Keep Your Head Up

By Cindy Ellis

In the words of a pop song I've heard on the radio, you gotta keep your head up,...and for the best resonance, intonation and projection, these words could not ring more true. Make sure that your neck is not bent too low (don't connect chin to chest)  and that you are balancing your head freely on the top of your spine.. I like to imagine keeping a bit of space between my neck and my skull, lifting the crown of my head. Keep the collarbone open and lifted as well and shoulders open as much as possible. Thinking of the shoulder blades pulling down, as the neck lifts up, can give your posture a gentle vertical lift.  These small 'tweaks' to posture can really aid in your projection and you will also look much more confident as well. 

*Note - This article first appeared on the "Teaching Tips" section of Cindy Ellis's website.

For more from Cindy, visit her website and Powell profile pages at:

http://www.cindyellisflute.com/

https://powellflutes.com/academy/masters/cynthia-ellis 

Top Ten Piccolo Tips

By Cindy Ellis 

Cindy Ellis

• Play piccolo and love it! One of the first things many new piccolo players do is try to hide the sound.  The pitch range of the piccolo is higher, therefore perceived by our ears as louder, than the flute. It is a mistake to ‘hold back’ because this causes fundamental problems with support and air speed. It takes a bit more courage to play realizing every note is quite audible to all: use this to your advantage in developing your musicianship. 

• Get to know your tuner!  Intonation is critical for all musicians, even more so for piccolo players. The instrument is so self-pervading that it is simply harder to hear others when you are playing too. It is essential to work often with a tuner so that you are aware of your own tendencies and can be adjusting constantly to produce the best results.  It never hurts to check passages with colleagues back stage before a rehearsal so the two of you can hear in a more isolated acoustic environment. 

• Invest in a Reliable Instrument!  Manufacturers today are producing high quality piccolos at all price levels.  Invest in a quality instrument with a good scale: that is, a piccolo that plays well in tune with itself.  Because the piccolo is a secondary instrument, it is tempting to spend the least amount of money possible. This can be rather short-sighted thinking. A good piccolo will hold its resale value better and serve you well in your performances.  Take your tuner with you to try instruments, checking the pitch of each D on the piccolo. The three octaves should play well in tune without a lot of adjustment.  I feel it is better to purchase an instrument pitched at A = 442 rather than A = 440 as many orchestras are tuning at the higher pitch level today.  Make sure the pads are nice and flat, and that they do not protrude down into the tone holes. Overstuffed pads are poorly designed:  Intonation can be severely affected if they are hanging down past the key cup into the tone hole.

• Adjust your Embouchure! Roger Stevens played flute and Piccolo with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for 31 years, 16 years in the piccolo Chair and the remainder as Principal Flute.  He used to remind his students that the piccolo is a compromise. In his book “Artistic Flute Playing”, he says: “ The flute embouchure is of a size that is quite normal for the average human being: theoretically, the piccolo embouchure should be approximately half the size of the flute embouchure.  Since one doesn’t find ‘little people’ especially designed for piccolo playing, the player’s responsibility then is simply one of accustoming themselves to playing within the limits of the compromise.”  Downsizing the aperture, then, would be the appropriate adjustment needed to match the smaller size of the embouchure hole for the piccolo. Note the angle of the piccolo also: you do not need to hold it straight across, in ‘marching band’ style. A slight descending angle, echoing that of most flutists, is desired to keep the piccolo parallel to the bottom lip.

• Place the Piccolo Higher on the Lower Lip!  As a result of the smaller size of the instrument, it is helpful to place the piccolo higher on the lower lip than your flute position.  Most of us place the flute on the edge of the lower lip, where the pink skin of the lip meets the flesh colored skin of the chin. It helps to place the piccolo just north of this intersection, on the lower lip, so that the air column will be projected slightly higher at the back wall of the piccolo’s embouchure Hole. 

