If you're not playing the flute with the lip plate in exactly the right spot, you won't even know you're doing it wrong.

How to make sure the LIP PLATE is in EXACTLY the right spot on your chin

But you'll definitely be thinking that your SOUND could be better, that HIGH NOTES are a bit hard, and that you're probably not going to win any gold medals at playing the flute in the Olympics!

Like my lovely student Bronwyn said recently:

"I haven't been placing my lip in exactly the right spot, and that's why I've struggled I think at getting the middle octave. Now, with correct embouchure placement, you should hear the difference between low and middle octaves. This makes me extremely happy!

So I made you this 4 minute video to let you check that you're doing things correctly.

Oh, and I've included some good DEMOS of how you will look (and feel!) if the lip plate is TOO HIGH and TOO LOW.

I look forward to showing you!

Jane xx

How to put the flute lip plate in the right spot

Okay. In this video, I am going to show you how you know that the lip plate is in the right spot on your face for setting you up for a good sound on the flute. It also sets you up for having control over your high notes, your low notes, everything in between and switching between them quickly.

Flute School

My name is Jane Cavanagh and I set up my business (now called The Flute Academy!) because I love showing people the fundamental techniques of playing the flute that really make a difference to their flute playing and very quickly as well. They're tiny little changes that make dramatic differences to someone's playing. 

Micro-improvements on the flute

I love getting really quick results for someone. Stick around to the end of this video and I'm going to show you how to quickly improve your tone and quickly make high notes easier. I'll tell you at the end. For now, I'm going to show you exactly how you know your lip plate is in the right spot on your mouth and why that's important.

Find the start of your bottom lip

So if you go to a mirror and have a look at your face. There's a joint between your bottom lip and the rest of your face. Keep that joint in mind. Now, when you have your flute up at your mouth, if you look in the mirror, roll it out. 

Line up bottom lip with edge of embouchure hole

This edge, or the edge closest to you of that hole, of the embouchure hole should be right on that edge of your lip that I just mentioned. And so you can see by rolling it out and then rolling it back in that it should align with that. The reason that's important is because it will set you up forgetting it's like one of the absolute fundamental things for being able to get a good tone on the flute.

It also sets you up for having control of your high notes and your low notes, and being able to jump around between them, which is what flute playing is. You never just playing one note, melodies always jump around. So, I mean, that's just a melody that just sprung out of my brain right then, but you can see that there's jumps in there and having the lip plate in the right spot is the basis of being able to learn the right way to jump around between high notes and low notes.

Relax jaw when playing flute

I'm going to now give you a demo of what happens if it's too high and too low. So if it's too high and I'm gonna exaggerate this, I'm gonna need to blow in a really weird direction. I dunno if you can see, but I've gotta shove my jaw forward to be able to blow in the right spot. That's bad.

You don't wanna do that to your jaw. Now, if it's too low, the opposite happens and I have to pull my jaw back to blow down. That is also bad. You don't wanna go meddling with your jaw. So putting that closest edge exactly on that join is great because it means that your jaw doesn't have to move when you play.

Free flute tiny course

So how to quickly improve your tone on the flute? Like I said, that placement that I just showed you is one of the essential ingredients in being able to get a good sound. So you can come and join me for a masterclass that I'm doing online. It's free, go to www.flute.school/free, and please come and join me.

I'm going to show you more of the essential ingredients about getting a great tone on your flute or to put it differently, quickly, change your sound into being less fluffy and more strong otherwise known as stronger. So hopefully I'll see you there!