Today, I'm teaching you how to fix HIGH NOTES in 4 STEPS.

How I Fixed My Student's High Notes in 10 Minutes

But first! Someone said something funny to me during the week.

I got an email that said "It looks like The Flute Teacher's School is turning into psychology for flute players!"

Ha! Good observation! It is indeed very true that the way you think about your progress makes a gigantic difference to how quickly you progress.

But today is not psychological... It is a 4 step technique to fix high notes.

I used it on my little student Molly last week, and she nailed her high notes in 10 minutes.

Right after her lesson, I recorded what I did for you here, so you can apply it to your own high notes if needed.

Jane xx

How to fix flute high notes

Hello again, I'm going to teach you how my student Molly today came into her lesson and couldn't play high notes. I taught her how to play them and she went okay. Fine. Cool. That's great. Moved on. So easy. Kids are so- in a good way, they're so unaware of what they can't do. 

Flute School

Today I'm going to show you what I taught her to instantly get her high notes better. Stick around to the end of this video and I will show you how to quickly improve your tone on your flute for free. I always forget to introduce myself. So here we go. I am Jane Cavanagh from the Flute Teacher School that is my business. I love teaching people how small changes to their playing makes massive differences to how they sound.

Scale on the flute

So Molly came in about an hour ago and this was her C major scale and she went, Great! I played it. I know it. Then I showed her how it was actually supposed to sound like this. And I said, I'm gonna show you how to get the high notes. And she said, okay! Man, I love teaching kids. They're so cool. Actually, I love teaching adults. I love teaching kids and adults, but it's just so different. So the first thing I did for her was stop her blowing so hard. So I'm going to show you exactly how hard she was blowing. So I said, blow softer. She started to do this. So her lower notes sounded better, but her higher notes still didn't come out.

Smaller flute embouchure 

Then I said, close your mouth, make the hole in your mouth tiny. So she did this and it was good because the hole in her mouth was smaller and she was blowing softer. This is good. Then I taught he how about for the higher notes just think a little tiny bit. Make the corners of your mouth just go forward a little tiny bit like a little tiny pout. And she did this.

So she got way further up the scale, but just not the two high notes. And then to finish that off, this is all in 10 minutes. I said, did you hear that the B and the C at the top didn't quite come out? And she said, yep. And I said, this time, small hole, a tiny bit of a pout, try and get those high notes to come out. So just think about them. And she did this.

How to fix high notes on the flute

She got it. She fully got it. So those steps will work for you as well. If you're blowing fairly hard, you don't need to. So blow softer. If you're blowing softly already, good. So that's the first thing. Second thing, make a small hole in your mouth. So you wanna keep that hole small as you go higher concentrate to make it - it'll feel like you're going smaller as you go higher. And the third thing is to avoid this and think corners just forward a little bit as you go higher corners forward a little bit more as you go higher, just think a tiny little bit pouty. Those three things will help you get high notes.

Don't blow too hard overall on the flute

It's funny, isn't it? Where I'm saying blow softer. I'm not saying blow softer for high notes, by the way. I'm just saying don't blow too hard overall on the flute. The best thing is it will also conserve your air and you'll have more air to play with. So be able to play longer phrases. That's just a little bonus.

Free flute mini course

I mentioned that I would show you how to quickly improve your tone on the flute. It is quick. It definitely improves your tone and it's free. Go to www.flute.school/free. I will put it right here. I'm Jane from the Flute Teacher School. See you later.