C#

[remnantpark]

Whenever I play C#, it sounds horrible! ex: I slur, to maybe B, C#, D#, E
Everything sounds O.K except the C#.
All I can say is that it sounds sorta bland...Exactly how do you get rid of its blandness?

[flutepicc06]

C# is always a poor note on the flute, simply because it involves so little tube. It takes a lot of work to get it sounding as rich and in tune as the rest of the range, as it is normally thin and very sharp. Try directing your air down more as you hit C#'s and do slow chromatic and scale work around C#'s so that you can match your tone to the surrounding notes. There's also the option of the Murray flute, which has a much better C#, but is very difficult (and expensive) to get.

[fluteguy18]

one option that my flute professor has given me that improves the sound of the open c# is this...... to put down 2 or three keys in your right hand. It doesnt normally change the tuning, but improves resistance to the c# and improves tone color. I use this quite often in the piece I am playing right now (Griffes "Poem" and a lot of passages start on the c#).

[sherbert789]

Yep, I agree fluteguy18. I use this handy trick as well (and sometimes on other notes as well, like C natural). On my flute (Sankyo Silver Sonic) it does make quite a difference in intonation (which is very helpful for me since these notes are quite sharp for me . . . and I'm sure for many other people). However, on my old Gemeinhardt student model flute, it hardly made any difference in the tuning. Different flutes . . . different story I suppose.

[MeLizzard]

See the Trevor Wye tone book for an interesting exercise to remedy this inherent flute fault. We have to really work to make second- and third-octave c#s sound attractive. The exercise begins by having you play c# using the harmonic fingering (the one for lowest c#, but overblown to produce the first harmonic, middle c#). The harmonic fingering provides a richer, more attractive color which you are then asked to recreate, but using the regular middle c# fingering. This one, of course, sounds thin and crummy at first. After trying to match the colors, over time, a nicer sounding middle c# is produced more instinctively and effortlessly. Also, cover some of the right-hand fingers, as another poster has already suggested. I've been told that, way-back-when, this was the original fingering for c# anyway.

[flutepicc06]

The option of leaving right hand fingers down for C#'s actually originated with one key traversos (traversi?). In the bottom octave, the key could be used, or not, and the right hand holes could be left closed for convenience in certain passages.

[fluteguy18]

I didnt know that. How interesting! I have done that many times.