A warm-up is perhaps the most important part of your practice session. Since we have a lot of muscles in the embouchure, it is important to warm them up slowly and with patience. In this blog you will find an example of a warm-up routine that lasts 10 to 30 minutes.
Exercise 1 – Connecting the sound
Start with an easy note in the first register, for example a B. Relax your embouchure and start blowing without increasing the tension in your lips. The sound may be weak. This is just for connecting to the sound. Then slowly increase the air speed. So there may be more tension in the abdominal muscles, but the embouchure is still as relaxed as possible. Just feel what the tone needs. Go chromatically from B to F.
Exercise 2 – Increasing the pressure
Now start at F and slowly increase the airspeed until you reach the octave. Try to keep the embouchure as relaxed as possible. You can use the embuchure to help the octave a little, but most of the work should be done by the abdominal muscles. Go up to B4 or C5.
Exercise 3 – Harmonics and airspeed
In this exercise we still focus on the abdominal muscles to increase air speed. If the airspeed is high enough, we can relax the embouchure. If not, the embouchure takes over and creates too much tension on the lips. So practice this exercise and use the airspeed to move to the next harmonic.
Exercise 4 – Harmonics and vowels
Now that we’ve woken up our abs, we can work on the embouchure. The embouchure should always be relaxed and focussed. That’s why airspeed is most important and the embouchure has to finish the job. In this exercise we use vowels to get to the next harmonic. Begin each note with your tongue in the shape of “ah” (as in “father”). Your tongue is placed low in your mouth. Now gradually move your tongue to the shape of ‘ee’ (as in ‘cheese’). Be patient. The goal is not really reaching the next harmonic, but more the process of the support and the tongue.
Exercise 5 – Ghost Harmonics
Now that we have practiced support with harmonics, we can move to the third register and play ghost harmonics. We use a fingering of a note from the third register. I like to start with an E flat 6 in the third register. Then start playing the note with little air, as in exercise 1 of this blog. A low, soft note is sounded (if you play the E-flat in the high register, a kind of A-flat 4 is sounded in the first register). Play the low note with the E-flat fingering in the third octave and relax your embouchure as much as possible. Then slowly increase the airspeed until a note appears in the second octave. Then increase even more to reach the E-flat in the third octave. The process focuses on increasing the airspeed and relaxing the embouchure. Repeat this exercise on higher notes.
Exercise 6 – Tone bending
The last exercise is about finding the most efficient angle. You may think you already know that and do it the same way every time, so why put it into practice? Well, we change every day. One day we have a lot of energy, the next day we don’t. It can be very refreshing to experiment with the angle of the flute.
Here we go:
Start with a note in the first register. Use the three methods of pitch bending described in the Flute Colors book: increasing and decreasing the air speed, moving your head up and down, and moving the arms back and forth. Repeat on different notes, also in the second register.
This is an example of a warm-up routine that I like to use for myself or for a flute choir when I’m conducting. And as always: have fun!