How to Position Your Mouth on the Irish Flute & Playing Techniques

Video Transcript

Hi I'm David Cantieni and on behalf of Expert Village I'm going to be showing you the many aspects of playing the Irish wooden flute. If you are interested in more information or finding out other places where you may find me you can go to www.digdigmusic.com or you could email me at digdig@cracker.com. Various flutes have different tone capabilities and what I would like to show you is how to get the most out of the flute that you are playing. So much of getting a tone out of the flute has to do with breathing and though when you are blowing across the wind blade the way that you aim the air maybe one of the most important parts of playing. Another one is how you breath. But, first I would show you about how to form your mouth which is called the ambshore in order to get that flow of air across the wind way. Usually I loosen my lower lip as much as I can. It doesn't necessarily stay that way but it is a really good starting place. The other thing to pay attention to is where the rear edge of the hole is in relation to the edge of you lip and you will have to exam that on your self depending on the size and shape of your lips. So usually what I do is that and then I stretch my upper lip sort of like I think of it like a rubber band. I put tension across here. I will show you on another flute just to see to so that this is a very different flute smaller holes, smaller hole here to. I will still line it up. But, in order to get good tones you would also need to pay attention to the inside to the inside cavity of your head. Fill the your sinus are as open as they possible can be and many teachers of the flute like to have you envision a ping pong ball in your throat. I can't really envision that but it just means to keep your throat as open as possible. One exercise that you can try is using is pretend that you are yawning and breath in so you go like this. And if you are open like that then when you play there is not restriction between your head and the rest of your mouth.

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