. while matching tones with a drone or a generated in-tune pitch. If you are serious about doing this the fastest way possible, order a $22 copy of "The Tuning CD". It's the best ear-development/tone development flute tool you can have. See: www.thetuningcd.com
Alternately, you can buy one of those $25 flat credit-card sized electronic tuners that sounds the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, and is calibrated for A440 etc. Get one that is also a metronome and tuner all in one. They're very useful.

Also: Get your private flute teacher to help you spot-check your tone, dynamic range, breath support etc. Don't try and work in a vaccuum. Lessons each week get your ears and body skills all assembled for use.
And playing duets with the teacher are even MORE valuable for understanding tone and tuning and how they relate.

5. Caveat for intermediate flute students:
As you experiment with matching pitches you will learn to draw the headjoint out or push it in depending on the ambient temperature of the room (cold rooms make flutes go flat when they cool down; hot rooms make flutes go sharp etc.)
You will also find that as your playing style matures, you will eventually find one headjoint draw that seems to work 95% of the time, and can mark it with ink on the flute.

In general, all these stages of flute tuning and flute tone develop go much much MUCH easier if done with a teacher.

And, of course, it's an endless topic.
This "learning to play in tune" stage of flute playing actually lasts for the rest of your flutey days.
And, yes, there is no such thing as a flute that plays in tune just by blowing and pushing down keys. And just to make the study of "playing in tune" so vast we mere mortals cannot comprehend, every musical pitch is actually modified depending on its musical context.

In fact every thing I know (and I still know nothing---as my father used to say....) about tuning a flute is written in my website's vast tuning articles page.

Have at 'er. (as the west coast pirates say.)

Hope this helps. Happy summer holidays.

Best, Jen :>)

headjoint cork affects tone & tuning

Dear Fluters,

This question appeared in my inbox today. I thought I'd answer it for all the students out there who may ask the same question in the future. Best, Jen

Question: I moved the top cork thing from the top of my flute and i was wondering if moving it would change the sound of my flute?

Dear flute student,

Ah yes; the mystery of the flute's headjoint cork and what it does.
That cork, with the silver discs on either end, hidden inside the tip of the headjoint, is what sets the flute's tuning.
It's supposed to be set at 17.3 mm from the center of the embouchure hole, but more importantly, here's the information you need, first and foremost:

If the cork in your flute's headjoint moves easily when you try and move it, then it's definitely time to take it to a reputable fluterepair shop and have a minimum of $10 worth of repair. Why?
a) Flute headjoint corks shrink over time, from so often being wet and then dry. They have to be adjusted and checked each year when your flute goes in for its regular servicing, so that the cork has an air-tight fit. Any cork that moves easily has already shrunk and is not doing its proper job of making an air-tight seal at the crown of the headjoint.
b) If your cork moves too easily, often you will also hear stuffy or muffled tone quality because air is escaping around the cork, which it shouldn't be doing.
c) Also, if your cork moves too easily (you can simply pull on the crown or push on it with your swab and it moves), then you may unwittingly move it when swabbing the headjoint, and put your whole flute out of tune.

Why?
The cork's exact position affects the tuning of the flute.
Too far out, the left-hand notes will be flatter.
Too far in, the left-hand notes will be sharper.
Either of these positions will put the scale of the flute out of tune with itself.

A healthy flute headjoint cork is very difficult to move by yourself. Some brands even use a rubber O-ring (Mateki for example) in attempt to make the ultimate air-tight seal. So if it's incorrectly positioned (not at 17.3 mm or the line on your cleaning rod is NOT in the middle of the embouchure hole) then you should only reposition the cork with expert help (your private teacher or a reputable flute technician).

In fact, have your flute teacher double check your flute both visually, and with a tuner, so that you can know for sure that you've got the cork in the perfect spot to have all three octaves of the flute in tune.

Now, back to the tone quality question:
If you canhear a change in the tone quality after moving the cork, that means the cork is definitely leaking air, and you have to have it replaced (this is $10 - $20 worth of a flute technician's time.)

