Hi,
I have been playing the flute since october last year. i am currently studying to take grade 5 in summer term but I seem to be having difficulty with making distinguishable differences between louds and softs. is this a common problem?
also, top f# is a complete swine to voice. is there a certain knack to getting this to voice?
all help and advice gratefully received.

yeah it is common to have problems with dynamics when you have just started playing. i've been playing for about 3 1/2 years and i still have problems getting it down. i cant go up to fortissimo very well so it doesn't help that i have a fortississimo in a piece of music i'm doing lol. so it is pretty common, i can do cresendos and decresendos pretty well just can't get very loud.

for some reason it doesn't have the owner edit option lol anywho welcome to the site

I think it is. I've been playing since November '06 and I'm still having issues with dynamics. I normally can only play one dynamic and it's mezzo forte. Piano is hard for me and even forte can be hard. I think it's how you direct your air and how hard you push your hair. Hope that helped.

Dynamics can be a bit tricky on flute...It's not terribly difficult to play louder an softer, but to do so without sacrificing pitch or tone quality can take some finesse. It's all too common to go flat as you get softer, and go sharp as you get louder, so working on longtones, decrescendoing and crescendoing, with a tuber in front of you can be very useful. Soft dynamics take a lot of control, but are usually easier to produce than louder dynamics, simply because the flute's tendency is not towards a huge, trumpet-like sound. With careful work, both extremes of the spectrum can be accomplished, however. What precisely do you mean by "voicing" the top F#? Do you have problems getting it to speak, or is it that the tone/pitch are poor when you get it to respond?

Flutist06,

Groovyang is probably referring to making the F#3 just sound, although he/she has not responded yet.

I also have considerably difficulties with that note, mostly in slurred changes from E3 to F#3.

Could you give us any advise about this problem? (I believe my instrument, a Yamaha YFL 674, is in good shape and besides, it has just one year of use)

Thanks...


<Added>

considerably = considerable

don't think in terms of loud and soft, always think in terms of shades of color such as deep blue, pale blue, sky blue, etc when producing a tone...

practice soft passages louder and gradually decrease the volume as you repeat them, keeping the same intensity when you get softer, much like lowering the flame on on the stove, the intensity is the same, just appears less...

if the F# doesn't respond, u may have a leaky key. how exactly does it sound? airy, off tune, or like another note(that would kinda be like off tune) my friend had the same problem and solved it when she found out about the leaky key. so that's probably what it is

That may be what it is, but you'd expect some other problems to be evident with other pitches if that were the case. It wouldn't hurt to have the flute checked, but given that most flutists have difficulty with F#3, and the OP didn't mention any other problems with the rest of the range, I'm inclined to guess that leaks aren't the problem. If it won't speak, first of all be sure you're supporting it properly, and that your airstream is aimed high enough and well focused. Slurring into F#3 (or any other troublesome note) may help you figure out where your air needs to be set, so you can attack it more confidently.

well put flutist06. it was F#3 ha the highest i've gone was to F natural 3

<Added>

ok now i finally made it to G#3 hehe