Help with my flute... Intonation problem...?

Question

This is my second year playing the flute in my school band. I've had feedback that when I'm holding long notes, I tend to go flat towards the end. I've tried my best to use my diaphragm to support my note and not play so loud but it doesn't seem to work.

Also, sometimes even though I don't touch my headjoint, the first time I play a note, I may be sharp. However the second time I play it, it may become flat. Why?

My last question... I can't reach the lowest note on my flute, C. However, when I try playing that note on another flute, I'm able to play it easily. Is there something I can do to my own flute to fix that problem?

Hey thanks for all your suggestions and compliments! I really appreciate it. I will definitely take note of all your advice.

Regarding my flute, it's an Altus but I don't know which model it is. For my school band, they provide us with instruments so all the instruments are all passed down. From what my senior told me, there are two Altus's, one of which is in bad condition but we don't know how it's in bad condition. We send instruments for repair only if they really have a problem. (e.g. a note can't be played because xxx key is loose) If I want to get my flute sent for repair, what reason could I state?

Answer 1

Wow! Your second year! I'm impressed with all this information you possess about intonation.

Intonation is hard, heck there are EXERCISES for intonation. And you, my friend, already know that you have a problem with intonation. Which is really good. Now you need to know that it takes time and patience to get in pitch. Since this is your second year, keeping in tune may be harder. That's okay. Like another answerer had said before, focus on your emobochure. Don't think /too/ much. But just focus. Don't just take a huge breath in the diaphragm and let it all out at first. Your airstream may blow a little upwards, which is why you tend to be sharp because your pitch moves up as your airstream blows up. I'm guessing this is a "lip" thing and "breath control" thing. Half and half.

Breath control. I think I know what your problem is. It's pretty common. You may take a good breath with your diaphragm but you might have tongued too hard and let most of the air out without focusing your embochure too much. So therefore, the first note may be really sharp. But the second time, you may have been aware without knowing our use that same breath, which is making you flatter. According to my knowledge, I don't think "Altus" flutes are a bad brand, but the flute itself /may/ be the fault. Your flute may need to be fixed because leakings are usually the cause of not playing Low C. I understand, same situation with me before. The footjoint had a little pad leak. And you need those pads really sealed to play those low notes! Maybe that's why your notes don't sound as well -because of a leak. I remember my Low C's, Middle Ds, Fs, and Es weren't as great because of the leaking in my pad. Maybe yours, too?

Going flat towards the end...You must have start running out of breath. And usually, when your body's aware "Oh, I'm running out of breath; and I'm almost done, whoopdey doo" You become less aware and lose focus. So the end is not "best" quality. No. Wrong thinking. Instead go, "Use all the breath I can. Let myself faint. oh well. I gotta make this whole note wonderful from beginning to end". This may be a mental thing. Or you simply lose breath. Breath control takes a long time, hun. You won't get it in a snap until years pass by. (Unless you're a natural genius) Just keep practicing long tones, holding them long as possible with the best focus as possible. And don't blow your airstream downwards, since this makes the pitch flat. Blow a little upwards to make it in tune.

Another tip: Don't just "play" the note. SING IT! make it like music! And listen to the note, listen to the pitches; use your ears. That way, your ears will be trained better. And you may automatically change the airstream and lip position as you listen along and analyze.

Sounds to me that you need to really focus on airstream. Make sure you're blowing in the right direction. You sound like a step-foward, ambitious student. Ask your parents to buy a book "Trevor Wye Practice Book 1: Tone". It has intonation excercises and tone exercises that'll focus your airstream. Chances are, intonation usually follows with a good sense of lip position, airstream direction, and a stable, clear tone. Everything will follow naturally. Keep practicing and e-mail me if you'd like if these suggestions are not the case. You seem interested in the flute. Good luck!


Oh, and one other thing. Please, correct position for flute! That may be the case. Don't hold the flute too downwards, right at 45 degree angle. Please do not roll your flute in or out...Keep it straight and don't move! Rolling in or out is very common. and keep your chin straight. Not to up or down. Don't slump either. And look in the mirror. Observe your embochure and try "shifting" and "adjusting" the tone as you listen to the note. Find the right place, right airstream direction, good focus, breath. It's not as easy as you think. It's very hard.

Hmmm, is your flute warm? When your flute is very warm, you tend to me sharp. When cold, it is terribly flat. But I doubt this is a problem.

Answer 2

Ah, it looks like you already got some pretty good answers. But I'll answer anyway, being a fellow band student. If you're going flat towards the end of a long note, it might mean that you're not blowing enough air. Keeping a steady airflow would help. Or if necessary, roll your flute slightly outwards when you're getting flat. Breathing exercises would probably help.

As for starting out a bit sharp, it may because you blow too hard. The second time, you're more aware of your breath, so you hold back or roll in intuitively. Well... that's what I used to do anyway.

