Problem with Second Octave Notes!

[flutestudent]

Hi, I am a 30yr old guy, just started
learning to play flute for the past 2 months. I am able to produce the notes in
the lower octave like C, B, A, G, E, F but not able to produce the notes E, F, G
and then above.....in the second octave. The way of blowing for these second
octave notes seems to be very different! Everytime I try, I produce plenty of
air and the lower notes come out in high volume!!...This is driving me crazy. I
have started learning flute seriously a bit late for my age(30yrs, is that
old?). I do not want to give up again this time.....(the last time I tried was
15 yrs ago, couldn''t produce any good notes at all, so gave up!)[:((] Please
help!

[Ereshkigal]

My teacher says that a lot of people
get dissapointed because they can't produce sounds. But what I do is that I
make the hole in mouth smaller. For lower notes you push your chin in and for
higher notes you push it out. I also put pressure in my diaphram. Also think
about the note before you play it. I have problems the other way around. I can
play second and third register but I have problems with C1 and D1. Practice and
practice and you'll get it!!!!!

[lhampton]

Don't worry, they will come, just
keep practicing, that is the best thing to do!! Do you know your F major scale?
If so, practice the top octave in whole notes, just go up and down the scale *be
sure to breathe and fill from bottom up*. Make sure the notes come out, and
within a couple of weeks, you should be able to belt out those notes! Leanne

[flutestudent]

Thanks Guys!...for the good advice. I
will keep practising...and will let you know how it goes..[:)] Cheers,

[ick27]

Since the many of the fingerings are
the same for the first and second octave (from E on up) a good exercise is to
play the lower note, like a low E, then slur to E an octave higher, then back
down again. This is a good way to learn to play the second octave if you can
already play the low octave. Remember, what makes higher notes come out is
increased air speed. Making the hole embouchure hole smaller is like making the
nozzle smaller on a hoze--it increases the flow speed. The key is to be able to
use your stomach and chest to support a faster air speed while keeping your face
as relaxed as you do for the low octave. Good luck, and keep it up, improvement
comes!

[flutestudent]

I am glad to inform you people, that
I am doing OK on the E, F, G second octave notes. Now second octave, A and above
seems to be a problem. These notes seem to require more amount of air.I
understood the technique, that we shouldn't overblow......The less the amount
of air, the better is the quality of the note is. The amount of efforts that I
put in producing the lower notes is more or less the same as E, F, G now, which
to me is a big relief! I am pulling my chin in/out for the lower and higher
notes. This seems to work. thanks for the tips, but I seem to be get tired soon
and also take long breaths and often breathe through my mouth for large gulps of
fresh air. Is this normal? Can I have some breathing tips please.Any links/URLs
would be great. On the other day, I cam across some video/book on breathing. Is
it worth buying it?

[flutestudent]

[quote] Don't worry, they will come,
just keep practicing, that is the best thing to do!! Do you know your F major
scale? If so, practice the top octave in whole notes, just go up and down the
scale *be sure to breathe and fill from bottom up*. Make sure the notes come
out, and within a couple of weeks, you should be able to belt out those notes!
Leanne ---------------- [/quote] Thanks Leanne, I also practised the F major
scale and G major scale. It also helped me. [:)]

[rdbflute]

Hi, glad to see that your enjoying
the flute. I have some information that may be of help to you. I have a DMA in
flute performance from the University of Miami. My Doctoral Essay "A Description
and Application of Robert Aitken's Concept of the Physical Flute," addresses
the issues that you are having. Information and some free downloads from the
paper are available at http://www.rdbflute.com. Some understanding of the
acoustics of the flute sound is helpful; i.e., if you sound the low C on the
flute you are actually sounding the fundament (low C) and at least 5 or 6
additional partials of the sound. To get the higher partials to sound a flutist
must increase the speed of the air stream and (here is a less understood
mechanism) decrease the distance from the source of the air stream (the lips) to
the far wall of the embouchure hole. The easiest way to accomplish this is to
keep the teeth wide apart (width of a thumb) and not change this setting to play
higher partials. Instead, the upper lip comes down into the lower lip making the
lip opening smaller. This increases the speed of the air stream and will allow
the (relatively relaxed) lips to move forward. Another caveat, your jaws have to
be far enough apart for the upper lip to extend below the upper teeth and for
the bottom lip to be above the bottom teeth. This will allow the air stream to
act directly on the lips and vice versa. I have some exercises in my paper that
work this mechanism. The upper register of the flute is purposely made sharp in
relation to the lower octaves. This is due to the taper of the headjoint. The
protruding lower lip along with the continued downward angle of the air stream
(adjusted by bringing the upper lip down) aid the flutist in playing in tune in
the upper register. Keeping the jaws apart while playing in the upper
registerallows helps to keep the upper register from thining out. Hope this
helps.

