Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

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wee_celt
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Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by wee_celt »

I am having problems with flute tuning. I have several Irish style wood & Delrin flutes all are behaving the same way. If I play a low D, I should get 294 Hz (A:440 reference) on my electronic tuner. However I get 285 Hz even with the slide all the way in, which is 54 cents off tune.
I have checked my electronic tuner against a computer generated low D tone and it does read correctly as 294 Hz. What am I doing wrong? Is it an embouchure problem? I tried raising the pitch by changing embouchure but I could not get in tune. Please Help!
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by jiminos »

Good morning,

It is my understanding that trad Irish flutes most often have a flat bell note... and it is intentional. I think it goes back to when the Boehm was introduced to the continent and all those unused flutes flooded the pawn shops and became available for cheap.

As I write, I find myself wondering if the unique intonation of the Irish flute came about as a result of the removal of the keys. Then, when makers started making them locally they based their work on those flutes from the mainland.

I've also noticed that it is considered normal for several other notes to be sharp, as well.

Perhaps some of our more historically minded members can shed some light. I know I've seen this here before. I wonder if there might some info over on Terry McGee's site.... off I go.

Darned rabbit holes, anyway.

Can't wait to see the responses here.
Jim

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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by Conical bore »

Maybe you're blowing the low D too softly? Terry recently posted the idea that the distinctive "hard D" in Irish flute music might be a result of having to overblow the bell note into harmonics, in an attempt to raise the pitch enough to match the other notes. Or maybe it was just a natural result of playing forcefully in a folk dance music style, and pulling up the pitch is a happy accident.

Anyway, with my tuning slide pulled out slightly to get A at 440Hz, my low D is a bit flat. It gets a lot closer if I really lean into it with my breathing (while also blowing a little more down into the embouchure hole, for all the lower notes). The tricky thing of course, is getting just on the edge of the harmonics, and not shifting into the second octave.

If you aren't using it already, I recommend trying one of the RTTA analyzers listed on Terry's site (http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/). I'm using the Android version: TTtuner. It shows a more accurate picture of my intonation while playing a tune, compared to just blowing notes while watching my iStrobosoft app, where I might be chasing the pitch and not playing normally.
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by Terry McGee »

wee_celt wrote:I am having problems with flute tuning. I have several Irish style wood & Delrin flutes all are behaving the same way. If I play a low D, I should get 294 Hz (A:440 reference) on my electronic tuner. However I get 285 Hz even with the slide all the way in, which is 54 cents off tune.
I have checked my electronic tuner against a computer generated low D tone and it does read correctly as 294 Hz. What am I doing wrong? Is it an embouchure problem? I tried raising the pitch by changing embouchure but I could not get in tune. Please Help!
I'm assuming, since you haven't mentioned it, that your middle d note plays accurately, and it's only the bottom D that sounds flat. If so, then the advice I give at: http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/Getting_the ... k_tone.htm may be what you're looking for.

I'm still not sure why most of the old flutes had flat foot notes. It's usually not just the D that's flat, it's all four foot notes, Eb, D, C# and C. Many theories have been put forward, but I don't think we've yet skewered it. One of my theories is that when Nicholson the elder opened up the finger holes on his old Astor flute to usher in the Improved age, those notes sharpened, but the foot notes were untouched. Why nobody then did anything then becomes the question. Interestingly, the younger Nicholson mentions in his book that many people reckon he's the only player who can play the Nicholson's Improved flute in tune! A possible theory is that they learned to deal with it by the process I mention, and then it no longer became a problem.

I thought most modern makers were reducing the flatness of the foot notes, but, from what you're saying, maybe not?

Anyway, do try what I mention at Getting the Hard Dark Tone. How it helps pitch is interesting. People talk about lipping up, but I reckon it's impossible to lip up that far. I reckon what we're doing is shifting the bulk of the energy from the flat fundamental (the low D) into its harmonics (d, a, d', etc). Since they are (hopefully) in tune, the result is in tune. The way we do this manipulation is to offset the jet back from the "edge", by aiming the jet somewhere like the bottom of the embouchure chimney, instead of the top. Like trying to blow a grain of rice from your chin, somebody commented once.

