Category: Tone

Using Different Sounds as a Practice Motivator

Using different sounds is a great motivator for anyone who needs to run through something multiple times, but can’t get themselves to play something more than once. I know that I’m guilty of only playing through everything once!

What do I mean by using different sounds?

Depending on the instrument, you could think about it as experimenting with different ways of playing it – 8va, different tone colors, play loud, play quiet, etc.

I will give examples below for each instrument that I teach.

Electric Piano

It’s probably the easiest to change the sound on an electric piano. You just push a button and it sounds like an organ, a harpsichord, or even a brass band.

You should see the way kids light up when I tell them that they need to use their pieces to help them decide which sound effect they like the best. When they come back the next week, the parents tell me that they went through their pieces 3-7 times per day. Woohoo! Grown-ups can have that fun experience, too.

Acoustic Piano

When my oldest daughter started playing the piano, she loved to practice every piece in every octave on the keyboard.

She started with the bottom octave, moved up to the next octave and played the same piece. Moved up to the next octave. So on and so forth until she got to the top octave, then started over on the process with the next piece.

I’m not saying you have to be that meticulous, but you could do it a couple octaves down or a couple octaves up, just to hear the tone color change. That would be a grand total of three times through.

Flute

When I was in college, I was the piccolo player. I would practice everything on both instruments. My fingers were faster on the piccolo, so sometimes I’d work things out on that instrument then switch to the flute. That would be one option for using a different sound, if you have a piccolo. 🙂

Flutes can change our tone color at the drop of a hat. I wrote about that more in detail here. Why not use that to our advantage? You could try that rhaspy, airy tone that the Irish use on the flute for almost a percussive instrument. Try playing the piece in every tone color of the rainbow, one at a time, and decide which one you like.

All Instruments

Using different sounds as a practice motivator has a lot of different applications for any instrument. Here is a short list of different options, feel free to add to the list.

  • Volume – ff, f, mf, mp, p, pp
  • Emotion – try playing it sad, happy, angry, etc.
  • Articulation – staccato, legato, marcato, accented, etc.

Seriously

I’ve mentioned a few things that serious musicians do to create their own interpretation of the music – dynamics, tone color, emotion, and articulation. They experiment with how they want to play a phrase to get their message across in the best way.

Using different sounds might be a great practice motivator because it’s fun. It’s also serious work. If fun doesn’t motivate you, maybe discovering your interpretation of a piece will be motivating for you.

Conclusion

Everyone likes to experiment with different sounds on different pieces. It not only makes kids light up, it also has a really good purpose. Sometimes that purpose is to convince yourself to, “Play it again, Sam.” Sometimes it helps with your interpretation of the piece. However it helps, don’t be afraid to experiment. 🙂

Harmonics

Harmonics are something that you learn about in physics class. They’re also practical in the music world. The more, better in tune, and stronger harmonics your tone has, the better it sounds.

What are Harmonics?

Harmonics are the overtones that your ear percieves, but can’t hear.

If you cut a string in half, it’s an octave higher. If you cut it in half again, it sounds a Perfect 5th higher. Here’s a list of the harmonic progressions below.

  1. Octave
  2. Perfect 5th
  3. Perfect 4th
  4. Major 3rd
  5. Minor 3rd
  6. Major 2nd
  7. Minor 2nd

The math and science behind this is here.

How Do Harmonics Affect Me as a Musician?

The stronger, better in-tune, and more various the harmonics, the better the sound.

Pianists

Pianists may have checked out by now, thinking harmonics don’t affect us. They do.

You know how sometimes you have to hold down a note long past it has finished making a sound? The composer is using resonance by having you play other notes from the harmonic series, which activates that string.

You can use the harmonic series to double-check and make sure that a piano is in tune. Hold down the keys for each note in the harmonic series. Play the bottom note. If you can hear the higher sounds, the piano is decently in tune. This only works on an acoustic piano.

These two things happen because of the laws of physics involving resonance. I talk a lot about resonance here.

Flutists

We use harmonics as part of our tone studies. The way we do that is by changing the air direction, pointing it higher with our lips. This causes a higher tone to come out – a harmonic. We can practice tuning the harmonics because when they’re in tune our sound is better, we can practice strengthening them, and we can practice adding them.

Here are some nice, easy, free studies to practice them. These ones are really good for helping you to tune your harmonics.

The first page of this book has harmonic studies that are a little bit harder. They’re more about aiming your air and helping you get a good sound and a large amount of harmonics on each note. The more harmonics you have on each note, the better your sound overall.

Bonus: Being able to play high harmonics also helps you hit the high notes with better sound and intonation.

Sometimes it’s fun to make up a harmonic exercise, too.

Extended Techniques

Every once in awhile, a piece will ask you to play a harmonic. It looks like a diamond over the top of two notes, like this.

Picture of a harmonic on the staff
This is the notation for a harmonic.

This technique is done for effect. The sound from a harmonic has less overtones and undertones, so the sound is a little bit different. I usually see it in pieces from the Romantic era.

Conclusion

You can use harmonics as a parlor trick, but they have a real usefulness about them. They’re especially useful in a winds, but they’re good to know about with every instrument.

The First Advanced Breathing Technique

In my last post, I talked about Belly Breathing, which is the first kind of breathing that you learn. This article is about the first kind of advanced breathing technique that you learn, sometimes called J breathing. You usually learn this technique in high school.

J breathing used to be considered a different school of thought than belly breathing. Now they are both used because they each have their own purpose.

What is J Breathing’s Purpose?

This advanced breathing technique is for when you don’t need to use much air and you want to increase your resonance (I’ll talk about resonance a little later). It also helps with accented, short notes.

How Do I Do J Breathing?

Remember how I talked about pulling your belly muscles in for the exhale during the last article? With J breathing, you only pull in the top half of your muscles, leaving your lower abs relaxed. You’re making an imaginary J with your abs. You breathe in as if you were belly breathing.

Sometimes your abs make a gentle movement. This would be for short phrases where you don’t need much air, so you make it sound as good as possible.

Sometimes your abs make a sharp, quick movement. This would be for things like sforzando, accents, or marcato. The quick movement of the abs is putting quick pressure on your lungs, making an explosion of air, which helps with your quick volume changes.

What is resonance?

I’m about to get really technical, here. If you don’t want to know the science behind resonance, just know that it increases the overtones and the undertones of the tone that is played, making it sound better.

We all learned (or will learn) about resonance in physics class. Every item vibrates at a different frequency, on an elemental level. When a tone is made near an item, it can cause the vibration of that item to deepen, making the same tone that was made.

This is why the proverbial opera singer can make a glass shatter with her voice. If you want to learn more about resonance, this would be a good place to start.

Why Does J Breathing Increase Resonance?

Your whole body resonates with the sounds you’re making on your instrument. The more relaxed your body is, the more it resonates. By leaving the bottom half of your abs loose, you’re increasing the amount of resonance your body can do.

What Other Purpose Does J Breathing Have?

Sometimes when we do short phrases, we automatically breathe in between the phrases, even when we don’t have to. If there are too many short phrases in a row, it starts to feel like we’re hyperventilating. We get dizzy, light-headed, and tired.

J-breathing automatically decreases the amount of breath that you pull in and use. You aren’t using your lower abs, so the visceral mass (intestines, etc) that is behind the lower abs aren’t being used to put pressure on the diaphragm. That causes the lungs to not empty as much as with belly breathing, therefore using less air.

Conclusion

We only learn J breathing after we master belly breathing. It’s designed to be learned after we have learned to maximize our lung capacity. That’s what makes it an advanced breathing technique.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting sore abs just from reading this! This technique takes awhile to master, so don’t be upset if it takes a month or two to get it down.

Next week will be the final article in this series. There’s one more advanced breathing technique, and it’s the best (and hardest) one!

First Lesson on Breath

Belly breathing is the bread and butter of our breathing techniques. Here’s a different way of learning it than normal.

Flutes use more air than the tuba. By air, I mean volume of air, not back-pressure. Oboes take the cake on back-pressure.

Flutes waste 60% of our air in order to make a sound. Because we have to waste 60% of our air, we have to figure out different ways to breathe so that we can play longer than one note at a time.

Note: this is not the traditional way to teach belly breathing. I have found over the years that this one works better.

Breathe Out

Pull in your stomach muscles as much as you can while breathing out. Breathe out until you don’t think more air is possible to come out. Your abs should be burning.

Breathe In

Let go of your stomach muscles. Your belly will get big as your lungs fill with air.

The Second Breath

In the second breath out, your abs shouldn’t burn, but you should feel your stomach muscles pull in. Breathing in will be less of a shock.

What’s happening

When you pull in your stomach muscles to breathe out, you’re using your visceral mass (organs and intestines in your belly) to push on the bottom of your diaphragm, helping it to force the air out of your lungs.

When you expand your belly to bring the air in, you’re making the air go faster than normal, all the way down to the bottom of your lungs. It’s almost like a vacuum effect.

Check Yourself in the Mirror

Stand to the side in a mirror and put your hands on your belly. You should see your belly going in and out quite a bit. If you’re just learning how to do this, it’s a good idea to begin your practice with this exercise of watching yourself in the mirror.

Belly Breathing

The process described above is called belly breathing. It’s considered one of the more effective ways to breathe. You’ll use this for the rest of your life as a musician.

Singers

I have read in a lot of flute literature that if you don’t understand something about breathing, talk to a singer. They’re a great resource for learning about breath.

James Galway used to talk to singers about breath, vibrato, and tone. I love talking to musicians about the different ways they learn things. More on that here.

Don’t Do The Things on the List Below.

Here are some things you shouldn’t do with the belly breathing

  1. Don’t bring your shoulders up when you’re breathing in. It creates extra pressure on your throat, does nothing for your amount of breath, and makes your body think it should only use the top 10% of your lung rather than the whole lung.
  2. Don’t fill up higher than 80%. The most you should feel full of air is to the height of your armpits. If you fill your lungs further than that, you put extra pressure on your vocal chords and might have bad tone for the first few notes. After a few years, you can practice getting good tone after filling up to 100%, but it takes a lot of work.
  3. When breathing out, don’t allow your chest to go down before your belly goes in. You’ll get a lot more playing time if you do it in that order than in the reverse.

Conclusion

Belly breathing is the bread and butter of our breathing techniques. It becomes automatic after a year or two and will serve you well in other things besides just music. More on that here.

There are two more breathing techniques, which will each come up in their own article.

The Second Tone Lesson on the Flute

The second lesson on tone and how to continue your study.

This article is designed to be read after this one. Please read the first article before you read this one.

Long Tones

The definition of Long Tones are to go up or down the chromatic scale very slowly. At first, it’s two notes per breath slowly.

The first step of Long Tones is to take that fabulous tone that you learned in the first step and extend it down to Middle C. In the second lesson on tone, you don’t go above the B natural in the middle of the staff.

One person once told me that each note should sound like pearls on a necklace. Another person once told me that you should imagine the honey dripping out of the end of your instrument. Whatever analogy works best for you, each note should sound equally great.

Stumbling Blocks

While going down, if you start to lose your best tone, go back up to the better note and play the two notes – the one with good tone and the one where you’re starting to lose the good tone – one at a time, until the second note sounds better.

While going down, if you get a note that sounds better than everything else, go back up. You need to expand that great tone from (usually it’s a G) back up to your B natural. Now your B natural is even more fabulous!

Why?

Why don’t you go up at first? Why only go down to Middle C? The reason you go down first is because you need to create a good base in order to have good tone in all of your registers.

Sometimes when you hear about a person’s tone, the experts talk about overtones and undertones. In order to have good undertones for the higher notes in your range, you need to have good notes at the bottom of your range. We work on undertones first so you don’t sound shrill.

The Book(s)

When I first teach tone, I teach it from this book (affiliate link), Trevor Wye’s Tone Book. We take one exercise at a time, bit by bit, until we’ve gone all the way through the book.

After we learn the Trevor Wye book, we start on this book (affiliate link), De La Sonorite by Moyse. It may be old, but you know what they say – if it ain’t broke…

Other Options

The two books listed above are kind of like eating your vegetables. Not fun, but necessary. There are days that you can’t make yourself do it. Once or twice a week, you can give yourself permission to play something beautiful and simple, instead. If you’re having a hard time practicing in general, take a look at this article.

I love Disney and all things geek, so I like to play along to this Disney book, with the recording, so I know I’m working on intonation. I can pretend I’m James Galway by playing Lord of the Rings with the recording, for the same reason. Of course, there’s always Harry Potter and Star Wars, too (all affiliate links). If pop music is more your jam, those books exist, too.

Depending on why I don’t want to work on tone, sometimes I’ll pull out my hymnal (not an affiliate link) to work on tone, too. One nice thing about using the hymnal is that sometimes when you’re not in the mood to work on the tone books, it’s for a good reason. Playing hymns sometimes turns those things around. Also, if you’re having a bad day, take a look at this article. It might help.

