Chiff and Fipple Forums

What if there was a flute / whistle that could be played using a keyboard layout, and was chromatic?

I created the design for such an instrument - I call it the Pianoflute! - and I'm curious what you think of it, and whether any Maker would be interested in trying to make it.

Here's an overview of it:


The tube allows you to be perpendicular to the body of the flute, so that the keyboard can be in a traditional layout in front of you.


Here's a sideview of how the key / hammer action could work.



The spring tension would need to be balanced to be strong enough to cover the hole up quickly for fast note runs, yet also not be too strong such that it's difficult to press down.

For myself, I love the sound of wind instruments (but don't play any), and have a background playing piano. So I designed the Pianoflute for myself and many others out there with my background. I personally like that with it you can:
1. play in every key / mode / scale
2. can play very low notes + high notes (depending on how long you make the body)
3. you don’t have to learn special fingering patterns for it, you can play it as easily as you play a piano

Some challenges that I foresee would be:
1. The holes would be in slightly different places than a traditional flute, since it is made with a one key = one hole = one note. As far as I know, no other flute/whistle does this, due to humans being limited to 10 fingers. So some experimentation would be required to find proper placement.
2. It has more moving parts due to the keys. Fortunately they don't need to be too complex, just levers with springs and pads.
3. Getting the air hitting the fipple / hole correctly coming out of the tube to produce a clean tone.

What do you all think? Interesting? Would you play it? And, would anyone be up to the challenge of making it?

I can't see your images, but it sounds a bit like the Hohner melodica I drove my parents insane with in the 1960s.

(It's probably not at all like that, but it's kind of hard to imagine without seeing it!)

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1638482 ... la=1&gao=1&

Oh, now you've gone and ruined it!

Maybe what the world really needs is a piano keyboard for a concertina-like instrument.

Oh, now I've gone and ruined it.

What you need is a synthesiser - that'll save you a whole lot of trouble.

How many notes will your mechanical piano-flute be able to play at the same time? Only one? How many keys are you going to have to hold down at once to get some of the notes? If you're imagining pressing just one key for each note, each key needs to be mechanically connected to all the holes of lower notes to hold them open while all the ones above need to be closed. You're also going to have a very narrow range of notes unless you have some way of forcing it into the second octave. It's a lot of trouble to go to, trying to get around all the mechanical complications to make a severely disabled flute, when a synthesiser will do the job better with existing hardware.

You could ofcourse go wild and make a separate flute for each note..

David Cooper wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 10:25 am How many keys are you going to have to hold down at once to get some of the notes? If you're imagining pressing just one key for each note, each key needs to be mechanically connected to all the holes of lower notes to hold them open while all the ones above need to be closed.

Looking at the drawing I assumed it was tuned for one hole open at a time. (Is that 'closed fingering'?)

I like the chromatic aspect of it. One tube can only produce one note at a time, so this would seem to
want to gravitate towards either a Calliope steam whistle sort of thing, with multiple pipes and a keyboard,
or some alternative to a South American pan pipe setup, or I'm not sure what, as any improvement over using one's own fingers.
If you're a whistle player and suddenly lose two fingers in a gardening accident, what do you do? You use the ____________ at the next session.
It may become some kind of wind-version of a kalimba.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubVw_4w0ppM

RoberTunes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 11:58 am I like the chromatic aspect of it. One tube can only produce one note at a time, so this would seem to
want to gravitate towards either a Calliope steam whistle sort of thing, with multiple pipes and a keyboard,
or some alternative to a South American pan pipe setup, or I'm not sure what, as any improvement over using one's own fingers.
If you're a whistle player and suddenly lose two fingers in a gardening accident, what do you do? You use the ____________ at the next session.
It may become some kind of wind-version of a kalimba.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubVw_4w0ppM

I often wonder why there's no such thing as "fipple bagpipes." If attaching multiple reed instruments to a bag works so well, why not attach multiple fipple flutes to a bag? I bet that would sound cool.

Cyberknight wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 1:45 pm I often wonder why there's no such thing as "fipple bagpipes." If attaching multiple reed instruments to a bag works so well, why not attach multiple fipple flutes to a bag? I bet that would sound cool.

