When I haven’t been practicing regularly, one of the things I tend to do is something I beg and plead students not to do. Simply put, I chase the notes with the airstream. I shoot the air up at high notes and dive down to scoop the low notes, drawing the shape of the melody with the air. This results in a very inconsistent tone. To my ears it’s like having several different flutists playing the different notes in a melody. One person plays the high notes, one the middle, etc. Yecch!
This was made even worse recently when I had to play a concert on piccolo after not practicing regularly or well on either flute or piccolo for too long. My piccolo and I had been getting along great in the earlier concerts, hitting all the notes and displaying admirably consistent tone and decent intonation. Not this time! I could not find a good center to work from, and the pitch was way out there in ways I had never experienced. Very embarrassing, to say the least!
Obviously the airstream ‘strike zone’ on piccolo is smaller on flute and small adjustments have bigger impacts. Because of this, my tendency to chase the notes with the airstream made playing piccolo decently almost impossible. Only when I could convince myself to blow consistently more forward and maintain a steadier center did anything remotely decent come out.
To get back in shape, I play exercises with wide intervals, such as the Moyse Daily Exercises. Having to find the ‘middle ground’ of ever wider intervals is the best way for me to break the chase habit. It is true that small adjustments have to be made to play different pitches, but most of those adjustments are so microscopic that as soon as you think about making a change, you’ve already done too much. I tell students that they are working much harder than they need to, chasing the notes all over the place with the air. Guess it’s time for me to listen to my own advice!