• Loosen Up! Many new piccolo players tighten up their lips, almost spitting the notes out as if they were trying to dislodge an errant piece of popcorn stuck in their teeth! Although the piccolo embouchure is firm, it is not overly tense: and absolutely no squeezing from the center of the lips or the corners of the lips! The embouchure only directs the air to the instrument: it does not produce the sound. AIR produces tone.  I think of coming forward at the point of the aperture, almost like you were blowing a kiss across the room.   This helps to decrease tension in the embouchure. 

• Alignment!  It helps to align the embouchure hole slightly forward, rather than directly in line with, the center of the keys on the instrument. This helps keep the player from covering too much of the embouchure hole, again, due to the smaller size of the instrument. 

• Low equals Flow, High equals Compression!  You will actually use more air blowing into the flute: it is a longer, bigger bore instrument. Low equals flow: Just think back how you have never seen a tuba player get red in the face when he or she plays: they just need to keep feeding air thru all that tubing: lots of air flow. Think again of our friends in the trumpet section: many of them seem to have a problem controlling too much air, and they can turn all kinds of interesting crimson shades just by compressing the air. Piccolo players frequently overblow if they try to use the same quantity of air as they do when playing flute.  Tone production on the piccolo is based on using stronger support but less quantity of air than flutists use. The tone will be harsh and brassy if you use too much air to produce the tone. Think of using a firm, concentrated air stream, thinking of speed and support (compression) rather than using a large quantity or volume of air.  Lifting the rib cage and sternum at the ends of to phrases to control the air helps keep the pitch from dropping. 

• Get to Know Alternate Fingerings!  Alternate fingerings provide a wealth of opportunity to adjust pitch and change the tone colors of notes.  There are many great books (Steven Tanzer’s  and Jan Gippo’s come to mind). These are an absolute must if you are serious about becoming a piccolo player. Try to incorporate a new fingering every week until you become able to easily remember your choices for a given note.  It also helps to remember several choices per pitch, so that you have options from which to choose. 

• Keep it light!  It often helps to keep the spring tension lighter on the piccolo than on the flute.  Keep your finger pressure light as well:  remember the hands are positioned closer together than you are used to on the flute. This can trigger the ‘grip reflex’, which is part of our hard wiring: when we become apprehensive about something, (sixteenth note runs perhaps) it is natural to grip the piccolo more fiercely in the hopes that this will give us more security. In fact, more finger tension will hinder our playing. Keep the fingers close to the keys and stay relaxed and supple in your motion.  Move the fingers from the knuckle joint down, don’t ever move the hands.  

Learning to play the piccolo is a wonderful extension of your skill as a flute player, and often leads to more opportunity in the job market as well.  Make it part of your daily practice  routine.

CYNTHIA ELLIS
______________________________________________
For more of Cindy, visit her website and Powell profile page:
http://www.cindyellisflute.com/
https://powellflutes.com/academy/masters/cynthia-ellis 
 

Taming the Beast—Revolutionize Your Piccolo Intonation! (Part II)

By Stephanie Mortimore

Stephanie Mortimore

Piccoloist, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Part II

Make a Difference

While the properties of sound production can be traced back to pure physics, hearing is a more complicated matter—biology also enters into play. When sound waves enter the ear they are translated into neural impulses which can be perceived by the brain. When two notes of different frequencies are heard simultaneously, events inside the ear or brain—there is some debate on this matter—often cause the listener to perceive a third tone. This “ghost note” is known as a difference tone, so called because of the mathematical relationship it has to the two primary notes; its frequency is the difference between the frequencies of the other two notes -- the frequency of the higher note (f2) minus the frequency of the lower note (f1) is equal to the frequency of the difference tone (D):

 

f2—f1=D

When the two notes are close together (less than about 30Hz apart) they will produce beats as described above. When the two notes are further apart (more than about 30Hz), they will begin to produce a difference tone which is audible as not just a buzzing, but as a separate note. Difference tones then actually combine with the primary notes to form the illusion of three note chords. As a result, the difference tone becomes a powerful tool for improving your intonation. By paying close attention to and tuning difference tones instead of the primary notes you will develop the skills you need to play in tune with yourself and with your orchestral colleagues. To use the bike analogy again, difference tones are your training wheels.

