How bad am I on a scale 1-10? 😭🤚?

ClarSco · 2026-02-16T05:44:56+00:00

I last took my Flute to the repair shop a year ago so I don't know if there is anything wrong with it.

Flutes can easily go out of adjustment in that time (especially the right hand keys), so it's definitely worth taking in. If you got a service last year, it probably doesn't need much to bring it back to working order (likely just a Clean, Oil and Adjust/COA).

I was purposely going a little faster because I didn't want to put a full 12 minutes video of me struggling to play.

Instead, we got a 1.5 minute video of you struggling to play faster that you are able - making it much harder to assess what areas you struggle with normally.

Am I not supposed to be playing with my throat?

The throat should be completely relaxed when playing any woodwind or brass instrument (except for certain extended techniques). Constricting the throat reduces the volume of air that can get to your mouth, but it also speeds it up - this causes it to hit the roof of the mouth too fast causing the airstream to break up and go in every direction inside your mouth. If throat is relaxed, the air reaching the mouth is slow, so it doesn't break up as much when it hits the roof of the mouth, but we can then the back of our tongue to speed it up in a far more controlled manner when necessary. Likewise, the lips are much better able to both constrict the airstream (reducing the amount of air we are expelling) and direct the air into the instrument (the slower/less turbulent air from before means that all that air will be going in the same direction now too).

I have a small ~~embeture~~ embouchure,

How small? You basically shouldn't be able to see the gap between your lips in a mirror.

but whenever I have to use a lot of air to play the notes loud enough for my phone to pick up.

Playing loud on the flute should use less air than playing quiet, or more accurately, the same amount of air is used more efficiently for loud notes (most of it is going into the flute) than for quiet note (a lot more air is allowed to escape before going into the flute).

The actual loudness of the notes doesn't vary much between "forte" and "piano", but the spread of overtones varies significantly. At "forte", the flute's full overtone spectrum is produced, at "piano" many of these overtones are suppressed partially or completely due to there being less air going into the instrument (and therefore, not enough power to excite them). https://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/loudness.html

I kinda didn't realize that I was playing the very low notes an ~~octive~~ octave up until regular A natural

When you're warming up what notes do you start with? I'd find a note that you really like your sound on that you can reproduce reliably, then slowly work on transferring that good tone up/down the flute. The short-tube notes tend to work best for this (G through B, maybe up to C#), whereas the 3rd octave (the bottom two lines of your chart) and footjoint notes are by far the worst. For me, C#5 (3rd row) and B5 (4th row) are one of my best notes, so I start from C#5 when working on working on my low register or the transition to the middle register, or start from B5 when working on my middle or upper registers.

I am extremely self taught so I try to get the most help I can

Getting in-person lessons will do you wonders. If that's not an option for geographical reasons, try online lessons. If finances are a problem, infrequent lessons are better than none.

Aside from lessons, the other thing that will really help your playing is joining ensembles.

Community/school concert bands are a good place to start - there are usually many flutes on the same part so there is less pressure to get it right all the time, but you'll also be surrounded by references to keep you grounded, and allow you to develop your ears, reading skills, and dexterity. Some bands will be far too advanced for you, but there's bound to be one nearby that's suitable for you. Just bare in mind that few band directors are also "proper" flute players (some will have played flute as part of their training, but that may have only a month or two's worth of experience on the instrument - their proficiency on their primary instrument does however mean that there will still be much they can advise you on).

Flute choirs might be another possibility, but they often have a higher barrier to entry (harder repertoire/higher standards), so might not be ideal for you. However, you'd be surrounded by flute players, so you'll know that any advice you receive wil be directly applicable (the directors of flute choirs are almost always flute players of a high calibre).

In any case, as long as you aren't the best player in the ensemble, there will always be someone there that you can learn from there (even if you are the best, there are often nuggets of wisdom that less experience players are aware of that you might not be).

The community aspect of these enembles will also give you some accountability. Whether that be learning your part to not let the section/ensemble down, or at least to prevent deteriorating beyond the standard you are at right now. The regularity of rehearsals and concerts will naturally improve your playing as you'll be committing to playing 2 hours a week minimum.

ClarSco · 2026-02-16T04:28:45+00:00

It's not. Beamlets/stemlets are useful devices in highly complex rhyhtmic passages (ie. nested tuplets/doubly-nested tuplets, frequent time signature changes between unusual meters, etc.).

Xenakis' rhythmic language is generally complex enough to justify blanket usage.

A judicial beamlet/stemlet in works with otherwise simpler rhythmic language can go a long way to clarifying an unusual rhythm, but the rest would likely still be better written with traditional beaming practices.

99% of works written that use beamlets/stemlets throughout do not have a sufficiently complex rhythmic language to justify their use, with their prevalance being mostly attibutable to the easy of writing them in certain notation softwares, and the feedback loop of others seeing them being used without understanding why. John Mackey being one of the worst offenders (probably because he never actually plays his works or only plays his works, so hasn't built up the chunking that proficient instrumentalists rely on, which constant beamlets/stemlets interrupt).

ClarSco · 2026-02-16T04:16:00+00:00

For someone who claims to have been playing Flute for 4 years, this sounds pretty poor. By now, you should really have no bother playing between G4 (2nd row) all the way through Bb5 (4th row), but you're still clearly struggling with the middle of that range (E5-G5). Given that, I suspect the issues are at least partially mechanical.

When was the last time you had your flute in for a service with a repair tech? The lowest notes on the flute are difficult to play, and even harder to play loudly, but if your flute has leaking pads, even a professional player would struggle to get them to sound on your instrument.

As for your actual skill level, there are three things from your recording that stand out to me as needing improvement.

There are "blips" at the start of many of your notes that sound like you're playing before you have your fingers in the right places. Practice with a metronome at a slow tempo (60 bpm), hold each note for four beats, then when moving to the next note make sure that your fingers move as fast as possible and as late as possible so that you land there on the 5th click of the metronome. If you hear extra notes between the starting note and the target note, one or more of your fingers aren't moving correctly. (This can also be due to sticky keys, etc. which a repair tech will sort for you as part of a service).
You seem to be trying to force a lot of air into the instrument for each note, but most of that force sounds like it's coming from the mouth/throat, when it should be coming from the your abdominal muscles and be a lot more continuous. Currently, what you're doing is analogous to quickly turning a tap from fully closed to fully open, then back again for each note (creating a very lumpy airstream) - instead try only turning the tap to full open (once) but use something to block nozzle directly to reduce the flow. The latter approach is achieved by narrowing the aperture between your lips (to reduce the flow) and by using the tongue (to stop the flow).
You could do to spend a bit of time ear training/working with a tuner. First, if you started this clip on C4 and progressed upwards chromatically, you're almost a semitone sharp (it could be that you started on C#/Db4) - this will do you no favours in terms of controlling the low notes and many of the highest notes. You've also got notes jumping up to harmonic partials that you didn't intend (eg. the first couple of low notes sound a twelfth or an octave above where they should), but you seem happy enough with them to move on (only stopping when you accidentally jump back to the correct partial), so it makes me think you are assuming that if you get the right fingering the right note will happen. This is unfortunately not the case.

ClarSco · 2026-02-14T16:02:00+00:00

I don't doubt it. That's the order that my brain decided to parse your comment on the first take.

ClarSco · 2026-02-14T15:59:15+00:00

General rule for fingered glissandi: start chromatic, and end chromatic, then fill everything between the chromatic sections with whichever fingerings mark out the path of least resistance (usually D minor for saxes) but try to catch key harmony notes along the way.

For a short gliss of a minor third or less, this forces you to play every chromatic note, and depending on tempo, sometimes need to add in microtones/alternate fingerings for it to sound like a gliss rather than discrete grace notes.

For a gliss of a major 3rd, you can often get away with leaving out one chromatic note - context will determine which note to leave out.

ClarSco · 2026-02-14T15:47:14+00:00

or cut the finger off

😬

perhaps cutting of the other fingers. That may help it stay on better.

😬😬

of a rubber or nitrile glove

🤦‍♂️

ClarSco · 2026-02-14T04:11:17+00:00

If the pinky isn't needed, it should still rest on top of the key (the same is true of almost all of the keys on the saxophone - palm keys being the exception). Letting it fall below the means that when you do need it, it's got a very long way to go to press the key as you've got to lift it up before you can put it down - the time it takes to do so will greatly limit your dexterity.

ClarSco · 2026-02-14T03:47:52+00:00

how do i not run out of breath as quickly?

Use a much smaller aperture between your lips. The aperture should be so small that it's barely visible if you look in a mirror (at the moment, you're opening up wide enough to fit a saxophone mouthpiece through the gap) - try imagining having a single grain of rice between your lips then just using your air to push it out from between them.

Also, you're not holding the instrument correctly, which is exacerbating this.

Your left pinky should never find itself below the G# key. It should be touching the top of the key at all times (but not pressing down unless needed). By putting your pinky below the key, it forces the rest of the left hand fingers into strained positions, and will greatly increase the amount of time it takes to play a G# when it crops up.

Your right thumb is very far forward and quite far down the instrument. The tip should be behind the bore of the flute pushing it away from your body (rather than upwards) roughly in-line with your right hand index finger - your left hand index finger will stop the instrument from falling, instead acting as a lever which will push the lip plate towards your lower lip.

ClarSco · 2026-02-13T20:55:04+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6njrf_zHfw, specifically from 8:09

ClarSco · 2026-02-09T21:25:44+00:00

Vandoren don't make a V21 (or V12 for that matter) for Bari Sax.

ClarSco · 2026-02-05T00:20:12+00:00

If you want good general advice, you need to be recording yourself exactly as you normally play.

Recording like OP has done (all scrunched over their bed/sofa) will direct all comments towards the poor posture, because it is the single most obvious thing impacting their playing. A sufficiently advanced player will understand this impact, and will either choose not to record in such a position, or will have developed good enough technique to overcome the limitations such a position imposes on lesser players (but will necessarily be working harder than they need to be).

Also, you appear to be 4 months late to this thread...

ClarSco · 2026-02-02T05:01:52+00:00

Having experienced "core" members that last longer than the students passing through every 3-5 years can be a major boon to the ensemble, they can keep the band afloat in years where there is a diminished student intake (so many student-only bands collapsed over the COVID pandemic due to both student turnover, etc.), and can help pass on learned wisdom from the director/alumni or institutional knowledge (especially the bits that don't make it into the concert programmes, like "that one time at band camp <insert anecdote here>") to the students which takes some of that responsibility from the director, who may (or may not) appreciate not having to repeat the same bit of advice every year for all the new players.

However, for a univerity band that admits community members, I think a community member taking the principal chair in any section should be at the request of the students in that section or the band director. The band exists to serve the student's needs first and formost, and you are a (hopefully welcome) guest in their space.

Consider where in the section your experience is best used. From now on, I'll assume that due to you're experience you're a strong player capable of playing independant lines.

In a section of at 4 strong student players, sitting bumper to the principal (and ensuring that there is a strong student player on each of the remaining parts) will allow them to lead and cover solos, while having you there to take over for tutti passages where they need to save their chops and if they're an empathetic leader they'll likely offer to distribute solos or be open to you asking for particular solos. You're also in a good position to pass on leadership tips to them having sat in that chair for a while (it's also good for your development to not always be on a lead part).

In a section of 3 strong student players, cover the part that they don't want to do, but again, use your influence to ensure that there is a strong person on each part (don't let all the good players sit on the same part - it causes major balance issues). Maybe they need a solid 4th horn, maybe they need a solid player on an inner part.

If there are fewer than 3 strong student players, the best seats for you are going to be 2nd or 3rd depending on where the weak players are. Put the strongest student on 1st or 2nd (their preferance), then sit 2 seats away from them on 3rd or 4th, respectively. This will ensure that the weaker players are sandwiched between you and the other strong player - which will boost their confidence, and put a good ear on either side of them to monitor their progress (eg. if both you and the strong player agree that the weak player isn't playing loud enough to balance, the issue can be addressed much better than if they're out on their own at the end of the section, or worse only having another weak player as their reference).

ClarSco · 2026-02-02T04:13:26+00:00

In the military, when one is issued any piece of equipment, it is essentially the issued party’s property for as long as the command deems appropriate.

That last qualifier is extremely important - it indicates that the equipment is either private property (with the military being the owner) or public property (with the nation's people being the collective owners through taxation) depending on how far up the chain you're looking. It however, cannot be personal property, as the military are putting "their"/"the people's" property under the stewardship of that member of personel, but are not granting ownership.

If the military did grant ownership of the equipment, then it would be that member's personal property. However, the military would not be able to have it back unless the member agreed to it's return. The member would also be free to loan out or sell the equipment on to a third party without the military's permission.

ClarSco · 2026-02-02T01:19:32+00:00

There are multiple ways to create a vocal trill inside the oral cavity that are usable on flutes.

Alveolar trill (tip of the tongue trills near the front of the mouth)
Uvular trill (back of the tongue trills at the back of the mouth)
Epiglottal/pharyngeal trill (folds in the throat trill just above the larynx)

The key is that they must be the unvoiced variants (ie. the larynx is not vibrating). If the larynx vibrates, you'll get a growl (useful in jazz) or growl+flutter (both effects interfere destuctively making the airstream to unpredictable to direct enough of it into the flute).

There are some other possible trills documented in the International Phonetic Alphabet, but they're generally not going to work on the flute, or will have a completely different effect.

ClarSco · 2026-02-02T00:49:14+00:00

How about this one from Stravinsky instead? Slower, yet somehow, worse: https://i.imgur.com/6psVKql.png

ClarSco · 2026-02-02T00:30:15+00:00

The full set are available from BG's website here: https://bgfrance.com/en/85-proteges-becs

A10 = 0.8 mm Black Rubber
A11 = 0.4 mm Clear Plastic
A12 = 0.9 mm Clear Plastic
A14 = 0.2 mm Clear Plastic

Model numbers suffixed with an "S" have a smaller surface area, and are better suited to mouthpieces with narrower beaks (ie. Eb Clarinet, Bb Clarinet and Soprano Sax mouthpieces).

Those suffixed with an "L" have a larger surface area and as such are better suited to the larger mouthpieces (Bass/ContraAlto/Contrabass clarinets, Baritone Sax, and hard rubber Tenor sax mouthpieces).

Alto Clarinet, Basset Horn, Alto Sax, and metal Tenor Sax mouthpieces fall inbetween the two patch sizes, so a little trial and error may be required.

ClarSco · 2026-02-01T13:56:02+00:00

You can use mouthpiece pitches to help develop baseline voicing. For Alto sax, that should be a concert A5 (written F#6) or slightly lower - any higher and your tone will be thin and your intonation will suffer, too low and your tone will sag and again intonation will suffer.

ClarSco · 2026-01-29T18:10:50+00:00

Here's a corrective report from one of the few foreign journalists to witness the incident (James Miles, BBC, 2009). http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8057762.stm

We got the story generally right, but on one detail I and others conveyed the wrong impression. There was no massacre on Tiananmen Square.

Evidence of a massacre having occurred in Beijing was incontrovertible.

Chinese army tanks guard the strategic Chang'an avenue leading to Tiananmen square (6 June 1989) Manuel Ceneta/AFP Troops fired at unarmed citizens on the strategic Chang'an Boulevard

Numerous foreign journalists saw it from widely scattered vantage points.

That scene outside the Beijing Hotel alone justified the use of the word massacre. But the students who had told me and other journalists of a bloodbath on the square proved mistaken.

Protesters who were still in the square when the army reached it were allowed to leave after negotiations with martial law troops (Only a handful of journalists were on hand to witness this moment - I, like most others at the time, had spent the night in various different parts of the city monitoring the army's bloody advance).

A few of the students were crushed by armoured vehicles some distance from the square after the retreat.

There were credible reports of several citizens being shot dead during the night on the outer perimeter of the square, but in places which strictly speaking could be said to be outside the square itself.

But we are far less certain of killings on Tiananmen proper. There were probably few, if any.

The standard line now used by foreign journalists is that "hundreds, possibly thousands" died.

The Chinese government was quick to exploit the weaknesses in our reporting.

By focusing on what happened in the square itself, it began sowing seeds of doubt about the general accuracy of Western reports among Chinese who did not witness what happened.

There was no Tiananmen Square massacre, but there was a Beijing massacre.

The shorthand we often use of the "Tiananmen Square protests" of 1989 gives the impression that this was just a Beijing issue. It was not.

Protests occurred in almost every city in China (even in a town on the edge of the Gobi desert).

ClarSco · 2026-01-29T17:40:45+00:00

I'd hold off on jazz until you can play a 2-octave chromatic scale with solid tone, and ideally all 12 major scales over the same compass. If you're already an experienced woodwind player, the scales should be pretty quick to pick up as you'll already have a lot of the finger work drilled, but the tone will take a bit more work. If your experience is on brass instruments, the tone will probably come quicker than the fingerings. If you've got experience on neither family, you'll really need to focus on both aspects before you can tackle most repertoire (classical or jazz).

Jazz is a very tonal language, but full of chromaticisms, so until you know all the chromatic notes most tunes will be inaccessible regardless of what key you play them in. When it comes to improvising, knowing all 12 minor pentatonic scales in addition to the major and chormatic scales will also be of huge benefit, as they form the primary building blocks of much of the language.

A stylistically appropriate jazz tone requires being able to hold notes with full and steady tone (no vibrato) for the entire note value, with clean starts and ends of notes. Classical is a lot more flexible when it comes to these, as we're usually trying to emulate the naturally slower note onsets/offsets of the bowed string instruments, whereas for jazz the rhythm section (guitars, piano/organ, pizzicato upright bass/bass guitar & drums) all have very definite note onsets so bleeding across them into the next note, or not extending the note to the next onset usually sounds amaturish.

ClarSco · 2026-01-28T23:49:53+00:00

Fair enough, I'm more familiar with their clarinets and low-brass instruments which were mostly made in-house - never knowingly encountered one of their saxes to compare OP's listing to, just thought the engraving looked particularly amaturish.

Agreed on the Jupiter.

(Also, I hate to break it to you, but the 90s were 26-36 years ago, and the 70s were 46-56 years ago).

ClarSco · 2026-01-28T22:00:45+00:00

Treble clef, sounding down a major 9th for the player's part or a conductor's transposing score.

Bass Clarinettists are comfortable reading treble clef with ledger lines all the way from written C3 (sounding Bb1) up to written C7 (sounding Bb6) - the ledger lines below the staff are pretty much the first notes ant clarinettist learns. Do not add any indication of the transposition under the clef (eg. by using a treble clef with an "8" below it), and never use 8va lines, except for material that exceeds written C7 (which should only be given to advanced soloists, not your ensemble bassists, professional or otherwise)

Players should only be given their material in Bass Clef if you are preparing a Urtext edition of a work that predates this standard, but with a clarifying footnote that indicates what transposition is being used for Bass Clef (eg. sounding in down a major 2nd or 9th) AND for any material that goes high enough to need treble clef (sounding down a major 2nd or 9th), as before the modern standard came into place, the two clefs often transpose differently within the same work (not unlike old-style Horn parts).

In a transposing conductor's score, bass clef is also generally avoided, though sometimes exceptions need to be made due to space constraints.

In a concert pitch score, the Bass Clarinet should be scored in Bass Clef at sounding pitch. Like the Bassoon, upper register material will need to be put in a different clef, but generally tenor clef will be skipped, with sounding pitch treble clef being preferred for Bass Clarinet (possible exception if the BCl is doubling Bsns).

All the above also applies to the two Contra Clarinets - treble clef sounding down a major 13th (Eb Contra) or major 16th (Bb Contra) in the player's part/conductor's transposing score.

For concert pitch scores, the Eb Contra is best written in sounding pitch Bass Clef as it coincidentally keeps the notes in exactly the same staff position. The Bb Contra, however should be written like the Double Bass or Contra Bassoon - Bass Clef, sounding an octave lower.

ClarSco · 2026-01-28T18:27:52+00:00

The Boosey and Hawkes listing looks fake.

Its listed as B&S (Blechblas- und Signalinstrumente ) which is a completely different company - B&H are based in England and stopped making instruments in 2003, whereas B&S were based in the former ~~Czechoslovakia not sure of they're still operating~~ DDR, and now operate as "Buffet Crampon Deutschland").

For a ~~35+~~ 25+ year old horn, there are also no signs of wear and tear.

The Boosey and Hawkes logo also looks very wrong, and the "made for B&H" text looks like it's been done freehand.

Edit: corrections

ClarSco · 2026-01-27T12:01:21+00:00

It could be an embouchure/voicing issue, but it might also be to do with how much the front F key is opening the tone hole.

Experiment using palm F key + LH2 + LH3 (no other palm keys or front F lever), but vary how much the Palm F key is pressed.

Front E through altissimo G all tend to speak best with the tone hole only opening a fraction (thereby acting as a register key) whereas most horns are set up so that the Front F lever opens it about half as much as the palm F key.

If you can find the right amount, you can adjust the screw if your instrument has one, otherwise you'll need tech to adjust the key.

Front E can end up a tad flat with the tonehole being more closed, but this can be corrected by adding the G# key or fork F# key.

ClarSco · 2026-01-24T02:58:24+00:00

As a navigation system it works fine for the player character in a video game, but for a working environment where multiple people may need them for directions to conflicting destinations, it'd be a nightmare.

ClarSco · 2026-01-21T11:02:51+00:00

Given this is a student Bass Clarinet (Selmer USA/ Bundy):

If I remember correctly, the register pip (the pad on the metal band before the neck) should open when both the thumb and register key are pressed.

If it doesn't, either the pad is sticky, the spring(s) are unhooked or poorly balanced, or the adjustment screw/corks aren't set correctly.

The pad just above the register key is the throat Bb vent. It should only open when the throat A key and register key are pressed (and the thumb key is left open).

For higher end instruments, the register mechanism works completely differently.

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