Embouchure
    First of all, make sure that the piccolo headjoint is aligned slightly to the outside of the center of the midline as this will keep you from covering too much of the embouchure hole. Place the piccolo slightly higher on the lower lip than you would place a flute. This will raise the angle of the air slightly and free up the tone.
    Since a piccolo is about half the size of a flute, piccolo players should be certain that they are allowing the air to reach the back wall of the embouchure hole at an optimum angle. They also should not cover too much of the embouchure hole.
    Basic embouchure control comes from the center of the lips, not the corners. Say the word pure. Feel how the lips come forward on the vowel sound, and notice how the corners are controlled, but never stretched back tightly (as in a smile). Notice also that there is a little space between the top lip and front teeth. It helps to imagine blowing a kiss to somebody across the room. Again notice that there is more of a sense of forward motion to the lips, rather than a squeezing motion. This is the opposite of the feeling of keeping the lips pursed together.
    When playing softly, never pull the top lip down towards the bottom lip. As in playing flute, moving the lower jaw, lips, and tongue forward helps send the sound away from you at softer dynamic levels. Keep the aperture smaller as well, but make sure you are not squeezing. A good image for keeping a small aperture might be like slurping in that last strand of spaghetti. Playing soft requires a tiny aperture.

Air Column
    Playing softly takes more energy than playing loudly, but it is a different kind of energy. Keep the throat open and free. I always notice that the air is spinning in my mouth much more at a piano dynamic, and I am aware of the subtle back pressure from support (that feeling of pushing down or out while exhaling). Tone production on the piccolo is based on using stronger support but less quantity of air than flutists use. The tone will be harsh and brassy if a player uses air volume or a large quantity of air to produce the tone. Use a firm, concentrated air stream and think about speed and support (compression) rather than using a large quantity of air. Lifting the rib cage and sternum to control the air helps keep the pitch from dropping at the ends of phrases or during long sustained notes. I have always incorporated piano long tones into daily piccolo practice routine so that I get used to the balance of air pressure on the long, sustained exhalation.

Fingerings
    It really helps to have a good command of alternate fingerings to use when playing softly. The basic intonation of the piccolo is very different than the flute. For example, C#5 is usually quite sharp on the flute but is a notoriously flat note for most piccolos. Of course there also are huge variances in pitch from instrument to instrument with the piccolo, much more so than from flute to flute. Know your instrument’s basic tendencies and study fingering guides for ideas that can raise pitch or lower pitch on the same note as you might want to adjust  in either directions depending on the circumstances. There are several high-register notes that are often flat no matter what the dynamic level, so make adjustments to blow slightly higher or roll slightly with the right hand to keep the pitch high enough. Work carefully with a tuner to learn the tendencies of the alternate fingerings, which will become more primary in many circumstances. Never try to hide on the piccolo as this causes a host of issues from sagging support to a slower air speed. Play with confidence and remember that high frequencies are sometimes perceived as louder just because they are higher. Sometimes it helps to play more into the music stand, which acts as a sound baffle for particular passages. Trumpet players in particular seem to use this technique to help dampen the sound and limit projection.

    Learning to play softly on the piccolo is rewarding and will give you some incredibly satisfying musical moments. It is a question of getting the correct embouchure position, correct alignment (of the instrument and the player’s body), air support and fingerings working together to create the desired dynamic. You will be able to say the most important musical things…softly.

The post Shhh…Time to Play Softly appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