It's a matter of pressure and flow volume. Bags work well for high pressure (relatively speaking) and moderate flow. Whistles are low pressure, higher flow. Your bag would need a very delicate touch, and would empty out quickly, if it was driving a whistle.

Cyberknight wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 1:45 pm

RoberTunes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 11:58 am https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubVw_4w0ppM

I often wonder why there's no such thing as "fipple bagpipes." If attaching multiple reed instruments to a bag works so well, why not attach multiple fipple flutes to a bag? I bet that would sound cool.

Because bagpipes were invented as a weapon of war, to scare the wits out of the enemy before unshaven Scotsmen in dresses ran at them swinging 5-foot broadswords. It's a scary sight and a lousy weekend.
A fipple wind instrument sounds too pleasant to scare Caesar's generals back to Rome. Ask Boudicca. Then again, luring Roman soldiers into huts where they can be trapped for processing, is an idea.

Check this out, maybe this has something to add? No idea.
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/whistle ... 851121.jpg

david_h wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 10:44 am Looking at the drawing I assumed it was tuned for one hole open at a time. (Is that 'closed fingering'?)

That would cause a lot of weird sounding notes that sound muffled, and the higher up you go, the more they'll misfire. Having one flute tube per piano key is likely the most workable solution if it needs to be mechanical rather than electronic.

...Unless, maybe each key could displace a section of tube rather then just opening a hole, thereby opening it up much more than lifting a finger off a hole can. Alternate ones would be displaced to opposite sides so that the seals are always lifting away from the adjacent sections.

The World's Smallest Organ (1933)
https://youtu.be/fANWsqxY67c?t=73

Cyberknight wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 1:45 pm I often wonder why there's no such thing as "fipple bagpipes." If attaching multiple reed instruments to a bag works so well, why not attach multiple fipple flutes to a bag? I bet that would sound cool.

Heh heh, I've already invented it and displayed it at the Boxwood flute festival in 2002. I noticed that they had some cardboard wine casks in the kitchen during dinner, and begged the kitchen staff for an empty one. Pulled the poly bladder out of it, and drank the small amount of wine left trapped inside. Then went up on stage during a break, solemnly called the audience to attention and made the announcement about the debut of the newly invented instrument, the bag-whistle. Then blew the bag up, poked the beak of my Generation D whistle into the spout, tucked the bag under the right arm and just got through the A parts of popular jig, to the general amusement of all.

At that point, the issue Tunborough raises kicked in - the flute family are flow driven, not pressure driven like the rest of the woodwinds. And I was out of flow. And no blow pipe to refresh the bag. The bag-whistle had enjoyed a brief but popular career.

Mr.Gumby wrote: ↑You could of course go wild and make a separate flute for each note.

That invention is termed a “kist [chest] o’ whistles” in Scotland, with a list of attested uses here. The oldest of them ties directly into traditional music and is juxtaposed with bagpiping in the text where it appears, published in the 1729 volume of Ramsey’s Tea-Table Miscellany, online here.

The song and a tune to which it was set are discussed in broader detail in a TTA article here. It may also be worth noting that one of the speculative explanations for the origin of bagpipes that pops up now and again is that they were inspired by the pipes and bellows of the organ.

There’s a scene in the 1937 Disney animation of Snow White where everyone is dancing to a small organ with pipes that have keys flapping merrily open and closed. I can’t access the video stream but if memory from an earlier viewing serves, these are labial pipes. If so, it can’t be called a pump organ without risk of its being taken to have reed pipes. If instead we follow the nomenclatural principal that labeled the uilleann pipes by the part of the body that operates the bellows, this contraption would have as colorful a name as the thing is, itself.

David Cooper wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 5:15 pm ...Unless, maybe each key could displace a section of tube rather then just opening a hole, thereby opening it up much more than lifting a finger off a hole can.

I have seen key systems though I can't remember what on (possible a contrabass something or other) where the key is a section of tube with a slightly larger diameter than the main bore and covering a huge hole. The OPs idea would probably permit quite a strong spring to seal it.