Recently, a friend of mine took a photo of me at a concert while I was playing. When I saw the photo, I had a bit of a shock! I had obviously contracted what I will call the ‘droopy flute disease’! This is a problem that often plagues beginning flute students, but even after many years of flute playing and helpful reminders from teachers, high school age flutists and professional ones alike can get this illness!

Some of my students have asked, “What’s the problem? It feels fine to me.” Well, let me tell you some of the myriad reasons to avoid droopy flute playing!

It may not look particularly great to have your flute sloping downwards and to your right at an extreme angle, but it is not for looks alone that you should avoid this posture. Other, more serious physical and tone-related problems will also develop with cases of droopy flute. If your flute is sloping down to your right, a wispy, unfocused tone results from blowing across your flute in an uneven manner. To avoid this tone problem, some players tilt their heads so that the angle of the lip to the flute’s embouchure hole remains parallel. But, students who try the ‘lean your head to the right’ solution usually get a stiff neck in only a few moments of this posture. Those who do it long-term risk chronic tension and other health problems, as I describe below.

In less extreme cases of droopy flute playing (or many years of bad habit), you may be able to keep your flute sloping while only slightly angling your head. If this describes you, consider how the weight of your flute feels as you play: are both hands supporting the weight of the flute evenly? Or does one hand get to do more work? I find that in this position my right hand gets to hold more than its fair share of flute. This also leads to another problem for some flutists: a flat right hand pinky that tries to help hang on to the flute and stabilize the situation.

Most flute teachers advocate that the left and right hand should share the responsibility of holding the flute, and as music becomes more technical flutists sometimes actively change which hand holds more weight for very tricky bits. To check and see if your flute is balanced, try this exercise taught by Maurice Sharp, who was flutist of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1946-1982.  (Check this link) Play a middle D, then drop your right hand while continuing to play, feeling all the weight of your flute on your left hand. Now, play a C, dropping your right hand to your side. Now bring your right hand back up and try to share the weight between both hands. You may find that you have a preference for one hand and give it way too much weight!

Sloping the flute too far to the right leads to an imbalance of muscles in your neck and back, which can mean a future filled with visits to the osteopath and massage therapist. You can also end up compressing nerves in your right collarbone/arm/shoulder area, which can lead to tendonitis and some ailments that are very challenging to spell!

Here are some suggestions on how you can recover quite quickly from droopy flute disease without even resorting to a visit with a nagging teacher:

1. Get a mirror (or two or three) and watch yourself while you practise. It can be quite helpful to keep an eye on yourself, since we can often be completely unaware of how we use our body in the midst of playing.
2. Better yet, you can play for a friend or have someone take a video of you while you play (what a great use for that cell phone!) to have a really clear idea of just how you look during performance.
3. Put a wooden pencil in the end of your flute, eraser side out. As you approach droopy flute position, the pencil will slide right out onto the floor. (Here is a photo of Helen Weis, one of my students at a Suzuki Institute/Festival who was ‘in treatment’ for droopy flute disease.) I also have a small bear with long arms that can hang on to the end of a flute only a few degrees beyond parallel. (Helen was a great sport and even put up with the pencil and the bear at the same time in this photo!)

Good luck with your efforts to combat this catching disease. We must remain ever vigilant to catch it in the earliest stages, because it really is a slippery slope!

Sue Waller, “Tooter’s Tutor/Divide and Conquer!” Flutist Quarterly, Volume 23, No.1 (Fall 1997).
Photo courtesy of Peter Norby and Santa Fe Suzuki Institute, 2007.

Dr. Sasha Garver is 2nd flute/solo piccolo with the Macau Orchestra and teaches in Hong Kong and Macau. Sasha formerly taught flute and chamber music at Regis University and has been on the faculties of Colorado Christian University, Rocky Mountain Center for Musical Arts, and Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.