There's a trick to reaching that low C. It's recommended that the second you play your C, you bring down your left ring finger at the same time. (I don't know if you'll understand what I mean, but I hope you do.) Otherwise, I suggest that you take your flute to the nearest music shop and have it looked at.

Rock on, fellow flautist, rock on.

Answer 3

For a second year student it sounds like you have a very good understanding of whats going on. Most beginners can't tell when their pitch is going flat or even know what that is. If your playing on pitch at the start of a note your on the right track. As you run out of air your pitch will go flat. The more you try to play longer in one breath the longer your notes will last and stay on pitch. This is not something that will happen over night, it will take time.

The position of your headjoint in relation to your mouth makes a huge difference in pitch. You need to strive to putting it in the same exact place every time. The more the tone hole is rolled toward you the higher your picth will be. If it's rolled out the lower your pitch will be. This will come in very handy once you get used to it. Pitch and tonal center moves as you play different notes. Rolling your headjoint towards and away from you allows you to make minor adjustments to your pitch so that you stay in tune. Moving the headjoint is to place your pitch close enough to in tune so that you only have to make minor adjustment as you play.

There are likely two reason why you can't play low C on your flute, and they both relate to the flute itself. One, some student model flutes don't respond very well to the lower notes. Generally these notes aren't used a lot with beginners so manufactors are not concerned about the reliability of those notes. The better the instrument the better low notes. Second, you may have a leak in your keys that keep the note from playing. Try this, take just the body of the flute (no head or foot joint) and finger a low D. Now plug the bottom of this piece with your leg and blow gently into the other end with your mouth completely over the opening. You should hear nothing. If you hear a hissing sound you have a leak. Time for the repair shop. Later you'll learn how to make minor adjustments to take care of most leaks. There are adjustment screws on your flute that become loose and cause leaks. It's natural and normal for this to happen.

Good luck, and again I'm impressed with your attention to details.

HS Band Director for 20 years.

Answer 4

Going flat on long notes is a common problem of flutists. But you're on the right track. You're going flat because you can't sustain the correct pitch that you start out with. This can be solved by working on your breathing. Know those tedious exercises, where you just hold a note for x amount of beats? Those exercises, as boring as they are, really do work. Keep practicing your breath control. Also take note of your posture and the position of your flute when your notes are in tune, and try to maintain that throughout.
The position of your lips on the headjoint (embouchure) really determines the quality of your sound. It's not easy to describe this in words, but try to make a tube with your lips rather than pulling them taut across your teeth, know what I mean? The flute is difficult to play because there's no mouthpiece per se, to help with focusing the air thus making a good sound. You have to create the mouthpiece.
Generally speaking, for low notes like the low C you're having trouble with, blow into the flute, not across the hole of the headjoint. Blow across it for higher notes. Also, widen your embouchure for the lower notes. You need more air. High notes need the focused air across the embouchure piece. Looking back on what you wrote, however, it seems like it's your flute that's the problem. You may want to go to a flute dealer and look into getting a different flute. Not all flutes are created alike. You have to find one that works for you. A flute that's thousands of dollars and oh-so-pretty won't mean a thing to you if you can't play it well. Maybe the $50 flute will turn out to be the one. You never know. Just go into a store one day with lots of free time, to try everything they've got. I regret that I chose to get a "professional" flute over a flute that was actually better suited for me. But also consider a new headjoint. Sometimes that can solve many problems. Just find a day when you've got nothing going on, and try everything.
Hope this lengthy answer helped some. Feel free to email me if you have other questions about the flute. I'd be glad to help.

Answer 5

Flute Intonation

Answer 6

An altus is not the best instrument out there but I don't think that's the issue.

Make sure you are not rolling the flute out and of course blow through the note. Make sure you are not changing you lips toward the ends.

lastly Make sure none of the keys are floppy and loose. If there is, one of the springs might have come loose and is flopping closed while your playing.

The low C is probably your flute. You might take it to a shop and see what they can do, (possibly keys out of line or bent) Might need a new pad.

Always be carefull and never force the case closed on your flute you might bend something.

Answer 7

I have never played a flute, or a trumpet etc. However, I do play a shofar (a rams horn which is blown similarly to a trumpet [it sounds like an elk call]). I do know that with most wind instruments you have to vibrate your lips to some extent. I have two shofars, one large with a large circular opening, and another small with a very narrow oval like opening. The smaller one is much more difficult to blow, and get a good tone out of, because of its small opening. I am guessing this is the case for the flute. Try adjusting your lips into different positions, make them tighter together, and keep practicing. If I am wrong, please correct me, but just from what I know about the shofar, this would be my guess. I hope I helped.

