I am a classroom music teacher with piano and violin as my primary instruments. I have just taken up flute lessons again...had stopped having lessons about 10 years ago when I went off to Uni. At the time I was working on Grade 6 stuff.

I got a lovely new Yamaha 411 about 6 months ago and decided it would be good to work towards getting Grade 8. Prior to this I had a Buffet that was pretty poor quality.

My new flute teacher mostly does Sax and Clarinet lessons but is helping me with the flute as he has Grade 8 himself. He has noticed that the sound quality is poor on the upper notes, above the middle E. It is obviously more noticeable on the slower pieces. He hasn't come across it before...when I play I often hear the note an octave below (quieter than the note itself) and sometimes harmonics. I've been playing one of the Grade 6 pieces - Suite Antique by John Rutter and it is really obvious!

Has anyone come across this before and can anyone offer me any advice? He's sure it's to do with my playing in some way rather than a problem with the flute.

hi Musicmisty007, and welcome to the forums.

You may have a bit more luck getting an answer if you ask in the Viva Woodwind forum a bit further down the main menu. The expert flute players tend to hang out there.

Sounds as though the air stream isn't raised enough so you're getting the octave below sounding as well. Are you tending to roll the flute inwards for the higher notes? Enough support for the notes? Fast enough airspeed?

I suspect he's right if you've got a new 411, but has he played your flute to check it's OK?

I agree with katyjay that it'd be a good idea to post your query in Viva Woodwind, Andrea's advice sounds like a good place to start to me, though. Also, though I'm sure your teacher will do all he can to help, if you could get some help from a specialised flute teacher it wouldn't be a bad idea - maybe your teacher would learn something to help other students too