It's extremely weird.
When I do tone exercises I sound clear and stable.
when I play my reportoire I sound really diffused. I'm forcing the air for some reason and my embochure tenses up these days.
But if I close my eyes and just let my breath do it all and make a "musical picture" in my head, I sound a lot clearer. Why is that so?
Weird
Moderators: Classitar, pied_piper, Phineas
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flutepicc06
- Posts: 1353
- Joined: Mon May 29, 2006 11:34 pm
I think you've hit on it yourself. You know your playing better than anyone else, and if you think you're forcing your air, you probably are. You really shouldn't need to change your air too much as you play, except maybe as you change octaves or adjust intonation, so just relax, and use the same airstream you do with your tone exercises. If you feel like you're starting to force the air again, go back and work tone in that part of your range, and then go back to the repertoire.
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fluttiegurl
- Posts: 882
- Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 11:05 pm
I have a student who experienced the same issue for a while. Once she learned to apply the same techniques to her playing that she did for her tone exercises, she sounded amazing. These exercises should be treated the same as your pieces, and vice versa. Often times, we think of them as two different things. Simply put, it is all part of "playing". Every time you play, you should take into consideration your air stream, support, hand position, head position, etc, etc. Eventually, these things will come very naturally. My former teacher taught all of us to consider every aspect of playing on occasion starting from holding the flute, what does it feel like, and go from there. This experience allowed me to really start considering each small part of playing to create a much broader concept of how I play.
If you are concentrating differently when you play your piece, you will often forget some of the technical aspects of playing. Generally, I have found that with most students, tone is the first to go and I will remind them from time to time by saying "where did that beautiful sound go?" Some of this comes with practice and actually knowing the piece. We know how to play, but do we know the music? If you are concentrating on what your fingers are doing all of the time, you might forget other things. Be sure that as you learn the piece, you again apply all of these concepts as you go and do not just try to apply a great tone once you know the notes and rhythms. Each note should be treated in such a way that you are carefully paying attention to how you approach it (articulation), how it is conveyed (tone), and how you release it. A little off subject: I also like for students to learn dynamics as they learn the piece (even upon sight reading). This is the opposite of how I was initially taught, but I have found that the concepts of both tone and dynamics are much more realized through my students.
If you are concentrating differently when you play your piece, you will often forget some of the technical aspects of playing. Generally, I have found that with most students, tone is the first to go and I will remind them from time to time by saying "where did that beautiful sound go?" Some of this comes with practice and actually knowing the piece. We know how to play, but do we know the music? If you are concentrating on what your fingers are doing all of the time, you might forget other things. Be sure that as you learn the piece, you again apply all of these concepts as you go and do not just try to apply a great tone once you know the notes and rhythms. Each note should be treated in such a way that you are carefully paying attention to how you approach it (articulation), how it is conveyed (tone), and how you release it. A little off subject: I also like for students to learn dynamics as they learn the piece (even upon sight reading). This is the opposite of how I was initially taught, but I have found that the concepts of both tone and dynamics are much more realized through my students.