By Sir James Galway, posted with permission
I would like to say a few words about tuners. Let me tell you that I have one but never used it. It is incorporated in two very good metronomes I own but apart from just trying it to see if it was there, I have never used it to tune a flute. I don’t think they really help in the end.
What I do think helps, and not only with the intonation is singing. Everyone who plays the flute should learn singing. Now I don’t mean you have to prepare for the Met, but just get the basic act of singing down, so you can truly relate the flute to singing. What I mean is that you should learn singing with a view to understanding intonation, and ultimately interpretation. Just learn to sing a simple arpeggio in tune and when you have understood this you will naturally wish to play in tune to the new set of values established in your mind from your simple singing exercise.
Learn to sing melodies with a simple arpeggio in them. The slow movement of the Brahms violin concerto, for example. The ‘tune’ from the Schubert variations is another good example. Can you imagine how many teachers teach in detail how to play this tune and they themselves have never tried to sing it or are incapable of singing it? My first serious flute teacher in Belfast, Mrs. Muriel Dawn, was a very good singer. She had the honour to sing the songs of Ralph Vaughn Williams with the composer playing the piano for her. She also sang with the Queens Hall Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry Wood who started the BBC promenade concerts. You don’t have to try to sing these tunes in the original key. Sing them in a kew you find comfortable for your voice. If you are at a music school ask a singer friend to get you to sing. What we are trying to do here through singing is to learn how to pitch a not in the mind a split second before playing it. By learning to do this you will be able to apply it to your flute playing. You will no longer accept the sort of intonation you have become used to.
When you become an experienced at singing you will be able to play any flute with better intonation. Take Julius Baker and Geoffrey Gilbert as an example. Both these players I knew very well.
They had perfect intonation despite the fact they did not play on ‘Cooper’ influenced scales. Mr. Baker played on an old Powell flute and Mr. Gilbert played on a Louis Lot. I cannot say for sure what these flutes were pitched at but I do know that they shortened the head to get them up to pitch. This suggests to me that they were flat pitched instruments. I never heard Mr. Baker sing but Mr. Gilbert often sang in the lessons.
As a child we learned to sing in school. We were taught to sing scales and arpeggios. Before we would sing a song, Mrs. Mc Caughey would get out her tuning fork and give us a note. We would then sing the scale several times and also a few arpeggios. From there we went on to learn several songs, mostly Irish and Scottish folk songs. At the end of the first year at school we could sing several folk songs. In our little school nobody had a musical instrument. In fact the first school did not even have a piano! Until I left school at the ripe old age of 14 nobody had an instrument of any kind provided by the school. There might have been a few recorders around but I don’t recollect anyone playing them. However, we could all sing many songs at the top of our lungs.
We used to walk over to the local park twice a week to play cricket and football and we would all sing on the way and sometimes I would play a march on the flute.
As a result of all this singing I could play any flute relatively in tune. My first concert flute was a Selemer Gold Seal. It fell to bits with alarming speed. My second flute was made by E. J. Albert in Belgium and on this flute I got into the Royal College of Music and used it for the first two years of study there. Then I bought a Haynes closed hole model with a C foot. This flute was incredibly out of tune, as were the others compared with what we have on the market today. I did learn how to play it in tune with a few different fingerings for the high notes, F3 in particular. I then bought a flute from Albert Cooper. I was playing in the opera at the time and this was my first open hole flute. I don’t remember having any difficulty with it. I certainly was easier to play in tune with this flute once I got used to it. Mr. Gilbert was very insistent on us playing with a good hand position and the fingers fell naturally into the middle of the holes.
James Galway.
Sir James Galway
Part two
I would like to tell you about the Moyse book called de la Sonorité. In my youth this was ‘the’ book for tone and I think it still is to a certain point. I practiced this book every day of my life when I was young. It was my musical Bible.
What I dislike about the Sonorité is the very first exercise in the book. In the USA., it is called Long Tones. Apart from the minimal good it does for the student while playing it, this exercise produces some great mind wanderings. While I practiced this exercise my mind used to have several windows open all at the same time. It never bothered me because I though that was how it was supposed to be.
In my mid forties I decided I did not wish to have my mind wandering to the accompaniment of a long tone so I devised some other exercises to do the job. These exercises not only did the job better but made my embouchure more flexible that it ever was. It was like I hit on the idea to put the first part of de la Sonorité together with the Grand Liaisons, incorporating the idea of both exercises. The idea was to develop the tone while gaining a well developed flexible embouchure.
I began to notice a change in my playing especially regarding flutes and head joints. After some time I realized that head joints did not make a whole lot of difference. Modern heads are all very well made to high standards, and some of the have a slight edge on others. What really makes the difference is the form you have attained from your daily practice and the flexibility gained from the tone development exercises. This enables you to play almost any flute to a good standard. I often ask a child in a masterclass to let me play their flute, it being a low end student model and they are quite amazed by what comes out of it. So am I!
I personally have never played around with the flutes I played on. Instead of wasting time changing holes and messing with headjoints I just practiced on what I had. I guess I did more practice than most of my colleagues. Just think of it like this: as they were hacking around I was practicing! And do you think all this made any difference to the intonation of people changing the holes on the flute? Mr. Cooper made enough progress on the scale of the flute to make it easier to play. None of these flutes are perfect and one just has to get used to the imperfections of the instrument, get flexible and overcome the difficulties presented at all times.
I hope this will help you all in the daily struggle with the instrument we all love and enjoy.
Best regards, Sir James.
Sir James Galway
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