Playing Technique: Starts

[flutego12]

There appears to be different schools (of pedagogy) on what is and isn't acceptable in flute playing.

Eg my first teacher says it helps to speak french and one good way of practising the embouchure is to "spit rice" - expelling it grain by grain. (well thankfully I did not comply with the practice) and stopped after 3 lessons. However what I did pick up as I self taught was the kissing fish lip where I was using the lip to start and stop a note or phrase.

Teacher no 2 is appalled. Perish the goldfish or kissing fish practice. Perish the lizard and keep your tongue well inside the mouth cavity.

Perhaps somebody can arbitrate between the two schools of flute playing and provide a framework for comparison.


When I started off, I was besotted with French repertoire instead of classical baroque etc etc. Am I right to suppose that Method 1 is more for french school (and Suzuki I'm told?)l whilst Method 2 would pertain to more european convention sans french?

Which convention do YOU use?

[lianeandflute]

using the lips to articulate or using the tongue against the lips are just other articulation techniques. i've always thought they were pretty advanced though, normally you start a student off with basic "tu" or "du" (or "ta" or "te" or whatever vowel people want to use) tonguing as it is by far used the most.

you do want to keep your tongue clear so that the air stream can flow freely without obstruction. i've only ever heard of the spitting rice thing to explain how the lips should meet in the middle for embouchure, but the tongue should still be clear and your teacher perhaps should have explained this?

it doesn't sound like your first teacher was of the french school… just a weird teacher! haha. also, the french school is pretty indistinguishable from the rest of europe really, since it had such a huge, huge influence everywhere.

does this help or am i totally off the mark?

[flutego12]

using the lips to articulate or using the tongue against the lips are just other articulation techniques. i've always thought they were pretty advanced though, normally you start a student off with basic "tu" or "du" (or "ta" or "te" or whatever vowel people want to use) tonguing as it is by far used the most. Teacher no 2 would not allow advanced techniques till I've crawled. I've done all the crawling privately and was paying top $ to pick up something advanced but had to go back to crawling. It's going to be very expensive to learn to walk and run

you do want to keep your tongue clear so that the air stream can flow freely without obstruction. This was something VERY USEFUL she coaxed me into. And my tone which I thought was goodish has developed further and am able to sustain it with with the correct breathing (support) techniquei've only ever heard of the spitting rice thing to explain how the lips should meet in the middle for embouchure, but the tongue should still be clear and your teacher perhaps should have explained this?

it doesn't sound like your first teacher was of the french school… just a weird teacher! haha. hmmmm....you could say that haha! she's nice. I had 3 half hrsalso, the french school is pretty indistinguishable from the rest of europe really, since it had such a huge, huge influence everywhere.

does this help or am i totally off the mark?

nice to have a a reply. tHks!