There are some things that you can do to work on your low register and know that that is also helping your high register. Now, that does not mean that you can stop work at anything in the high register because your low register was nice and rich. You still need to be thinking about how you are playing and how your low register reaches that upper register, and even just taking the high register out all on its own.

Round & Full

But let’s just talk about the low register. So, what are some things that you can do to fill it out, to make it strong? Long tones, of course, down in that low register, just doing from B down to low C is a really good place to get started for building your low register. And what you are thinking about is how round and full can you make this low register. You are not thinking about playing softly. You want to fill it out, to make that low note really round.

You also want to think about:

The shape of your embouchure
Opening your jaw wider
Putting air in your cheeks

These are things that will help you make it rich and resonant and full.

You also want the sound to come from behind your sinus cavity. So, the back of your tongue should be down, and the roof of your mouth is arched up. This is how singers have the sound resonate. And then that sound can be rich and full all the way down.

Low to Middle to High

Now, if that is tenuous or if you crack a lot, or if it just does not stay there, you know that there is probably going to be something that is affected above it because that roundness, that fullness, that resonance can move into your upper register. This is why when you do long tones for the third octave, we actually start on middle B and we go up instead of always descending. Because if you can get a round full low register, then middle, then do long tones going up.

So, you keep what is full in the low, move it to the middle, and then take it higher.

Keep it really full. You are not trying to play really softly. There is a time and a place for doing your long tones with diminuendo and trying to play really softly. But right now you are not trying to do that. You are trying to get your high register to be rich and full and beautiful, just like your low register. So, you are going to work from a low note to a middle note as in those octave slurs, and then work to keep that resonance all the way up.

If you start with a good low note, you can match those registers and it becomes a beautiful sound that you can work with and build on all the way up.

A Word on Hearing Loss

If you are going to work your long tones in your third octave, wear ear protection so it does not damage your ears. You can just use those foamy things if you do not have real kind that allow sound in, but keep out the higher harmonics. If I am going to work in the third octave, I usually wear ear protection same as if I am playing piccolo.

So that is how you can fill out and strengthen and make your third octave be so much more resonant and beautiful. You start with a low register that is fabulous. That is the foundation that pushes up and holds up that third octave. Then you can make it just as glorious as your low register.

Have fun!
DoctorFlute

Watch me demonstrate this:

You Can’t Have a Good High Register Without Having a Really Good Low Register – FluteTips 172

FluteTips 66 Easy High Notes

Getting Spin on Your Third Octave Notes – FluteTips 171

Putting Air in Your Cheeks to Lower Your Pitch – FluteTips 32

Resonate to Improve Your Tone – FluteTips 178

The post You Can’t Have a Good High Register Without Having a Really Good Low Register appeared first on DoctorFlute.

Now, these are probably my younger students. My college students have learned to work this out a little bit. Sometimes the compensation to not be forté is to make your embouchure really tiny. If you do that so that your third octave, and the top of your second octave is not a forté or a double forté, you are not going to get the tone you want in those octaves.  When I play through these octaves, I want them to be even all the way up. Now, there is going to be a difference in timber because the sound wave is faster, or the wave lengths are closer together as you get higher.

So don’t get confused with the sound of the timbre and forté. As you play through the octaves, flutists tend to either blow harder for the 2^nd and 3^rd octave or they squeeze their embouchure. If you are not blowing harder, you are tightening up your embouchure to compensate for getting those high notes out. What is the key here to getting your high notes out and not blowing harder?

Air pressure

Air pressure is the answer to so many problems we have with tone on our flute. If you maintain that pressure all the way up, you free your embouchure to be loose, and to get those notes out with the best tone quality, while not being forté. Do I have to do some adjusting of the embouchure too? Certainly, we must adjust our embouchure as we go higher or lower. Your job is to listen to yourself as you play through the octaves. As you are playing through your music ask yourself; am I changing my embouchure getting tighter? Am I blowing harder or am I compensating by getting tighter in my embouchure? Or am I allowing my air pressure or support to hold up those notes which then frees up my embouchure to be nice and open?

When I play a high note, I aim to have quite a loose embouchure. Now, I might be a little more firm right here in the center of my embouchure. But it is still very loose and relaxed. However, each note that I move up to, I have to push more from my stomach muscles. There needs to be a little bit more pressure to hold those notes up. When I do this correctly with air pressure, I get evenness of tone through the octaves. It doesn’t get louder. It doesn’t get softer or buzzier. I also kept the same color all the way up and all the way down.

So, record yourself then listen and see what you are doing through those octaves. What do you think you are doing with your embouchure or your pressure? And are you maintaining the same dynamic level?

Have fun!
DoctorFlute

Watch me demonstrate this idea:

Evening Out Your Registers – FluteTips 169

Getting Spin on Your Third Octave Notes – FluteTips 171

FluteTips 11 Support – Ribcage Air

FluteTips 71 Tapers

How to NOT Go Flat at the End of Notes – FluteTips 168

The post Evening Out Your Registers appeared first on DoctorFlute.

How about you? Does that sound ever come out of your flute? I bet it does because it happens to everyone. What can you do about it? How can you fix it if it happens to you? Let me see if I can help you.

I have some FluteTips on how to tongue your middle Eb, D, C sharp and C and how to get a good tone on those. But I want to get a little bit more specific today, and that is how not to let those notes crack. We have other notes that tend to crack. But right now, I want to concentrate on these middle register notes.

Middle D (4^th line on the staff) is a note that wants to crack especially if we have that D or we have a couple notes that are in that very middle narrow range of C sharp and D and E flat where our first finger is up and we have come to one of them from a high note or the opposite has happened and we have come up from a low note. They will tend to crack.

By cracking, I mean that there is an actual cracking sound where it just flips from one octave side to the other – high to low or low to high. Often, we call that kind of cracking sound a “caught in between” sound. Caught in between is that you are getting a low sound and a high sound simultaneously.

One reason why that caught in between sound happens is because your airstream is probably too high. And then related to that is we don’t have a nice open embouchure. The embouchure is too small. If I have a small embouchure, I can maybe get an edgy sound. But the chances of cracking go way up with that small embouchure especially if I have to tongue quickly and I have a firm tongue. Then if I’m playing really low, what is going to happen is this is going to be airy as well.

When you are dealing with a tricky area in your solo and you tend to crack, analyze your air and your embouchure. Where should the airstream be blowing, how high or how low, hard and soft. That will really help you to figure out where to get the best tone quality. It is tricky when you are playing a Bach or Mozart solo. These genres of solos often have much that is in that second octave that cracks.

That is what my advice to help you figure out how to get those middle register notes. Your embouchure and your airstream are the places to look at to stop cracking.

Sometimes you don’t even know you have been cracking until you record yourself and then listen to yourself playing in the middle register and realize you are cracking! So, grab a piece that you are working on and record yourself playing through some middle register runs. Then listen for cracks. If you find them, analyze the cause. Is it your embouchure? Is it your airstream? Is it the two of them mixed together? Then make sure that your embouchure is oo shaped and your jaw is out slightly to raise your airstream is up just a bit. I think you’ll be able to fix those particular pesky little notes that you don’t want to crack or get caught in between.

Have fun!
DoctorFlute

Watch me demonstrate this idea:

How Not to Crack on Your Middle Register Notes – FluteTips 164

Getting a Better Tone Quality on Your Middle Notes C C# D Eb – FluteTips 161

FluteTips 77 Getting a Good Tone in Your Middle Register Specifically Ds & Es

How to Form a Great Flute Embouchure – FluteTips 132

The post How Not to Crack on Your Middle Register Notes appeared first on DoctorFlute.