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Registration for the Victorian Flute Guild Junior Day, on Sunday March 20th,  is due in a couple of days. It’d be great to have a huge number of young, enthusiastic flautists on board.  More information can be found on this site under ‘Events’ or at victorianfluteguild.org   Here is the form again if you can’t find it.

VFG Junior Flute Day

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The third idea for tuning to the piano needs the help of your pianist to play each note repeatedly.

On the flute you will be playing a backwards C scale starting two octave above the flute low C, at the top of the middle register. Ask the pianist to repeatedly play this note while you sustain that note on the flute. Your job is to match your flute note to the piano note being repeatedly played. (More to come shortly about using beats for tuning) The reason for the pianist repeating the note is so that you can continually hear the note you are trying to tune to.

Once the pianist and you think the two notes match then you move down to B natural and repeat the process. Continue on down for one octave checking every note of the C scale.

During this exercise you may need to adjust the head joint to be overall more in tune with the piano. (See previous two posts) And of course you can do this exercise on any scale. I like to do this exercise in the key of the piece I am about to play to find the tonal centre of that piece.

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The second idea for helping you to tune to the piano I call The Swoop.

Have the pianist sustain the note A. (You can do this yourself using the sustain pedal). Play your flute A along with the sustaining piano A but then stop your flute sound and listen carefully to the piano note. Did you feel the pitch moved up, or swooped up to the piano pitch? If so, then your flute note is flat and you need to push in.

If when you stop your flute note you feel the pitch sag down to the piano pitch then you are sharp and you need to pull out.

When you are in tune with the piano, once you stop your flute note there will be no movement of the pitch either up or down to the piano note. They match!

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Tuning to the piano seems to cause many people a lot of grief so the next few posts are going to offer some suggestions to help with this.

This first approach I like to call The Process of Elimination.

Play the flute note before hearing the piano note so that you don’t try to adjust your A to  the piano A you’ve just heard. Play an honest, mezzo forte, low register A. Have your pianist play a single A (a sixth above piano middle C) and then ask them to add in the F and D below that A to create a D minor triad. This triad gives more of a pitch centre to aim for than just a single note.

Once you’ve heard the flute and piano notes use The Process of Elimination:

Is it ok?

Is it not ok?

I’m not sure.

If you think it’s fine then play.

If you think it’s not ok then you’re probably sharp or flat. If you think you’re sharp then pull out. Recheck your A. Did it improve? If so then you are on the right track. If not then you possibly went the wrong way.

If think you’re flat then push in. Recheck your A. Did it improve? If so then you are on the right track. If not then you possibly went the wrong way.

If you are not sure then keep reading the blogs and continue to work at improving your overall intonation skills.

Just ask yourself; is it ok? Is it not ok? I’m not sure, to gradually improve your ability to tune with the piano.

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Playing in tune is a very important part of good flute playing. There are so many variables at play but underpinning everything is the fact that the flute is based on the harmonic series.

The bottom register of the flute is the fundamental note (the lowest note possible with any given fingering), the second register notes are derived from the first harmonic (or partial) of the low register notes and the upper register pitches come from either the 2nd or 3rd harmonic of the low register, fundamental note.

Using Western notation this harmonic series is written as the first harmonic being one octave above the fundamental, the second harmonic a fifth above that and the third harmonic two octaves above the fundamental. The truth of the matter is that the distance between the harmonics is not exactly as written. Western equal temperament has slightly altered the natural pitches series. Basically as you go up further through the harmonic series the pitches become sharper. Since the flute is inextricably linked to the harmonic series this means that as you ascend your pitch will become sharper.

If you are doing nothing to adjust your pitch as you ascend on the flute you will be out of tune.

So the first step in developing good intonation is the realisation that the flute is based on the harmonic series, therefore it naturally pushes sharper as you ascend. You need to be doing something about that if you want to play in tune.

In future posts I will be looking at ways to adjust and control pitch plus some exercises to develop your ability to play with good intonation.

As a first exercise, finger any low register note (low C, C3 or D are good) and without changing your fingers blow through the harmonic series noticing how out of tune these harmonics actually are.

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I’ll be running a Junior Flute Day ( flautists up to 14 years old) for the Victorian Flute Guild on Sunday, March 20th, 2016. If you’re a young flute player who’d like to attend or a teacher who would like to send along some students, please see the flyer below for more details. You can also visit victorianfluteguild.org

VFG Junior Flute Day

 

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Trying to stand up straight when playing, or telling students to hold their flutes up doesn’t last for very long; people forget and revert to their usual habits. Instead try lining up these six points of balance (see previous blogs) while holding the flute down in front of your body. Now turn the head slightly to the left and bring the flute up with minimal alteration to the body’s position. Now with a long neck and chin tucked in you’ll be in an optimal playing posting, angling the air slightly downwards over the left forearm.

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Having explored the previous blogs you’ll have an understanding of the six points in the body to line up vertically for good posture.

The weight of the head travels down the spine, spreads across the pelvis and down each leg to the feet where the weight spreads evenly across the feet.

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Your head needs to sit up on top of your spine so that its considerable weight can travel down your spine through your body to your feet.

Hold your ear lobes and imagine a line running between your ears.

Go to the mid point of this line and down slightly.

Now gently nodding your head try to gain a sense of where your head meets your spine at the atlanto occipital joint (AO joint).

Turn your head gently left and right and feel how your head swivels on this point.

Gently move your head in all directions and try to sense the central point around which it swivels.

Aim to keep this point (the AO joint) up on top of your spine. Aim to release the neck so it is nice and long which in turn will cause your chin to drop slightly. Long in the back of the neck, chin tucked in a little.

You’ll feel a gentle energy up through your jaw and imagine your head floating up on top of your spine.