Hey everyone. I know this is kind of a weird question to ask but its been bothering me for a while. I`ve been playing for a long time now and ever since I started my embouchure is a not in the center, but kind of to the side. Almost every other flutist I`ve met plays with it centered in the middle of their lips. I was wondering if anyone knew if this would affect my performance or playing style in any way. Thanks.

It`s perfectly fine. There`s no such thing as the "perfect" embouchure. Everyone`s different, and what works for some people doesn`t work for others. Mine`s offcenter as well.

Britney - some of the greatest known don`t play in the center. Don`t even worry about it!

One of the flute teachers at my highschool had a teardrop lip, restricting his ability to play "centered," so he found playing "off - centered" to be his compromise. As long as you can play with a good tone, why not?

my off center a bit . don`t worry about it. it doesnt matter as long as it`s a good sound

I play off center but if anyone can answer my upper lip is so thin. When I see flutists with nice tones play usually I see the lip pursed and both the bottom (more of the bottom) and top lips are very flexible. My bottom lip i feel is flexable but i can`t get much out of the top to get pursed lips. I know the bottom lip is the key factor but i do see the top lip push out a little. Is there a way to fix this? You can see my bottom lips relaxed somewhat but you can`t see any change in my lips when i play as I see others. That`s really confusing!

it`s fine. my embouchure is on the right and so far that it`s where people tend to hang cigarettes. my tone and everything is fine. if it works, i don`t see what the problem is. one of the greatest flute players had an offset (actually many do...as someone mentioned earlier) so you`re fine...the only thing that bothers me about it is that i look weird when i play...oh well

Unless you have a near symmetrical mouth, you don`t have to be centered. Some people have maybe more weight on the right of their lip, so the left is slightly lighter and the air blows easily from the left, so you would move your mouth to the right of the hole, so the air that blows left will end up in the center, making the sound.

This was probably confusing!

"Unless you have a near symmetrical mouth, you don`t have to be centered. Some people have maybe more weight on the right of their lip, so the left is slightly lighter and the air blows easily from the left, so you would move your mouth to the right of the hole, so the air that blows left will end up in the center, making the sound.

This was probably confusing!"

No i think you pointed out my problem because that`s what how my embouchure is!!! And i look really funky with my lips when i play also!!! My teacher tried to see if i could play symetrical but couldn`t and it sounded still good so we never bothered with it but maybe i should try that i think i did experiment recently actually and got a better more directed sound ok thanks a bunch! I also recently discovered long tones are helping out even though you don`t hear it right away it`s continued practice and building up with slow tone exercises.

It is well within the bound of `normal`, as proven by
http://www.larrykrantz.com/embpic.htm