Flute Tone for Dummies

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s a little bit of clickbait because the reality is that there’s no way to boil down flute tone into a single blog post, however, if you’re struggling with your tone and need some sage advice on how to build a stronger foundation for a beautiful tone, you’ve made it to the right place.

In this article, we will break down the importance of good tone along with foundations of a solid tone and factors that affect your tone. We will also talk about ways to develop good flute tone, troubleshoot it on those “bad tone” days, and we will dive into some advanced concepts of tone, including mindfulness, tension, articulation, vibrato, and more. You’ll learn all about what you need to do to sound great and feel great about your flute playing.

Understanding Flute Tone

Tone is our most important asset. There, I said it, because if you don’t play with good tone, no one will want to listen, no matter how fast your fingers are.

Great flute tone requires many factors to work in sync with one another - lung support, embouchure shape, aperture size, vowel shapes, airstream angle, airspeed, hydration, and instrument quality, although the latter is less important than the rest in most cases. It is important to approach flute tone with a “soft focus” that allows you to consider multiple factors at onces. Don’t just hone in on one of these things - allow them to work together so you can sound beautiful.

• Lung support

  • First and foremost, support is so important. If we don’t support and give lots of air, our tone suffers by sounding thin, airy, cracked, and our intonation often goes flat. Having strong lungs and being able to support our sound is crucial, so take care of them and exercise those lungs as much as you can.

• Embouchure shape

  • The shape of the embouchure and tension go hand in hand. When we are tense, we often want to create a thin, disc-like aperture and a smiley embouchure. This makes for a thin, pinched-sounding tone. So, opening up your aperture, rolling your lips out a bit, and relaxing the corners of the mouth down will help you build a strong, supported sound. It’s also important to remember that tension in the jaw can lead to tension in the embouchure. Try to think about holding baby carrots between your back teeth.

• Aperture Size

  • Aperture shape is crucial. We don’t want a disc, so much as we want an oval. Think of it like a straw that you’re putting the slightest amount of pressure on top to bottom. If you pinch it too closed, you won’t be able to get any liquid, but if it’s too loose, you’ll spill your drink all over you.

• Vowel Shapes

  • Vowel shapes are important for a great flute tone. Broadly speaking, an OH shape for the low register, an AH shape for the middle, and an EE shape for the high register will help you get those notes to speak well, however, it is a bit more nuanced than that. Make sure with those vowel shapes that you’re keeping your throat open, so when you go into that EE, especially, you’re giving more of a YU-EE like a singer would. This will help with your resonance and keep those notes from sounding pinched.

• Airstream Angle

  • The angle of your airstream needs to be nimble, which means NOT using the jawbone to make it happen. Keep the jawbone natural and loose and use your lips to move the air stream up and down in order to hit the registers you want to hit.

• Air speed

  • Air speed is often sooo overlooked - using fast, cold air vs. slow, warm air can make or break your tone. So, when we are trying to hit those high notes, think about fast, cool air, and when we’re trying to hit those low notes, think about fogging up a window with your breath using slow, warm air.

• Hydration

  • We simply cannot produce good flute tone when we’re dehydrated. Period. The lubrication (sorry!) of your lips and the inside of your mouth plays a crucial part in that smooth, bright tone quality we’re looking for. If your mouth is dry, you’ll end up with a thin, airy tone that just doesn’t sound like what you want!

• Instrument Quality

  • Okay, now this one is one many of us struggle with, but it’s less “quality of instrument” and more “have you had your instrument serviced lately?” If you’re having trouble getting notes to speak clearly and with definition, then you may need a tune-up, but also investing in a quality instrument won’t hurt your ability to get a great sounding tone, either.

Developing a Good Flute Tone

First and foremost, let’s look at the muscles around your lips - your obicularus oris - that control the direction of your airstream. These muscles require work to get them to be precise, and precise is what we need! So, let’s first glue the wet part of our lips together and start to push air towards the center of your lips. Let the air break through the wet part of your lips with a little “poo” sound. Your lips should stay wet and you should play WITH the wet part of your lips only, never rolling them in (save for some extended techniques that we can discuss another day). Use your lips to guide your air stream up and down - don’t use your jaw! Just use your lips.

Secondly, let’s look at that support! Lay on your back and practice breathing in as DEEPLY as you can - you should be able to see your belly rise and fall. Now, let’s get back up and do some long tones. Practice your long tones as loudly as you can and hold the notes as LONG as you can. The goal is to get the best tone while also improving our longevity. You can also use tooks like the breath builder or the pneumo pro to build lung strength and improve airstream control.

Finally, it’s important that you keep your flute in tip-top shape, so getting it serviced (otherwise known as a COA) yearly is your best bet. Find a tech or a shop that you trust and get on the schedule ASAP, especially if your low register is struggling.

Troubleshooting Common Tone Issues

Airy Tone is often the result of a dry embouchure, an aperture that’s too wide and unfocused, and/or not enough support. If you feel like your tone is weak and airy, this can be fixed by playing with the wet part of your lips, focussing your aperture a little bit (making it more round and less shaped like a disc), and sending MORE air through your flute. Remember, it’s better to have a supported tone but have to breathe more often than it is to have an airy tone and only breathe every other page turn.

Intonation issues are also often the result of an airstream that’s not angled correctly and a lack of support. Again, send MORE air through your flute and angle your airstream correctly (up for high notes, down for low notes). Finally, practice your scales. Scale work is incredibly important for teaching your ear when something is in or out of tune.

Tone consistency is one of the hardest skills to build as a flutist. We all have bad tone days, but the key is to be able to identify the issues at hand. What is causing the bad tone day? So, when we’re having a bad tone day, the best thing we can do is work on tone exercises and make tiny changes as we find issues. Practice your long tones, De La Sonorite, harmonics, and intervals to diagnose and make changes along the way.

Advanced Tone Thoughts

As you develop consistency and ease in your playing, then it’s time to start looking at your vibrato and tone color and styling your playing to be more musical. Considering your color palette - dark purple sound vs. a bright yellow sound - and your vibrato speed - fast vs. slow - you can really begin to vary your tone on a deeper level, allowing you to be able to interpret music on a deeper level.

Consider working from Trevor Wye’s Tone Book to learn more about tone color and dive into HOW to build your color palette. To dive deeper into embouchure and learn more on this topic, click here. If you’re interested in studying with me to improve your flute tone, click here to learn more about online flute lessons with me.

To Recap…

• Flute tone is a complex beast, but we can work to make it more consistent and beautiful!

• Consider all factors when practicing including embouchure shape, lung support, hydration, and instrument condition.

• Practice long tones and scales while being very mindful and making notes about what’s happening with your tone and what changes you’re making that are affecting it.

• As you get more advanced, start deep diving into your vibrato and tone colors to make your tone stand out even more.