Learn to play Breath Vibrato on your Pan flute

Breath Vibrato on the Pan flute is an easier way to produce a vibrato in the notes, in fact, it doesn’t take long to develop , then you can further move on the hand vibrato

You must have heard it probably before in some Pan flute music

but you may wondering what it is exactily or how it sounds like, here is an example

Breath vibrato clip

You can use this type of vibrato along the with the hand vibrato, which is explained here

How to start Breath Vibrato on the Pan flute

It’s quite simple, you start by saying “ha” while you blow, like this:

Breath vibrato approach

and then once managed, you followed a rhythm, in quater notes, eight notes and so on

• Start blowing a note, and push the air with your stomach muscles as well as pronouncing “ha”, there you have just done a pulse, just one, the idea is to keep it steady
• After that , try on the other pipes, and notice how the sound varies as it goes up or down in pitch, it has different subttletiles and colours
• Listen to Andean Music, this style feature this vibrato in almos any song in comparison with classic style from Romania or European music
• Listen alot to south american players or other players other than the so typical hand vibrato

A mix of this two techniques is crucial to learn play expressively and with grace,

Exercises and Warm-up to learn this techinque

It is recommended that you master first a slow rhythm and let the timing develop naturally, keep practing, that’s all you need.

Sharps and Flats, What are they?

Also called accidentals, in a piano, they’re the notes they correspond to the black keys, a sharp is written with a # character and a flat is written with a b,sharps raise a note by one semitone, flats lowers them the same way.

Enharmonic Spelling

Enharmonic spelling is when a note is spelled differently to refer the same note i.e example D# is the same as Eb

Why Sharps and Flats?

Sharps and Flats are notes too, and in order to create a whole chromatic tone range you need to include them in your playing, every key has its own number of sharps and flats, if you are meant to play tunes in other keys and know all the keys of the major and minor scales, you need to know where they are located.

By including sharps and flats and learning how to play them, you will be able to play in a wider range of styles and genres of music, like jazz, blues, funk, folk etc… and other styles.

Okey, Okey, how do you do them in my pan flute?

Pan flute is not constructed in the same way as it is a flute or other woodwinds which have been built to play chromatically, pan flutes are usually built diatonic, most of the time, though you can get a chromatic one.

In a pan flute actually you don’t make a sharp, you make a flat, this is crucial to understand. So to play A# you would put the pipe corresponding to the note B under your lip and tilt your instrument around 45 degrees toward you and blow.

To play flats, you normally tilt the instrument around 30 or 45 degrees towards you and blow, this makes the hole get covered by  a half, so the pitch is lowered to a flat note.

Starting by playing G4 note, tilt the instrument towards you, you will hear a slide, the pitch going down flat, stop until you hear the right frequency, remember that to play a C sharp for example you will have to play in the pipe for note D so you play D flat which is the same for C#, so you have to skip pipes with the process.

Handy Gadgets

For this technique I think a tuner it’s best oriented, you can download loads of them as software from the internet, and use the mic to input the audio, normally they include a correcting feature and tell you exactly how far you are from the right tuning.

Practice and experiment

You will notice that the tuning of some notes is not as accurate as if playing in a flute or a piano, therefore experiment with what it suits you best it is quite recommended.

Start on the middle range and the high notes , high notes are the easier to get flat, indeed they require very little tilting , the low pipes will require more time to play them accurate, in fact if the pipe is very low you may not get the right intonation fully.

A good exercise is to play all the keys one by one, some contains up to 5 flats, which is great if you want to master them all, practice your scales.

Play sequences of triplets with the middle note flattened is a good way to start including this tecnique

Play chromatically

The best thing you can put it into practice, it’s to start playing chromatically, so if you start playing jazz or blues melodies, the easy ones, you will find yourself with lots of flats and sharps to include, this is also great as an introduction to jazz improvisation and blues if you like it and are into it.

Examples

flats and sharps blues example

g note flattened

Other ways to play them

There is in fact other ways to execute the needed flats, moving your jaw forward so the hole is covered by a half or quarter of it will make the pitch go flat, with practice you can substitute this tecnique for the tilting movement, which way you prefer and works best , it’s up to you

Practice files

sharps and flats simple exercise

5 Completely Free Programs every musician must have

I must admit that one of my favourite hobbies and ways to spend my time while I am online is checking out and trying new pieces of software due to the practicality we can find nowadays, here is a list I have compiled with great software that you can download just for free, while you may be music related and interested in the filed , you may not use any computer at all, that’s fine, but you must be a rare case then, a tuner, a metronome and some sheet music tools and an audio editor if you are into home recording are perfect tools for anyone who enjoys playing music out of an instrument.

