Teaching the Flute to Students with Braces – No Bad Sound Days

By Valerie Simosko

It is hard to believe but true. The majority of student flutists must at some point in their playing career learn to play with braces on their teeth. Rather than cringing at the thought of losing some of your best students to what may seem like an unhappy event, you can capitalize on it by exploring the world of sound production with your student.

We usually do not have the opportunity to work solely on sound production with our students. Far too often, students are impatient to play technically demanding literature. Or, they must prepare for competitions and band performances that take them away from slow practice. Having to concentrate on the intrusion of braces creates the capability of thinking about sound production. This thought process will actually carry through your students’ entire musical life. Faced with time off due to life’s pressures, a well educated flutist will be able to get back in shape quickly if she can analyze what she needs to do to produce optimum sound. And, if he or she enters the teaching profession, he will have the tools built from experience to impart this knowledge to others. Even better, your students will know how to control those bad sound days that creep in for all flutists.

As an adult who experienced getting braces well into my playing career as Principal Flutist of the Charlotte Symphony, I can attest to the discomfort and frustration young flutists experience just as they are beginning to love the sounds they produce. As an educator, your first responsibility is to encourage your student to take on the challenge of playing with braces and to assure him that all is not lost, even if it may feel so momentarily.

If your young student provides resistance, assure her that braces will prevent dental problems later in life when she is less likely to overcome the challenges of playing with braces, and that ultimately, a person with a mouth that has even teeth has an easier time producing the correct embouchure. Let your patience and good humor abate any fears your student may have. Explain that you will be by her side while she goes through a very exciting and important time in her playing career.

The student’s worst moments will come when he tries to produce his first sound while wearing braces. While some students have no real difficulty and just play without any problems, others may find it almost impossible to eke out a note. Students with loose fleshy lips tend to have fewer problems than those with thin or short upper lips. For those with problems, there are some quick remedies to find the best embouchure position.

1. Know that all blowing angles will be different than they were before braces. This is because the lips will be pushed forward. Therefore, a new or adjusted embouchure with a different blowing angle will need to be learned.

2. Take the student to a mirror without the flute, and experiment achieving lip mobility by making extreme lip movements. Move the lips in circles, up and down, curling in curling out etc. just to get the student to have confidence that the lips do not have to remain fixed. This can be a humorous experience – do the lip maneuvers along with your students. You will both laugh!

3. Next, try having the student play the flute while doing the same exercise. Do not worry about sound quality. In fact, this experiment should be an entertaining and sometimes comical experience. You will both be producing some very new and unusual sounds. Try aiming the air stream in all directions while playing one note, – try this on a low A or G.

4. At some point, while moving the lips and the air stream, a fairly good sound will be produced. When this happens, tell the student to close his eyes and hold that sound as long as possible. Tell the student to close her eyes. By closing one’s eyes, a person gains more sensitivity to feel. Tell the student to memorize the feel of the note and to produce it one more time. Again, the student should close his eyes and be conscious of feeling. Do this as many times as necessary for this exercise to feel easy.

5. Now it is time to refine the sound. Tell the student to make sure that she can slide the top lip up and down against the upper front teeth. If the lip does not easily cover the brace brackets, the space between the nose and the upper lip will have to be purposely lowered or lengthened to allow flexibility of the upper lip. The most common problem for the student is that the upper lip actually gets stuck on the brackets. By lengthening this space on the face, and by getting the top edge of the upper lip below the bracket, this problem will be solved.

6. With a lower upper lip, the space inside the mouth can be increased by lowering the jaw and creating space between the back teeth. The jaw and the upper lip should both feel relaxed.

7. Make sure the flute is in position on the edge of the bottom lip so that no lip flesh is covered by the flute. Instead, cover ¼ to 1/3 of the embouchure hole on the lip- plate with the lip and blow the airstream down. Make sure the embouchure plate rests below the bottom teeth brackets. The student will now have a longer column of air which will produce a nice sound that is large, projecting and easy to control.

8. Encourage your student to have the patience to work with just the lower register for an entire week. Practice some old literature with new musical ideas, or try to sight-read new low octave pieces. By practicing only the lower notes, the new embouchure position will become engrained and your student will gain confidence.

9. Week two should include playing slurred octaves and learning to manipulate the lips. If pain is a problem, then use thin layers of dental wax or some of the brace guards now readily available that cover the braces with vinyl. Limit playing to only the first two octaves for the second week.

10. Week three should include third octave notes. At this point, the student is probably back to his old level of playing and can play as usual. His playing level may even be better. After all, the student has had time to slow down and think only about sound.

In a month or two when the braces get adjusted, this whole process may have to be repeated. However, each time it will get easier and your student will gain confidence. Soon, the young flutist will have her teeth set in position. At this point, you will know that she has the knowledge and logic to control or to change her embouchure when the need to do so arises - like on those bad sound days that want to creep in. A quick check in the mirror, a short period of logical thought, and within minutes or even seconds, ultimate sound quality will be achieved.

Conn-Selmer Marketing Director of Flutes, Valerie Simosko experienced getting braces at the age of 36 while playing Principal Flute in the Charlotte Symphony. She was one of those who had to experiment with new embouchure positions to accommodate playing in the orchestra. “The result she says,” “was a better understanding of embouchure principles and of her students who experienced braces – and of course, straighter teeth!.”