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 decent sound and probably mezzo piano or mezzo forte, somewhere in that range. But by the time they get up, two octaves higher, they are a forté. And if they go up higher than that, they are a double forte.

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