I undertook my PhD in Creative Music Practice/Instrumental Pedagogy at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, London, finishing in January 2024. The focus of my investigation was tone and timbre (also called tone colour) in flute playing, and my aim was to work with some of the most experienced professional flute players and teachers in both the UK and Europe. I worked with them to investigate and experience, flute-in-hand, what they do and how they do it, with the intention of developing new teaching resources for students and teachers to use in their lessons and in their individual practice sessions. My resources are designed for students to experiment and discover personalised ways of playing and what works for them, and for teachers to develop new ideas and approaches that foster a learner-centred, practice-based approach to teaching. We are all unique, with different shaped facial physiognomy and ways of learning and understanding concepts, and for learners to truly develop their own unique voice, these differences must be acknowledged and nurtured. 

Thesis Abstract

This research set out to inform the improvement of instrumental pedagogy by investigating and unveiling some of the hidden practices of several one-to-one teaching studios at conservatoire level. It aimed to engage expert practitioners in a collaborative exploration of their own know-how and widen access to that know-how. It explored expert know-how by situating the researcher as learner, and the practice of learning as research, making the act of learning the nexus for the development of new theory and new practice-oriented pedagogical materials.

The insights gained fed a process of researcher-participant critical reflexion-in-action, based in learning-through-doing, combined with reflection-on/for-action, based in learning through collaborative dialogue, thinking and reasoning. These processes have informed the creation of practice-oriented pedagogical materials designed to empower exploration and discovery so that learners can become researchers of their own practices and originators of their own personalised know-how. The materials to emerge from this inquiry, in the form of two student/teacher-facing manuals, aim to promote personalised modes of experiential learning-through-doing designed to develop student agency, autonomy, motivation, authenticity, imagination, and individuality.

This investigation utilised a Practice as Research (PaR) methodology, reorienting Robin Nelson’s model of PaR to create Expert Learner Practice as Research (ELPaR). ELPaR represents a new model of learner-centred inquiry that situates the researcher as an active learner, instrument-in-hand, within multiple one-to-one teaching studios, to be the driver of new knowledge and practices.

Whilst the specific focus of this investigation was new pedagogy related to tone and timbre in flute playing, ELPaR establishes a way of working with professional experts that can be replicated and adapted by other researchers to further investigate both instrumental pedagogy and other domains of professional expertise. Working in this way within the expert-practitioner domain, academics can build trust, form partnerships, and serve as a bridge between professional practice and expertise and a wider community of practice.

Thesis Chapters

Chapter 1: Introduction

• 1.1 Aims: The ‘What’, ‘Why’, ‘How’ and ‘Who’

  • 1.1.1 Existing Flute Literature and What I Aimed to Contribute

  • 1.1.2 Research Questions

  • 1.1.3 Methods Overview

• 1.2 Autobiographical Motivation for the Study: Past and present

• 1.3 Instrumental Pedagogy: Past, Present and Future 2

  • 1.3.1 Hidden Practice

  • 1.3.2 Apostolic Succession

  • 1.3.3 Master-apprentice

  • 1.3.4 Ethics of One-to-One Teaching in the Conservatoire Setting

  • 1.3.5 Empowering Learners

  • 1.3.6 Pedagogy: A Matter of Status

• 1.4 Timbre and Elite Performance

  • 1.4.1 Definitions

  • 1.4.2 Elite and Student Performers

Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework - A Model for Musical Learning and Cognition

• 2.1 The Entangled Web of Musical Learning

• 2.2 Critical Reflection: From Researcher Reflexion/Reflection to a Pedagogy of Reflective Learning

• 2.3 From Effortful to Effortless: A Learning Journey

• 2.4 Achieving a State of ‘Flow’

• 2.5 ‘PAPAPI’ and the ‘multimodal dimensions of experience’: A Synthesis of Multimodal Musical Cognitive Processes and Skills

