Getting The Flute Sound You Imagine

All flute players have had a similar dilemma, maybe not quite that exaggerated, but something of the sort. We all start somewhere and getting a good sound on the flute can be really really hard! If you came here looking for a quick, easy solution to changing your tone overnight, I have some bad news… That’s probably not going to be possible, even if you were to spend the rest of your day only practicing your tone. The truth is it takes a lot of time and effort, which is okay! Small progress is progress, so even if you feel like you’re not seeing any improvements after working on it for a week straight, well first maybe take a break and play or do something fun, but then just keep at it and I can promise, you will see improvement. Taking videos of progress can be super helpful for this as well! There’s times where I’ve been like “wow, I’m not improving at all my tone is so lifeless.” But then I’ll listen to a recording I made in the past and realize that I actually have improved a lot! But enough of that, lets get into things you can do to actually start improving your sound.

Before going into exercises to improve your sound, I think it’s important to understand how the flute even works to produce a sound. This way you can experiment with making small adjustments and understand why it makes the flute sound the way it does. I’m not here to bore you with math and science though. In the wise words of one of my favorite characters in a book, I’ll give it to you ‘Barney style’.

Basically, when you’re blowing air through the flute, you’re not really just blowing air through the flute. When you get a sound on the instrument, the air is actually hitting the other edge of the embouchure hole, splitting the air so that some of it goes into the flute, and part of it does not. It’s the same idea when you’re blowing into a glass bottle. From there, the air molecules get shaken up, vibrating around the inside of the instrument and produce a sound.

Photo from: https://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/fluteacoustics.html

Because of this, the embouchure on flute is particularly important, as it controls the air stream and angle of the air to produce sound. The hard part with that though, is everyones embouchure on the instrument is going to be different, because we all have different lips. Kind of annoying am I right? So the embouchure that works for your favorite flutist, may not work for you, and that’s okay. Many teachers have different opinions on what it should look like, but in my own opinion and teaching style, whatever works for you, as long as it won’t cause injury, is the best embouchure you can have. There’ll probably be a post on this later. But for the basics, just make sure your lips are relaxed, thinking more of an “ooh” shape.

Posture is also a HUGE factor in your sound, which I discovered more and more throughout my masters. Again, there’s so much to write it’s probably going to be another post, but here are some basics. Make sure you are standing or sitting tall, not forcing yourself to overextend, but a relaxed tall posture- think about a string connected to the ceiling above you, connecting through your head all the way to your toes, or just let yourself feel gravity. This is going to have a big impact on your breathing, which will impact your sound.

Tone tone tone, a word you’ve probably been hearing a lot of if you’re reading this. But what even is it? For a while, I just defined it as: the way you sound on the flute. And while that’s true, it can also be more. Your favorite flutist probably isn’t using just one singular tone, they’re using multiple tone colors, which is what makes their sound so unique. Tone is made up of many combinations of vibrations within the waveform of the sound. These combinations are made of the fundamental pitch (the one you are likely playing) and the overtones in the sound, which are much harder to hear separately, but are there.

These overtones can be manipulated in a way through your oral cavity, or if you’re more familiar with vocal terms, your vowel shapes. This is the most immediate way to achieve different tone colors. While playing a single note, you can change the inside of your mouth to a different vowel shape, some will work much better than others. Typically, when first learning the instrument, students are told to think either “ooh” or “oh”, so try both and see if you can hear a difference. Then try other vowels like “ah”, “ee”, and “eh”. Each of these will have a different sound to them. In The Virtuosic Flutist, there’s an exercise made just for this! If you’re looking more to improve your overall tone for now though, I’d stick to a more relaxed “ooh”. Exploring tone colors can be a bit more advanced, not that you can’t play around with them if you’re a beginner though, maybe you’ll discover a different vowel sounds better for you!

#1: Long Tones

Come on, what else were you expecting? Of course long tones are a great way to improve your tone. This is because doing long tones gives you time to really listen to your sound, and how slight changes in your embouchure, breath, or even posture can effect your tone. If you get bored like me during long tones (it’s the truth, they’re not that exciting), really experiment during them. Remember that it’s perfectly okay to sound bad sometimes. Testing the limits of your instrument can be important so you know where those limits are! Maybe during a long tone, you try slouching down in your chair and your sound is squished- now you know the importance of sitting up! Or maybe you roll your flute in too far, making your sound small and flat- now you know that you like your sound more when your flute is rolled out more! Have fun with it! Another things you could do is bring this into your repertoire. Pick a few notes you specifically want to focus on tone, then play up until that note and hold it out. Maybe do it again, but play the note out with a different angle of air, etc.

#2: Singing and Playing

Singing and playing can be so good for tone improvement. For me, singing and playing almost forces me to open and relax my throat more, which makes my tone quality improve when I go back to playing normally. The buzzing of the sound while singing is what actually causes this, and in order to do the technique, you often have to use more air and support, which are both great things when wanting to get a good flute tone. If you don’t know how to sing and play (self promo here) I have a post about how to do different extended techniques, singing and playing being one of them, right here on this blog! The way I like to practice this is by mimicking a vocal warm up. Start with do, go up to sol, then back down 3 times, then repeat, this time playing normal. So written in word form: do re mi fa sol fa mi re do re mi fa sol fa mi re do re mi fa sol fa mi re do—– and for people who that means nothing to, like this below, but in whatever key you want!

#3: Vocal Warm ups

This is one I don’t hear very often, but I began to notice in my undergrad that after my choir rehearsals, I sounded so much better on flute. That’s when I began to realize the similarities between the two, but I think many vocal warm ups can be beneficial for flutists. Lip buzzing can help release tension from your lips. Singing in general encourages you to open your oral cavity to produce quality tone when singing and when playing. Breathing exercises some choirs do can also help with breathing on flute, keeping everything relaxed. And lastly, supporting your voice teaches you to do the same when playing flute. A supported breath does wonders for flute tone. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a big fan of choral warm ups, and I encourage you to look some up, or even better, join a choir! I’m pretty positive singing in a choir will improve your flute tone. Here’s a link to a pdf of so many choral warm ups (the internet has so many): https://choirdirectorcorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/50-Awesome-Choir-Warm-Ups-Cheat-Sheet.pdf

#4: Imitation

The last tip I have to help improve your tone is simply to listen to more flute players. Listening to “the greats” and trying to imitate the way they sound can really help. Watching videos of them play is something I find to be particularly helpful as a visual learner. I’m able to watch their embouchure and posture in a video of one playing and then can imitate that. Again, sometimes you may try something and it goes horribly wrong, so just laugh and move on, try something else. It doesn’t have to be super serious.

Good Luck

I want to end this post by wishing you luck on your tone journey. Remember to take lots of videos, it’ll help when you worry you’re not making any progress. Take breaks, please for the love of everything take breaks. I’m telling you here do not practice tone for hours a day, it’s not worth it. I love pomodoro technique-ing for studying and practicing- practice/study hard for 20-30 min, then take a break, by walking around, drinking water, or something. It’ll take time to improve your tone, but that’s okay, keep going. Laugh along the way when you make silly mistakes or accidentally make a funny noise. Enjoy practicing. Lastly, if you’re wanting more resources on how to improve your tone, here’s a list of websites and books that can give you more ideas: