Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Ken,

One possibility is that your blowing may be originating more from your jaw and lips. Blowing this way can tense the lips and produce an extremely thin, focused, buzzing tone. It may be helpful to practice exhaling through the flute, rather than pushing the air with your mouth. The lips and jaw can be more relaxed and used more as a funnel for your deep breath to exhale.

I hope this can be of help.

Ken

I've seen many of my friends do this with my flutes, and I still do it with an older flute I made. It seems to stem from how close you are to the Utaguchi, or the blowing area. The less space you give between your lower lip and the Utaguchi, the more likely you are to get this sound. You might try "backing away" from it, meaning give the hole between your lower lip and the Utaguchi more space. That seems to work for anyone I'm trying to teach embrochure to. It'll also depend, of course, on your flute, and how the back part of the mouthpiece is shaped compared to the front, etc.

What kind of flute are you using?

-E

I realize that I might not have made total sense, let's see if I can fix that.

Place the flute correctly on your lips, so that it sets lightly, and the space beneath your lips makes a gentle seal around the back of the flute. If your lower lip is relaxed, just sit there a moment, relaxed, and notice how the lower lip feels against the Utaguchi. You'll feel a little "ovalish" shape or hole where your lower lip gently sets near the Utaguchi. It's not "on it", per se, but near it, creating a hole where you blow. You should get roughly 50% of your air on top, and 50% on the bottom, through the hole you create.

It's when this hole is too small or too big that my friends tend to get the noise you'rea talking about. What I try to tell them (this is much easier in person) is to first try placing your lips in VERY slightly different places (and make sure to be super-patient with this) on the mouth piece. If that's not working for you, find the spot that works BEST, or, at least, most consistently. Once you find a decent "sweet spot", try setting the flute under your lower lip as before, relaxed, and then open your mouth, using pretty much only your upper lip, and think of the area where the flute meets the spot under your lower lip as your pivot point, or HINGE. Very gently, in small movements (again, be super patient with yourself, you'll get it), use this hinge to move the END of the flute up or down. If you've found the best spot for blowing (as described before), then this should help you find the proper angle to blow at. Using this hinge point will also change, again, the size and shape of that blowing hole you tried to create before.

I wish I could sit with you for five minutes...this is one thing I seem to be able to teach my friends well, but it's really hard to write about it.

Have you ever watched another player for any length of time? I've seen a couple, and I also just ordered the Brooks concert DVD: i'm hoping to glean a few things about technique from that, and I hope to start lessons soon. I myself have real problems getting into Kan register, although Otsu is no problem at all. If you're getting Ro, then it sounds like you're on your way...seems like a lot of people have problems playing Ro.

I doubt it's the flute...in fact, I played an exceedingly nice 1.8 recently, and I found it hard to play, probably because I've never tried a flute someone else made, other than the Yuu.

Good luck, and let me know if you have any other questions...I might be able to figure out how to describe all this better later.

-E