On average, corks are replaced and/or tightened by a flute technician every 3 to 7 years.

A PDF for beginners that illustrates how the cork should be positioned for placing the flute's length correctly for tuning is here.

Articles about headjoint corks (courtesy of Miyazawa and Brannen companies) are online here.
http://www.miyazawa.com/library/other11.asp
http://www.brannenflutes.com/care.html

In general, yes, moving the cork will affect your flute's scale andpitch, but a leaking cork will affect your sound.
You can test for a leaking cork by creating suction on the headjoint, and listening for a hiss coming from the crown.

Let us know what you discover about this; and whether your cork is in fact leaking, thus affecting your tone quality.

Best,
Jen

Updating the RCM Flute Syllabus

Dear Flutists,

I just received a notice about the Royal Conservatory of Music (Canadian flute exam board in Toronto) that there will be some upcoming changes to the RCM flute syllabus.
Here's the notification I received from the Acquisitions Editor at the RCM:

Dear Jennifer,
I was just looking at your website and thought you might like to know that the Royal Conservatory of Music is currently developing a graded flute series to serve the Preparatory level through Grade 8 of the RCM syllabus.(The Syllabus is being revised to "fill in" the missing grades.)

The new series will also include two studies books, a technique book, and orchestral excerpts will be published in 2010. The official launch will be at the NFA convention in Anaheim.

This is great news all around.
Can't wait to see the new RCM flute publications! Yay! :>)
Jen

Ode to Joy with metronome

Dear Summer Fluters,

Have a tiny excellent laugh your own tiny excellent selves:

Ode to Joy multitasking-muppet.

And watch out for those high notes! :>D

Best,
Jen

Truly moving an audience - fantasy& gnocchi

Dear Flutey Readers,
My classical-music loving older sister sent me the following. It really is hilarious and deeply informative to boot. Enjoy.

My sister wrote:
Don't know if I sent you this blog/write up on Jeremy Denk. Wish more people wrote like this about music (?), concert was great too. Sis

The Substitute
By Terez Mertes

Jeremy Denk, substituting for an ailing Itzhak Perlman, strode onto the stage at San Francisco's Davies Hall Sunday afternoon and gave a rollicking, passionate performance of Beethoven's Concerto no. 1 in C major. Goodbye misgivings over whether he could put on a good show, hello constricted chest, flushed cheeks and breathless anticipation over the next note and the next.

One of my favorite things about watching soloists is observing the way the music flows through them. You can see it clearly; an unconscious bob of the head, an angling of the chin, the way the shoulders move as they ride the swell of a musical wave. From the moment the orchestral tutti commenced, you could see the music course through Denk. He was one big Beethoven conduit, more so as he began to play. His passion and attention to interpretive
detail came through particularly well in the first movement¹s cadenza. It gripped me, literally. My quads began to ache. It gripped the entire audience; you could feel it; the absolute stillness of an enthralled crowd.
He'd draw out the final lingering pianissimo notes of a phrase and there wewere, three thousand units of baited breath, clenched muscles.

When he ended the long, emotive cadenza, after stretching out the last few notes, there was a palpable sense of release‹Beethoven releasing Denk, he, in turn, releasing us. You could hear the audience rustling about, taking care of the business of breathing once again, nudging their bums back from the seat's edge where they'd been perched. It was a reaction like something out of a movie‹the soloist finishing with a flourish, the audience flung
back into their seats, drained by the experience, the intensity of it all, like after great (am I allowed to use the word here?)S___. Honest, that's what it felt like. It's been twenty years since I touched a cigarette, but right then, boy, I'll tell you what.

While I've enjoyed all the soloists whose performances I¹ve caught at Davies Hall, not since Gil Shaham's performance a year and a half ago have I felt such palpable energy and enthusiasm emanating from a soloist. It was an experience all the more enjoyable because the artist, it seemed, derived equal pleasure and energy from the music itself, from the orchestra's contribution in its creation.

