Have you ever played a staccato passage in your low register and found that the only thing that came out were puffs of air? You are not alone. We can all have trouble getting our low register notes to come out. But with a bit of specific practice, your low notes can be rich and responsive.
On my stand right now is a piece of music by Bruce Stark. In this piece, called American Suite, the 4th mvt called street beats, depicts New York City in the AM. The composer wrote all these staccato notes, first in the high register and then in the low. The movement goes down to a staccato low C and Eb with some on the beat, and some off the beat.
If I don’t work on my low notes, they would not come out. Yes, I have to work on them too. Especially if I am out of shape at all, low notes are the first thing to go. And I mean really our low notes, E flat, D, D flat and C and low B. But it does take steady practice, regular and steady practice.
But there’s an exercise that I like to do regularly that can help with those low notes. Here’s a different way to use Taffanel & Gaubert Number 8 as a low register exercise. Work on this every day until you get it. Because once you figure this out, you’ll never puff a low note again during a solo. Plus, as an added bonus for doing this work, your tone quality improves!
And, it’s not just for low notes and it goes up higher and it’s great. But I like to work on this particular exercise and just two sections of this exercise specifically to get my low notes. Taffanel & Gaubert Number 8 works with the arpeggio. So, technically it’s going higher and higher through the arpeggio and it gives you different keys. So, you can do the minor arpeggio, the augmented, and the diminished. It stays with C, E, and G. So, you’re doing different key signatures with this arpeggio.
Now that’s how the exercise is written. That’s not how I work on it when I work on it for the low register. I work on very methodically, very slowly and very carefully because I’m thinking about how to focus my sound on that tiny little staccato low note.
So
I’m going to start with C, C, E, C. E.
Now the more I tongue that low C, the better it gets. And I’m get a little out of breath because I hold in so much air to make that C come out. Sometimes the low C is just so difficult for some people to get, that it’s better just to move on and concentrate on the E and the G after that. Don’t stay with low C so long that you get totally frustrated. You can move on and you can move up the scale.
But I find working on those really low sounds is the best. If I can get those, man it makes all the registers sound so much better. Because I’ve learned to hold in my air. If I’m holding it in with that low register, I will hold in much more in the upper register.
Then I can change the key. I’ll put E flat and G flat on and so forth. You may want to change the key because you can get very bored with just doing C, E, and G all the time.
Now that’s A, if you go down to B, you’re doing D, F and A. That in all its derivations. That’s a really good one because it gives you your D to work on. I don’t find when I’m working on the low register, I don’t really care about the high notes and I’ll just kind of keep repeating all these low ones, to keep working on my low register. But when you work on it, you’re holding in your air, you’re precisely thinking about where your tongue is hitting on the roof of your mouth. You’re thinking about how much air comes out when that tongue goes TAH. Which should be very, very little.
You’re thinking about keeping support and all that pressure built up inside to get that low C to respond. And then when you’re ready to play a solo, such as this one or everybody’s favorite, Cantabile et Presto, in the Presto section, when you’re doing all those double tonguing on the low register, you’re ready to roll. You’re not going to have to spend as much time working on those low notes because you’ve paid the Piper ahead of time. And you’ve done your work and then you’ll be very happy with your tone quality as well.
So, work on your low register. Do it every day because you can never get too much low register work. Work on it every day diligently, and it will pay off big time when you have it in a solo.
Have fun!
DoctorFlute
Watch me demonstrate this FluteTips 82 Getting Better Low Notes with Taffanel & Gaubert Number 8
