Beautiful Embouchure = Beautiful Sound
Florida Music Educators Conference
Tampa, Florida
January 15, 2015
Dr. Jennifer Parker-Harley, flute
A beautiful embouchure is the key to unlocking the expressive potential of both the
flute and the flute player. Below are some things to consider when starting new
flutists.
Let’s start by defining and differentiating between the embouchure and the
aperture. The EMBOUCHURE refers to the facial musculature used to shape and
direct air into a wind instrument. The APERTURE is the small hole through which
the air passes.
There are three main characteristics common to effective embouchures:
EFFICIENCY
FLEXIBILITY
GOOD PLACEMENT
EFFICIENCY
An efficient embouchure will do its work with the least tension and the least
amount of effort possible. It will be the right size and use the right muscles.
SIZE: Efficient embouchures have small apertures. With apertures that are too
large, a lot more air than necessary will escape into the room rather than going into
the flute to contribute to the sound.
STRATEGIES FOR GETTING THE RIGHT SIZE APERTURE:
1. Hold a piece of rice (long grain is easiest!) between your lips so that the
rice is going the long way into your mouth. This gives you an idea of just
how small the aperture needs to be! Small coffee stirrers can also work,
but many are too large for this purpose (those typically found at
McDonalds, for example).
2. Hold the lips together in a neutral position. Breathe in through the nose.
Now exhale the air with enough force to separate the lips as if saying,
‘puh’. This will usually result in an aperture of a good size for playing the
flute.
3. Once you have established a small aperture, when exhaling through it,
bring your index finger to meet the lips. If the finger stops the exhalation,
your aperture is most likely the right size. If the exhalation continues, the
aperture is probably too big.
THE RIGHT MUSCLES: The muscles used in forming a correct embouchure are
predominately the oris orbicularis, which are a circular group of muscles around the
lips.
The flute is the only wind instrument that does not have a mouthpiece or a reed to
direct the air into the tube. This, then, becomes the function of the lips and is
sometimes referred to as the lip tube. It is most efficient to use the muscles closest
to the air to shape and direct the air stream. The muscles at the corners of the
mouth should not really come into play and should certainly not be visibly working
or tight. These muscles at the center of the embouchure will need to be identified
and strengthened to do their work well. Sometimes, students are taught to form an
embouchure by smiling. This does serve to create a small aperture but also results
in a lot of excess tension that can cause fatigue, intonation problems and a lack of
resonance in the sound; it is inefficient to use the smiling muscles. When playing
correctly, a flutist’s ‘chops’ should never get tired. (Fingers, arms and back may, but
not chops!) As an illustration, walk to a closed door. Try to open the door primarily
using the muscles of your entire arm and shoulder. While you will probably
eventually get the door open, your arm will hurt, you will have expended a lot more
energy than necessary, and you will look pretty silly! Now close the door again, and
relaxing your shoulder, hold the door handle and use your wrist to open the door.
Much easier, right? Much more efficient, since you used the muscles closest to what
you were trying to control. And certainly more graceful and elegant – just like
controlling the air from the center of the lips instead of the corners!
STRATEGIES for IDENTIFYING and STRENGTHENING THESE MUSCLES:
1. Rabbit Exercise (Jill Felber)
2. Moving warm air on hand
3. For more advanced students: whistle tones and harmonics
FLEXIBILITY
A flexible embouchure can easily change the direction of the air and the angle at
which it goes into the flute. This is important, most basically, to control register. As
a general rule, we should aim to get 60% of the air into the flute, which means 40%
of the air goes into the room. This explains, of course, the reason that the flute uses
more air than any other wind instrument except the tuba! However, as the flute
goes into the second and third octave, the airstream hits higher on the riser of the
lip plate. The embouchure is responsible for controlling this direction. On a smaller
scale, the embouchure is responsible for controlling intonation. Very small changes
in the direction of the air stream can be made to adjust for intonation. As the saying
goes, “It is not the flute that plays in tune, but the flute player!” For advanced
players, this change in direction, coupled with changes in aperture shape can result
in beautiful and varied tone colors.
STRATEGIES for IMPROVING FLEXIBILITY
1. warm air/cold air on hand
2. pneumo-pro (see kathyblocki.com for more information)
GOOD PLACEMENT
The embouchure can be efficient and flexible but still sometimes the sound is not
great – one more aspect to consider: placement of the flute on the lip. ¼ to ⅓ of the
embouchure hole should be covered by the lip. For most people, this means that the
flute sits in the crook of the chin and the edge of the embouchure hole touches the
outer edge of the lower lip. This placement will get more air into the flute and result
in a bigger, more resonant sound. THIS MEANS THAT THE ROLL-DOWN METHOD
WILL NOT WORK – IT PUTS THE FLUTE TOO HIGH ON THE LIP!!
Next aspect of placement: the middle of the aperture should line up with the middle
of the embouchure hole. This gets more air into the flute, again resulting in a more
focused and larger sound.
Line of lips – line of flute: If you were to draw a horizontal line between the lips and
another horizontal line through the middle of the flute, these two lines should
remain parallel. Again, the reason for this is the same as the other placements I’ve
listed: this insures that more air goes into the instrument.
STRATEGIES FOR WORKING ON GOOD PLACEMENT
1. the ‘sweet spot’ exercise (Jill Felber) – Form an embouchure, put the flute up
to your lips and while continuing to exhale, move the flute a) up and down on
the lip to find the best sound b) from side to side on the lip to center the
aperture and embouchure hole.
Questions? Feel free to contact me at jparkerharley@mozart.sc.edu
Session sponsored by Eastman Music Company (Haynes and Amadeus Flutes) and
All County Music..