Conclusion

This article isn’t intended to be used instead of having a private teacher. Sometimes it’s nice to see everything all laid out in an article so you can see the hows and the whys. Sometimes it’s nice to see an explanation that’s in someone else’s words. Sometimes it’s just good to have a review.

Practicing Music Via Osmosis

It’s a way to correct mistakes and problems without nitpicking, so I like to use it with a student who seems demoralized. This is for the student who feels that everything they do is wrong.

This practice technique is very effective, but it isn’t one you can do yourself. You need a partner, preferably one who you want to emulate. I use this as I teach for both flute and piano, so there are sections in here that just apply to flute alone. The other portions apply to both instruments.

What is it?

Practicing music via osmosis is just playing with someone else. It’s a way to correct mistakes and problems without nitpicking, so I like to use it with a student who seems demoralized. This is for the student who feels that everything they do is wrong.

The way this works is the person who needs it automatically adjusts based on what the other person is doing. It’s an involuntary reaction, they don’t even realize they’re doing it.

When do I use it?

There are various times when it’s a good idea to use this practice technique, and I’ll cover each one separately.

  1. You just can’t “get” a section of music.
  2. You want to learn good tone quickly.
  3. You want to learn good technique quickly.
  4. You need to build your confidence.
  5. Someone needs to practice but wont (*whistles innocently*).

You just can’t “get” a section of music.

It’s easier to mimic someone who’s better than you when you’re playing the exact same thing at the exact same time. When playing together, your bodies naturally sync, all the way down to your heartbeats (an article about that is here). This is a good idea for when you’re repeatedly missing a note or a rhythm.

I use this more with piano students than with flutes. If they’re working on a recital piece, need help with rhythm or correct notes, I play the exact same thing right along with them a couple octaves higher on the piano. The issue goes away by the second or third time we repeat that section, like magic.

You want to learn good tone quickly.

This section is for flute alone. Duets work the best for transferring tone. Your tone quality and color should naturally reach towards each other (more on that here).

I’ve seen this work instantly with my students. I’ll play the flute with a new student who still has a beginner tone, and the student’s tone will instantly become the same as mine. Afterwards, the student’s tone will be better than before, but it won’t be the same as my tone.

You want to learn good technique quickly.

The better player sits/stands up straight, so do you. The better player holds their hands in a different way, so do you. You don’t even think about it, you just automatically do it.

Another aspect of this point is that you take on stylistic things that the other player is doing, such as the way they handle their large intervals and their phrasing.

I sing in a church choir. I’m only choir-trained, but ever since I graduated college, I’ve always sat by the best singer in my section. Just by singing next to her, I learned how to hit the high notes without closing my throat, how to choose correct diction for the situation, and how to nail the tough intervals without trying.

You need to build your confidence.

The confidence of the better player will transfer to you. You will feel the other player exude confidence and your body will pick up on those vibes and take them on. It will only be bit-by-bit. You may not feel it the first few times, but it will come.

The exception to this is when you feel like the better player is perfect and you are the only one who messes up, ever. This is not true, by the way. Everyone messes up, even the pros. Please recognize that this way of thinking is a fallacy and allow the better player to transfer some confidence towards you.

Practice Motivation

Practicing together is a lot of fun. It helps the non-practicer associate practicing with fun. It also forces them to practice.

Here are some examples that I’ve seen over the years.

  1. Sometimes I’ll play with students who aren’t practicing to help them get ready for a contest. This is usually a last-ditch effort, and I make sure that the student knows that this shouldn’t be relied upon.
  2. I know a couple of moms who practice with their kids to get them to practice. They play the exact same thing an octave up or down on the piano or on a different instrument, depending on where their talents lie.
  3. I’ve seen section leaders offer to practice together with that one person who isn’t practicing or their style isn’t meshing with everyone else. This only happens with the really good section leaders or with adults. This last example leads us to…

Ettiquite

Be careful in offering to practice together to help the other person. If it’s done in the wrong way, you’ll easily offend the other person.

If you ask with the attitude of, “Let’s have fun!!!” that will work really well. This works best if you’re just proposing to goof off (and sneakily work on tone).