    One of the joys of teaching at a university is the time spent with colleagues talking shop. One year a group of us ate lunch together every Tuesday at a Chinese restaurant. At the end of the meal we were each presented with our bill and a fortune cookie. As we lingered over the final sips of hot tea, we took pleasure in reading our fortunes aloud. A few weeks into this weekly ritual, one of the professors challenged us to work our fortune cookie’s message into the curriculum of our afternoon’s teaching. Then the next week, we would report back on how creatively we had done so. Of course our students knew nothing of this plan until much later. You would not think that this small occurrence would add a new level of excitement to teaching both in the classroom and in the private studio, but it did.  
    For many years I kept my fortune cookie messages in a small box in my desk. When a student came for a lesson and was not prepared to play, I usually practiced with him working on tone, technique, etudes, or a challenging part of his repertoire. One day I decided to deviate from this and got out my fortune cookie message box. I told the student about our Tuesday faculty lunches and our scheme to work a fortune cookie message into the afternoon’s curriculum. Then I suggested that he take a message from my box and tell me how he would work the message into his own teaching. This exercise proved to be an excellent evaluation tool for me to see how well students could manipulate the pedagogical information that they had been collecting since entering college.
    Music educators often ask a student teacher, “Are you going to teach this the way you were taught to teach it, or are you going to teach it the way you were taught?” For a few students teaching the way they were taught is an excellent option; however, for most, it is not. Any time we can help students reteach themselves, the next generation of students will benefit.
    This enjoyable exercise was so successful with my college students that I decided to modify it to use with middle school and high school students. Each lesson is divided into three parts: 1/3 on tone and technique, 1/3 on etudes, and 1/3 on solos and repertoire. At the end of each part, I have students randomly select a fortune cookie message from my box and then apply the message to what they had just played. This simple act produced quite astonishing results as it helped them focus on how to make what they had played better. Part of the success stems from the fact that anytime you can get students to look at the same content from a different direction, you have enriched their understanding of the material. 
    For example one younger student was having difficulty remembering the accidentals in an etude in G# minor.  From the fortune box, she drew Plan your work and work your plan. She looked up at me and said, “If I had practiced the Super Scale Routine for this key, I would be able to play this etude with so many fewer mistakes.” While she had a plan, she had not worked the plan. ( is available as a free download at www.flutetalkmagazine.com under .) The next week, she played the etude accurately and with confidence.
    This exercise also helped students who were preparing for a concert or competition as it gave them suggestions to use when they had performance anxiety. One fortune read: It’s all right to have butterflies in your stomach, just get them to fly in formation. Every great performer will tell you that they are nervous before they play. The secret is they learn to use these butterflies to turn in an even more exciting performance. This fortune has helped many a student who was preparing for a concert.
    One of my favorite messages is Whenever possible, keep it simple. When I was a student I loved playing the Romantic virtuoso repertoire which consists of pieces written by flutist composers based on an operatic theme followed by a set of variations. This music is lightweight in intent and the variations are full of compositional clichés. What was even worse was that I added all these extra over-the-top phrasing gestures. I loved every minute of hamming it up. At one lesson I was subjecting my flute professor, Joseph Mariano, to one of these Romantic outbursts. I recall Mariano was so polite and just said, “Simplicity is truth. Truth is beauty. Now, would you like to begin again?” I began with the operatic theme thinking keep it simple. As I continued to play, I found that by keeping it simple the music was becoming much more beautiful and expressive. I did not need to do so much as it was already in the melody. I just needed to get out of the way. This message has served me well. Whenever I am tempted, I can hear Mariano’s voice in my head suggesting that simple is good.
    Another message that is equally important for us all is You will be rewarded for being a good listener in the next week. The first time I played for Frederick Fennell, creator of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, I was extremely nervous as might be expected. I looked up at him on the podium just in front of me and noticed that on the wall behind him was a sign that said LISTEN. During the rehearsal I turned to my left and my right and noticed there were similar signs on those walls too. At the end of the rehearsal after I had packed up my flute, I turned to look at the back wall of the rehearsal hall, and there was the same sign again. Then I realized that Fennell was the only one in the room during the rehearsal who could see that sign. If he needed to be reminded to listen, then I should really listen too. No musician ever listens enough. Too often we aimlessly practice without our critical listening ears turned on.
    Another fortune advised: You create your own stage…the audience is waiting. Unless novice performers are coached to play big on a stage, more than likely they play small. Playing small is as uncomfortable to the listener as it is to the performer. The words claim your space are equally important to remember in rehearsals and in performance. As a flutist be sure to have an adequate amount of space around your chair in rehearsals and in concerts so that you can have good posture and not feel like the end of your flute is in another’s way.
    Good things take time. This is an especially important message for teachers. Since we want students to succeed and find the love and joy that we do in playing the flute, we sometimes assign music that is too difficult and inappropriate. We see this in judging when it is obvious a teacher has assigned a piece that is too difficult for a student’s level of musical understanding. There is a saying about Mozart’s music, “The music is too easy for students and too difficult for professionals.” Learning to have patience in teaching and knowing when and how to push a young student is a skill to be learned.
    All progress occurs because people dare to be different. I think this is a message for all flutists who are pushing the envelope by programming contemporary music. My advice is to keep doing it. Robert Dick, author of The Other Flute, wrote that he was worried about his first performance at a National Flute Convention as a young man. He wondered if they would like his music or if he would be heckled off the stage. As it turned out, the audience was quite cordial to him, and obviously throughout the following years have championed his ideas and compositions. What if hadn’t dared to be different?
     Finally one of my all-time favorites: make a wise choice every day. Rather than constructing an elaborate, long practice plan, try to practice at least one important thing every day.     

