So I have 2 weeks to learn to play a fairly simple repetition of notes on a shinobue, which is a kind of fue, which is a transverse Japanese flute made from a piece of bamboo. Right now I can get sound, but I’m using a lot of wind to do it, and I’m looking for a way to control my breathing and the sound better. I’ve tried pursing my lips more, but that sometimes makes it so that I no longer get sound.
I’m not in the best shape in the world, but I’m better off than some of my students who can play this, so I assume that it’s not because I need more marathon training before I can get this flute to work.
I’m also having trouble blowing hard enough with just a few holes covered to get it into the next octave, while blowing gently enough with all the holes covered so I don’t put it into the octave above the one I was playing with only a few holes covered.
Any kind of advice from any flute players would be greatly appreciated. For the record, I can play harmonica and didgeridoo (kind of), so I have some experience with wind instruments.
(Flutist checking in)
I’ve played a wood flute before and if you’ve never played a “regular” flute before it will be a bit difficult.
When you play in the low registers, your embouchure is fairly loose - mouth is somewhat slack and relaxed. In order to move up an octave you will need to tighten your embouchure quite a bit. It takes practice and, despite 30+ years of flute playing, if I haven’t played a wood flute I find the octave changes iffy at first.
Get a soda bottle, preferrably a glass one. Use THAT to practice blowing. Practice getting a solid midtone first. Once you can do that, work on sustaining the tone. After you feel you can hold a steady tone for a decent amount of time, then work on changing your embouchure. Try subtle changes - go from flat mothed (loose embouchure) to slight tightening (think of your mouth when you bite a lemon). Learn to hold that tone. Keep playing with that until you feel you have good control over your breath and tones.
I’ve never played a shinobue, but I do play transverse flute.
I would suggest that you first concentrate on getting a recognizeable note out of the instrument: nothing hissy or breathy, but just a good solid note. When trusted friends (who don’t play) ask to try my flute, I never hand them the whole instrument; instead, I hand them just the head joint and we go through the following exercise. I don’t know if a shinobue has a head joint, but I would think that you could do the exercise anyway.
This exercise helps you find where the flute works best for you. Don’t worry about the holes or any fingering–maybe you would want to try covering each holes with a piece of masking tape while you try to get a note. Also, use one hand to close off the open end of the instrument. Of course, the flute should be exactly parallel to the ground, but many time, beginning flute players have it tilted up or down, or rotated away from or towards their lips in such a way that no good sound will issue. Hold it as level as you can (maybe watch yourself in a mirror to see if you have the instrument level), but move/rotate/push/pull/etc. it around to get the note you’re looking for. When you find it, play it some more, and remember how it felt–then uncover the holes, open the end of the flute by taking your hand away, and try to find that place again. Don’t get discouraged if you cannot do this in one or two (or six or seven or more) tries. It may take a long while, but keep working at it, and you’ll get there.
While you do this, be mindful of your airstream. It can be very easy to “waste” your air–most often by blowing it where it will do no good (the above exercise should help here), but also in a way that is inefficient. A little exercise my teacher had me do quite often was using my throat muscles to narrow my airway, then pushing out air with my diaphragm. Between the narrow airway and the pursed lips, you can get a very small but very strong airstream that will produce a note when it hits the edge of the flute’s mouth hole. Again, this will take a lot of practice (undoubtedly, you’ll do like we all do, and use your chest muscles instead of your diaphragm at first), but again, keep at it and you will succeed.
Apologies if this isn’t quite as clear as it could be, but these are the kind of things that aren’t easy to explain. I hope this made some sense, though–good luck!