• 1 Weird metronome

As the name suggests, it’s a weird metronome, well, it’s not weird at all, in fact it’s so functional and simple, first you can customize the sounds of the beat and sub-beats, but its best feature is that you can enter virtually any time meter and tempo and play any length of measure you want, it comes with pre-defined sounds, unlike most commercial metronome which only allow you to have simple measure with disabled functions. You can grab it and try here http://www.pinkandaint.com/weirdmet.zip or check out the web of the author http://www.pinkandaint.com/weirdmet.shtml

• 2 Musescore

Free composition and notation software.I completely fell in love with this app the first time, why? because it can do exactly the same than other programs and you don’t have to pay a penny, simple. One of the best feature I like is that it exports to Pdf , supports XML format , it’s friendly to use once you run for a few times. http://musescore.org/download

• 3 Audacity

This is an audio editor, well-know for its easy use and functionality which takes minimum resources out of you CPU, it records and edits wave files and can export to mp3, while there are other expensive alternatives , sure abit more professional, if you just use it to record clips, projects and edit basic tracks, then this is just for you. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

• 4 Functional ear trainer basic

Ear training Software.I stumbled upon this little program by reading this interesting article http://www.advancingmusician.com/hear-all-12-chromatic-notes/ some days ago and I just can say it’s excellent, if you want to take your musicianship to a decent level, then you should check this out, it’s not a commercial piece of junk, in fact it’s completely free and unlike most ear training software it’s not based on a game of simply guessing random notes but rather have a theory and scientific explanation behind, with a bit of practice in weeks you will develop  a really good ear without much hassle. http://www.miles.be/FET_Basic_Setup.exe grab it here or go to the web homepage http://www.miles.be/fet.html

• 5 GNU Solfege

Ear training Software. Another ear training software under the licence of gnu software, well known , and pretty functional, lots of features and easy to use, it’s also an excellent to learn sight reading and solfege if you are still in that stage. Grab it here: http://www.solfege.org/Solfege/Download

If you know any other little simple app which can do the job a piece of paid software can do, don’t doubt in letting us know, use the comment section below to share, many thanks

Everyone has its own little corner and time to practice, be it every day or once a year, we all know it’s important to keep practicing but many we don’t know about little details that we may be missing and that it could improve your practice, after all, practice is not much different than performing in front of an audience, you have just simply put aside some conditions, don’t you think?

1# Keep motivated and constant -

I know you have probably heard that you have to practice every single day, well, that’ s not true, or at least for me and many, the secret is to keep constant, sometimes you are just too busy and your life doesn’t revolve around the whole pan flute experience that’s obvious. Just do it at regular times, preferable at the same time, if you skip one day, ok you’re not perfect, you don’t have to be, but be honest with yourself and see if you still keep the passion for it, if so, that’s great, next time you will pick it up with a smile, if not, there is a bunch of other things you can do…like the one which kept you busy last day so you put the practice forward!

2# Set your own atmosphere -

You don’t have to play in a place where everything is cluttered or it’s not yours, go to the place you feel the best , that will be reflected on your playing, make sure none disturbs or there is no chores from the day to interrupt, it’s your own space, remeber this.

3# Breath, breath -

Before you start doing exercises, it’s a good idea to warm up your lungs a bit , start by taking a deep breath in with your belly, don’t raise your shoulders ,, then blow out with your mouth and pushing with the low muscles of your stomach, do it 3 or 5 times with your eyes closed, in minutes you will feel a sense of relaxation, you are ready to enjoy practice.

4# Focus on the exercise -

I sometimes end up improvising and playing ramdonly, while this can be fun, with the time becomes a habit and it puts me apart from the goals and exercises that I could learn, if you focus on the basics even if they are boring, then it’s worth the effort, later you will realize it was good for you to know.

