On Hitting the Top Notes on the Piccolo

In response to a post on Flute Forum where the OP wanted some tips on hitting high B♭ and other notes higher than high G for a show next week:

Well, next week can mean anything from three to seven days. Your window to get successful is very small. Just want to ground you a little before helping.

To start with, is your piccolo's headjoint pulled out very far? If yes, you may want to consider pushing it back in more and adjust how you are covering the embouchure hole/blowing to play in tune. Reason: the sizes of the tone holes are way smaller than a flute, so that extra 3mm that you pull out does make a very big difference in comparison with the concert flute. The inner taper of the piccolo is very different from the concert flute, which makes this extra length a bigger problem than you might expect.

Next, assuming you have the headjoint at the right place, start with a high G and see how you are playing it. Are your lips feeling tight? Are your cheeks squished? You need a smaller embouchure, yes, but your lips shouldn't be strained that badly -- you should open up your mouth cavity more. Higher notes does not mean ever shrinking embouchures -- it does mean faster moving air, which can be done without squeezing the lips tighter and tighter.

By the time you reach this paragraph, the only other thing to try is look for a website for piccolo fingering charts, and try the alternate fingerings for the notes that you need above that high G. Again due to the tapering, tone hole sizes, and a myriad of other things, high A, B♭, B, and C may respond better to some fingering patterns than others, and this includes even the "standard" flute fingerings. Try them all out and note which ones are firstly more responsive, then in tune -- I'm assuming that it is more important for your playing to "hit" the high notes as a transient than to do anything particularly harmonic up there.

Oh, have plenty of rest in between to relax those lip muscles, and good luck!

That first point was a personal revelation when I was messing with the GUO Grenaditte piccolo---for a long time, the high B was not sounding at all, before I finally realised that I had pulled the headjoint out for just a tad too much at around 3 mm. Once I did not bother pulling out the headjoint and just adjust the way I blow to keep things in tune, the high B miraculously showed up, clean and beautiful.

That's it for now. Till the next update.