What do you think of this idea?

http://www.youtube.com/user/ninaflute?blend=3&ob=1#p/u/2/q0ScBC9OrH4

hmmm my teacher tells me exactly the same thing. i don't think it relates to the temperature of the air, that doesn't make much sense physically, its more a way of how you open your throat to get the warm air. it is easier to say warm air rather than open throat and explain the differences the diaphragm makes.
well thats what i think anyway, it does make a difference when i play with 'warm air' but i think its more to do with how your throat and diaphragm adapt to make the air, not the air itself

The issue of using lower abdominal muscles to push the air seems also to play a role.

My teacher uses a different concept, she talks about a "round sound" (I am translating from Spanish). But she also insists in the necessity of keeping a stronger support for the air column, based on abdominal pressure. I tend to do this incorrectly, though I am working on it. I had feedback from three different flutists and all agree.

The warm air image seems to be kind of a metaphor, in the sense that air is warm because it comes from lower in the body (or lungs?) and through an open throat. Cool or warm in itself would not be making the noticed difference in sound

"The warm air image seems to be kind of a metaphor, in the sense that air is warm because it comes from lower in the body (or lungs?) and through an open throat. Cool or warm in itself would not be making the noticed difference in sound"

No, The warm air seems warmer when you blow on the palm of the hand.
Try forming the mouth with an larger opening as if saying, : "Haaaah"
and then try blowing a small fast airstream as if you are blowing one of your birthday cake candles out from 4 ft away. You will notice that the faster and smaller airstream feels cooler to the hand. This has to do with humidity in the breath relative to evaporation from the skin. It can be a similar comparison to what they call "Wind Chill" when they report weather. I'm not sure if they concern themselves with this in warmer climates but this measurement is used often around here when the air temperature drops in the winter to alert people of the possibility of frostbite.

It is my opinion that differences in tone come from the size of the airstream, the length of the "windway" (Depth/ thickness of the lips) and air speed. Other factors include the rigidity of the lip muscle around the opening as this can affect the clarity of the air column, since eddys around the perimeter of the air column can influence the sound. Also the direction of the air column relative to the hole, where it comes past the edge and how much of the hole is covered by the lips are important.

Hope this helps,
~bilbo
N.E. Ohio

I agree that the warm air is indeed warmer that the cool air, when blown towards our hand as in the video. It is warmer and more humid, coming from lower in our lungs and trough an almost wide open mouth and throat. But IMO, the situation is different when we blow into our flutes.

I considered the video as an example (I called it a metaphor, probably a too loose use of the term) but still a good example, because it conveys the right idea and the effects are quite noticeable.

I have been trying it this morning, although today, for some unknown reason, my sound quality is worst as it usually is. But still, I sound better when I think about the warm air issue and consequently prepare my body as if I was blowing it on the hand. But I am not; the quantity of air we blow on the flute is considerably smaller than when blowing openly, otherwise we could not sustain notes over a few seconds.

The warm air in this case resembles in practise more the cool air as it being controlled by the mouth airway. But still, it makes a big difference. Quite interesting for me, as I need to improve, among so many other things the quality of my sound, to make it "warmer"

I could have a flute soloist listen to me some three years ago and he commented that I was doing all the control with the mouth and too litle with the abdominal muscles. He considered the mouth (lips, etc) to be a final or fine adjustment of what is basically a control to be performed with the lower muscles.

I am still struggling to put this comment in practise.

Hi Jose,
"I agree that the warm air is indeed warmer that the cool air, when blown towards our hand as in the video. It is warmer and more humid, coming from lower in our lungs and trough an almost wide open mouth and throat. But IMO, the situation is different when we blow into our flutes."

I don't think that what I was saying is that "warmer air" when we refer to air speed has any difference in temp. . It has to do with perception. Her concern is generally that we can't necessarily control our tone simply by closing our lips. If the lips are less closed, then we can play a sound with less forced breath support(Warm air).
The underlying issue with all of this is that an experienced player is using muscles which are more under control and in better muscle tone. Consequently, describing how and how much is very difficult to do for another person. So, one impostant aspect is to try to understand what is said and at the same time focus your ears on the tone quality that is being produced because you want to find a way to imitate that. ANd doing that is very difficult with even the best recording devices as sound is simply altered in a recording.

