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Question: I have been working on a piece that I am going to be playing in an audition next month. The piece has a lot of triple tonguing in it. When I first played the piece I did the triple tonguing easily. When I went for my weekly flute lesson my teacher told me to triple tongue more legato. I followed her advice and continued practicing it that way. Today I started to practice the piece again, but for some reason I was unable to triple tongue. Before my teacher told me to do the triple tonguing more legato I was doing it like "T TKT T" (that is the pattern for the song) My teacher told me to do it "D DGD D" But it was very frustrating, because even after 30 minutes of playing that same pattern over and over again I was unable to do it. I still have no idea why suddenly I can’t play that pattern correctly anymore when I was able to do it before. I hope you can help me with this problem. Thank you! How do you trill high G to A-flat? Do you use the little finger of the left hand, or the first trill key?
These days any serious high-school musician is forced to take millions of auditions, many of which are restricted to 2-3 minutes in length. How do you/did you deal with nerves? Usually in a recital or solo performance it can take anywhere from 7-15 minutes onstage to relax and for nerves to dissipate. I've seen some absolutely incredible flutists get beat by 2-minute auditions because their nerves simply got the best of them. Even I suffer from shaking and shallow breath, which tend to destroy my fundamentals in front of a judge... What can you tell us about nerves and auditioning? Will that feeling go away? Is there anything that can be done?
I was wondering what kind of flute you played before your Yamaha, and do you think a modern scale flute is a must? What is your take on fitting headjoints? I recently bought a 14K Gold headjoint for my heavy walled silver flute. I have been using some heavy tape on the tenon so it fits and does not leak air. I am told that there is a procedure to enlarge the bore of the gold to make it fit snugly with the receiver end, but it is risky and the headjoint’s dark, golden qualities can be lost forever. Is tape really the only answer to fit the headjoint with the body? I would love to hear your take on this. Thanks. I have a silver flute and am looking into a new headjoint. What are the main differences between wood and gold headjoints? What kind of flute do you use? What type of headjoint do you play? How do you feel about wooden flutes, such as the one Jacques Zoon of the Boston Symphony uses?
Have you ever overdone it by playing so long that your embouchure was weakened? About a year ago, I played well past my limit and may have damaged the muscles in my embouchure - sometimes now when I move from high to low notes, I lose the sound and nothing comes out. If I wait a few minutes, I can force a sound from the low register. Have you ever heard of this type of injury? I get nervous because I never know when it will hit me. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. When I'm playing, my fingers seem to cramp up and I press really hard on the keys. I try to loosen them up, but it just doesn't work. It gets very uncomfortable...Have any advice?
Question: How much embouchure hole do you cover? What are your thoughts on the matter? What do you do physically to "support"? I wonder if you have any thoughts on throat noise? Sometimes when I am doing scales and longtones, I hear what seems to be a tight vocal noise coming from the throat. I have tried to relax the muscles to no avail. Do you have any other suggestions?
What kind of exercises do you recommend for improving sightreading and tone? There are so many exercises to practice. Do you think it is better to rotate numerous types, or establish a solid routine of a few standard exercises?
Question: How to teach vibrato? I have tried various approaches, sub-divided breath pulsations, measured and un-measured etc. Often I find that the student cannot sustain the pulsations when they are accelerated to an appropriate speed. What are your thoughts about vibrato in a flute section? I have discussed this with many flutists, and many think only the first flutist should vibrate - the others should not. To my ears this shounds utterly lifeless and boring. How do you achieve a balance? What do you do in the Philadelphia orchestra?
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