If you’re in rehearsal, a good way to ask is, “We’re not syncing on this part. Would you mind staying after rehearsal so we can get on the same page?”

If you ask with an attitude of, “You need help with this,” that will only work well if you’re a parent or the teacher. If you’re a peer, you’re asking for trouble.

If you’re the one who wants the help, all you have to do is ask. I’ve never heard of anyone denying someone this kind of help. The other person will be honored that you asked them. They’ll also be excited because it will be fun.

Conclusion

If you decide to implement this in your practice, I know it will work just as well for you as it has for me and my students. I hope this article also gives you the courage to ask for the help that you need.

How about you? Have you seen the magic of this technique in action?

Managing Big Leaps on the Flute

Big leaps seem to be easy for flutes, but they aren’t. Here are some tips to get through them.

Big leaps seem to be easy for flutes, but they aren’t. Leaps are a lot easier on flute than brass instruments, but they still pose a challenge.

The Challenges of Big Leaps

The reason it’s challenging is because we have to adjust our embouchure so the airstream hits the embouchure hole at a different angle than the last note. Technically, each note has its own sweet spot for where the airstream hits, but that’s a subject for another day.

Here are the two main challenges of big leaps.

Challenge #1. When the note is higher, the airstream goes higher. When the note is lower, the airstream goes lower. If you over or under-adjust, the second note can be flat or sharp.

Challenge #2. Beginners tend to increase the amount of air when they go higher (louder) and decrease the amount of air when they go lower (quieter). This is an attempt to solve the airstream problem by making the airstream larger for the higher notes.

The second challenge creates a big dynamic problem. What if everything is at a piano, everything is low, but you have to hit an octave leap in the middle of each beat? You make a disruptive squawk.

Vice-versa, if you have a bunch of higher notes and have to hit an octave leap down in the middle of each beat, you won’t be able to hear the lower note. Another issue with each of those scenarios is that usually the notes that you’re leaping towards are the melody and you’re doing your own harmonization.

The Solution

Put your hand in front of your face so your fingertips are at eye level. Point your airstream at the fingertips, then move it down to the base of your palm, then back up to the top, over and over, five times. Only move your lips.

When your airstream is at the top of your fingertips, that’s approximately where the very high notes feel like they are on the flute. When your airstream is at the base of your palm, that’s approximately where the very low notes feel like they are on the flute.

Pick up your flute and do just the leaps, making your lips change the airstream just as you did on your hand. You may have to adjust the size of your embouchure to keep the dynamic level the same. Use a tuner or a tuning drone to help you find the exact spot your lips need to go. This is my favorite, free tuning drone. It’s not an affiliate link.

The Jaw

When you play the leaps, you’ll feel your jaw move. That’s okay, it’s supporting your lips. Allow it to do its own thing, and don’t think about your jaw.

The movement should come from the lips. If the movement comes from the jaw, you might be giving yourself TMJ. Not fun. The solution to this risk is to pay all of your attention to the lips and not the jaw.

The concept of playing leaps is very important. I try to teach it as soon as possible with my students, because they tend to have to play a lot of leaps in band.

Matching Tone Colors

There are several ways to meld tone colors. Here are two.

Awhile back, I had the opportunity to play with my old stand partner from college. Both of our natural tone colors had changed, but our tones melded together so we sounded as one, within seconds.

There are several ways to meld your tone colors. Here are two.

The Natural Way

It takes a few months. As you play with a group, you will all eventually come to a consensus on tone color. It requires everyone to do a good job of listening to each other, so sometimes it can take longer than a few months.

On a side note, this is why it’s important for you to play duets with your teacher. Your tone color ends up automatically matching hers during the duets and you learn a lot about tone by matching her.

Matching Tone Color On Purpose

First chair has priority on dictating tone color. She shouldn’t have to say anything, everyone else should try to match her. She also has the right to change the tone color based on the song.

Let’s say the first chair’s natural tone color is sunshine yellow and yours is blue velvet. You can use this method to change yours to sunshine yellow. It might not be the same exact sunshine yellow, but it will be close enough.

Another Idea

One time I went to the Omaha Symphony and the flutes were doing a lovely soli. They had perfect intonation and matched each others’ tone color perfectly. They sounded like one person.

The next time through the melody, the clarinets joined in. The flutes changed their tone color to allow for the clarinets. Rather than flutes and clarinets playing together, they were “team woodwind.”

