Hi. I've come across the term "whispertones" a few times. Does anyone know what these are? What do you do with them? And how do you blow them?

The more I read about the flute, the more mysterious it seems to become!

I had never heard ot those whispertones, (no surprise a I am a beginner). But a quick search in Google (the modern Oracle of Delphi) provided an interesting address with a description of this technique:

http://www.tein.net/~bost/MammouthWhisper.htm

The owner edit seems not to function properly (it does not update the message), so I copy here what I wanted to add to my previous post:

After all, it may be similar to what I do when I practise late in the evening, blowing too softly as not to excite the vibration in the tube. Only that the higher octaves are not always attainable in this way and with whispertones they seem to be. Listen to the recording on the page I listed above.

I can't get the sound to work, I'll try it on a different computer on a different network. Interesting site, I'm not sure I'll ever get to that level though...

The percussion thing looks cool.

They are exactly what the article says. I couldn't have said it better if I tried.
They help you your strengthen your embouchure and teach balance and control. I used to do them on long car rides just using my headjoint. It drove my husband nuts after a while. It was worth it in the long run. *Grins*

I'll have to try it this weekend.
I guess it's like the effect you get when you blow softly across the top of a pen cap or somesuch...

Leporello, I think you need the quicktime plug-in or SW to be installed in your computer, in order to listen to those recordings.

Try downloading the free version:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html

Do you mean whistle tones?

Good catch Ashley, I didn't even notice that.

I've never really heard of "whisper" tones, but i'm assuming you meant "whistle" tones. They're an extended technique that you might encounter them in some contemporary pieces. I think Robert Dick's "Flying Lessons" use some whistle tones. But they're also really good as an exercise -- they really help you relax your embouchere. You can do it on any note-- maybe try 2nd space "A", and you need to make your aperture small and really round, so that if you blow across your flute, you see alot of condensation on your lip plate. It took me some practice in front of a mirror to see that my aperture had to be smaller, flatter, and rounder to get the whistle tone out.

<Added>

oh, and when you do get a whistle tone out, it will sound like a tea kettle whistling. you'll probably get overtones and harmonics at first, but you just have to keep relaxing your embouchere more.

I would not like to argue about the name, as I did not know this special tones.

They may be called whispertones or whistletones; I found the referencie in Google searching for "whispertones" as Leporello posted and the page I reported starts like this:

"To describe whispertones, I would like to quote Robert Dick's Tone Development Through Extended Techniques, page 26:..."

The Robert Dick article (the one Jose-Luis posted a link to) refers to both Whistle and "flagolet" tones, as well as whisper. Apparently they're the same thing, I guess whistle is the more common usage though, sorry about that. I don't think I've achieved any whatever there called, I hope I know one when I hear it. My PC still won't run the sound clips in the article, it's not a flash problem, our network just doesn't seem to like Realplayer (but that's not an issue for a flute forum).

I do not think you need the Realplayer for that; (i.e it handless the same formats as Windows Media player)

You need the plug in from Quicktime or the full software. Both are free.

Lera, could you ellaborate on your assesment?
What are the differences?