Well,
It is posted at GFC and it seemed like a good reply.
We have to remember that Sir James doesn't always respond to other people's questions (including mine). So, we will see what he says.

I think that most flute players as they are growing try to test the limitations of their abilities....Finger speed, high notes, dynamics, articulation to name a few and this is good for developmental reasons for the flutists who wish to become something in the business but as we mature in our tastes -musically speaking, we want to use our abilities more for quality, refinement and finesse and all those sorts of things.

So, in a way the high notes help to develop the muscles of embouchure and breath support but if you read the words in De La Sonorite, Moyse mentions something at one point about relaxation in the embouchure formation and maybe he means that the muscles become more for shaping the lips to form the airstream rather than only squeezing the airstream. This may be why some players don't spend a lot of time up there in the "stratosphere" in that it molds your lip/tone formation into a more tense sort of sound even on the lower notes. Aside from the other fact that the loud/high notes being bad for the hearing.

~bilbo
N.E. Ohio

Hi Micron,

"Personally I think Sir James is a master of breath pressure; perhaps that just came rather naturally for him, and he never needed to practice it."

Perhaps but he strongly suggests the Moyse Book, De La Sonorite and scales on a daily basis. Where he's constantly working on refining his breath pressure and lip shape relative to the specific note. As a side note, I don't think that he follows Wye's teaching all that closely because I think that in this regard it's a bit of a modification/simplification of Moyse's ideas. -at least that's my take on it.

"Sir James has recording(s?) that go to 4th F, so presumably he is saying that he did not practise those. Hmmm."

I think that what Sir James Galway is saying is that he doesn't regularly make a point of going to those very high notes on a daily basis. In his situation and experience, he probably only needs to go up to the high C4/C#4 regularly as prescribed in the Sonorite book -basically all of the Moyse books for that matter. So then when he needs some high note for this or that concert, he probably takes some time on cleaning that spot up and plays the section a few dozen times. Or to put it another way, there may be a difference between what he IS doing and what he HAS DONE as some other point in history. < Caps used only for minor emphasis not as a raised voice :-)

~bilbo
N.E. Ohio