Benny
04-16-2003, 02:28 AM
I've just finished 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardobe' (which had sop/clar/flute - I was the only wind player) and this show I think has been the one where I've learnt the most about changing to flute (because the changes were soooo damn fast!!), so I thought I'd share some of my ideas. Would love to hear everyone's comments, as my biggest goal in the practise room lately has been to really conquer the sax-flute change.
1)think of getting our throat 'down'. As if saying "ohhh." Compared to sax I find flute throat position much further back.
2) Keep your breathing and support low, but vibrato higher up. Realy 'sit' on the air support.
3) Think of playing with warmer air - this seems to match up with the lower throat thing.
4) Really imagine the sound is going somewhere. Often in a pit our sounds can get a bit stiffled by the fact that everything is dark and we can't really visualise where the tone is going.
This might seem like really straight forward things, or even a load of garbage, but I found they worked. I also discovered that what might seem like a obvious thing to be doing when just practising the flute (or picc for that matter) needs to be doubley (no pun intended) reinforced mentally when ion the pit.
Playing four pages of turkish sounding soprano (quite loud) then pinging out a beautiful top E on flute is not easy, but this is the challenge of pro doubling that I love!!
1)think of getting our throat 'down'. As if saying "ohhh." Compared to sax I find flute throat position much further back.
2) Keep your breathing and support low, but vibrato higher up. Realy 'sit' on the air support.
3) Think of playing with warmer air - this seems to match up with the lower throat thing.
4) Really imagine the sound is going somewhere. Often in a pit our sounds can get a bit stiffled by the fact that everything is dark and we can't really visualise where the tone is going.
This might seem like really straight forward things, or even a load of garbage, but I found they worked. I also discovered that what might seem like a obvious thing to be doing when just practising the flute (or picc for that matter) needs to be doubley (no pun intended) reinforced mentally when ion the pit.
Playing four pages of turkish sounding soprano (quite loud) then pinging out a beautiful top E on flute is not easy, but this is the challenge of pro doubling that I love!!