These tone development exercises are great for beginning students who are still creating their own sound concept, as well as a warm up for advanced students and professionals.
Low Register Tone Studies
These studies work by introducing lower and lower notes one at a time. The goal is to pervade each new note with the same tone color as the previous ones. There are three ways to practice these exercises, and to have complete tonal mastery of this register, all three should be practiced:
with even volume throughout the phrase (this is to be achieved by a slight crescendo as you descend, and, inversely, a slight diminuendo as you ascend)
with an audible crescendo during descent, and an equally audible diminuendo as you ascend
and with an audible diminuendo as you descend, and an equally audible during ascent
Middle Register Tone Studies
The first of these studies works by expanding the range of the played interval gradually. The goal should be to make this gradual increase imperceptible in terms of tone color—that is to say that the tone color should be matched between the two notes.
The second of these studies is a sequence of rising and falling arpeggiated chords. The goal is similar to the first study in that each note should be played with the same tone color.
These, too, should be played in three aforementioned manners.
High Register Tone Studies
The high register is, in my opinion, the most difficult to master. All too often, a flutist’s upper register is shrill and thin, and generally displeasing to listen to for too long. The best advice I have for this register comes from my former teacher Jim Walker: “as you go up, think down.” To attain a full and rich upper register, you must feel as if you are playing lower than you actually are: opening the throat, and allowing there to be room for resonance inside your airway and mouth. I have my students impersonate and caricature a bass baritone laughing or speaking so that they may assimilate the idea of how their body should feel as they enter into the upper register of the flute.
All Register Tone Study
This tone study brings together the entire range of the flute with gradually larger spaced intervals both slurred and articulated. To be practiced:
with equal dynamic throughout the exercise
with crescendo to the middle of the exercise and diminuendo to the end (most natural phrasing)
and with diminuendo to the middle of the exercise and crescendo to the end
Harmonic Exercises for Tone Development
There are not many cheat codes for becoming better at the flute, but I would argue that practicing harmonics is definitely one of them. The reason this works so well to better one’s tone development is because the further up on the harmonic series we go, the closer the harmonics become (any horn player can attest to this). If we finger a low C and play a high register E, that resultant E is much more likely to crack (either up to a G or down to a C) than if we had used a true high register E fingering, due to the caprices of our underdeveloped lip muscle control. Basically, we are making the work a lot harder for ourselves, so that when we play with the real fingering, it’s that much easier. If you can master playing on harmonics, you will have an incredible amount of control of your lip muscles, and thus improve not only your tone, but also your flexibility and dynamic palette.