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.