Finding Your Flute Embouchure (SESSION 1: EMBOUCHURE BOOT CAMP)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2017
- Here's Part 1 of my Embouchure Boot Camp Series 💪🔩🎶 Get the rest of the series here www.theflutecoach.com/embouch...
One of the TOP CHALLENGES when it comes to getting started on the flute is producing beautiful sound.
😥 If you'd describe your sound with words like weak, airy, fuzzy then this training is FOR YOU!!
😩If you're struggling with low notes or high notes that won't sound then this training is FOR YOU!
😕If you're sounding 'good' one day and terrible the next, then this training is FOR YOU!
Over four video lessons, I'll be sharing some strategies that WORK to transform your sound into that rich, clear and gorgeous tone you've been longing for (and a whole lot more...)
Video Transcript:
The embouchure is the shape of the lips, cheek, mouth, teeth, jaw, that forms the mouth shape which moderates our air speed and air direction across the flute. Very subtle changes in your embouchure can produce dramatic changes in your flute tone, so you will start to hear differences like your tone becomes weak and airy and rough sounding, compared to a solid and rich tone. You'll be able to tell the difference of these once you start experimenting. Because you've changed your embouchure it means you're changing some of the parameters that are vital to good sound production. So changes in your lip or jaw can mean that we're making changes in air speed and direction and the angle that the air is hitting the embouchure hole in your head joint.
The height of the flute on your chin or lips can also affect that angle of air entering the flute and the thickness of your air stream. The thickness of the air beam hitting the flute can be moderated by the size of the hole in your lips.
Today we're finding your own unique embouchure shape. You'll need a mirror to practice in front, to recognize those subtle changes you're making. Just use your flute head joint for now.
I'll give some examples of incorrect embouchure.
The first is the moo-cow. You can see that your lips are coming forward and the shape of your aperture it's large and a circle shape. Your lips are coming forward which means they'll be covering too much of your embouchure hole, and the air beam will be far too thick.
Next is the kiss. So we've tightened up the shape of the aperture but once again the lips are coming far too forward and covering too much of our embouchure hole.
The the next one is the grandpa. The lips are pulled back and onto the teeth quite flat and tight and you're squishing your embouchure shape to be too wide, it's much much wider than the width of your head joint.
Last mistake is common with beginners and it's called this smiley embouchure. You make a smile shape, you pull the corner of the lips up and you blow from there and the smiley embouchure really tenses up your facial muscles and pulls the lips back against the teeth. Quite often you overcompensate by squeezing the aperture even smaller and you get all the tense and you lack flexibility in your embouchure .
Once we find our our correct mouth shape we need to be flexible enough to move our lips and cheeks and jaws subtly as we play. We're going to need to be making adjustments so that we can leap octaves and play in tune.
Here's how I form my embouchure. I'm relaxed with the corners of my mouth it's a slight pout. You can see there's little movement in the the sides of my mouth. Relaxed face and the wet part of your lips are zipped together, and you need feel the air moving past the wet part of your lips. We're only forming a very small hole a in the center of your mouth. It's only a very tiny squished oval. The upper lip should be jutting just over the bottom lip and that helps us direct our
air downwards. We don't want to blow it across the flute we want to blow slightly down in front of us so that the breath hits the opposite edge of our embouchure hole. If you put your hand in front of your face, lips together wet part of the lips together, very small squished oval in the middle, top lip just jutting over the bottom lip, bottom lip slightly flattened against the mouth. That should direct your air downwards in front of you on angle.
If you jut your jaw forward slightly and bring the two lips almost parallel if you put your fingers to your lips you'll find air on your hand so we want to just sit that jaw back, top lip over the bottom lip
very slightly to direct that air down onto your forearm. I like to think of these syllables mmm pppp That just seems to make that slight aperture opening in your lips.
The head joint shouldn't be to high or low on the chin. The edge of your bottom lip for comes right onto the edge of your hole. Your head joint fits it into the curve so your bottom lip rests on the edge of that lip plate . Check in the mirror that bottom lip is covering no more than a third of that hole and no less than a quarter.
I just learnt more in a 10 min video, than I did 13 years ago in High School. Thank you for sharing this lesson!! 💛
Merci beaucoup. C'est très précis, ça m'aide beaucoup.
Great advice, simple and effective. Thanks
Thanks for the help - it's great to go back to basics for me.
This video is very helpful. I realize I have been trying to play with too tense of embouchure. Thank you.
Thanks a lot! You are amazing!
Excellent description. The mmm-phh helped me.
Thank you so much!
Great video, I really needed to go back to basics and practice good embouchure with just the headjoint!
I got it! Thank you. Thank you.
The three sound part helps immensely!! Thanks so much. I was making the embouchure way wrong.