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    Online learning is becoming a viable option for music lessons. While in-person lessons are still the optimal choice, online lessons can allow a student to study with a teacher in a geographically distant place. Last year I relocated to another state, and two of my particularly dedicated flute students have continued to study with me via Skype. When I travel back to their area, we have an in-person lesson which allows me to evaluate their flute playing in a way which cannot be done online.

Computer and Internet
    After setting up a Skype account, schedule a lesson time. To allow for the possibility of a lost connection, schedule a 40 minute time slot for a 30 minute lesson and 70 minute time slot for an hour lesson. Depending on the make and model of the laptop, the microphone and speakers may not be of sufficient quality for a music lesson. Separate microphones and speakers made specifically for Skype usage are available at most discount stores. They plug into a USB port.
    A high speed internet connection provides the best results. While slower connections can work, expect some broken or distorted connections. The internet speeds for both teacher and student affect the amount of communication lag time. This lag times makes it impossible for a teacher and student to play at the same time. Often, a student and I will accidentally talk over each other when we thought an exchange was complete.
    If there is a bad connection, disconnect and place the call again. Do have the student’s phone number at hand as you may be able to finish the lesson over the phone or set up a new time to continue the lesson if you cannot be reconnected via Skype.

The Lesson
    Both teacher and student should select a quiet location to set up their laptops and music stands. The teacher should adjust the screen so the camera captures the face and shoulders. Select a background that will not look cluttered to the student. Good lighting on the face improves the quality of the transmitted picture so a student can correctly interpret a teacher’s facial expressions and embouchure demonstrations. 
   Students should place the music stand slightly off to the right of the camera on the laptop. There is less sound distortion if the footjoint end of the flute is pointed away from the microphone in the laptop. Students should be several feet back from the laptop so the teacher can see the upper two thirds of the student. Good lighting improves the overall picture quality.
    Both teacher and student should have a notebook and pencil at hand. Ask students to jot down notes and practice suggestions during the lesson. Teachers can make more detailed notes and practice assignments to later scan and send as a follow-up to the lesson via email. I keep a notebook to review what has been assigned at earlier lessons. 
    At the appointed time have the student call the teacher. The teacher answers with the video prompt. The teacher and student should have discussed what music will be worked on at the lesson so the correct music is at hand and no time is lost finding it. If music is new or unfamiliar to either, then it should be scanned and sent in an email before the lesson time.
    Besides the time delay and the inability to play with students, there are some sight and sound limitations with distance lessons. Since you cannot see the whole flutist on Skype, it may be difficult to assess overall posture. To assess embouchure you may need to ask the student to reposition in relationship to the camera. Slight nuances of sound are hard to detect, so unless you are very familiar with a student’s personal sound and have a game plan to develop it in a certain way, you have to use a much more general approach to this area of study. Dynamic changes also are often leveled out by Skype.

