I've been studying flute for about five weeks now and am very discouraged with my sound. But when my flute teacher plays my Yamaha 221 flute she sounds like a virtuoso!. And, when I play it I sound like I just picked up the flute for the very first time.
Yes, I know I'm new at playing the flute, but I do find it discouraging not to be able to get a better sound. And, I do practice about an hour or two each day hoping to do better.
I"d surely appreciate any info that might be of help to me.
Thanks
Windy
Can't get a consistantly good sound on flute
Moderators: Classitar, pied_piper, Phineas
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pied_piper
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FluteFellow
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- Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I agree with what pied_piper said, 5 weeks is not very much time at all!
I am assuming that your teacher has you playing long tones? Never underestimate the importance of long tones, they're not just for warm ups.
If you don't already have Trevor Wye's book on Tone I would highly recommend it.
One thing he talks about in his book is "spreading" the tone from your best note outwards to the surrounding notes. For example, say your best note was b natural. Play your b and get the best sound you can from it (take as long as you need, several minutes if you need to). When your happy with the note, slur chromatically to an adjacent note and try to keep the same quality sound. It is important to critically listen to the sound your making and find out what makes the note sound better or worse, experiment (but resist the temptation to roll the flute in, this is a very common bad habit which you want to avoid).
Hope that helps.
I am assuming that your teacher has you playing long tones? Never underestimate the importance of long tones, they're not just for warm ups.
If you don't already have Trevor Wye's book on Tone I would highly recommend it.
One thing he talks about in his book is "spreading" the tone from your best note outwards to the surrounding notes. For example, say your best note was b natural. Play your b and get the best sound you can from it (take as long as you need, several minutes if you need to). When your happy with the note, slur chromatically to an adjacent note and try to keep the same quality sound. It is important to critically listen to the sound your making and find out what makes the note sound better or worse, experiment (but resist the temptation to roll the flute in, this is a very common bad habit which you want to avoid).
Hope that helps.