​Two situations come to mind in music - anticipations at cadences and the characteristic 16th-followed by-dotted-8th-note rhythm in the opening of an Allemande - these all involve playing the same note in direct succession, and there really is no better articulation to use other than "tu-ru", because we need to have a balance between clarity but still maintaining the relationship between the two. They are two syllables of one word. The first syllable glides into the second. The second syllable receives the softer articulation but actually has more presence than the first one.

So the next time you play Hotteterre's Allemande "Le Cascade de St. Cloud", listen carefully to whether you're inadvertently accenting the very first note of the piece, which easily happens because we're starting on a high note. Listen for that light and elegant lilt, and don't get bogged down by the rhythmic notation. One technique that can also help is to start the air a little earlier before actually playing, that way the initial "explosion" of the first note tends to be softened.

Again taking a linguistic analogy, it's the difference whether you say "cafÉ" or "CAfé". I definitely enjoy sitting at my local "cafÉ".🥰☕️

STANDING
If you'd like to try something different than what you might be doing, read on. Contrary to what seems natural to do, try the following instead of standing parallel to the music stand:

Have your left foot in front of the music stand and have the right foot further back, in the angle you see in the photo here. Now feel how you can shift your weight either forward onto the left foot, or back on the right foot. So now we're able to move by shifting our weight like this and maintain a feeling of groundedness and stability at the same time, without feeling stuck. Try to let much of your weight fall onto your feet and lower legs, thus the knees slightly bent. Let everything drop downwards, avoid locking your knees straight since that'll pull tension upwards.

Feel the contact of your feet and toes with the ground, imagine they go even underground like a tree with deep roots spread underneath, so that your weight/tension is evenly spread. This is why I could never understand how people perform in high heels!   To each their own.

So this is how we can accommodate the necessary playing angle of the transverse flute as well as incorporating freedom of movement, and shifting our weight and tension downwards.

SITTING
So you see here that I have my chair angled towards the music stand so that I can have my feet and legs in the similar position I'd have for standing (not parallel to the music stand). You can still move by shifting your weight forward/backward, you should feel your pelvic bone and shifting between the "halves of your bum" is basically it. Again here as well, keep the weight downwards, feel grounded to your seat and extending through the legs and feet onto the ground.

A thing about CHAIRS and MUSIC STANDS - make sure your chair isn't too low like you're sinking into it. If the seat makes you slouch you'll want to avoid that. I'd sit also within the front half of the seat and not leaning on my back. You want to be UP and READY at all times. 

MUSIC STAND – You'll want to have it high enough so that you're not aiming downwards. This photo is a little distorted, but the music stand was a little higher than it appears here.

PLAY TO THE HORIZON. Besides the height of the stand itself, experiment also with the ANGLE OF THE DESK.Please use only music stands where you can adjust the desk angle freely!! If you lay it a little flatter (point more upwards instead of a steep angle), that'll also encourage your head to stay up and not be buried in the music stand. In a performance situation, this will also encourage better stage presence and communication with your fellow players.

​Let me know how this all goes! 

BESIDES seeing Crescendo/Decrescendo as being simply turning the volume up or down, see if you can now think of it as a musical intention. So a crescendo is the musical intention of going forward, often over a longer distance, and a decrescendo is leaning back, retracting, relaxing in a controlled way and also over a longer distance. That will give us the overall structure, and then within that there are some further details to showcase, which is where the slurred groups come in.

Lighten up at the end of slurs to shape sound. Because in order to shape, we must define a hierarchy – some notes shine, some notes must shine LESS. But they're all important within their roles, and the fun and art of flute playing is recognizing and enjoying those moments of light and shadow.
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So go ahead and try that – find and enjoy those light and shadow moments. If you're loving your sound, kudos to you, but now don't hang on to it too much. Because in fact, your sound will SHINE EVEN MORE if you dare to let go.

Notes for a student, Telemann G minor Fantasy. The thing that makes the most difference is letting go, lifting the sound to highlight rather than pressing down for length. Also, aligning interpretation with how the instrument sounds best. F natural on the baroque flute is not a naturally strong note, so replace volume with precision will often be the much wiser and more musical choice. 

Practicing letting go - put away your flute and do a sigh. Notice how you're letting go the air, if we could draw it, it would be kind of a bulge in the beginning, followed by a more narrow wisp of sound. Now try to replicate that in flute playing, although it's true that you will need to maintain a certain tension in order to carry on the phrase. However, it requires a lot less than you think and you'd gain much more expression by reducing. Less is more. The minimum for the maximum.