Positive Aspects of Online Teaching
    A teacher can offer lessons to a much greater number of students using the internet because students do not have to be geographically close. Since lessons are set to start and end at very specific times, there is no time wasted with unpacking and packing up. Other benefits include the loss of travel time to and from lessons; students do not have to be driven to lessons, and neither the student nor teacher has to go out in inclement weather. For teachers who travel or tour frequently, fewer lessons are missed because teaching can continue on the road.

What You Can’t Do Online
    In addition to the previously mentioned technical limitations, I was not able to offer recital opportunities for students who studied via Skype, nor was I able to attend their concerts and auditions. Accordingly, I adjusted my tuition rate slightly since it had previously covered the expenses I incurred in providing performance and competition opportunities for them when we lived in the same area.

Payment and Paperwork
    If you know the students and their families well, have them send a check at the beginning of the month for the month’s lessons. For new students or those who may take only one lesson, set up a PayPal account. 
    Teaching online improved my teaching in several ways. I had to listen much more closely since I did not have the usual sensory advantages of an in-person lesson. My mind had to fill in the gaps when the sound stream was inconsistent while a student played. I learned how to focus more closely during the lessons so that I could give an accurate evaluation of a student’s progress. Combining technology with the occasional in-person lessons provides the best of both worlds for both teacher and student.  

The post Teaching the Flute Online appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

    Aralee Dorough is principal flutist of the Houston Symphony, an affiliate artist at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, flute professor at the Texas Music Festival, and an active performing and recording artist. Besides her work in the classical music field, she regularly collaborates with her father, jazz artist and Schoolhouse Rock composer, Bob Dorough. She is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory (Robert Willoughby) and continued her studies at the Yale School of Music (Thomas Nyfenger).

What was it like growing up with a jazz legend for a father?
    Even math was fun at our house. My dad started composing “Multiplication Rock” (the first of the animated TV series Schoolhouse Rock) when I was nine. It is my voice saying, “Zero?” on the song “My Hero, Zero,” which also has beautiful flute solos that were played by Hubert Laws. Later, when I was in college, I got to play flute and piccolo on some of the later songs of the series. I have always loved going into the recording studio in New York City and watching my dad work. I also love watching him perform for an audience. He has incredible warmth and charisma on stage.
    My mother was also a creative, fun person. We lived in the country in Pennsylvania with a big organic garden, pets, and farm animals, and she did it all. She was a dancer and had a dancer’s discipline; she never missed a day of limbering up, as she called it. She studied acrobatics in Germany and when she came to the U.S. she performed in New York City, Las Vegas, the Catskills, and the Poconos, where she met my father during a summer’s engagement at Mt. Airy Lodge. Her dance routine was something similar to a Cirque de Soleil performance: feats of limberness artistically set to music with imaginative costumes that she made herself.
    My father always had us making music in various ways as a family, but I did not practice the flute much. I did many things more seriously: art, gymnastics, judo and track. As a last ditch effort to test out whether I could be serious about music, my father surprised me with the gift of a new flute and offered to get me a private teacher in New York. I began taking weekly lessons with Nadine Asin and, inspired by her beautiful sound, I began practicing every day. My mother would take me out of school several hours early and we would make the two-hour drive to Manhattan. I would get out of the car in front of Nadine’s building for my lesson, and afterwards ride the bus down Broadway to the studio of renowned tap teacher Henry LeTang where my mom was having a lesson. I even took some tap lessons myself for a period of time, but soon I began to focus more on flute.

Why did you choose to attend Oberlin and then Yale? 
    It was most definitely for the teachers. After dabbling in so many things growing up I wanted to attend a conservatory and work at music full time. I was accepted to Yale as an undergraduate and was very tempted, but knew I would be distracted by other subjects. I had a lesson with Thomas Nyfenger at the time, and he encouraged me to go to Oberlin and study with Willoughby instead. Therefore, I was very pleased to be able to go to Yale School of Music for graduate school. Nyfenger was very instrumental in getting me ready for my audition for the Houston Symphony.

