I always warm up with a few scales, and then a song or two that I can already play. Is this a good warm up? My teacher recommended doing overtones, and he says long tones as well but what are long tones and how do you play them? What, in your opinion, is the ideal warm up routine? Something tells me I'm going to need to make a new warm up.
I warm up, not really warming up, just starting playing, by doing all my major and minor scales, then I do long tones...but I know those who do the opposite and start with long tones...find what is comfortable for you
I usually do long tones starting on mid b and going down chromatically, then start on b above the staff and go up until I don't know any more notes.
Then lately I've been doing the harmonic series.. play the lowest b (if you have a b-foot) c or c# and try to get 7 (6 on C#) different notes out from fingering that one note from harmonics.. its really hard on the last one although tonight I got a pretty good octave (7 notes) from B!
I warm up with longtones and good ol' ej#1 from Taffanel, but I don't do the 8va stuff until after I'm fully warmed up and have done scales. I think the 5 note patterns from that exercise are really good in getting the fingers and embouchure in gear. Then I'm ready to go through my whole routine, which seems to be getting longer and longer after every lesson....
<Added>
And the harmonics thing... it's good to do but I think only on good headjoints can you hit 6 and 7... I've had a few not so stellar flutes in my life that I couldn't do more than 4 on, but you should definately be able to hit that many. So don't be totally discouraged if you can't get 7- it may not be you but the headjoint. It's not the end of the world either way.
give my flute a good blow through and twiddle my fingers on the keys, do long tones up from d below the staff to the high g then go down again until i have done a low c, then i go through all of my scales and arpeggios only then am i ready to launch into my pieces.
But i'd say just do what feels right untill you know you are ready to do your pieces ect.
searching...
.JPG)
I'll try tommorow!