This training will have two major positive effects. First, by sensitizing yourself to difference tones in your individual practice, you will develop muscle memory around how to adjust your piccolo so that you can play in tune with yourself (meaning you use just intonation to play arpeggiated intervals). Second, by using these skills when you play in the orchestra, you will hear the harmonic relationships which exist between your notes and your colleagues’ notes. When you hear difference tones which are not harmonically related and, therefore, not aesthetically pleasing to the ear, you will know how to adjust your instrument accordingly.

Practical Application

Let’s give it a try. For this part, you will need a tuner that plays a reference tone chromatically at least up to B6 (written as the B just above the staff for the piccolo), and that will play loud enough for you to hear well while playing but without causing pain. The louder your tuner is, the more audible and identifiable the difference tones will be.

First, let’s listen for beats. Put your tuner on A6 (this note is written as the A directly above the staff—A1760). Now, on your piccolo, play the same A. Try to move above and below the tuning note by allowing your hands to turn the piccolo, first in, then out. Listen for the beats. Notice how the buzzing speeds up as you get further away from the tuning note. Notice too how it slows down and eventually stops as you approach and arrive at a perfect unison.

Now let’s listen for difference tones. Put your tuner on A6 again. On your piccolo, play the C# which is a Major 3^rd above the sounding A (C# 2200). Listen closely—in addition to the two primary notes you should hear a ghostly but very distinct third tone. If you carefully tune this note, you will find that it is, in fact, A440—the difference tone (2,200Hz ­— 1,760Hz = 440 Hz).

Useful Intervals

All of the twelve possible intervals within a chromatic scale produce difference tones, but six of them are particularly useful for tuning difference tones. This is because they are all members of the same harmonic series—that of the tonic. Each of these six intervals, when played in tune, will produce perfectly tuned difference tones which are also members of the same harmonic series.

The following chart lists the intervals which are particularly useful for tuning:

Click chart to enlarge

Now work your way through all of the intervals in the chart. Again play A6 on your tuner. As you play each of the intervals on your piccolo, listen for the corresponding difference tone.

The wonderful thing about just intonation is that is works in any key. If you do the same exercises with different tonic notes and play the same intervals on your piccolo, you will hear difference tones at the same scale degrees.

This exercise can also be applied while you are working on excerpts or solo works. Identify the tonic of the passage you are working on, set your tuner to that note, and play the passage over the top of the tuning note, all-the-while paying careful attention to the difference tones that are produced.

How Do I Remember All of This?

This may seem like a lot to absorb, but don’t be too concerned if you can’t remember which difference tone is produced by which interval. Just use your ears and try to tune the difference tone; use the chart as a reference when you need some help hearing where the third note should be.

That said, the generation of musical notes is, at its most basic, a combination of math and physics so it’s not surprising then that certain patterns emerge which will make memorization easier. These are some of the patterns I have discovered:

• If you look at the six intervals which produce useful difference tones, you will notice that there are two minor intervals (m3, m6), two major intervals (M3, M6), and two perfect intervals (P4, P5).

• Look first at Major 3^rds and Perfect 5^ths. These are the intervals which are probably most useful in tuning as they form the basis for the Major triad. Notice that both of these intervals will produce a difference tone of the Root.

• The minor intervals are opposites of each other; if you play a minor 3^rd above the root you get difference tone of a minor 6^th. Conversely, if you play a minor 6^th above the root you get difference tone of a minor 3^rd.

• All of the difference tones sound within the octave immediately below the root with the exception of those occurring with Major and minor 3^rds. These sound within the octave which is two below the root.

In addition to the above patterns, if you memorize the order of the intervals from smallest to largest you can use the following mnemonic device to help aid your memory. 

Interval	Difference Tone	Mnemonic Device
m3	m6	six
M3	R	rudiments
P4	P4	for
P5	R	revealing
m6	m3	tuning
M6	P4	fortitude

These six rudiments really can reveal your tuning fortitude. Just a few minutes each day with these principals will change the way you think of tuning and make all the difference in your piccolo intonation and, hopefully, in your enjoyment of the instrument.