What were the challenges of auditioning for the Houston Symphony while still finishing graduate school?
    It was my first major audition, for the position of second flute. I did not have any expectation of winning it, and yet, at the same time I had a certain serious intent about it, an idea that I could win it. Without that element, I would not have been able do what I did to prepare. I had taken two auditions for very small regional orchestras the year before, so I had some experience of the intensive practice required. Once my tape for Houston was accepted, I dropped everything in my life for three weeks to cram full time. I cut classes and weaseled out of rehearsals. There were many inconveniences. One of my roommates wouldn’t let me turn up the thermostat, so I bought an electric radiator and turned my drafty room into a tropical paradise so that I could practice the opening of Daphnis without my tendonitis flaring up. The extra power the heater needed would trip the circuit breaker. Then I had to stop practicing and run down four flights of stairs to the basement to flip it back. One week before the audition I bent a key on my flute.

Did you have to audition for the principal flutist position with the Houston Symphony since you were already playing second chair?
    Yes, and I lost the audition, but then an enormous opportunity dropped into my lap. I was asked to sub as acting principal for a whole season while the search for principal continued. I did not get the opportunity to play many principal parts during my conservatory years, and with this experience I discovered I could do it and also loved it. I put everything I had into each concert. It was during this time that I began completely changing my breathing technique with the help of Keith Underwood in New York. By the time the season, and my contract, ended, I had gone from substitute to contender to winner.

What is a typical week’s schedule with the Houston Symphony?
    Today is Monday, and that is usually my day off. Yesterday we did a Mozart Concert. The next few days we will rehearse a program of Strauss, Adams, and Holst and do three performances. Then next Monday we will spend four hours recording Also Sprach Zarathustra for a DVD that will be called Orbit. The following week we do Pops shows in the evenings and children’s shows in the mornings. I like that it is different every week, but the schedule does make it hard to plan other activities.

How does teaching at the University of Houston fit into the week?
   It is tricky, so I usually limit my studio size to about four to six students. My students are wonderfully patient when we have to shift lesson times. The benefit to them of my being a full-time symphonic player is that whatever I am playing that week can become part of what we are studying. I have been teaching for five years as one of four adjunct flute teachers who are also professional performers. The school’s location in the heart of a big city surrounded by performing arts means that there is a great concert nearly every night of the week.

What are your ideas about developing a wide palette of colors? 
    If thinking in terms of color does not work for you, try tactile words like gritty, grainy, airy, fuzzy, compact, thick or thin. A big part of developing variety is listening and imitating. Tom Nyfenger could imitate any flutist or instrument. He would play the melody from the Mozart clarinet concerto and it sounded like a clarinet.
    In technical terms, the important part of changing colors is the changing. Explore all the ways you can change pitch, dynamics and sound quality, by changing the way you are blowing, the aim of the air, rolling in and out, and changing what you are doing with your embouchure. You have to make some distorted sounds. Experiment in practice by playing too sharp, too flat, and too loud. I am a big fan of practicing pitch bending and multiphonics.

How do you teach embouchure?
    I play with my corners down, but not too much. It is more important to think about where the airstream is going. There is more going on than meets the eye. Think about where the airstream hits the flute. Flutists should deliver air at a sufficient speed at a particular angle from a particular distance. When they get the combo just right, it feels and sounds great. The rest of the time, it is hard work. I visualize a flat airstream. Flat like a blade of grass, or an oboe reed – my husband plays the oboe.

Where is the tongue placed? 
    The tongue is this enormous thing lurking in our mouth. Flutists forget about it except when they want to articulate. Aware of it or not, it shapes the sound, because it shapes the airstream. If you want a fast, flat airstream, the tongue can help. I keep my tongue forward and wide in my mouth to help pre-shape the air. I have my corners down and outward, and my tongue widens to meet them. Don’t pucker your lips around an invisible drinking straw; smash the straw flat.
    I have begun to think a lot about the space that is created by the front half of the tongue, the front teeth, the gums behind the teeth, and the hard palate. This space is important because it can be subtly varied to help manage the airstream before it gets to the lips. I have started to think of this as the pre-embouchure.
   Articulation problems arise when that pre-embouchure changes during attempts to single or double tongue. The space becomes larger, the airspeed slows and tone suffers. I attempt to make the “t” or “d” syllable with the middle of my tongue on the hard palate, while keeping my tongue in the very forward wide position described above.
I often use a sort of “p” attack on first notes, but it is with the inside of my top lip on the top of my tongue, while my tongue is anchored on my lower teeth and lower lip, rather than an actual lips together “p.”

