One of my students plays a Haynes flute, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to get his high register to really ring, even though he seemed to play it with ease. It just wasn't coming alive. I thoroughly investigated how I was doing it, and I tried my best to describe to him what I was doing.
To no avail. It wasn't until I accidentally asked for a Muramatsu that I realized that I had been teaching my other Muramatsu student completely wrong about how to make her flute ring. We've now covered so much more ground in much less time, thanks to the few hours I spent playing with a Muramatsu from FCNY. It was about halfway through my playtime with the Muramatsu that I started wondering about my Haynes student. I had never encountered a Haynes player throughout my entire flute career until I met him. So it suddenly occurred to me, Of course, why on earth would I know anything about how a Haynes flute plays? It probably means that his mouth formation is one that I've also never encountered! I knew I had to ask for a Haynes flute soon after. And so I did. (Side note: Talk about a dream come true. It's still crazy to me that I can request any flute I want, and FCNY will just ship it to me to play with!) Wow, playing with these flute was a roller coaster. I excitedly took them out to try, only to realize that I couldn't get them to ring. I left them sitting on my flute stand next to me while I worked on other things, coming back to them to play a bit every now and then, all throughout the day. No dice. I dejectedly put them away and didn't have the heart to play with them the next day. The day after, though, I took them out again and did the same thing. Nothing, no ring. But suddenly, at the very end of the day, I decided to stop thinking so hard about what was going on inside my mouth, and I just went for it. I thought of my student's beautiful tone in his middle and low registers and just tried to imitate it. BOOM! It worked. And I realized I was doing something incredibly different from what I do on my own flute. In fact, I noticed that it was the polar opposite of my own! The angle at which you shoot the air inside of your mouth was the complete converse of what I normally do! Whereas on my flute I angle the air downwards for low notes, on the Haynes, you shoot the air up towards the roof of your mouth, from where it bounces downwards back into the flute! On my flute, I angle the air upwards for high notes, but on the Haynes, you shoot the air downward to the hollow behind your teeth (or your bottom lip, for that matter), from where it bounces upwards out of your mouth! There again was the crushing reality that I had been teaching my student completely wrong again. I tested out my theories with him at our next lesson, and all of them were confirmed. So after all this, I realized why we just "know" when we've found "the one". It's just like falling in love. When you encounter a flute that matches your mouth formation and the way you breathe, you just magically work together naturally (though, yes, you still need to work out a few minor kinks here and there). But when you encounter a flute that doesn't naturally match you, you need to date it a little longer to get to know it. I realized that with each flute that comes in through my door, I'll need to date them a bit longer than I've currently allotted for them. ;) Remember to use my discount code "JAF" for all the sweet perks! 1. Free shipping 2. 10-day trial 3. 18-month warranty (new flutes) 4. Try 3 instruments per trial Haynes got featured in a local news channel's "Made in Mass" segment! Check it out! https://www.facebook.com/HaynesFlutes/videos/1461868727179797/ Haynes Classical Flute Model Q1 specs: http://www.flutes4sale.com/collections/haynes-flutes/products/haynes-q1 - sterling silver hand-cut Haynes Classic headjoint - nickel-silver body and mechanism - Haynes pinned mechanism - drawn tone holes - French (open hole) model - pointed key arms - gold springs - modern Haynes scale - Straubinger pads - .016" standard wall tubing - offset G - C# trill key - B footjoint - Handmade Haynes Classical Flute Model Q2 specs: http://www.flutes4sale.com/collections/haynes-flutes/products/haynes-q2 - sterling silver hand-cut Haynes Classic headjoint with 14K gold riser - sterling silver body - nickel-silver mechanism - Haynes pinned mechanism - drawn tone holes - French (open hole) model - pointed key arms - gold springs - modern Haynes scale - Straubinger pads - .016" standard wall tubing - offset G - B footjoint - Handmade Like the Flute Center of New York on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/FluteCenterOfNewYork/ Follow the Flute Center of New York on Twitter! https://twitter.com/FluteCenterofNY Follow the Flute Center of New York on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/flutecenterofny/ Flute Center of New York: http://www.flutes4sale.com/ Contact the Flute Center of New York: http://www.flutes4sale.com/pages/contact-us About ClubFCNY: http://www.flutes4sale.com/pages/clubfcny
1 Comment
Cindy Hardy
2/25/2017 05:43:47 pm
I always share your Videos but I make sure that You Get 1000% of the Credit. You are definitely the Best I have Found in Flute Land Joanna!!!
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