by Dr. Angela McBrearty | Jul 29, 2023 | Embouchure, FluteTips, Intonation, Support, Tone
Sometimes I have bad tone days! Don’t you? Even when I am in good shape from a steady diet of practice, rehearsals, and performances, I can still have a bad tone day. So what can we do to pull out of the doldrums and make it a good tone day? I remember during my...
by Dr. Angela McBrearty | Apr 15, 2023 | FluteTips, Practice, Technique, Trills
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...
by Dr. Angela McBrearty | Apr 1, 2023 | Embouchure, FluteTips, Harmonics, High Register, Low Register, Middle Register, Practice
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...
by Dr. Angela McBrearty | Feb 18, 2023 | FluteTips, High Register, Support, Vibrato
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...
by Dr. Angela McBrearty | Jan 7, 2023 | Flute Purchase, FluteTips, Headjoint
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...
by Dr. Angela McBrearty | Dec 10, 2022 | Embouchure, FluteTips, High Register, Low Register, Middle Register, Support
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...
