Flute players help me please?

Question:okay. for solo and ensemble festival, I am playing Telemann's Suite in A minor. It is 7 minutes long and there are almost no rests. by the end my lips feel very very tight and I am not supporting my sound because of this. I go very flat!!!

I try doing warm up excercises for my emboture ( not spelled correctly) and it helps me a little, but not enough.

how do I loosen my lips playing this very long song so that I can support my air and not go flat?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: okay. for solo and ensemble festival, I am playing Telemann's Suite in A minor. It is 7 minutes long and there are almost no rests. by the end my lips feel very very tight and I am not supporting my sound because of this. I go very flat!!!

I try doing warm up excercises for my emboture ( not spelled correctly) and it helps me a little, but not enough.

how do I loosen my lips playing this very long song so that I can support my air and not go flat?

Normally, any of us flute players can withstand a mere seven minutes of straight playing. However, under quasi-stressful situations, we fatigue easily. I know this piece well, and there's not much time to sit and rest, but your problem is probably not endurance, but most likely panic.

So here's what I would do:
To eliminate fatigue altogether, play the piece two times in a row, and even after one week, playing it once will feel like a breeze.

I would probably also play the first time at half tempo, or maybe two thirds. I would do this in effort to completely know every aspect of the piece and make sure that my fingers ALWAYS know what they are doing. Even though I have been playing the flute for almost 20 years now, I still do this frequently. I only ever tense up when I have to tell my brain what my fingers should do...and the process is quite stressful.

If you know the piece so well (or maybe memorized) then you can eliminate one more thing to think about. Then you can concentrate on good breathe control and loosening up.

Good luck at your festival!!

You have to practice playing for long periods of time. Your lips will eventually get used to it and stop being lazy. To keep yourself from going flat you need to crescendo your notes instead of playing monotone.

First, before your song, massage your lips, buzz them, and loosen your jaw. As a flute player, I often play with too tight of an embochure and my lips can hurt. However, when I relax my embochure a little bit and loosen it before playing, I'm usually okay. I've played a Teleman Suite before, and thye can be very challenging. However, if you let yourself get lost in your piece, forget about playing in front of a judge, and perform the music from your soul, chances are you won't even pay attention to the way your lips feel.
best of luck on your audition..building a good embochure also takes a lot of practice and sometimes professional instruction. Ask your band teacher if you have any more questions.
Hope this helped...again, good luck!

Hey! Try using a thing called "Chop saver".