[noseflute]

Hi there, When you play higher notes,
you should aim the airstream higher. The air also has to be a little faster, but
this is NOT the same as blowing harder! If you blow harder all you'll get is
loud, sharp notes! To practise blowing 'higher', hold your hand in front of
your face. Blow straight ahead so the air hits the centre of your palm. Then
without moving your head, make the air travel up your hand and to the tips of
your fingers. You can do this by moving your lower jaw forward. I tell my
younger students to imagine they have a fly on their nose and the have to blow
it off! Then do the opposite - make the air travel down your hand to your wrist,
by moving your jaw backwards. The movements we use when playing flute are very
tiny - a matter of millimetres really! But it's the combination of raising the
airstream, and increasing the airspeed (by the way, do this at the lips, by
narrowing your embouchure a little) which will give you easier, IN TUNE, high
notes. Another thing to remember is that the higher you go, the more *open* you
should be inside your mouth cavity. This allows the air to resonate more before
it goes into the flute. Once the air leaves your mouth you can't control its
quality, so the more you do internally the better tone you'll get! GOod luck!

[flutestudent]

thanks for the tips. [:)]

[flutestudent]

While returning from India on a vacation, I had brought 2 indian wooden flutes( 6 holed open wooden flutes). Each one costed me just 2 pounds each!. I had practised a bit with one of the flutes for a couple of weeks there.

When I came back and tried to play my silver flute here....Gosh!...For a whole minute, I couldn't get any good sounds at all Even the first octave notes that I was comfortable with, they just disappeared!.....Then I slowly started getting the notes...one by one.....To my surprise, I even got the full second octave notes correct!
When I explained this to my teacher, she told me that sometimes not playing the flute for a few weeks actually makes the flute notes sound better. Also the embrochure to the indian wooden flute was smaller, so my practice with it got me trained in the second octave notes without my knowledge!
Thanks to you, all guys. This is one post, which I keep reading often.
Now after 6 weeks, I am glad that all my second octave notes sound a lot better than before!

[Mik]

Hi,

I'm 28 years old scandinavian guy who just happened to see old Jethro Tull video and now I'm helplessly in love with flute.
I've played electric guitar for 15 years and I thought "Hey, I can move fingers pretty quick so if I just buy a flute,
I can play those same things with it."

Yeah, right.

So I bought a metal fife and thought if I can make a sound out of that, I buy a real flute.
If not, then I give up and continue to "enjoy" the guitar.

The first 15 minutes were awful. I almost threw the fife into trash bin.
But suddenly, a sound emerged. At this point I was so dizzy that I didn't even care to think what note it was.
I took a break and tried again. Yep, I can play this thing, I thought to myself, and while my neighbours disagreed,
I continued playing through the night.

After three days, I learned three tunes with the fife (Brahms 3. Symphony part 3 the beautiful melody , Chaplin's Limelight and Jethro Tull's version of Greensleeves)

Finally I was ready for the "real" flute. 200$ open hole.

But now I'm stuck.

It was pretty easy to move from the fife (B) to flute. But now I can only play notes from C4 to D#5, cleanly. That's it.

What to do?

Sure, it's fun to play just within those notes (I just love the sound of flute), but I need the full second octave.

I've tried (almost) everything. Blowing a little higher, harder, even twisting the whole flute.

My method of practice is very simple: first I play an improvised melody with my guitar and then try to play the same
with flute. Works for me.

Beyond D#5 is currently out of my reach. If a child can learn it, then what's the problem?

Could it be the cheap flute itself that's holding me back.......




ps. my first post. Maybe it has no value at all, or maybe it encourages other people like me (meaning: too old to go to lessons), to finally pick up a flute.
At first, it's hard, then it's easy, then it's even harder. I stop now, I can't even understand this myself.

[MeLizzard]

Hi, Mik! It's great you're trying flute! Beware the common second-instrument syndrome, frustration in the early phase. When we already play one instrument well, sometimes when we begin another, we expect too much, too quickly (usually, we're unaware we are expecting too much from ourselves ). You read music well, yes? To improve your range, try working with a tone book such as Trevor Wye Practice Book No. 1 (Tone) or Moyse's De La Sonorite. My students don't initially appreciate these sorts of books, but soon realize the exercises allow them to move systematically, seemlessly, from the comfortable range of their flutes (usually someplace in the middle) to notes that were previously uncooperative (extreme low or much higher). They can, with solid practice, add several half-steps, with good tone (this is important--if we have crazy technique, but not an attractive sound, who will want to listen?) each week. The quality of your flute may or may not be an issue, but if you know a pretty-good flutist, have him or her try your instrument to see what they think. If you're serious about playing, be sure to have a good student flute, at least (you may already have an ok flute, you didn't say which brand)---Yamaha, Armstrong, Emerson, whatever good, reliable brand is available to you. Check out the posts by Noseflute and rdbflute (above) for some good technical information about how to blow air or change the sounds. Let us know how it all works out. Happy practicing!

[Mik]

Hi MeLizzard,

thanks for your comments.

Today I broke the barrier (kind of). I was able to play almost full second octave.
So the flute is ok. phew.

My problem was that I didn't understand how small change in embouchure it really is (from 1st to 2nd octave).
So small almost, that I only have to think it and that pesky E5* will sound. I just tried too hard.

and MeLizzard, about that second-instrument syndrome (or SIS ) . What if I make the flute my main instrument

As I make progress with the flute, my admiration towards flautists continue to grow.


*or is it E2


okay, my english is little off tonight. So I stop.

Thanks for everybody! Great forum.


edit: I'll leave my signature alone. It's still true...