tompipes wrote:Here's another question based on the original question.
What are your thoughts on the differences between straight cone bores and complex cone bores?
In references to the musical aspect rather than manufacturing.
Thank,
Tommy
I'm far from being an expert on the mathematical part of woodwind design, but there is certainly a difference. When I made my very first Irish flute, I had to manufacture a reamer. This was years ago, and I was working from some blueprints that I got from Terry McGee (a Pratten flute). When I set about making the reamer, I noticed that the variations in the bore measurements did not create a straight taper. However, the perturbations were very subtle, and in my ignorance I assumed that it resulted from either shrinkage of the original bore or simply human error in measuring the bore. So to save time and hassle, I just smoothed them out and made a straight taper.
The results were good. The flutes sounded just fine and a few more experienced players tried them and said "These are good!". No one said "These are
great!". When I began working with Jon Walpole (aka Paddler) he was the first person to say, "These tiny perturbations are really important". So I made new reamers that included the tiny irregularities that I had smoothed out of the first version. There was a noticeable improvement. It took the flute "to the next level" if you will, and with a few more tweaks here and there, finally resulted in the "These are great!" reaction that I was going for.
So clearly these things matter.
Just as a matter of interest, speaking of the effects of bore manipulation, I'll share a bit.
I did a project last year where I attempted to create an "optimized" xiao (Chinese end-blown flute). A researcher at the University of British Columbia who was a xiao enthusiast did his master's thesis on the xiao and his attempt to take the traditional folk design (which is a cylindrical bore instrument) and improve it's harmonic balance and tuning.
His research and process was very impressive, involving complex mathematical models and sophisticated microphone arrays for measuring acoustical impedance, etc.. In the end, he succeeded. But the nature of his success was
totally outside of the box.
He created a flute whose bore was neither conical nor cylindrical. It was, in fact, totally unlike anything anyone has done before (to my knowledge). The inner bore resembled a couple of sine waves running in parallel. Or to use a more earthy description, the bore resembled a snake that had swallowed a series of rodents, causing it to bulge out in places along it's length!
This was a flute that was impossible to manufacture using conventional means, since it could not be bored our reamed. In the end, I decided to make this flute (another collaborator had gotten the specs directly from the researcher and had gotten me permission to use them). This was what I referred to earlier when I spoke of mold making and casting, because the only way to make this flute bore was to cast it from resin. This is because I wanted the outside of the flute to be wood, you understand. I suspect someone could use a 3D printer to make the flute if they don't mind a plastic flute. However, I won't go into what a long, difficult and messy process this was (it involved casting wax mandrels that could be melted out after the resin had cured, etc.). But it made me appreciate the trial and error that went into perfecting the bore profiles of early flutes from the Baroque period forward. I'm told that they did a lot of modification of bore profiles, including "chambering" in places to optimize the tuning and harmonics.
In the case of this optimized xiao, the researcher succeeded beautifully. The tuning balance was excellent--easier to achieve than on the conventional design. And the harmonic spectrum of the instrument was also balanced, giving it a uniformly strong and reedy tone. But here's the surprise that came at the end of it: xiao players didn't really like it! The xiao as a folk instrument has a characteristic timbre and certain idiosyncrasies that make it what it is, and the music it is used for has evolved along with it over centuries. This man had engineered the character right out of the flute! So he improved it on one hand, and erased it's identity on the other hand.
I made a few prototypes of this flute, and they are really cool. Insanely difficult to make, and I spent a ton of time and energy only to discover that the Chinese, in their wisdom, had already made an amazing flute that did not require any improvement or optimization at all. They had worked out all of the bugs in the last couple of millennia, and had created a flute with a unique character. Changing that was not an improvement. It merely made something that was different.
I think the silver flute is basically an "optimized" orchestral instrument that was an improvement (in some ways) over the wooden, conical bore instruments of the time. But it also lost a lot of the character of it's predecessors.