Anyway, check it out and see if it works for you.
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by Andro »

Electronic tuners are all set for equal temperament. But Irish flutes are not equally tempered. You can use use a tuner for the pitch of A, but don't expect other notes to be spot on ET. It's not a Boehm flute we are dealing with. Low D is often flat, and part of the overall sound world. Yes. some tuners allow alternate temperaments, but I have yet to find one that matches Irish flute practice. I could go on, but I think that is a different topic.

Terry, I did not get the impression he was saying the D is flat compared to the upper D, but trying to apply ET concepts to the instrument, which is not really appropriate.

Speaking for myself, as a harpsichord maker and tuner and player as well as flutist, one of the joys for me of ITM is that we don't have to put up with wretched equal temperament.
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by Conical bore »

Andro wrote:Speaking for myself, as a harpsichord maker and tuner and player as well as flutist, one of the joys for me of ITM is that we don't have to put up with wretched equal temperament.
I agree. One of the joys of picking up the flute in addition to mandolin over the last few years, is that when I play along with my wife's fiddle at home there is a consonance that I don't hear on mandolin. At least when we manage to really lock in together. Because the intonation is variable to an extent on both instruments, we're sort of chasing each other's intonation and meeting somewhere in the middle.

However! It's still a good idea I think, to get into reasonably good 12TET intonation on the flute to the degree that we can, when we're playing with other instruments with fixed intonation like concertina, box, and fretted accompaniment.

FWIW -- I just recorded and analyzed a tune with the Android TTtuner app, on my Aebi keyed flute. My A4 averaged within 1 cent of 440Hz for the whole tune (yay!). My low D4 was -15 cents. Not great, but not too shabby. The E4 was -10 cents off. The big deviation was the F#4 at -25 cents, but I gather it's not uncommon with these vintage flute designs.

My second octave D5 was spot-on at +/- 1 cent average like the A440 note, and the rest of the second octave notes were good. I can live with a slightly flat low D but I'm still working on improving it with embouchure and breath control. The noticeably flat low F# isn't a big deal, because most of the tunes I play don't linger on that note for very long.

I have no idea how much of this is embouchure development vs. individual flute design, and take it with a grain of salt because I'm still a "developing" player without many years under my belt (or mouth). I suspect what Terry says about "finding your match" has a lot to do with this. I don't get intonation this good with my Windward keyless D flute, and I know that's a very fine flute. I just get along better with this Aebi flute.
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by jim stone »

I've been playing about 17 years, about an hour every day, and I've struggled with the flat
low D of an otherwise wonderful, beautiful rudall copy made in the USA. The maker assured me
the flat low D is not a bad idea. I think the idea is that you can really rear back and get a piece of the note, blow the low D with a good deal of volume and up to tune. I've played a number of Rudalls, no problem, but this particular flute has been another story. The trick is to become a better flutist.

There are, I think, at least two strategies for getting the flat low D in tune.

First, what Terry aptly described, where you try to get a hard, edgy sound, with lots of overtones.

Second, lift your chin and/or roll out the flute and blow over the hole. Or lift your chin and/or roll out the flute and blow down into the hole. Here you are not after overtones. but the angle of the air-stream lifts the note's pitch.

Good idea to get the hang of both. A lot of these flutes were made to be blown in tune, and if you practice a bit, blowing the flute in tune after awhile becomes second nature.

Finally a joke: 'What is the definition of a chord? Three flooters playing A.
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by Terry McGee »

Andro wrote:Electronic tuners are all set for equal temperament. But Irish flutes are not equally tempered. You can use use a tuner for the pitch of A, but don't expect other notes to be spot on ET. It's not a Boehm flute we are dealing with. Low D is often flat, and part of the overall sound world. Yes. some tuners allow alternate temperaments, but I have yet to find one that matches Irish flute practice. I could go on, but I think that is a different topic.

Terry, I did not get the impression he was saying the D is flat compared to the upper D, but trying to apply ET concepts to the instrument, which is not really appropriate.

Speaking for myself, as a harpsichord maker and tuner and player as well as flutist, one of the joys for me of ITM is that we don't have to put up with wretched equal temperament.
Ah, you haven't had to play along with accordion, concertina, piano or guitar yet, then Andro!

