Utilizing foreign words as part of our musical language is an aspect of being a musican that I have always enjoyed. Allegro, pianissimo, nachschlage, mitrascher, au movement, fin for example. One term we use commonly as flutists is embouchure. What exactly does it mean? According to The Larousse Dictionary, bouche means mouth. Embouchoir is the special word for the mouthpiece of a wind instrument. The embouchure (prounced AWN-buh-shur) would be our special mouthpiece for the flute. Simply put, the flutists' mouth.
My teacher in California, Roger Stevens made a study of the wide variety of embouchures in his book TheArtistic Flute, Technique and Study. Through a pastiche of nearly twenty photos of lips on flutes, he made his point that there is as great a variation of flute embouchures as there are people's faces. (To view these pictures, click here)
So how do we shape our lips to maximize a beautiful bouyant tone and steady airstream?
Let's look at the word embouchureas a possible clue. I studied French in depth during my High School years. In those days, French study was encouraged because French was considered the “Language of Diplomacy”. The most amazing thing to me about prounouncing French words was the incredible forward position of the lips. In fact, the first syllable of embouchureis the word for “a” - un. We don't have this exact sound in our language. Saying un in French causes the lips to come forward, the jaw to drop slightly, the tongue to remain relaxed and the mouth to close ever so much. In addition, the corners of the mouth drop. And guess what the result is? A perfect flute embouchure!
Although it would be fun to become fluent in French, most of us are bit too busy for that. In Houston, we have a French restaurant chain called La Madeleine. In the rest rooms, they play study tapes of French pronunciation. One trip to wash your hands, and you can pick up some of the different sounds in the French language! While I was in Ottawa last summer judging the Councours de Musique du Canada, I watched several French television stations during my free time and reminded myself of the sound of this language. I guess some of the newscasters would find me pretty silly using their voices as a study in flute embouchures!
Another option would be to visit some web-sites that specialize in pronunciation. For text click here, for sound click here.
Be creative and find ways that this beautiful language might assist you in your mouth shape.