What are your thoughts about breathing? 
    Many popular notions about breathing are wrong. I feel so fortunate that I was introduced to the principles of Arnold Jacobs, tuba player of the Chicago Symphony, via flutist Keith Underwood. Jacobs had many brass students come to him for help with what they thought were embouchure problems, but he would help them by changing their concepts about air use using specific language, imagery and devices for measuring air. One such device was a five-liter latex bag he would have the player breathe into and then rebreathe the same air. When Underwood, who I consider one of my biggest mentors, first had me play my flute with air I had breathed in from the bag, I knew in an instant that this was going to transform my playing. I knew from the way it sounded and from the way it felt.
    What I had experienced at that moment was the feeling of playing the flute with air that was at low pressure until just beyond the embouchure, a result of coordinated breathing muscles instead of consciously trying to expand down low. One could call this natural, relaxed breathing, except that it is so hard to do. Keith taught me that Jacobs never used the words inhale, exhale, expand or support, because of their effortful, skeletal connotations. In their place, he talked about blowing and sucking the air, and would say, “play with the air from your mouth.” What is great about using the breathing bag is that for the first time you can actually see that very important component: your air. There are so many useful exercises you can do with the bag, but it really helps to have some coaching on how to do it.
    Something simple anyone can try to stop over expanding is to match every breath to the phrase.  Take a little less air than you think you need. It is a common habit to tank up at every opportunity, but often the ribcage stays expanded too long, and we lose the feeling of useable air at the mouth. The first phrase of a piece is often one of the shorter ones, with a long one coming, so sometimes in lessons I will help students by calling out, “small, small, medium, big!”

What are your thoughts about vibrato?
    I love vibrato and enjoy helping my students with it. Often students have some technical problems that need to be solved first. An exercise called vibrato on vibrato off is a good litmus test. It calls for a big, fast vibrato with a specific way of starting and stopping, and it is difficult to do unless one plays with feeling of air from the mouth, as discussed above. If air is over pressurized in the body,  it is difficult to make the small, quick fluctuations that create vibrato.
   When talking about musical applications, I try to be very specific, and not just say, more vibrato. I might ask for more vibrato on a particular note instead. I think flutists should put thought into when and how to use vibrato, and I will often plan out where I want each wave to fall. 

How do you work on stance and aligning and balancing the flute?
    One of the best ways to improve all around performance is to address the biomechanics of playing. Something I find really fascinating is that each time I make a mechanical adjustment, I hear a corresponding change in my sound. A little more resonance, a little more ease in the vibrato. Flutists tend to compartmentalize sound as being a function of the embouchure, but everything is connected. You can flip it around to your advantage and use your sound as feedback when trying out a better way to hold the flute or a better way to stand. Test out stance A versus stance B by listening for change. If B sounds better, it is better.
    What makes biomechanical efficiency so elusive is that nothing can ever be static. As soon as you have found the right posture it is no longer right for the next moment, and you have become locked, or fixed, as they say in the Alexander Technique. I am convinced that the most comfortable way to play is to be aware of the subtle changes required by each phrase. Subtle is a key word here. Big motions, swaying, shoving the neck or shoulder forward for emphasis, any movements done as habit, obscure that awareness. The first step is to learn to play without moving which is very difficult. Be still so you can be fluid. Once you have found control you can carefully add some joyful motion back into the performance.