5# Look for inspiration -

Beauty and inspiration is everywhere, if you are willing to see it, this is very true, you can listen the melodies you like off a cd, or you can just open the window and look at the landscape then think about it and imagine you have been given a pan flute to express that what you see, whatever it is, your inner creativity will sure kick in, if you are not fortunate enough and live in a scummy dirty area, go back to tip 2#

6# Set a time -

Some wish they could be playing all day under the sun and nothing else happens, some think 3 mins a day it’s just enough, this all depends entiretly up to anyone as you can see, but it’s much more worth 10 mins when you have relly learnt something and it has sunk in, that having spent the whole evening cursing and repeating the same wrong method again and again

7# Stick to what it works -

Yes, this is crucial if you don’t want to end up frustated and cursing, every day people quit an instrument for good because they didn’t make it sound the way they wanted at first, but who said it was easy? it actually is, it’s just the wrong method and prejudcies and issues in your mind preventing you to enjoy playing, if what you do works for you, then stick to it, if the method or something you’ve read doesn’t work for you, then try something else!

Of course you don’t have to take this list as a must do but if what you read it’s valuable for you, then make avail of it, I got my own “ritual” when I practice as I guess you have yours too, I like to play nature sounds as a background noise, I like my room to be sunny and light , when it’s cold outside I put my heater on , it does a little noise from the fan but I don’t really mind I just practice and don’t think of anything else -

What is your  routine practice like? do you think you could include something new to it? or what is most  important, do you practice at all?

Use the comments section below as a forum to post your own experience, opinions and thought in this subject, share your ideas and enjoy what others share with you

Zamfir albums? Oh yeah I know

I came back home today, after a long stroll in the heavy snow in Manchester,then I played some cds on my computer, Georghe Zamfir, and while I think there are lots of good quality pan flute music cds out there excluding his market I must say he has a big discography apparently, everytime you look for panflute cd musics on any search engine, his name flashes up , he has built a huge presence seems obvious, I read once a joke about that, apparently his music is played in many lifts in the usa, dentist clinics, and similar places. I found that funny.

Zamfir - The Feeling Of Romance

Here is a list of some of his well-known albums:

• Gheorghe Zamfir – Love Songs
• Gheorghe Zamfir -  The Lonely Shepherd
• Gheroghe Zamfir – Return to Romance
• Gheorghe Zamfir – Classics By Candlelight
• Gheorghe Zamfir – Pan Pipe Dreams
• Gheorghe Zamfir – The Magic Of Christmas

I’d like to raise some questions to the readers:

Which album is your favourite?

Is there any particular album that you think  it’s the best  and it reflects its particular style?

Comments below and answers welcome

How to play the notes on the Pan flute

…You can learn how to make your first sounds and notes on the pan flute by learning how to shape your lips and blow, have you ever tried to blow across the edge of the hole in a coke bottle to make it sound, well, in that case you have tried to learn it before, it’s not hard as it seems and the good thing is that you just learn it once, like riding a bike…

Embouchure

Learning to blow notes on the pan flute is not different than learning how to make a sound on a flute, why, because the embouchure is the same, embouchure it’s a french word meaning the way you shape your lips to blow and direct the airstream downwards, or in other direction, in the panflute the sound is produced when the airstream hits the edge of the corresponding pipe , so a hollow sound comes out.

This is something you get at first I guess….

First attempt to blow notes

This is what you aim to get with practice, a clear, constant, full round sound note

Single note pan flute

You can follow three easy steps to get a proper embouchure.

Lips, Lips

Step 1, lips relaxed , place the pipe under the lower lip, just touching, not too close, not too far either, feel comfortable, pan flute is easy.

Pan flute embouchure

The corresponding pipe should be placed just under the lower lip, resting on the scoop between your chin and the lip, it sits perfectly, just find what it suits you best.

Step 2, now you’re going to give the characteristic shape, it’s like a chesire smile, pull the corner of your lips to the side, and smile but show no teeth

Chesire smile, smile from ear to ear

Step 3, last step, once you have your lips smiling, pull the corners to the sides, and flatten your lips both upper and lower, make a small opening, lower lip a bit tense but not too much, after you’ve made a small opening, blow downwards by saying “ta” or a pronounced syllable, like “pa” or “ba”

Tongue, tongue

Like spitting watermelon seeds

Okey, you should be able to get a proper note, once you have the pipe in the correct position, blow and direct the air down,say ta and push with your belly as well as using your tongue, make sure you start the note with a crisp attack, the tongue in your mouth hits the back of the front teeth as pronouncing tea, the tongue is used to start notes, this embouchure allows the airstream to blow downwards and hit the edge of the pipe so a clear sound is produced. It may take a bit of practice but once you have learnt this basic skill, everything comes easier, you can also experiment with different syllables, saying fa will sound softer than saying ta.