We're in a funny world with the Irish flute. Sometimes with just fiddle, but then those sharp-eared fiddle players might pick us up on sharp c, flat c#, flat F# and flat D notes! Sometimes with the ET tuned instruments I mentioned above. Sometimes with pipes, which are tuned for best effect with a drone. But a drone that sometimes goes noticeably sharper when the piper is high in the second octave. Gotta learn to duck and weave around here!

When you look at it closely (which I have done), you can sometimes see some hopeful signs of being in a temperament, but then the illusion fades. If we were in temperaments, we'd expect the pattern to repeat in both octaves, but it doesn't. Also, in the case in point, nothing would explain low D being around 50 cents flat.

Now, this actually raises an issue I've wondered about, and talked about with my band-mate Mark, who plays and tunes accordions. Given we mostly (careful, there's that word again...) play in a very few closely related keys (scales really - mostly D and G scales and occasionally A, reconfigured into about 4 modes), surely we could come up with an Irish Music temperament? You'd want to place it so as to minimise conflict with ET instruments, so it wouldn't be quite as simple as say picking the D scale on the grounds it lies between G and A scales. Interesting thought though.
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by Terry McGee »

Conical bore wrote:FWIW -- I just recorded and analyzed a tune with the Android TTtuner app, on my Aebi keyed flute. My A4 averaged within 1 cent of 440Hz for the whole tune (yay!). My low D4 was -15 cents. Not great, but not too shabby. The E4 was -10 cents off. The big deviation was the F#4 at -25 cents, but I gather it's not uncommon with these vintage flute designs.

My second octave D5 was spot-on at +/- 1 cent average like the A440 note, and the rest of the second octave notes were good. I can live with a slightly flat low D but I'm still working on improving it with embouchure and breath control. The noticeably flat low F# isn't a big deal, because most of the tunes I play don't linger on that note for very long.
They're pretty good numbers, Conical Bore, and more what I'd expect from a modern-made flute. I get better numbers on my own flute, but it would be a bit sad if I didn't, wouldn't it!
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by Terry McGee »

jim stone wrote:I've been playing about 17 years, about an hour every day, and I've struggled with the flat
low D of an otherwise wonderful, beautiful rudall copy made in the USA. The maker assured me
the flat low D is not a bad idea. I think the idea is that you can really rear back and get a piece of the note, blow the low D with a good deal of volume and up to tune. I've played a number of Rudalls, no problem, but this particular flute has been another story. The trick is to become a better flutist.
That's certainly been the rationale for many a flat-footed flute, but I think it can be overdone. Conical Bore's Aebi at -15 is very easily dealt with, but when you get down to the -50's or so it's asking a lot of the player. I mentioned the Nicholson original I have - check out it's flat foot:

Image

Note the big step between the foot notes and the body notes. That's what sowed the seeds of my theory that it's the result of old Nicholson opening up the holes on the Astor.

One thing I've found you have to avoid is accidentally making the low D sharp, even by a tiny amount. Run down a D scale and the bottom note is sharp and it's really disconcerting (as we say in the concert industry). So for that reason too, a small erring on the flat side isn't bad insurance. You can use the jet offset trick to sharpen, but you have to roll to flatten. And who's got time for that at reel speed?
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by bogman »

In my opinion, digital tuners are relatively useless for flute and tin whistle players, other than the most experienced players, who don't generally need a tuner in the first place. Given that there can be so much variation in pitch as a result of how hard you blow, how you blow, or your embouchure, trying to tune individual notes to an electronic tuner can cause more confusion than it's worth. The ears are needed for wind instrument intonation. Fair enough to use a tuner to get an approximate G of A but using a tuner to tune the bell note is not a great adea. Different if you're a maker of course, but for a player the sooner it's realised that, assuming a decent instrument, the tuning is down to the player rather than the instrument, the better.
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by MadmanWithaWhistle »

I have an app on my phone called TuneApp that will generate a tone in whatever pitch you want. I typically use the A, E, and D to tune my flute. You can practice staying consistent tuning-wise by leaving the tone on as a sort of drone while you play.

Much, much better than a digital tuner. Those things just can't handle how "messy" woodwind harmonics are.
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by paddler »

My theory for explaining the flat foot notes on many antique flutes (especially British ones) and those modern flutes that were produced by copying them, is that the original makers of the antique flutes were trying to solve the problems of (a) no single pitch standard at the time, and (b) a progressive inflation of pitch, and widening of the range of pitches, over time.