A humorous aside, if I might. Having penned my effusive praise, I paused to surf the Net in order to find commentaries that might echo my sentiments on his passion, his concentration, particularly during the opening orchestral tutti. What I found was a blog by Denk himself, commenting on that auspicious moment. Only, as it turns out, it wasn¹t as auspicious as I'd thought. Following is an excerpt of his entertaining, irreverent blog entry,
presented quiz-style, about his week in San Francisco.
-------
The opening tutti of Beethoven¹s 1st Piano Concerto is rather long. (This pianist takes revenge for this during the cadenza heh heh.) You stride out there, all blustery and full of confidence, and then the orchestra just keeps on going, doing Beethoven's C-major-ish version of the Energizer Bunny. What do you do to pass the time?

a) Breathe deeply and imagine the forces of harmony moving in great tectonic plates; b) Glance meaningfully at orchestra members, which may irritate them; c) Fantasize about gnocchi from Union Square Cafe (don't forget to come in!); d) Wonder what the piano will sound like, since you haven't been able to try it out for hours; e)Reminisce over [French bulldog] Noe's redolent saliva.

The whole post is quite entertaining; must have been that Left Coast air and attitude permeating his aura. To read the whole October 9th. 2007 blog post, go here. And then go listen to him perform and tell me whether you needed a cigarette afterwards. © 2007 Terez Rose

Jen adds: Now THAT'S the kind of music making we really should fan the flames under. Might help cook the starving Artist's evening meal of gnocchi at the same time. :>)
Best, Jen

Performing music with Authority or Authenticity?

Dear Flutey readers,

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with James Boyk, author of "To Hear Ourselves as Others Hear Us." He brought up the topic of "Playing music with authority" and we shared a few ideas about this in the hopes of developing even more. Please join the conversation. :>)

The first problem that came up for me, having been born in the '60s, was my difficulty with the word "Authority". Right away my personality cries: "I don't want to be TOLD how to play by a board-of-perfect-interpreters-of-Bach, or an historically-informed-committee-on-the-motives-of-Debussy, I want to play with the freedom that the music shows me, and yet really give life to the composer's vison". So perhaps what I really want is to play music with authenticity?
And, of course, google as I might, I can find no learned articles on playing music with either a-word, so I shall open the discussion up to you the readers. What is it to perform with these qualities?

From my own training I know that I recognize a performer who is "playing with authority". The music sounds "in the now; in the zone; of the moment; deep, and very REAL". I've often used the "play with authority" phrase when a student is playing in a wistful, vague or meandering manner. The music may sound as though it's aimlessly drifting. So, as teachers before me, I too will find myself echoing those words "Oh please play that with authority" and will add: "Perhaps put some lyrics to it, create poetry. You want to be like an actor and SAY something with that phrase; something that you can believe in...." but what does musical authority really mean? Is it the Authority of the performer's vision, or the composer's vision? Or is it the Authority of the performer in recreating that vision in unison?
I often share with students the advice to "walk the razor's edge!" inspired by a passage by Herbert Whone in his delightfully pithy "The Simplicity of Playing the Violin".

"Life interest is directly dependent upon a play between opposites. The emergence of hope in the middle of despair, success in failure, or love out of hate, all give rise to a tension without which life would fall flat.
An actor's art is in manipulating such opposites so that an audience is never certain in which direction it is being led. A violinist may not have words at his disposal but he too has the power to hold an audience on a tightrope through his own particular
manipulation of opposites....
For the player, freedom is not an anarchic release from the bondage of the bar-line but with a subtle note to note flexibility which works within and transcends them.
Such freedom is seen in the whole creative process where the the free spirit, in bondage to matter, moves deviously within it to avoid captivity.
This deviousness is entirely unpredictable. Even in the laws of mathematics, in the structure of harmonics, and in the well-tempered scale, there is always something that does not quite fit. Art has the same unpredictability---the same itching to avoid confinement. It is man's attempt to return through beauty to the infinite: th aesthetic sense is adaptable and unpredictable, reconciling the opposites of free will and bonded intellect. Freedom---or beauty--for the performing musician, is the sensitive avoidance of restrictions that the beats and bar-lines would impose upon him. Such 'inaccuracies'--the holding back or the urging forward of individual notes, or groups of notes--are the unspeakable in music. If a composer were to include all he hears when he conceives his compositions, the pages of music would be black with print: he would also restrict the uniqueness of the individual performances. The written page is therefore the merest guide to playing the music.