"I could have a flute soloist listen to me some three years ago and he commented that I was doing all the control with the mouth and too litle with the abdominal muscles. He considered the mouth (lips, etc) to be a final or fine adjustment of what is basically a control to be performed with the lower muscles.
"
Again, I would not necessarily take this sort of comment too literally. Firstly, there is a certain amount of consistency that a player needs to obtain and maintain. This is in regards to breath support amount and also embouchure control. IF you learn to control the shape of the opening as I described as well as your breath support, then you will control your tone better. If your tone is more shrill with less core, try opening your jaw more so that it will increase your mouth cavity like a bass singer singing "Oh" on a very low note. St the same time trying to keep your lips closed, should give your lips more of a taller opening. Remember also that a person needs to do a certain amount of tone work daily to develop and maintain the sound quality on each of the notes of the flute. This is basically what Boehm and Moyse suggested (to name only tow great players of the past). Quantz referred to a proper flute tone as like a "Contralto" but his flute was wood and he may have been reaching for a darker tone core. So also, The German Umlaut as if one were saying Boehm or Flute are somewhat of a model for emouchure.

~bilbo
N.E. Ohio

Very clear,thank you.

One of the ways that tone is taught is to practice certain slower pieces along with a daily routine of the whole range of the flute.
Moyse collected a book of fine tunes to use for this entitled: "Tone Development
through Interpretation"

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze34676/

Another is to listen to some good things and to emulate them.

such as:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4TbrgIdm0E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzbmkFA-wl8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWIb_BzOwGA

These thing may be much clearer than my bad typing.

~bilbo
N.E. Ohio

Hi Micron, you have no argument from me on these things.
I think that the problem is with conveying these messages to others and all that I can say is that more often, some defunct "great teacher" began this habit and it was passed on down until it is a common misconception.
Some others:
"Tone colors". Why do we cross-associate our senses? Sound has no color no more than does it have smell. No more than a color can be "LOUD!"...or soft.

Another common misconception is that the printed manuscript is what we call music. It really isn't music. It is only a means of communication. and not always a very good one at that. As an example: Fake books are often a bare skeleton of what the pieces are about. Trying to learn to perform from a fake book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_book without knowing the sound of the piece is often a bad way to learn the common concept of a piece. So, music is only the sound that is produced. As a comparison, (Without debating the quality) most all pop stars and "performers" go on stage and perform without using any written notation whatsoever. Only "classical musician types" will often use written notation to perform music.

The ones that learn to memorize music well will always have an advantage as musicians.

~bilbo
N.E.Ohio

Metaphoric speech is a language trick and it is quite effective, though not always. There are many things around us that cannot be described easily, so we turn to analogies and -sometimes- far-fetched similarities.

When it comes to describe a sound, in practise we can only use metaphors. To give just one example, we may say that sound can be brilliant or dull (attributes more related to light and its effects), and so on. There technical ways to exactly describe or define an specific sound, but they are not at all practical and are only reserved to experts.

I think that metaphors (usually) work because we share a common culture and (preferably) the same language. There is an important part of explicit or unspoken conventions when using metaphoric language and so it is true that it may, or it may not convey the idea, depending on the person who receives it and the quality of the image that the generator is using.

I found the idea of "warm air" useful, if not exact. I believe Nina wants to explain that we should open our airways from the lowest up to the final part of it (we still have to use the embouchure to get the sounds) pushing from down and supporting the air column, etc. Pushing is more applicable to our abdominal muscles but "supporting" is metaphoric, as we are speaking of air. But we normally accept this last image without much problem.

So I endorse metaphoric speaking and I appreciate it a lot.

Using this concept, I have just discovered my own definition of poetry. We challenged ourselves to define poetry in our literature workshop. I could find a few definitions, but none was exact or complete. Poetry seems to always escape a definition and seems more related to a state of the spirit than to a rational definition. In this sense, it could hardly be defined with words.