When we talk about a flute being "in tune" it begs the question of "in tune with what?". For any antique instrument dating from a period before there was a widely agreed upon International pitch standard, we have no easy way of knowing what the tuning target was for the original maker. I think we do a disservice to the old master flute makers when we say things like "this flute is out of tune" just because all its notes do not agree with our electronic tuner set for equal temperament A=440 hz tuning. That tuning standard simply didn't exist when most of the old instruments were made.

I think a better approach is to assume that the original makers understood how to make flutes that were in tune with themselves, and then to try to figure out what the tuning target actually was. When a flute has a tuning slide, this begs the question of what position the tuning slide should be in for the flute to be in tune with itself (i.e. to perform as the maker intended it in its ideal state). Also, we need to decide what note to use in order to center/describe our tuning analysis. I think it is a mistake to automatically base such analysis on the A note, because tuning standards based on A generally didn't exist at the time these flutes were made. A better approach, I think, is to look at the frequency of the foot notes (say D) and then figure out how far the tuning slide needs to be extended in order to bring the upper notes into tune with the foot notes. Once we have done this we can look to see what frequency the A note is. This will allow us to describe the maker's original pitch target in terms of a modern pitch standard.

When you do it this way you tend to find that many antique British flutes are best in tune with themselves at a hypothetical pitch standard that is much lower than A=440 hz. The fact that the tuning slide is extended very far in order to bring the instrument in tune with itself seems puzzling, at least on the surface. However, if you consider how a flute maker would deal practically with a number of different tuning standards existing simultaneously, and a steady inflation in pitch over time, it starts to make sense.

The simplest approach would be to make a flute that is in tune for the "current" narrow, range of pitch standards. Then as new higher pitch standards are introduced, simply shorten the flute's head, which allows it to play at a higher pitch standard by closing the slide, but leaves its performance at the original target pitch standards unchanged. Each time a new, higher pitch standard begins to be used you can make flutes that work for it by simply modifying your older flutes in the same way. The simplest modification is to just shorten the head further, but another, perhaps complementary, strategy is to enlarge the tone holes. Both of these strategies have more effect on the left hand notes than the foot notes. Similarly, the player can have more effect lowering the pitch of the left hand notes, by covering the embouchure more, than they can on the foot notes.

Ultimately, the approach just doesn't work when the range of pitch standards becomes too wide though. Basically, we are just expecting too much from the tuning slide and of the player, to bring the flute back in tune with itself when its played at a pitch that is different to the maker's original target. Before tuning slides, flute makers used to make multiple body sections for their flutes (corps de rechange) so they could be played at different pitches. When the tuning slide was invented it more or less replaced these corps de rechange, even though it is an inferior solution to the problem of playing at multiple widely different pitches. A tuning slide really only allows fine changes in pitch before a flute is no longer in tune with itself, but I think there was a rush to adopt this new technology and use it for a purpose that ultimately exceeded its capabilities.

So, to summarize ... just in case anyone is still reading ... most of the flutes we use today are derived from antiques that were made in the mid 1800s. That was an era of pitch inflation, with commonly used pitch standards ranging from the low 430s (or less?) eventually up to the mid 450s. As this pitch inflation and widening of the range happened, flute makers had to keep up if they wanted their flutes to be usable by many potential customers. They looked to tuning slide technology as the solution to this problem, progressively shortening the head of their new flutes to allow the flute to be played at higher pitches while still performing well at its original pitch target. A flute with a head short enough to play at A=440 hz ended up with the tuning slide closed more than is necessary for the flute to be in tune with itself, resulting in the left hand notes (B and A) being sharp, and the foot notes being flat. Some modern makers just copied this.

I think there are many other contributing factors, including many that Terry has explored, and the issues of ET tuning problems Andro mentioned above, but I think the above issues, combined with the fact that most flutes are made by copying a previous instrument and making minor changes, is what really caused these flat foot problems to become so pronounced. Well, this is the best theory I can come up with based on the evidence I've seen.
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by Terry McGee »

I did explore the slide at different extensions in the case of the Nicholson flute, see above, but you'll see it never really gets into good tune, even if we go down to A420Hz, which is flatter than we expect them to be using at the time. Indeed, new errors start to creep in below 430Hz, at which pitch the flute is as good as it gets.

