Playing in a damped acoustic space

When we play in a reverberant space we can delight ourselves with the soaring sounds and the responsiveness of the space to our music.

It’s easy to sell yourself on your own sound in such a space!

By contrast, playing in an acoustically dead space is disheartening and hard work. Which is exactly why it’s a good idea! I have a walk-in closet lined with books that is my go-to place for serious tone development. I sound awful in there at first, and getting a sound out of the flute and into the air space feels like digging a hole in frozen ground. However it’s a brilliant way to strengthen your tone and to develop timbre. When you play strongly enough to make an beautiful sound in such a space, you are investing deeply in your flute relationship.

By the way, if you record yourself in such a space, eventually you can discover an intimate honesty and timbral richness which can be charming and worthwhile...more so than being excessively bounced off the walls.