The Magical Flute VIII: Playing It By Lew Paxton Price When playing your flute, it is important to sit in a straight-backed chair, or on the ground with your legs crossed, and throw your shoulders back to allow plenty of room for your lungs to inflate. Your head should be upright or tilted slightly forward, with your chin back, so that the top of your head toward the back is reaching as high as it possibly can. With your shoulders back, let them drop so that they are relaxed. Get used to this feeling because it is the normal way to sit or stand, and it will allow you to become healthier. The first thing to remember about a flute is that the longer the pipe, the lower the sound; the shorter the pipe, the higher the sound. Begin with your fingers off the playing holes and then cover the holes one-by-one beginning with the hole closest to your mouth. When you cover a hole, leave it covered as you progress to the succeeding holes. Blow gently and notice that the sound begins high and drops in pitch as you cover the holes. This is because you began with a shorter pipe and then lengthened it by covering the holes. If the sound does not drop in pitch as you progress down the flute, you are blowing too hard and must learn to blow more softly. No single standard was set for Native North American flute fingering. It will vary with the tuning you chose. If you wish to go by our standard today, then the left hand will handle the holes closest to your mouth. According to the type of tuning on your flute, either the longest two or the longest three fingers of each hand should be used. The Native American did not play by reading notes from a page. Instead, he used his ear and his memory to compose his own tunes or (only with permission) to play another's tune. First, experiment with the scale by lifting your fingers off the holes in succession, from the foot toward the head of the flute, and then replacing them in succession from the head, toward the foot of the flute. In other words, get used to shortening and lengthening the pipe. Remember that you must blow relatively softly for the lowest note of the flute. When you have become used to the scale, blow a bit harder for the lowest note and notice when the flute goes up one octave from overblowing. Now get used to how hard you must blow to overblow the flute into the second octave when all the holes are closed. Also, get used to how hard to blow to attain and keep the correct pitch (blowing a little harder makes the pitch rise slightly and a little more softly makes the pitch drop slightly). Your breath should come in short inhalations rather than long ones so that no long silences are in a tune unless they are supposed to be there. As you learn tunes, learn to breathe only when there are intervals in the tune that allow time for it. Now try making up simple tunes that are on the flute's scale and see if you can remember and repeat the tunes. Be sure that you use the flute scale for these tunes. This means that all the notes in the tune should be achieved by lengthening and shortening the pipe—no open holes between the head and any closed hole. This lets you get used to the scale and to proper breath control. The throat is used to provide vibrato to the sound you make just as in singing. The diaphragm is kept tense and somewhat tight to provide the best sound when blowing with varying intensity. The throat also may be used to start and stop the airflow. Now you may begin to really develop your vibrato. The ear tends to become bored with a constant pitch and volume and the flute begins to sound flat. Vibrato is a quavering quality that varies both pitch and volume very slightly in a cyclic manner (like a vibration—hence called vibrato). It is done with the throat, but requires a tight diaphragm as well. A tight diaphragm is what you have when someone suddenly swings a fist at your midriff. Imagine that a fist is about to collide at high speed with your stomach and notice what your abdominal muscles and diaphragm do. See how they tense up? This tenseness allows you to sing or to play a flute with a good vibrato and also with good control during softer portions of a tune. It is difficult to describe how to use the throat for the vibrato because there seems to be no conscious feeling associated with it. Try to imitate a famous opera star with your voice and see if you don't get the idea. Now do the same thing while you play your flute. Try letting the air flow continuously through various phrases of the tune you are playing. Then see what happens when you use your tongue tip against the front part of the roof of your mouth to stop the flow of air briefly between each note. (Use the tongue as if you were saying dah, dah, dah.) Now place the tip of your tongue lightly against the roof of your mouth and let the airflow cause it to vibrate so that the flute sounds like a police whistle. Lastly, while blowing into the flute, shape your mouth as if you were saying ah ee ah ee ah ee. Do this slowly and then quickly and notice the way it affects the sound of the flute. After a month or so, while playing the flute, try rolling the finger that is covering the hole nearest the foot of the flute. Roll the finger off the hole until the hole is open and the finger well away from it. Now roll the finger over the hole until it once again covers the hole. Notice how the sound rises and descends gradually, as opposed to the usual abrupt fashion. Now try the same thing with the fingers covering the lower two holes (those closest to the foot of the flute). Move both fingers at the same time. Now try it with the fingers covering the lower three holes, the lower four holes, and eventually, all the holes at once. Get used to adjusting the sound in this fashion. Lastly, begin to learn what happens when you place your fingers on holes while leaving open holes closer to the head of the flute. This is called crossfingering and is a more advanced technique. Make up new tunes in which you may use some of the crossfingering that you are learning. Practice these tunes until you know them and then make up others and practice them as well. Do this until you begin to play instinctively, just as you sing or whistle in an instinctive manner, without conscious thought. Try playing tunes composed by other people, popular tunes, phrases of classical tunes, Native American tunes, etc. When you can play almost as instinctively as you can sing or whistle, you are really ready to use your flute most effectively. It is important that you feel the flute is an extension of your body. There is sound peculiar to Native American music that is achieved by playing the last note of a phrase and near the end of its sound, removing one or some of the fingers from the holes they are covering and then using the tongue to cut off the airflow abruptly, so that the note heard due to removing the fingers from the holes is very, very brief. This is only a combination of some of the techniques you already know, so you need only to practice coordinating them to make the sound you desire. Now relax in your flute-playing chair, with the correct posture, and let your conscious mind rest while you play. Let the music flow, as it will under subconscious control. Let your body do the composing as it sees fit. Some of the best playing and composition comes from times like these. From this point on, you may practice runs, trills, warbling techniques, birdcalls, and any more advanced things that you hear. It is not important that you know a name for a technique only that you can duplicate it. If you hear something that you cannot do yet, try it slowly until you see what it is and how it is done. Then speed it up gradually until you are proficient at the faster speeds. You will never learn all there is to know about playing your flute, and that is why your flute will continue to be interesting. Think of your flute as a partner in a marriage that will, as time passes, blend the two of you into one, your flute growing in beauty as you grow in ability. You will complement one another in a way that everyone can enjoy. 1994 by Lew Paxton Price | 
