Did you know that you can use your lip pressure to change your intonation?
When you’re playing, you want to check the pressure that the lip plate puts on your lip.
You’ll play flat less often when you lighten the pressure.
Now when I was in college I played with a lot of pressure from my lip plate to my lip. I knew that I was flat all the time. But I didn’t know that at the time what was causing it. And I couldn’t figure out how to correct it.
Then I finally had a teacher that pointed out that it was caused by the pressure I was creating between my flute lip plate and my lip.
Halleluiah Problem Solved!
If you press really hard with your lip plate – which means left hand is pressing your flute into your lip – you’re going to play flat.
So, if you watch me demonstrate below, pressing in and letting go of that pressure, you can hear a big difference. I really let it go all the way out. And you can hear how that sound just rises as I let go of that pressure.
So, check to see what your pressure is from your lip plate to your lip.
If you can have a friend, while you’re playing come and just with 1 finger gently pull your flute away, you know that you probably have the right amount of pressure.
If they have to take a little bit of force to pull it away because there’s a little bit of pressure acting against their finger pushing away, then you know you’ve got too much pressure and you’re probably having an intonation problem because of that.
So, try that and see what happens with your intonation.
Let me know how this works for you.
Have Fun!
DoctorFlute
Watch me demonstrate this: FluteTips 6 Intonation Lip Pressure
See Also:
FluteTips 7 Intonation Hole Coverage
FluteTips 8 Intonation Air Stream
FluteTips 32 Putting Air in Your Cheeks to Lower Your Pitch
