One of the best ways to enhance your overall control in playing is to have a very flexible embouchure. Working on the following exercises will help tremendously in reaching that goal. I like to do them (among others) as general warmups before I begin playing. The nice thing about them is that you can expand upon them by adding scales and arpeggios to them, too. I do them in progressive order by step-wise or chromatic progression. It's best to start working on them slowly, at a quarter note equals 60 on your metronome. After you have mastered them at that tempo, you can gradually increase the speed. Octave slurs are good for developing smooth slurring, proper intonation in all octaves, and matching tone color in all octaves. You can even incorporate long tone studies into the equation by adding them to the ends of measures, such as in exercise number one. By placing a hold on the last note of each measure, you can work on tapering or feathering the note ends. You can also change the first note in each measure to a grace note to increase the speed of the slurs.

In exercise number four, I have also included harmonics in the study. These are another great way to develop lip flexibility. For those of you who aren't familiar with harmonics (also called overtones or partials), they are basically achieved on flute by overblowing a fingering to sound a different note. When playing the harmonics below, finger the blue note and overblow to sound the red note. You will then go to a regularly fingered (and played) note. Compare the intonation of the harmonic notes to the regular notes and try to match them. You will find that the general tendency of the harmonic notes is to be flat, so you will have to work on bringing up the pitch where needed.

Playing the flute is not unlike walking across Niagara Falls on a tightrope with a balancing pole. On one end of the pole you have the air speed, on the other end you have the air direction. Each note has its own requirements as to air speed and direction, so you have to find the balance for each one. For air direction, thinking of the syllable "ooooo" (as in "toot") will direct your air outward, while the syllable "eeeee" (as in "peep") will direct the air downward. Just remember, the lower the note, the more downward you blow and the higher the note the more outward you blow. Air speed is controlled in large part by the size of aperture or opening in your embouchure. The smaller the opening, the faster the air and the larger the opening, the slower the air. High notes require faster air than low notes. Bear in mind that all of this is also affected by dynamics, which also involve changes in the volume of air blown. The greater the volume of air blown, the faster the air speed and the sharper the pitch, so you also have to watch out that you don't cause the air speed to increase to the point that the note squawks. Conversely, without enough air, the air speed will be too slow and the note will crack or drop to a lower octave. Think of the volume of air as the degree of windiness while you're walking on your tightrope. As you can see, it really is a balancing act! Practicing harmonics does help to develop embouchure control though, so they are well worth the effort.