Hi all.
I have a flute student who has been playing for over 6 years, but is only grade 4 level. She is very keen and practises all the time. Her sight reading is very good - which is helpful. However, her tone is terrible and she has difficulty distinguishing between octaves. For example: she will often jump an octave for several notes and not really realise that she has done so. I believe that her tone has mostly to do with her having had braces, but i'm having difficulty explaining how to change her ombichure - it's been a long time since I've had to think about it! Any ideas on how to help either of these problems would be fantastic.
Cheers.

I use Trevor Wye's tone book (Practice Book for the Flute Volume 1: Tone) for my flute pupils - all those long note exercises etc... work wonders and make such a difference. He has another book for the earlier grades which covers tone as well as other aspects of flute playing such as articulation and technical exercises - "The Trevor Wye Very First Flute Book".

I agree with Upbeat - long note practice is essential for developing a good tone. Wye's book is excellent as it encourages students to practice intelligently. I started learning the flute in January this year and by doing long note practice I have developed a very good tone in a short space of time. It is quite boring to do it - but it pays dividends. Try and encourage your pupil to listen carefully to the tone she produces: she needs to be her own critic.

I agree with the above; Trevor Wye's Exercise books are great for tone and also finger fluency.

I would also agree. I love using the Trevor Wye Tone Book. I always have great fun with the harmonics exercises

Can I add my two penn'orth and agree with the posts above - that book is brill, and not at all boring as long as you are prepared to listen to yourself critically and spend a little time experimenting. I often intend to play for 10 minutes from it, and suddenly find that over an hour has passed....

I know exactly what you mean. My practises are sometimes just daily exercises/general exercises.