But I have now found this one: "Poetry is everything written (or spoken) in words, but that sounds musical"

What do you think of my definition?

I believe we agree basically in all aspects, though putting some concepts in words that convey the right idea can be very difficult in some cases.

When I saw Nina's video I tried immediately her technique and I noticed a good, positive difference in my tone. So it works for me.

She also demonstrates, (though virtually on a video) how she sounds with the technique.
But these kind of demos or examples are very limited and are of course clearer and more evident when the teacher/performer is with the student in a room. (nice for teachers, otherwise their jobs would be in great risk).

That is, there is nothing that can replace the person-to-person transmission of knowledge, particularly when the concepts are so difficult to describe and more, if we decide to voluntary restrict the use of metaphors.

"You mean keeping throat, soft palate, and tongue as open as possible? (I don't think there are any other voluntarily constrictable parts.) I find a yawn to be a better image."

Yawning is a very good image, though I think it's partial: in my sing lessons I was told hundreds of times that the correct technique for the mouth cavity is close to that of yawning. Only that the warm air thing includes the lower airways, at least as I understand it.

"As for describing sound/tone. If a teacher uses sensory words, then he/she should demonstrate by examples of their own playing, excusably what they mean. Until that occurs, little communication takes place at the time."

I agree, that is the way normal lessons should go and it do, in the case of my teacher. The problem is with new Media, as are Youtube videos and similar. They are limited, but sometimes they can be useful anyway.

"I recall one of my teachers demonstrating a brighter sound, and all I picked up was an increase in volume, which is a totally different parameter. A lot of these shades of tone are probably in the mind of the player."

They certainly are. The definition of a sound using metaphoric images is imperfect and personal. But there are no other way I know of, short of teaching/learning with an audio spectrum analyzer and a bunch of other laboratory instruments. (Anyway, could it be a good idea? Why not?)

"A big difference is in the mass of the strings. So a singer with thicker vocal chords had a better tone for bass."

I am not sure whether this is 100% correct. As I said, I have learnt sing for a few years and there is a *lot* of technique to be learnt in order to sing as a Tenor, a Baritone or a Bass.

There could be some physiological differences between say, a Bass and a male Sopranist, to put extremes, but this is not clear IMO.

When a sing teacher tries your voice, he/she will listen at the lowest and highest notes range you can achieve at that moment and with the technique (or lack of it) you have then. But this range is not fixed and will develop in the right direction while you progress in the learning.

If you are considered a tenor, a good deal of the work will be in the higher range, as you should attain at least a good high B to sing anything serious. For baritones, it seems that the "Timbre" of the voice at the lower range (and not so much the lowest note attainable) is the important thing. I wanted to sing baritone (I thought it was easier), but my second teacher would not allow me because of the Timbre. Has it to do with the vocal strings thickness, or more with their length, or is perhaps, the body cavities good management more important?

I think nobody knows for sure. There is very little science in singing technique (though there are hundreds of books about it), but heaps of technique, all practical and with almost no supporting credible theory behind.

Many theories are contradictory, even opposite. For example, the well known issue of "resonating the sound in your upper sinuses". My second teacher (a male Alto) believed that there is no resonance possible (from the technical point of view), because these sinuses are normally covered with body secretions (mucus) and do not resonate at all.

In summary, singing is a sort of a Magic art. It works, but nobody knows why.

"Poetry definition? It's OK, but poetry is different things to different people. "Telling something succinctly form a different perspective" could be poetry without being "musical" ..... whatever "musical" means! Does "musical" mean "poetic sounds"? LOL!"

Very good question! My answer would be Oh, Yes! At least in the effects that musical things impress on our mind (I would rather say "spirit!", but I am too positivist).

In fact this would be bring us to a new debate: What is the definition of "Music"?

But we should better leave this one for later...