It's so simple but it really works! Thanks for watching, so glad this helped 👍
I look forward to more videos
Very helpful! Key monent was at 9:17. Makes a big difference! Thanks
I enjoy the video..i love the mmm phuu..hahaha..thank you so much..i hope you make more videos😊
Goooood♥
When I received an email from you the other day, I had wondered whether you had put together a new series. I didn't have time to view the video until today, 3 days later, and see that it's the 2017 series and also see that I had commented on it 4 years ago! Well here I am again, looking forward to trying out your recommendations yet again. I have done this several times ... get started, make some improvements then get distracted and put flute and books away. Will try to keep at it because your videos really do have good suggestions.
Really great video. So focussed and packed with constructive analogies. just started flute 2 days ago and your advice is really appreciated. Thank you for sharing :)
So happy to help! Make sure you Head over to the website too as there's lots of articles and flute courses that I think you'll find really helpful 😉
The tips for what not to do and the sound demonstrations helped me so much! This guide was miles more helpful than all the other ones I've seen. Thank you so much!
My friend you are so welcome! I’m thrilled to hear this!
This lesson helped immensely, just what I needed to know. Thank you dear Flute Coach!
SWEETROSE SINGS, you are so welcome. Glad it was helpful 😊
Thank you. Very helpfull. As a sax player I find the flute refreshing and astonishingly more affordable. (No reeds to buy.)
Buy a Légère Reed!
This was actually fantastic, I wasn't the most hopeful but this really improved my technique, although just the basics. I am a fife player however so the high pitch next to my ear was very clear, which it was not before. What did it was the mmmm-phh for me with a small fiddle around with the placement of my mouthpiece. Thank you.
Music to my ears!! 😍
Most informative TH-cam video on the subject by far :)
Wow! Thanks for the super feedback. So glad it's been helpful to you 😊
I was struggling with embouchure for a while now but your video helped a lot
Hurrah! Great to hear! Thanks for letting me know 😊
My main problem is when I finally relax the smile then there’s always a single corner that tenses up because I have that small bump smack in the center of my top lip. I literally just wanna not make my face get tired AND have a good sound and it’s unnecessarily difficult
Hello i use the method u say but i got a teacher recently she says me when u play low notes use frown embouchure and smile as you go to high notes to have tiny aperture also she says me do not brring your jaw and lips forwards as you go to high notes but donot you think if i donot move my jaw and lips forward and backward i will not have control on my dynamics and intervals? Also smiley aperture will not make notes sharp?please answer!
Yup
Hello and thank you so much for your effort. I am a flute enthousiast and I have a question. Why is it that when I hear a good flute player from say...one meter, the sound is not so powerful or actually is quite a bit airy( I mean the sound itself is thin and the other half of the air column that escapes the blowhole is more present) and when I get farther from the player...the sound fills the room and sounds so meaty and creamy. When I play I always hear the powerful sound in real time but if I record myself...it doesn't sound so good and beautiful. Is my embouchure faulty? Thank you in advance!
Can Galway's embouchure headjoint exercise on TH-cam be used with the headjoint attached to the flute? I believe he said that it can. Not sure. What I mean is can I use his method for the whole flute and not just the headjoint going forward? He covers almost half the hole with his lips. With this method I was able to make cleaner high notes and get the low notes as well.
Olá sou brasileiro boa noite tudo bem,seus vídeos são Show, parabéns,estou tendo muita dificuldade na embocadura,vc poderia me ajudar
I have a pupil whose lips just don't sit parallel; when you look at his embouchure side on his top lip protrudes his bottom lip and almost a year on he is still struggling to find a clear sound. We've done heaps of embouchure work but can't seem to get rid of his airy sound. Any ideas?
this helped me to finally get a noise ... but most of the time its too breathy still. Am i still doing something wrong or will this eventually turn into getting the sound more often? i found i felt a little dizzy afterwards. holding my left hand underneath the fife i can feel the air being directed down; perhaps that means my embouchure/hole for my mouth is too big at the moment so losing power from the air and therefore not getting the sound.
AnnMarie Hammond great news you finally made sound! That's half the battle won. I think you are totally right, you may need to better focus your stream of air to conserve it and make it last longer. If your aperture is too large, air gets 'sprayed' and wasted. I have a video on improving flute tone - take a look at that one if you haven't already and see if any of those positioning errors could be the cause. Being dizzy is also pretty normal when you start but it will settle down as you improve your 'flute fitness' and also learn to use as little air as possible to make a good quality sound. Don't give up!
Olá boa noite tudo bem, enviei msg a vc a algum tempo,se vc poderia me ajudar na parte da embocadura,não tive retorno.
Sou brasileiro.
Vc poderia me ajudar
I'm struggling to locate your accent. Are you from New Zealand?
Close! I'm Australian!
The link to session 2 is not working
Hi Paul. Are you taking part in my current round of Boot Camp?
Ah it works from here, not the email... ta
The over exaggerated don't where really helpful. Thanks