Are you looking for legitimate suggestions or stuff that band directors have said because they don't know much about flute(ie:the dollar bill under the pads thing from a previous post)???
When I was in high school, my band director always said that professional flutists were some of the worst, cattiest and egotistical people he ever had to deal with. Lol! He was a trombone player.
Ha, yes, my band director always told us to roll in or roll out. He also told us to use vibrato on every note that wasn't stacatto. When I was on piccolo, he would tune me to play sharp and the tubas to play flat because he liked that "balance."
All of my directors were really strict about hold the flute parallel to the ground even in concert band. Mostly though we were told to back off to fit into the balance pyramid.
The worst thing I was ever told was by my middle school director: clap your fingers down on the keys fast like a crawfish. Until I started taking private lessons I used to REALLY slap my keys hard.. Middle school directors are teaching the fundamentals so it's distressing that alot of them tell the students things that are potentially harmful.
Tim wrote "Ha, yes, my band director always told us to roll in or roll out. He also told us to use vibrato on every note that wasn't staccato. When I was on piccolo, he would tune me to play sharp and the tubas to play flat because he liked that 'balance.'"
There is actually some merit in this. We - or at lest quite a lot of us - EXPECT the highest notes to be tuned sharp and the lowest notes flat. This is the standard way to tune a piano, for technical reasons I won't go into here (Google on <"stretched octaves" piano> Therefore we are used to it. But I think there is some quirk of our human hearing equipment that also expects it.
Patrick,
I'm afraid that if I see a student that is positioning their flute wrong on the lips, I may tell them to roll in or out. Usually, I tell them to roll out as they are more often smothering the tone by rolling back so far that the tone is almost not being produced.
Very sorry that I don't intend to stop this. I'm passing it down from my teacher who told me the same and he's passing it down from his teacher. The reason is for good tone production and projection.
Tuning of course is another issue.
As for interesting band director comments.
One band director in my area was giving detentions if he saw a flute student use the T Bb.
One took a solid silver head joint and rammed it home with the palm of his hand when the student was rolling back and playing flat.
One has told the students to roll back because the flutes were too loud.
One told his students that if a Trill sign (tr) has a flat by it, you should trill down to the next note. like from the primary note G to a lower F for example.
I'll have to think up some more goodies that I have chronicled somewhere. ....
Bilbo, that type or rolling is different than what I am talking about, and I know what you mean, my most famous teacher did something similar each time he played
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Therefore we are used to it. But I think there is some quirk of our human hearing equipment that also expects it. 