Dear Students
Please post some things your band directors have told you regarding tone, posture, flute repair, etc....

Are you looking for legitimate suggestions or stuff that band directors have said because they don't know much about flute(ie:the dollar bill under the pads thing from a previous post)???

I think his question was pretty clear myself. Just post whatever you band director has told you about these things.

DIG IN FLUTES! COME ON! DIG IN FLUTES! LOUDER! LOUUDER!...there's only like 3 flute in band compared to 60 ppl. *sigh* It's so hard to play out.

More AIR..MORE AIR!!! and i had a bad tone..but still,..MORE AIR..*uh i think my embrochure isn't right*..MORE AIR!back in middle school.

i think middle school directors don't know a lot of things..but highschool directors KNOW A LOT MORE!! WAY!!

that's the spirit, HIGHER FASTER LOUDER!!

When I was in high school, my band director always said that professional flutists were some of the worst, cattiest and egotistical people he ever had to deal with. Lol! He was a trombone player.

how many band directors told you to roll your flute to get it tune?

Ha, yes, my band director always told us to roll in or roll out. He also told us to use vibrato on every note that wasn't stacatto. When I was on piccolo, he would tune me to play sharp and the tubas to play flat because he liked that "balance."

YES! The roll in roll out. It's not that bad...my flute teacher says that too

All of my directors were really strict about hold the flute parallel to the ground even in concert band. Mostly though we were told to back off to fit into the balance pyramid.
The worst thing I was ever told was by my middle school director: clap your fingers down on the keys fast like a crawfish. Until I started taking private lessons I used to REALLY slap my keys hard.. Middle school directors are teaching the fundamentals so it's distressing that alot of them tell the students things that are potentially harmful.

any teacher that tells you to roll in or out should be fired, and you should get your money back...

Patrick,
I'm afraid that if I see a student that is positioning their flute wrong on the lips, I may tell them to roll in or out. Usually, I tell them to roll out as they are more often smothering the tone by rolling back so far that the tone is almost not being produced.
Very sorry that I don't intend to stop this. I'm passing it down from my teacher who told me the same and he's passing it down from his teacher. The reason is for good tone production and projection.

Tuning of course is another issue.

As for interesting band director comments.

One band director in my area was giving detentions if he saw a flute student use the T Bb.

One took a solid silver head joint and rammed it home with the palm of his hand when the student was rolling back and playing flat.

One has told the students to roll back because the flutes were too loud.

One told his students that if a Trill sign (tr) has a flat by it, you should trill down to the next note. like from the primary note G to a lower F for example.

I'll have to think up some more goodies that I have chronicled somewhere. ....

~Bilbo

Bilbo, that type or rolling is different than what I am talking about, and I know what you mean, my most famous teacher did something similar each time he played

My teacher doesn't say that. I thought she did, but I bet I was getting confused with another technique...sorry Patrick and Bilbo for the confusion

My beginning band teacher used to tell the flutes that we had to keep our fingers stretched out high above the keys when they weren't needed to close the keys.

Even worse was the day that he gave the whole flute section their own screw drivers.