visualization

If you’re having trouble with a passage, whether it’s facility or tone, spend time visualizing.  In dealing with facility: without touching your flute, just feel the fingers as they are involved in the passage.  Do this several times, before picking up the flute.  Then, while holding the flute and without depressing the keys too much, feel how the fingers would move as you imagine playing the passage.  Do this several times before actually playing the passage. To improve the tone in a phrase, spend much time imagining the tone you want to produce, feeling the internal muscles (tongue, larynx, pharynx, soft palate, etc.) involved in the production of that tone.  Imagine as precisely as you can.  Then play the passage.  Keep refining your visualizations until they manifest consistently in your playing.  In the beginning, spend more time visualizing difficult passages than playing them. Here are some great resources for improving your visualization techniques.