Sunday, May 31, 2009

Embouchure, Smilin' Juttin' and Jivin'

Dear subscribers,

I can't believe I have almost 180 subscribers to this blog and over 400 subscribers on youtube. How amazing!!!
Thankyou to you all! Wowza!! Thankyou readers! What a marvel!
Can't wait for your input and comments.

So, just a quick update on "smile embouchure" as a topic (and for new readers joining us, the "smile embouchure" is not recommended on flute because of the thin, airy, shrillish tone quality).

For those of you who subscribe, regarding yesterday's post on Lazzari's book and embouchure pictures, I have managed to locate a wonderfully generous Italian flute friend who provided us all with a decent translation of the Gianni Lazzari text that accompanies the embouchure pictures for my latest post; so you may want to know about it, and see the translation! :>)

Here's the new and improved drawing samples of embouchure pictures with English text describing the finer details of why smiley-embouchure tends to make the flute tone airy, spread, whistley, and in general, not a good flute tone.

If subscribers want to have a copy in pdf, please go ahead and print one from this file: Lazzari's embouchure drawings & text in pdf.

For those who missed the "smile embouchure and why it doesn't work" there's an earlier post on that here.

And, of course, if you haven't yet viewed the video, see the James Galway video that started it all here:




The related Cluff blog post with video on jaw use is linked here too for those readers who may just be joining us:

And, there's my own video on jaw jutting from a post several days ago as well, of course.

Comments and more detail from teachers and players are welcome!

Best, and hope this catches us all up with new and useful information for flute students and their developing embouchures.

Jen :>)