...Another aspect of the free and the bound is the player's relationship with his instrument....A delicate balance must be found
between the effort from the player to play and the need of the instrument to play itself. As a human being hinders his understanding by an excess of his own personality, so a player inhibits the potential of his instrument by trying to force it to speak. His instrument wants to speak without his help: the acquiring of a technique is only a means of allowing this to happen."

Whone's quote brings home to us to the first point we must understand about authenticity or authority in music:
1. It requires a very fine technique. As we all know, a fine and freeing technique is not the result of chaotic or random freedom :>), it's the result of many hours of musical skill-building to obtain a finely honed technique on your instrument so that you can perform the composer's pure musical intentions. You want the composer's ideas pouring through you without any personal physical restrictions.
One of the ways to visualize this high level of technique is to observe the technical training inherent in the body work of very gifted dancers as they are interpreting modern choreography. I was particuarly taken with these dances seen recently in competition. Note the mesmerizing emotional purity that these dancer's technique has allowed them to express:

Mia Michael's Choreography on youtube:
Dance ONE
Dance TWO

Here is what the choreographer says about individuality and why it's absolutely required in order to find the dancer's own voice and expression.
A performer who really has the technical skills to be truly free is indeed "avoiding captivity" all the while spell-binding the audience. This can be done in music through the same kind of technical training that leads to creative freedom of expression.

Choreographer Michaels also speaks on "being in the moment" which brings me to the second point:

2. Musical authenticity (or authority) relies a unified body and mind. You perform so that you are "living in the moment" without internal conflict. The most emotionally moving and fascinating musical performances are those in which the performer seems to be "in the zone", completely focused, and utterly emotionally available to the music with the resonation of the whole body. There is no internal war with the self expressed by that body; it gives itself wholly to the task of expression.
This concept is very aptly expressed by deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie in her Ted Talk on "How to listen with your whole body"
Through merging yourself into the music and becoming a participant in the sound that arises, the sound and intentions of the music are amplified through focus and resonance.

3. Thirdly, authenticity often asks artist to look deeply into themselves and to find simplicity without pretense. This may mean removing blockages.
Here is an good quote about finding your authentic voice in music:
From an interview with singer Meredith Monk:

Q: When you are working on a new piece how do you find its authentic voice?
Meredith Monk: I think that it is an uncovering process, and I try not to necessarily accept the first or easiest solution. Making a work is a digging down process. I was thinking about it last night — how one of the things in practice is to really be in the moment and accept things as they are. And I was wondering about that in terms of the dissatisfaction aspect, because often one of the problems in art is that people are too easily satisfied. There needs to be some kind of sifting process, where you take the time and patience to work through the easiest and most superficial solutions in order to discover something deeper......
I think I still have some confusion about the critical mind. But it seems that there’s a difference between the critical mind, which is a kind of judgment, and has a harshness built in, cutting off impulses before they can develop, and discriminating intelligence, which can differentiate between what is authentic or genuine and what is contrived or forced. That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something.

These topics are also very interestingly touched upon in the following twenty minute films:
Amy Tan on Creativity

Robbins talks on why we do what we do and how emotion *is* the creative force in life.

Finally I'd like to open up the discussion to all readers: What do YOU think the paths to performing with musical authority are?
Who is the authority? Or is it human authenticity? I'd love your input on this.
Best, and lots to munch on in music, art and dance,
Jen Cluff :>)