Answer 8

when you're holding notes, you've already got the idea - supporting your air with your diaphragm. it takes time to get a larger capacity, but you're already developing better habits than I am. don't necessarily play softer, but work of breathing exercises - inhale for four, exhale 8, inhale 8, exhale for 16, etc. and move up.

the first time you hit a note, it could be the speed of air you've used, and after hearing it, you may have subconsciously changed your embouchure. it's all a matter of getting used to your mouth, and the positions it can vary to.

the lowest c is a pain. but if you have strong support it'll work better. you'll need a lot more air for the lower octave. you may find it easier to tilt the flute down - it works for me this way, not for some others - but just experiment different directions. my teacher used to make me do this exercise where you over-blow the low c, to get different octaves of strange sorts, then go back to the low c. it worked.

hope this helps you, and keep on playing!

Answer 9

its not just breathing, focus the air from your emoucher. Like i know that's an obiouse thing but really if you just play and look at the head joint right after playing you can see the condensation think of a straw. its a very small opening that's how it should be.
to answer your second question its also where you focus your air if you lose alot of it it will not only sound airy but also it will be out of tune even without moving the head joint. A really good way is to work on lip slurs just play the low register and then slide up to the high resister and play them long for like 8 beats because that will build your emboucher and your breath suppot up.

Answer 10

Well, before I actually say anything, I'm just going to say...hope you enjoy my essay on flute playing.

When holding long notes, you have to, of course, support the air. One problem may be that you might not be breathing in enough air before you play the note. If that does not work, then at the end of your notes, move your head up a little, but only a little bit, not too much. It will make the note a little bit sharper, but my sectionals instructor said that it's better to end sharp than flat.

Also, most flutists have a tendency to go flat as they play quieter. The solution for that is to aim your airstream more up. How you're supposed to have it is 2/3 of the air going INSIDE the flute and 1/3 going OUTSIDE, so make it so that somewhere in the middle of 2/3 and 1/3 is going in and out (about maybe 1/2 and 1/2.) There is also a tendency for most flutists' heads to go down while playing soflty, so move your head up and keep it up. If you're going to marching band, it'll fix it (the head thing...trust me...even though I was a piccolo in marching season, I still had to keep my head up the whole time.)

An exercise that you can do to help with intonation is long tones. For long tones, you start on a low note (any note...I start on low B because I just want to...I mean the B below the staff...I have a B-foot flute...) Then, hold that note you start on for the value of an eighth note and slur up a half step; and hold the note for as long as you can (example: *B as an eighth note*...*slur to C and hold as long as you can*), keeping it as in tune as possible. I suggest looking at a tuner as you do this. I think you should also learn this technique called vibrato. In vibrato, you use your stomach to make a vibrating sound (listen to a professionaly flute recording like "A Flute Tootin' Yule" for example and you can hear them using vibrato. You may not know what it is, but you'll be able to tell. It's a vibrating like of sound...E-mail me at the address I've provided below if you want me to explain this in depth.)

Now, the reason that you may sound flat when you play a note then sharp when you play it again should make you think of one question: "Is it me or the horn?" Sometimes, when you have a really bad horn, this may happen. It happened to me. Then, it could be you that is doing it. One thing may be that your embouchure is inconsistent. Most people think that you make an "O" with your lips when you play flute so that the air is like a cylinder, but...THAT'S WRONG! You have to make it so that it's like your blowing flat air into the horn. But then again, you may be blowing too much air across the embouchure hole and too less into the horn or too much in the hole and too less across. That's going to make your sound too sharp at times and too flat at times. Like I mentioned before, blow 2/3 of the air into the horn and 1/3 out.

If it's your first time playing low C, it's pretty hard get to respond. Here's what you do: first, relax your embouchure. When you're playing low notes, you MUST relax your embochure. Don't relax it too much, though. Then, do the two thing I mentioned earlier about the air and embouchure (2/3 in 1/3 out and blowing flat-shaped air.) Thinking low may also help with it. You also need to support the note with your stomach.

You mention that you can hit the note on another flute but not your own. The answer to that with the question "Is it the horn or me?" is the probably the horn. What brand is your flute? (E-mail me and tell me at [e-mail]...in case you want to know, my name is William.) The brand may be the problem because some brands are not that good. For example, the very first flute that I had was a First Act flute (it's a horrible brand.) It was amazing that I could even get a half decent sound on my flute, but that's besides the point. The point is that that flute pretty much, you could say, had a life span of about I don't know...maybe one to two years (meaning that it's bad), so my point is if your flute cannot produce the note and someone elses can, then you might need to get a new flute.

However, this brings up another point. If you have a school horn, then it may be because the flute may to really old. School horns may be so old that they need to be replaced. For example, there's this concert four-valved tuba (it doesn't really matter the instrument. Flute...tuba...same thing(not by definiton, but you get what I mean...you're smart...you're a flute)...they're both instruments...) at my school that's in so bad of a condition that its valves don't respond anymore (especially the fourth) and the tube that the mouthpiece attaches to broke off and is taped back on (and it's labeled "replace NOT repair"...go figure...) My point here is that it may be the age of the flute that is affecting the ability for is to produce the low C.

Then, (this is the last one...I promise) there may be missing pads or the keys may not be closing fully.

Now, if you have any more questions about the flute, just E-mail me at the E-mail address I already provided for you.