Doctor Flute Blog
Musings on the Flute
Trill Fingers
Have you ever just worked on your trills? There's a really good exercise in Taffanel and Gaubert’s 17 Grande Exercises at the very end of the book that you can use to work on your trills and to learn your trills. But today I just want to talk about the fingers that...
You Can’t Have a Good High Register Without Having a Really Good Low Register
You need to be thinking about your low register as the foundation for everything that comes above it. If your low register is thin and not filled out and rich, then your upper register is going to suffer. There are some things that you can do to work on your low...
Does the Cut of Your Lip Plate Make a Difference on a Professional Flute?
The Flute Center of New York sent me 2 gorgeous Powell handmade flutes, and 4 beautiful Powell hand-cut headjoints to compare the cut of their lip plates. Two headjoints are 14K rose gold: 1 headjoint has the Lumina cut, the other has the Philharmonic cut. The other...
Getting Spin on Your Third Octave Notes
How many of you feel like your third octave just does not have the same kind of resonance and excitement that perhaps your second and your first octave do? Learning how to “spin” your notes is one way to add that excitement to your high notes. We all need to work...
Which is Better a Silver Flute or a Gold Flute?
The Flute Center of New York sent me a silver flute and a gold flute to test and compare to determine which one is better the silver flute or the gold flute. Both flutes are professional model Powell flutes that are nearly identical except their silver and gold...
Should You Put a Professional Headjoint on an Intermediate Body?
The only reason that you would consider putting a professional model hand cut headjoint on an intermediate flute is to save money. If you wanted to improve your flute tone, and you had enough money to spend on a professional model flute, then you would just buy the...
Evening Out Your Registers
When you play from a low C to a high C, just two octaves higher, what do you hear dynamically? Play it right now. Play from the low C all the way up the octaves to the high C. What do you hear? A lot of times what I hear from my students is they start off with a...
LefreQue – Results of Testing 4 LefreQue on 3 Levels of Flute
The Flute Center of New York sent me 4 different versions of the LefreQue Sound Bridge to test. I had a lot of fun testing them out on my professional flute as well as my daughters’ intermediate and beginner flutes. In this blog I will give you the results of my...
How to NOT Go Flat at the End of Notes
Do you find that you go flat at the end of a long phrase? It’s quite common when you run out of air or lose your support. But you can keep those notes on pitch even when you’re running out of air by working on tapers, keeping the airstream up, and keeping up the...