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For Music Directors Only

How to help your flute players?  You've got a background in reeds, brass or percussion. Those sections of your group sound terrific because you understand the problems of those instruments from first hand experience. 

It's those flute players that always sound airy and out of tune.  They are too flat or too sharp, not to mention they all look like contortionists, trying to get their instruments around each other in your crowded rehearsal room.  As a music director, you have many concerns besides how your flute section is doing in relation to the entire band including daily rehearsals, concert preparation, marching band duties, pep band activities, trips and tours.  The list goes on and on. 

To make matters worse, the parents of your students expect that you know everything about every instrument.  My own parents thought my band director (who played the tuba) had all the information necessary to help me be a better flute player.  Parents don't know what methods courses are like, what the objectives are in college for instrumental educators, nor what the demands of you job are like.  All of you know there is no replacement for private lessons with a specialist.  However, the parents don't know this.

What can you do to help your students?

bulletPush the private lessons more aggressively, even require it
bulletFind a way to bring in a flute specialist at least a few times a year to work with your flute students.  I often do this free of charge in the area where I live both to help out the band teachers and to recruit for my private studio.
bulletLearn as much as you can about flute techniques, especially embouchure skills.  Bug your local flute specialist and ask him or her to show you how to do it correctly.  Flute embouchure is quite different from most other winds and brass.  There are the most similarities to the low brass embouchure.  High brass and reeds use the corners of the mouth in a way that is detrimental to a good flute tone.  Check out Flute Playing Topics on this web site.

Here are some of the most common problems I see in my students who started in a band program:

What you may have learned about starting on flute

Why this doesn't work

Solution
Center the blow hole over the lips and roll the lip plate down into position.  I've even seen college bound flutists do this because they were taught to do this when they started by their first band teacher in group lessons when they started.  This assumes everyone has the same size lips, teeth, oral cavity.  The most common problem this causes is that it puts the flute too high on the bottom lip.  This results in a shallow, breathy sound.  Bring the edge of the lip plate up to the edge of the bottom lip from below.  If student has extremely heavy lips, a little higher will work.  Experiment to find the best place.
Beginners do not need to know low notes the first few months they play.  The flute is based on the low register.  Everything above that depends on getting a good sound on the low notes.  The overtone series on the flute works from the bottom up.  Developing a good tone on flute is harder if it isn't based on good sound in the low register. Start with B or Bb in the low register and work down to F or E.  Teach octave slurs into the middle register.  This develops an even sound in all registers.  Later extend the octave slurs into the top register.
Blow harder to go higher. It sounds harsh and sharp. You have to change the direction and speed of the air to change registers.  See Embouchure
Relax the embouchure and blow through a large aperture to play low notes and tighten and blow through a smaller aperture to play higher.  You get a breathy, flat and unfocused sound in the low register and a pinched, sharp sound in the upper registers.  Actually, the opposite is true.  You need a firm embouchure to get a full  and focused sound in the low register, an open embouchure and well supported air column to get a full upper register. 
Use your tongue to both start and stop the sound, or drop jaw to release. It sounds like a cork popping out of a bottle.  To stop the sound, stop blowing and purse lips as if kissing.  With practice this can be done very quickly.  Never use the tongue to release. 
Roll in or out to fix intonation This has too drastic an effect on tone quality as well as pitch.  It is way too difficult to get any real control of pitch in this fashion.  Too rolled out gives a very diffuse, unfocused sound.  Too rolled in dulls and deadens the tone.  Use the top lip to direct the air either higher or lower into the flute.  This produces both good tone and respectable pitch.