This is an important subject. To begin, I am 68 years old so placement is also about long term comfort, no stresses to back, neck or shoulders while obtaining the best sound. Besides what you point out, I have seen that while performing it seems now to be in vogue to hyper raise the flute and circle and dip around. That would be affectation and wholly unnecessary. Your sound is why you are performing, your comfort is for the long run.
I just got together with my former teacher today to play duets, and she shared this video with me and we worked a bit with the new placement. I definitely noticed a difference in my playing, specifically in my ability to hit notes in the lower octave but also in the clarity of tone. However, if I went too far, my tone would get fuzzy, so I knew I was going too far. I'm still going to experiment a bit, but after using the new technique, it now feels weird to go back to the straight line that I was usually playing with. Thanks for the great video tip. I'm going to continue to work with this until I get a good spot.
Hey that sounds great. Experimenting to find what works best for you is fantastic. I’m so glad you worked with your teacher to find the right spot. Well done!
Could you do a video on doing accents on flute? Your videos are always really helpful and I've been struggling with getting the accents out well in some of Drouet's etudes.
I would be happy to discuss accents on the flute. It’ll be a bit before I am ready to record another round of videos. But look for it in another month.
