Trevor Wye is correct in saying you should never raise your shoulders when taking in air. That is one of the #1 rules that they teach in college.

thanks you guys! i`ll try that. I`ve been taking a deep breath and using my diaphram. oh, and raising the shoulder thing, i never try to do that because then my upper body would get all tight and my sound won`t be that good. I think it`ll also help to relax my upper body. hey, i`ve noticed that the more expressively(vibrato) would help you get in tune with the band and also more air.

Any other tips for getting in tune with the band? I used to play REALLY soft so no one would notice that i`m out of tune. but i have to play loud now because we don`t have a lot of flute players in our band. ...any tips of gettingin tune?

Thanks for all the breathing tips sound great. I tend to do vibrato from my throat and have been trying to practice from my abd which has been a problem for years. I think I was lazy in hs and now I want to really work at it.

I hate it I`m practicing and I`ve got darn pneumonia and can`t get much out of practice now!!! Not trying to play sympathy card I`m getting better, I`m a nurse and not sleeping well so I think that`s how I got it but jeeze to try and play flute I really really feel I may pass out!

That`s I think my major flaw with my playing the breathing. I have an incentive spirometer from work that you put in your mouth and breath in to increase lung capacity which helps. There a breath builder on amazon.com that other sellers are offereing that has a little ball in it and I think with that one you blow into and keep the ball in a certain spot to improve breathing which I want to try. But the exercise Andrew mentioned is a good one as well. Just you got people like me don`t stick to it...

Then after breathing is intonation then for me but I think if I improve breathing and support it will carry over and improve intonation as well.

try this, play any scale, each note 2 counts at 1/4 note at 60 on metronome.Play each note then breathe in very relaxed for 2 counts, breathe normally as if your speaking or sleeping or whatever. Use much less air, say 10 % of each breath to produce each note, if done correctly, you will be full of air and have to vent it out your nose by the time you reach the top of the scale.

uhhh...sry that`s confusing patrick. And i have a tuner at home, but you know the band isn`t always at the right pitch...and also me^^

as said by teh ever wise jose, exercise really helps. If you can`t support teh air with muscles, then technique is alot less effective. Swimming is probably the best, since it`s really good cardio(something) exercise, as in good for your heart, lungs, among aot of other muscles. Running is obviously good, and just exerciese in general. Personly, I run and swim, alternating with a ruitine of puchups, situps, and exercises with free weights and benchpress, though all of those arent necesary for good runs, it helps. lol, not that yall care, but the football coach here has tried to recruit me (6foot athletic guy here) but i always refuse, because quite frankly i love being in band. Just remember you can get in shape, it`s nothing speacial, it just takes work. alright, i`m done with my pointless lecture.

lol. Thanks, that helps too! Also in my school you could do band and a sport. Most of the ppl in band does a sport..football, tennis, wrestling, volleyball..and so on. Yea, i know athletes have good air support.

I can explain better if you email me through my website

www.patrickandfriends.com

Hi, I thought I'd pitch in with some advice on practicing to play in tune. The tuner suggestion is a good one, but I find it's not really as helpful as I would think (at least with me). Besides, you're not trying to be in tune with the tuner, you're trying to be in tune with whatever is being played by others. Could be a piano, which is really quite out of tune to my ears. Could be another wind instrument hitting a natural (not equal tempered) third.

I tend to automatically adjust with anything I'm playing with without thinking from years of playing along with recordings. That's one useful way to do it, and it's excellent ear training as well - not to mention a lot of fun.

Lately, I've been practicing all the modes of the major scale by taking them through the circle of fifths (in the direction going down a fifth i.e. C->F->Bb->etc, but most classical people go up fifths - whatever you prefer). What I did was make a MIDI file which played the scales along with a "metronome tick" and some chords that match the mode/scale. I've done them at a few speeds, then recorded them and made OGG files (like MP3, but better). Now I practice my scales along with them. The nice thing is that I get to practice playing in tune with the piano in the recording. I think that's both more natural and more effective than practicing with a tuner, at least for me. It more closely matches what you're actually trying to do.

If you have somewhere I can upload them for you, I can share them if you like. There are a few things I want to go in an fix up a little better (a few chords played too high, for example). But they're quite useful and are really helping me.

Which reminds me, anyone here have the capability of doing the same thing, but with the natural scales rather than equal tempered? That would be very, very useful to me.

Mike

Hey Mike,
I tried using my ditial piano as a tuner and i would record scales and my band music so i could play along with it. And i could change sounds for the piano so that's cool. It's like there's another instrument right in the room.^^ It helped me a lot, but i still need to work on it.
oh, today there was an AMAZING flute person..you know Jim Walter? He played in all kinds of movies,..like King Kong and all the movies you could think of that has flute. He's incredible! yea, that inspired me. how long have you been playing?

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And how can you upload it?..that'll be so cool though.

No, can't say I've heard of Jim Walter. I'll check it out. Always looking for new flute music for inspiration.

How long have I been playing? Now there's a question without a simple answer. I've been playing music since I was fairly young, probably 8 or so (recorder at first, I think). Started flute a few years later. I've dabbled in so many instruments over the years - trumpet, guitar, saxophone, keyboard, drums, tin flute, violin, the list goes on.

Technically, 24-26 years in music, but I've only taken flute really seriously as my main instrument in the last 6 years or so. And since I just fixed my fingering recently (wasn't keeping the Eb key down and used the middle finger for F#, which I can guarantee I did properly as a kid since my teacher was quite strict ), I didn't want to just answer "24 years" for flute.

And you know, every year I think I love it more than ever.

Well, almost time to go play my flute. Yeah!

Mike.

I think you mean Jimmy Walker

My former teach was a student of Jim Walker... and referred to him as Jim Walker. (You guys are talking about the USC flutist, right?)

Just one thing concerning sports and exercise.

We must never forget that we need both hands and ten fingers as our main interface with the instrument.

If was going to invest a lot of time, effort ..and money in learning a musical instrument, I would not be doing some "hard" sports like Soccer, Basketball or Voleiball. One can very easily damage the fingers, the wrist asw.

I believe that serious music studying and performing merits and justifies some sacrifices in terms of what we shouldn't be doing.

I suggested (and practise mysel) swimming, because it is highly aerobic and relatively safe for fingers and arms (unless one wants to do jumping, I would not do that either).

I have a friend who is horn in a Basel orchestra and he exercises regularly with weights to develop his arms muscles.

But each one should try to improve one's weakest points. For Flute I think everything related to the breathing is important.

That's the usual matter of the first and following classes one gets when starting...