• 2.6 More Than Embodied: 4E Cognitive Science (4ECS) and Musical Learning

• 2.7 Heuristics and Imagery

• 2.8 Collaborative Learning

• 2.9 Deliberate and Enjoyable Practice and Elite Performance

• 2.10 Chapter Summary

Chapter 3: Literature Review

• 3.1 Tone, Timbre, and Vibrato: A Historical Perspective

• 3.2 Academic Writing

• 3.3 Books and Method Texts Written by Expert Performer-Teachers

• 3.4 Timbre / Tone Colour

• 3.5 Posture

• 3.6 Embouchure

  • 3.6.1 Formation of the Embouchure

  • 3.6.2 The Importance of a Relaxed Embouchure

  • 3.6.3 Lip Pressure and the Lower Jaw

  • 3.6.4 The importance of flexibility

  • 3.6.5 Position of the Flute on the Bottom Lip

  • 3.6.6 Size and Shape of the Aperture

  • 3.6.7 Overview of the literature relating to the embouchure

• 3.7 Airstream/Air Column

  • 3.7.1 Embouchure vs Air Pressure/Speed/Volume

  • 3.7.2 The Angle of the Air (covering/uncovering)

• 3.8 Resonance

  • 3.8.1 The Resonators

  • 3.8.2 The Mouth Cavity

  • 3.8.3 Learning from Singers and Singing Technique

• 3.9 Vibrato

  • 3.9.1 Schools of Thought

  • 3.9.2 Vibrato Production and Physical Origins

  • 3.9.3 Vibrato as Tone Enhancement

  • 3.9.4 Vibrato and Colour: Learning from String Players

• 3.10 Harmonics

  • 3.10.1 Exercises Based on the Harmonic Series

  • 3.10.2 Projection and Tone Colour

  • 3.10.3 Harmonics-in-Balance / Harmonics-In-Tune

  • 3.10.4 Altering the Harmonic Content to Change Timbre

• 3.11 Acoustics: The Performer and the Listener

• 3.12 Blending Flute Tone with Other Instruments

• 3.13 Extended Techniques

• 3.14 Chapter Summary

Chapter 4: Methodology

• 4.1 Practice as Research (PaR): Know-what to know how

• 4.2 Expert-Learner Practice as Research (ELPaR): A Learning-Centred Methodology

• 4.3 Study Design

• 4.4 Embedding Case Studies of Expert Performer-Teacher Practice within ELPaR

  • 4.4.1 Binding the case

  • 4.4.2 Data Collection and Analysis

• 4.5 Ethical considerations

• 4.6 Chapter Summary

Chapter 5: Primary Research Phase 1: Interviews with Seven Expert Performer-Teachers

• 5.1 Starting to Develop Good Tone: No Tongue!

• 5.2 The Colour Spectrum

  • 5.2.1 Hollow, Unfocussed Tone Colour

  • 5.2.2 Dark, Focussed Tone Colour

• 5.3 Tone Development through Lyrical Melodies

• 5.4 Harmonics/Partials in the Tone

• 5.5 Harmonic Content and Dynamics

  • 5.5.1 Crescendos and Diminuendos

• 5.6 Vibrato

  • 5.6.1 Vibrato, Air Support, and Intonation

• 5.7 Posture

• 5.8 Support, Breathing and the Diaphragm

• 5.9 Resonance and Colour

  • 5.9.1 Tightening the Neck and Throat

• 5.10 The Harmonic Series as a Tool for Developing Better Flute Playing

  • 5.10.1 Dynamics / Harmonics / Tone Colour

• 5.11 Embouchure

  • 5.11.1 Embouchure and Airstream

• 5.12 The Upper Register

• 5.13 Blending Flute Sound with Other Instruments

• 5.14 Chapter Summary

Chapter 6: Primary Research Phase 2 'Case Studies'

• 6.1 Anna Pope: Case Study

  • 6.1.1 Posture and Breathing Exercises for Tone Development Without the Flute

  • 6.1.2 Warm Up Two: Exercise Routine with the Flute - Body Alignment and Breathing

