Embouchure

I have not used a mirror since I was a small boy and then I only used it with the headjoint and not with the whole flute.

What a lot of players do not realize is that you have to learn by feel what the lips are doing and not by looking. One of the main reasons for doing the "long tones" is to find out the best place for your lips to be and to remember where they should be when you are playing.

Because the Moyse Sonorité based on a two note progression you do not learn much. I hit upon the jackpot when I decided to study how singers do it. They do not use a two note progression but they use small scale passages and arpeggios to exercise their vocal chords. I wrote some exercises to do the same thing and suddenly I was in another world of learning and understanding regarding the embouchure. I was in an active world and no longer the rather passive world of Mr. Moyse. I do respect him greatly as a player but just happen to think his Sonorité is rather dull and uninspiring.

If you sing an arpeggio in two octaves, the last part in falsetto, you will be amazed what you have to do with the vocal muscle and the shape of the inside of the mouth.

Try dong the same thing with your flute. Change the inside of your mouth as if you were singing and move your lips to do the job you need. When you are successful with this try then to remember where the lips should be in a piece with similar intervals.

I am at a stage where I have a very flexible embouchure and can apply it to the job in hand having understood it from years of Sonotié. William Tell for example, is not a problem for me to play because of years of conscious practical training of the embouchure.

In my daily practice I play the studies of Boehm and Taffanel. One can learn an enormous amount from these exercises.

Do look for the exercises I have written. You may find them on the web page of Jurgen Franz.

Best regards,
Sir James