......"She also demonstrates, (though virtually on a video) how she sounds with the technique. But these kind of demos or examples are very limited and are of course clearer and more evident when the teacher/performer is with the student in a room. (nice for teachers, otherwise their jobs would be in great risk). That is, there is nothing that can replace the person-to-person transmission of knowledge, particularly when the concepts are so difficult to describe and more, if we decide to voluntary restrict the use of metaphors. "

Well put here Jose Luis.
Many younger people are constantly looking online for a "free education" through certain places thinking that a private teacher is not so important BUT the thing is that they won't find the interaction of a live experience which is vital to communicating an aural art form. Some teachers even have attempted to increase their income with a broader potential client base from these online customers and they are in my mind degrading their art in such a manner. The primary issue remains that it's an Aural art form and as such playing music (Esp for wind and vocal) is best taught where the student and teacher can interact. So, I say this that "Free online" information is free to be more inaccurately conveyed. It's free to be anything from highly informative and highly educational to completely wrong and anywhere in between.

~bilbo
N.E. Ohio

I fully agree.

I am pessimistic, however. I mean, in spite of our deep dislikes and perhaps active opposition, full virtuality will triumph, more sooner than later. It is already here, in banks, government offices and many more aspects of daylife, such as home-working, internet/telephone buying/ordering of almost anything and many more.

Personal teaching and p2p physical interaction may grow weaker and weaker and may be it will become a luxurious item, facing practical extinction. The exception may be love, but even there I am dubious.

I am not thinking of my grandchildren only, I believe that a great part of this revolution will take place in the coming 25 years, with big changes in the next 10-15 years. So I will see this, if I am lucky to live by then.

Pay-for-a-lesson on internet is already here. Again, Nina Perlove is an example (I am not qualifying her initiative, just mention it as an example). She proposes these paid, interactive lessons online and I think this is something that will extend quickly, in this domain and in many other areas.

Now, is it good or bad? (I am speaking in general, not of Nina). Not easy to say:

Imagine that J. Galways offers one hour master classes for ten dollars, to 1,000 students online. These would be mainly unidirectional classes, as you cannot expect him to listen back to 1,000 students in any way. But he might, for example, charge 400$ for 10 students willing to pay for it and with the right to be listened and corrected by the master (I agree, he would have to establish a lottery system to choose among 1,000 candidates) and the rest would be listening-only participants. Would you subscribe?

I would, of course. So, there may be positive aspects of this forced virtuality.

Why am I so pessimistic about the inexorability of this revolution? A few reasons, not all that could be mentioned:

- Technology will soon allow us to interact at a high enough quality, in real time, regardless of the distance. Domestic recording studios with reasonable quality can be set now for less than 500$, everything included. Or considerably less, if you make some concessions to quality but still with a decent system.

- People will become increasingly reluctant to leave home to go to lessons, because of many factors, one very important could be the decline in oil production, the price of gasoline and its substitutes and the risks on streets, highways, etc. And our societies do not seem to be in the way to become safer or less violent. I am afraid it is exactly the opposite in most places.

- This new virtual reality may have a political interest because such a society can be more easily be kept under control. I could dare say that there is an increasing interest from the administrations and private companies to get people use internet for as much as possible. Google offers close to 1 TB storing space for your mails, photos, anything you want to store in their database. And for almost anybody in the planet with access to Internet. Why do you think they are doing this, for free?

At the same time, we are being permanently screened, recorded, photographed, thermally or radiofrequency body scanned at airports, in many ways simply spied, our email is stored for one year "just in case" and so many more things.

But we have become to accept this as a minor wrong, as we all feel concerned for our own safety. And I agree that there are good reasons.

It sounds like I am re-inventing Orwell's 1984, only putting it 30 years later. You may be right. But it is not me who is re-inventing that awful reality.

Compared to that, virtual interactions could be safer and less traumatic.

Sorry, today I have been too talkative today. Will stop this long posts for now.



<Added>

Sorry, a three magnitude error! Google is offering close to 1 GB space, not 1 TB space (7,800 MB today). Still quite a huge number, if taken by millions of people worldwide.

To be fair, you are talking about good teachers, and good teachers that happen to suit the way a particular student's mind operates. The real teacher is, in reality, as variable as as the info in the internet.

Micron, I'd like to respond in my own words.
Yes, I'm talking about good or great teachers. We always want to encourage quality standards to keep the art from being compromised over time. But this begs the question how does the student know that their teacher is of quality? At present online, it is too easy to mask oneself or present false credentials that appear good.

