Hey Flute Players ! Help with high notes needed!?

Question:

Hey Flute Players ! Help with high notes needed!?

My flute teacher tells me that I have trouble getting into the upper register notes because my lips are too tight. Any suggestions on how to keep my mouth and lips loose enough so I can reach the higher register? If this doesn't make sense leave a note and I'll try to explain better. My high register notes come out airy...I can't seem to get them down. Any help/tips would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: The lower lip should be more relaxed on higher notes than on the lower notes. Pout your lower lip more for upper notes – everything comes forward.

Probably the best way to improve high notes is to keep playing them. (I know, this answer isn't helpful in the immediate sense). For most flutists, high notes need more work than any other register on the flute, so the more time you log practicing them, the more they'll improve.

As for *how* to practice them, here's some tips:

What to play:

I recommend the Taffanel-Gaubert book of daily exercises, or the Julius Baker version, which is more updated for the modern flute (good if you have a flute that goes down to a low B). These exercises can look pretty technical at first sight, but the thing is, they're very versatile. They don't *have* to be technical: you can play them as slowly as you want, and for high notes, the slower the better.

Another book you may want to try is "Ninety Top Register Studies", by Thomas J. Filas. (All of these books are available from fluteworld.com .)

These are some books you can use to help you, but your best friend in learning to improve your high notes will be playing long tones in the third octave. When you play a note as long as you can, this gives you time to concentrate on improving the sound of each note as you play it. Each time you play a long note, you'll get it more pure and focused a little quicker than the last time you played it, and soon enough, you'll be able to make high notes in pieces that are shorter sound as good as long tones.

You can also transpose songs and melodies into the third octave – the key here is just to play high notes a lot – the more you do, the more you'll get accustomed to them.

How to play long tones:

- A lot of flutists equate playing high notes with blowing harder. This leads to the notes falling down the octave or sounding airy. Try blowing the air faster, but not necessarily harder. Watch in a mirror and experiment with your embouchure – what happens if you stretch the embouchure slightly? Relax it? Firm it? Aim the airstream up? Down? By trial and error, you'll find out exactly what works for you.

- Make sure your airstream is as focused and compact as possible. If it's too diffuse, it'll be too weak to make the high notes sound. Try changing the size of the aperture you make - it's generally more of a slit than a round hole, so see if making it smaller/bigger makes a difference.

- Try playing harmonics to clarify and improve the sound. Harmonics are the natural overtones that occur when we finger low notes but overblow, so we get the octave and the notes above that. For instance, if you finger a low D and overblow, the next note you'll get is the middle D, then the A above that, the D above that, then F# and finally the high A. Practice slurring into these, taking as long as you want on each note to really get to the center of the sound.

While these aren't real fingerings, and you don't want to get these confused with real fingerings, it's useful to play harmonics because it trains your embouchure to go from one register of the flute to the next. You *can* just blow harder to get harmonics, but that'll take you only so far. It's too hard to do that, so playing harmonics trains you to get these upper notes by changing your embouchure, not by blowing your brains out. :) And understanding how your embouchure changes from note to note is key in getting a purer sound up there.

So, you can play harmonics on any of the low register notes, but the lower they are, the more harmonics you'll have available to play. Experiment with different embouchure styles - try firming it, try loosening it, etc. Just play around and see what works.

Another harmonic trick: when you've gotten into the third register harmonics, instead of playing an F# overblown from a low D fingering, switch into the real F# without stopping to breathe (and thus losing your embouchure). It'll be much easier, for one thing, and the sound should also be purer, too.

- Use "tutor notes" to train yourself to play high notes better. Find a high note that you can play well - say, high G. Use your comfort there to help you ease into the next note, G# or A flat. Once you're comfortable playing A flat, then train yourself to play the A natural, and so on. There are tiny, tiny embouchure changes between every note, so while it may be hard to just play a high note out of the blue, if you play a note nearby that's easier for you and then work your way over to the tricky one, it won't be too hard to reach.

- Another trick to try is to push your embouchure out slightly, as if you're forming the vowel sound "ooo." It's a very slight movement. (Changing the position also works for the low register, where your embouchure should take more of an "eee" position.) Most flutists aren't aware of how their lips change as they move about the flute's registers, so by enhancing what you do, you'll be able to improve your sound.

- Also make sure you've got abdominal support. This vague phrase can mean a lot of different things to different flutists, but having good posture and a firm, supported core helps when you're playing high notes.

- Check to be sure that you're using all the right fingerings for the high notes. Habits can creep in, and using correct fingerings for every note, even when it seems that you get the same note by just "overblowing" the second octave fingering, will help you sound the high notes.