I knew exactly how they did it, it had just never occured to me to blend in that way. It was powerful.

This is a somewhat advanced skill, but it’s important to understand and be able to implement. I hope these ideas help.

The 5-Minute Warm-up

Ah, the 5-minute warm-up.  If you use it correctly, you will sound like a genius before rehearsal, auditions, or a performance.  It will also make you sound like a million bucks while playing your pieces.

In addition to using it as described above, you use this because you are freaking out because you have to finish learning a piece by next week and you’re not even close.  You don’t have time to go through the regular warm-ups, but you know that warming up will make you play better. I call this the time crunch purpose.

The 5-minute warm-up touches all the points that you do in your normal warm-up – tone, scales, and technique. You only play through them, you don’t work on them.

Here is an example of what you can do for each of the instruments that I teach.

Piano

Find the key signatures that you’re playing in your pieces of music. In those Major or minor keys, play each of these below:

Scales
Chords
Cadences
Arpeggios

If you have time, do all 12 Majors and/or minors.

Do whatever you can to the best of your abilities.  If you only know how to do a root position chord, that’s what you do.  If you’re normally doing 3 octave scales, that’s what you do.

Flute

  1. Long Tones – lower register
  2. A Beautiful Tune – It should be memorized in the middle register, and maybe stretches up to the upper register.
  3. 12 Major or minor Scales and Arpeggios – if you’re really crunched for time, just do the keys that you’re playing later.
  4. Harmonics or Octave Jumps – don’t be a perfectionist about these. If you can’t hit that last harmonic, don’t try to pick it up. Just keep going.

Do this to the best of your abilities.  If you are at the first step of good tone and learning how to get a good B natural, that’s what you do.  If you like to do T&G exercise #1, memorized, for your scales, that’s what you do.

Fear and Awe

A good 5-minute warm-up can strike fear or awe in the hearts of everyone around you.  I once saw Arturo Sandoval (famous trumpet player) do his.  He did long tones, then When You Wish Upon A Star in 3 octaves.  Everyone’s jaw dropped. 

What’s your favorite 5-minute warm-up?

Tone Colors on Flute

Tone color is a tricky thing to describe. Some people only use a color. Some use a color and a texture. Some add an event to the mix (a king entering a royal palace). It depends on how you visualize sound.

Natural Tone Color

Everyone has a natural tone color that they gravitate towards. In the United States, it’s usually a blue or purple velvet. There are always exceptions. I have met two American flutists whose tone sounded like a deep, clear, glassy lake.

I met a flutist from Japan once. Her natural tone color was a light brown silk, rippling in the wind.

How to Achieve Different Tone Colors

Different tone color is achieved by changing the shape of your mouth while you play. This is very personal, and it depends entirely upon your ear. You should be established in good tone before you attempt other tone colors.

  1. Pick a color and texture that’s different from your natural tone color. If it helps, think of an event or look on Pinterest for pictures of the color and texture that you want.
  2. Now, with that image in your mind, close your eyes and play a note, changing the shape of your lips, mouth, and throat until you achieve that sound.
  3. Play a little ditty to see if you can extend that sound to other notes. It can be an ex corde melody or a hymn/folk song that speaks to the tone color you’re trying to achieve.
  4. Extend the range of the tone color. Try playing it in different octaves, different keys, etc.

Examples

I want to describe to you the mechanics of how I change my tone color for two colors of yellow. This is different for everyone because everyone has a different shaped mouth. My natural tone color is a silvery blue velvet.

If I want to do sunshine yellow, I pull my cheeks in ever so slightly, drop my jaw a tiny bit, and push my aperture (the hole in my lips) into a rounder shape. It brightens the sound and I think adds a little sparkle to it, too.

If I want to sound like a golden wheat field, I flatten my aperture a little bit and bring my jaw up a tad. It mellows the sound and adds a little fuzz to the edges.

See how different two yellows can be?

Emotions

Some instruments equate tone color with an emotion. Emotion can enter into tone color, but they’re generally considered two different things in flute land. You can have the exact same emotion but more than one color that goes with it.

Changes Over Time

As you get older, your natural tone color might change. There might be a physical reason for this, e.g. weight gain, thyroid swelling, a dental issue. It also might be a difference in how you perceive music in general. A different sound might feel like it fits better than it did when you were at a different stage in life.

I sincerely hope this article helps clarify any confusion involving tone color.