So, given the same (quality )teacher and the same student between online and live lessons, (Which obviously can't be done both ways) The relationship will work better in a one on one private lesson in person I'd have to assume.

Of course under certain situations on line may be the only way to teach a student in a remote area or there may be personality issues between two people. However the tendency for any teacher (And especially online) is to accept as many students as possible. Consequently, there may be many instances where the student may opt for an online setting where the student may actually be in the same vicinity as a quality teacher. The rationale may be that it's cheaper, more convenient, just as good, it's the latest craze....whatever pops into their heads. Online it's also far easier to disassociate with a teacher or with that student.

Take as example the vids from Expert Village on Youtube. no offense to them but the "teacher" is touted as an expert. Are these vids of quality instruction? How is a beginner to know the difference? ....or that young student's uneducated parent for that matter? So, someone uploads their "expert advice" and directs a student with misinformation and relative immunity while creating years of instilled bad habits that may be passed around to their school chums as facts.

The reality is that the student doesn't know what they are missing, there are issues with sound quality even with good computer systems. And as I've already said, the situation isn't live. The finer nuances of tone aren't heard acoustically but in sound reproduction equipment. Online isn't a live performance experience and so the student won't learn how to deal well with things such as performance anxiety. Then take YouTube for example, the compression will basically destroy the tone quality of the flute's sound due to the recording equipment, type of compression that is used by the movie making programs and then also when the vid is uploaded to the YT servers where it is yet again auto-compressed.

Even IF the student/teacher relationship is in near real time, how does a teacher handle the tone issues that may come up? Can they look at the player and flute from a variety of 3D angles from online? What if these problems are caused by a misaligned flute key? In private lesson, the issue can be discovered rather easily by a competent teacher. Online -not so easy.

I'm sure that each situation that I've described can have compromises or work-arounds but they are still compromises if only each in a small scale that will add up over time.

I don't expect many people to agree with my assessment and it may be that online will be the wave of the future but I'd also expect that instrumental music will take on a declining role in education and consequently there will be less quality instructors throughout the world to give live private lessons.

One example where the computer is hurting the "Live" experience is with this Smart Music system. It's going around the schools here and the band directors are pushing this system to the students and parents. It's simply the best thing since sliced bread according to them. The problem is that one student has told me that their friend's clarinet teacher was taken off the band director's "approved List" of private teachers because this teacher doesn't think that this Smart Music is so good. So too, the piano accompanists will see no reason to bother continuing their studies and consequently, live interaction with a real accompanist will become a dwindling thing of the past. Already for the past ten years in my area's schools, they have been using only those un-expressive cheap sounding Casio electric pianos in Solo and Ensemble. Next, they can couple them with Smart Music computers, the kids can input their recordings from home and the cycle is complete.

~bilbo
N.E. Ohio

I remember than when MIDI standard appeared, I thought the days of live symphonic music would be soon over. I commented this with a professional musician friend of mine and he looked at me in deep disapproval but did not comment. He was right. Good orchestras are as popular as ever or even more.

But there are also fully synthesized "orchestras" being used widely in Musicals and Films, for example.

So our real world seems to accommodate to the technological periodic earthquakes and -almost- everything manages to survive at least until a soft transition is made.

Strong relationships the type Master-Disciple or more modernly, Teacher-Student are as old as civilizations oldest records, both in Western and Oriental societies.

So we can expect it will survive, even to Internet. But it is under attack right now and we should expect big changes in coming years. Some will be good, probably more will be bad.

Smart Music systems, I suppose it refers to the set of music notation SW like Finale and many others?

If so, abusing of this technology would be very bad, as is the case with any abuse.

But I use it and it was very useful for me. It allowed, for example, to prepare the Telemann's "Concerto a Tre" at home and then be able to play it with actual musicians last August. Both the preparation and of course, the performance, although it was (fortunately) completely domestic, were thrilling and most enjoyable.

I could not have achieved it without my Finale files. It was beyond my level to learn all entrances, counting all rests without the help of synthesized accompaniment. But this is my experience as a mature adult; maybe with children at schools the effects are not so positive.