You can pretend you spit melon seeds, that’s a good analogue, because the movement we do is just the same, when spitting

the tongue moves to the front.

Congratulations!

If you have managed to get a clean round full sound, congratulate yourself, and keep practicing, then move and explore the rest of the pipes, you will need a bigger opening from your lips for the low pipes , and a smaller for the high pipes , there is a post where I explain to play the high notes.

Also, remember to breath and use your belly to give a support to your playing, specially when starting notes.

I hope these instructions have helped you and cleared your doubts, keep practicing

High notes on the Pan flute

This post is to explain how to play the high notes on the pan flute accurately and in tune, I guess after you have been playing for a while, or when you learnt to make your first sounds, you gave a try to play the short pipes on the pan flute and heard that the notes don’t come as easy as the rest of the pipes. Don’t panic, this is completely normal, to start with , this short pipes requre different “treatment”, not only the are shorter and less stable , but the hole is much much smaller, and unless you are still a child with tiny lips, you will probably find harder to make a decent sound on them.

Pan flute short pipes

Focus the airstream, redirect

This is the kind of sound or something similar everyone gets the first time one attempts to play a high note

Clip 1 (don’t do this)

You can notice  two things here, one is the tuning, the notes come out of out tune, second they sound like there’s not enough air, but in fact, there’s not enough pressure.

In this clip you can hear the difference after we add some pressure.

Clip 2

The short pipes have a beautiful sound actually, but they require more practice, also it’s good to practice long notes on this pipes, specially in the top one, because it will help the muscles of your lips to adapt to the size of the hole, after a time it comes naturally and then you remember, this is called “muscle memory”

Listen to this clip 3 to demonstrate how you can put into practice this theory..

Clip 3

So, I will give you some useful tips.

• Start by putting into practice a proper breathing, this is crucial, because these pipes are very sensitive to the amount of air
• Practice long notes and try to include them in your playing, one good way to do this , is playing songs you know in an octave higher than it’s written.
• Try not to blow too hard, in fact it’s not about blowing  much harder, but giving the right amount of focus, yes! It’s pressure, that’s the secret, it’s pressure what it makes the pipes sound correctly, the airstream has to be focused

By adjusting the pressure you will force the airstream to make the pipe vibrate and produce a round sound

It’s worth to point out that, these notes can be easily played out of tune, this is due to the fact that since your mouth, the mouth of an adult supposedly, is big enough to cover a quarter of half of the pipe, making the note go flat, this is good for the other pipes to make the sharps and flats, but to produce a note in tune,you need to be aware of that.

To sum up, pressure and the right amount of air is what it makes the support for a clean, crisp and beautiful note, without sound too shrilling, to adjust the pressure you don’t have to blow harder, that will make the note go sharp, you have to adjust the opening of the lips and blow in a constant manner , mainting the pressure, to build up the pressure, try blowing slightly louder but not much, and your lips clench a little bit but still relaxed and natural, this is what it makes the pressure going constant, like a long held note.

Practice long high notes and with the time you will master them, it’s worth the effort as these notes are the prettiest ones.

Use the comment form below and tell me how it went! do you agree with the stuff above?, use the comment section down below as a forum for your answers, ask any question if you are stuck, chances are you are not the only one, but have fun!

high notes on the pan flute practice exercise

Out of tune notes ; S

It happens sometimes specially in short passages where the very top notes are involved, that you may push your jaw forward a little bit, or you just play too loud, and this has made the picth go sharp or flat, to correct that, play slowly and listen mindfully, record yourself and listen to the note or even with a tuner it’s a good tool.

But basically when a note goes out of tune, it can be because the stopper is found in the wrong placement, or the covering of the lips has gone too far to cover half of the hole, as I said before the holes are small and even the slight movement forward can cover half of it, making the note flat.

The good news is that the high notes are the perfect place to start practicing sharps and flats!

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