• 6.2 Juliette Bausor: Case Study

  • 6.2.1 Exploring Headjoint Position

  • 6.2.2 Good ‘Basic’ Tone

  • 6.2.3 Employing Harmonic Fingerings within a Musical Context

  • 6.2.4 Singing a drone whilst playing

• 6.3 Kate Hill: Case Study

  • 6.3.1 Exploring Tone and Colour

  • 6.3.2 ‘Harmonics in-tune’ Sound: Understanding the Concept

  • 6.3.3 Avoiding the ‘Pyramid Effect’

  • 6.3.4 Vibrato and the Pyramid Effect

  • 6.3.5 Dark and Focussed

• 6.4 Gitte Marcusson: Case Study

  • 6.4.1 Breathing: Inhaling and Exhaling to Play the Flute

  • 6.4.2 The Lips

  • 6.4.3 Resonance and Colour

  • 6.4.4 Vibrato

  • 6.4.5 Singing

  • 6.4.6 ‘Liquid’ Legato playing

  • 6.4.7 Extremes: Dynamics, Vibrato, and Tone Colour

  • 6.4.8 Phrasing: ‘Elephants’ and ‘Taxis’

  • 6.4.9 Note Bending

  • 6.4.10 Articulation

• 6.5 Chapter Summary

Chapter 7: Creating Research-Based, User-Facing, Practice-Oriented, Learner-Centred Pedagogy

• 7.1 Creating ‘The Tone and Timbre Toolkit’

  • 7.1.1 Working Collaboratively: Researcher/Expert Practitioner Interaction and Dialogue

  • 7.1.2 Structuring The Tone and Timbre Toolkit

  • 7.1.3 The ‘Tools’

  • 7.1.4 Technology: Opportunities and Dangers

  • 7.1.5 Dissemination

  • 7.1.6 Feedback from Students and Teachers

• 7.2 ‘Moyse 24: A Toolkit’: Expert Performer-Teacher Ways of Working/What Moyse Did Not Write

Chapter 8: Conclusion

Expert Flute Players and Teachers involved in my Research

*Neither Geoffrey Gilbert nor Trevor Wye were directly involved in this investigation, but as two of the most revered flute teachers, in the UK, of the 20th century, and being significantly represented in the Literature Review, they are included in this ‘family tree’ to illustrate their impact on the larger cohort of participants.

Short Biographies:

Juliette Bausor: Current Principal Flute with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, ex-Principal Flute with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and London Mozart Players. Gives regular masterclasses at most of the UK music conservatoires.

William Bennett: International soloist and recording artist, ex-Principal Flute of the London Symphony Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and the English Chamber Orchestra. Ex-professor of flute at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

Abigail Burrows: Flute teacher at the junior department of the Royal Academy of Music, London, and ex flute teacher at The Purcell School for Young Musicians, Hertfordshire, UK. Freelance player, specialising in solo, chamber, orchestral and session work.

Emma Halnan: Flute teacher at the University of Cambridge and Wells Cathedral School. Freelances with orchestras including the London Mozart Players, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and English National Opera.

Kate Hill: Retired co-principal flute of the English Chamber Orchestra and principal flute of the Britten Sinfonia. Ex-professor of flute at the Royal Academy of Music, London and the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester.

Gitte Marcusson: Professor of flute at the Royal College of Music, London, and ex teacher of flute at Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester.

Patricia Morris: Ex-principal piccolo of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Retired professor of piccolo at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and ex-professor of flute and piccolo at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester.

Anna Pope: Professor of flute at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, London, and the junior department of the Royal Academy of Music, London. Ex-flute teacher at The Purcell School for Young Musicians, Hertfordshire, UK.

Thies Roorda: Retired principal flute of the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Hilversum, and professor of flute at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, The Netherlands.

Zoya Vyazovskaya: Principal Flute of Classics-Art Ensemble, Moscow, and teacher of flute at the Gnessin Special Music School, Moscow.