What is your practice routine?
    I think a lot about how to practice as practicing is an art. You are what you practice. For me it is about getting orchestra parts in reliable condition with as little wear and tear on my body and in as little time as possible. That means practicing very cleverly. When I am in shape, I do not really need to warm up. I focus more on warming up my arms and getting the right grip on the flute so that I avoid tension. To get in shape, there is nothing better than patterns such as scales or arpeggios. Lately I have been experimenting with the way I work the different registers when I play patterns. To boost tone and endurance in a given register, select patterns that stay within a narrow range. Doing lots of articulation work really benefits overall sound. It is also important to mix in different dynamics.

What are your thoughts on developing projection?
    Nyfenger was adamant that there was certain grit in the sound that was essential. Basically, he wanted more overtones. He was warning us against being so concerned with focus up close that we would lose those overtones and sound thin, especially in a concert hall. The hall I play in is very large and not particularly resonant. I try to make a rich sound while pretending to resonate an imaginary bubble of space at arm’s length around me. Otherwise I start to push too hard. In unfamiliar halls this visualization keeps me from getting distracted by what the hall is telling me.

Can phrasing be taught? 
    Absolutely. There are ways to give musical notes extra meaning just as there are ways to give spoken words meaning. As with vibrato, there are some technical skills to acquire first before you can explore phrasing. However, once you have worked hard to be able to play with a homogenous sound at one consistent dynamic, for example, you get to break those rules. Play some notes mutedly and really dig into others.
    Bob Willoughby taught us how to draw conclusions about what the music might want to say. We would look at the meter and the harmonic structure and ask, is there repetition? What material is new? What note seems most interesting? Once we had developed an opinion on it he would patiently insist we make our choices crystal clear, using any combination of strategies: dynamics, colors, agogic accents, and, something I find students have often overlooked, rubato. Learning how to use rubato subtly to enliven a phrase is extremely useful.
Ideally it is the desire to play expressively, to say something, to express one’s feelings about the music, that should drive technique.

How did your new CD Colours come about?
    I have always loved recording and dreamed of doing my own albums, but it took me this long to commit to spending money on my own project. I love recording with the Houston Symphony and have been lucky to get to record the Mozart Concerto and chamber works (The Schoenberg Woodwind Quintet), but I wanted to have a flute CD of my own.
    I decided to make Colours so that people outside of Houston could get to know my playing. I play concerts week after week with the Houston Symphony and have been doing it for years in relative obscurity as far as the rest of the world goes. When I had the idea to arrange Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite and Bartók’s Roumanian Dances for flute and piano, I realized that in combination with two other pieces I love to play in recitals, Platonov’s arrangement of Afternoon of a Faun and the Barber Canzone, I had the makings of a recording project that suited my strengths as an orchestral player.
    Doing my own project gave me control over the sound of the finished product. I wanted to record in a concert hall, and I was fortunate enough to be able to use the Moore Opera House with its excellent acoustics.
    After the recording and editing were finished I started working on the design and other details. I set out to produce as professional a product as possible since I am not using a record label. I have enjoyed selling the CDs directly from my website, because I can thank each person who buys one for their support and encouragement.
    My next CD will include chamber music by Mozart and Beethoven. It will be called The Ergonomic Flute because I will be playing the flute vertically, using a special headjoint.     

Embouchure

   In this front view of a low E the lips and tongue are drawn wide, making a flat and compact airstream. The top lip is not reaching forward, as in a pucker, and yet it is forward of the bottom lip, as revealed in the next photo.

   In this profile view, the upper lip, positioned forward of the lower lip, is directing air straight down into, rather than across, the blow hole, producing a low E. Inside the mouth, the tongue’s forward and high position assists in directing a fast, but very small, airstream from high up in the mouth, straight downward. These points are all key in producing a satisfying low note.
   Notice that a considerable amount of the blow hole is covered by the lower lip, and the lip plate is low on the chin. The left hand is playing a part as well. While there is little pressure towards the face, there is torque upward and outward which helps to arrange the lip across the plate. It is the profile view of embouchure that flutists should visualize in seeking the optimal set up for each register.

Photos by Daryl Kessler

The post Expression Drives Technique: An Interview with Aralee Dorough appeared first on The Instrumentalist.