Im 6th chair in my middle school band but im the only one comming back to band next year-so im taking a chance and trying for the solo at my concert. I have the fingerings and rythms down but my sond quality isnt so good.Also,my upper D sounds all weird.
Thanks!

LONG TONES! The best thing ever for increasing the beauty of sound production! I spend 30 minutes a day just doing long tone exercises! What you might try doing is going up a chromatic scale starting on low C, all the way to 4th octave C, doing 3 notes at a time. Start the 1st set going very loud, medium, and then soft. Start without vibrato and then add it later on. You could also print out any of these awesome long tone exercises:

http://zalmanstudios.com/free-sheet-music/Warm-up-and-Relax.pdf

http://www.thegalwaynetwork.com/pdf/jg2tone.pdf

Start them out going very slow and really try to focus the sound.

Hope this helps!

Also, if your D sounds weird there might be something wrong with your flute. Such as a loose screw, leak, or something like that. See if your band director will look at it for you.

Trevor Wye has an excellent book on Tone Development (Practice book 1) and if you do not have a teacher already, I would recommend buying the book with the accompanying CD so you can try to match the quality of his tone.

Good luck!

Amanda Fuerst
www.amandafuerst.com

The main thing that I had problems with was my embochure. Or you are not blowing hard enough. Or the other way around. Worst things worst is if all goes wrong your flute is jacked up.

I second the comment about Trevor Wye's tone book. I recently got it (Well, the Omnibus edition, which has five of his books packed into one.) and I could notice a huge different in my tone (which was pretty good beforehand) just after an hour of using it.

I was talking to a student the other day about tone...in a nutshell, I told him to think of the flute as an extension of his voice...then he won't produce a sound, but expressive words like those of a great vocalist

The two biggest things for beginning player to master (or many adults, even), is your diaphragm and a solid lip positioning. You really have to press quite hard to get a good sound out of many flutes. Not enough to hurt, but at least as much effort as a typical clarinet or sax player would have to go through. The major one, though, is the diaphragm. Try playing standing up and see if your tone doesn't instantly improve. This just takes time and effort to overcome, because the typical sitting position of a woodwind player in an orchestra is not helping the sound at all. Most flutes will take about twice as much air as they take to make a stable tone to really sing. You might notice that when you blow harder and more focused, every so often one or more notes really pop out and sing. That's the goal - to do that on every note.

How to do it, well, you need a good teacher and about 3-4 hours a day this entire summer playing (though not all at once - take breaks, OK?). Try to do the practice standing up as well.

One of the wisest people I ever knew in music once told me that the only difference between a beginner and a professional player is 5000 hours of practice. That's 3 hours a day for 5 years. Some people can do that in a bit less, some it takes a bit longer. This also holds true for most other crafts and skills. There's really no magic. Just loads of practice and repetition.

"One of the wisest people I ever knew in music once told me that the only difference between a beginner and a professional player is 5000 hours of practice. That's 3 hours a day for 5 years. Some people can do that in a bit less, some it takes a bit longer. This also holds true for most other crafts and skills. There's really no magic. Just loads of practice and repetition."

How true is that!

remember though, that should mean correct practice, too many practice in a sloppy, careless manner, which doesn't produce any good result

I good friend of mine told me that I didn't have a nice tone so she told me to do long notes it works try it...

Hey , so I dont play flute , but I do play Clarinet , and I know that when my tone is flat I have to wirk on my breath support and air speed. One of the simple excersises I do to enhance these is to take a piece of paper and hold it about six inches away from your face , flat against your palm. without gripping the paper blow and try to keep the paper up against the had for as long as you can... I hope this helps and If you don't get the solo always try out for another you sound like a dedicated musician keep it up

My flute teacher got taught by trevor wye and she said she got really bored with all the tone exercise, but she is one of the best players i have ever heard, and i go to concerts weekly