That, plus the amusing statement by Nicholson:

With this flute [the modified Astor], I came to London, and although my public performances met with a gratifying reception, yet my flute was not approved of, inasmuch as it required a total alteration in the system of fingering; and it was generally asserted, that I was the only person who could play in tune on a flute with large holes.

led to my wondering if it was the opening up of body holes that lead to the flat foot syndrome. I have re-tuned a number of old flutes for people over the years - it normally requires removing about 10mm of wood from the end of the right hand or the start of the foot or some from both. That often requires also shortening the touches of the foot keys, so it's quite an undertaking. But it makes a dramatic improvement to their playability. Nicholson's dad clearly had the capacity to make the finger holes bigger, but probably didn't have the capacity to fix the foot. But when Nicholson (through Clementi and Prowse) later came to making new flutes for sale, why didn't they fix it then? The problem lingered on until the next generation of makers came on the scene - Boehm, Siccama, Clinton, Pratten.

And from what wee_celt is telling us, it's not over yet!
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Re: Flute tuning problem. Please Help!

Post by paddler »

I agree that enlarging the tone holes would also have the effect of relatively flattening the foot. It would not make the foot flatter in absolute terms though, it would raise the pitch of the notes that were vented by the enlarged holes and leave the foot flat relative to them. In this way it is very similar in effect to the progressive head shortening theory I proposed. So we still have the challenge of explaining why the foot notes are tuned to something close to A=420 hz on some flutes. One possible explanation is that the target tuning range really was that low initially, and then over a period of decades, attempts to use a tuning slide to address the problem of an ever widening and increasing set of pitch standards, combined with effects of enlarging tone holes to make flutes louder and brighter, led to the foot being way out of tune from the higher notes when the flute was played at a higher pitch.

The other effect of enlarging the tone holes would be to raise the pitch of those notes more in the second octave than in the first. I think we can see this anomaly quite clearly in your graph. So I agree that tone hole enlarging is also a significant part of the problem.

All of this is based on the theory that new flutes were mostly made by copying older flutes and making minor modifications (tone hole adjustments and length adjustments of various sections). Because of this process a flute made at a certain date inherits a certain amount of DNA from its ancestors who were made when different (generally lower) pitch standards were the target. Some modifications are easy to make, but others require a lot of time and effort. As you pointed out, adjusting the length of the foot at the socket is non-trivial. I've tried this too. I don't think anyone likes messing with foot keys on 8 key flutes. This makes me curious about whether short foot flutes (6 key or 4 key or 1 key) with only one foot key have the flat foot syndrome to the same degree as the long foot flutes? The ones I've looked at seem to have fairly aggressive back reaming at the foot which might have been a simple way to try to address foot tuning problems (that together with simply shortening the foot from the end of the flute rather than the socket, and enlarging the Eb hole under the key).

I think the other factor that comes in here is the blowing style. Nicholson's ability to play such flutes in tune may have derived in part from his covering more of the embouchure hole and blowing more downwards. This has the effect of reducing the effective size of the embouchure, which lowers the tone of the left hand notes more than the foot notes. This can bring the tuning of those notes in line with the foot, but even this theory doesn't explain why the foot was tuned so low initially. Nicholson's quote about being able to play the flute in tune does not say at what pitch standard he was able to play it in tune at, but I suspect he could play it in tune at whatever pitch standard he needed to. Someone blowing more across the embouchure hole would have much more difficulty with tuning though.

I think the improvement in later flutes was due, in part, to the establishment of narrower pitch standards for orchestras in Britain centered around A=439 (as an apparently misguided attempt to correct for temperature when adopting the French diapason normal standard), combined with the separation of orchestral instrument production from band instrument production. Eventually, only the band instruments addressed the need to be played at the very high end of the pitch range (A=450+). Basically, I think people came to their senses and stopped trying to achieve the impossible with a single tuning slide empowered instrument that had no corps de rechange. Incidentally, I think the move away from corps de rechange came with the advent of keyed flutes. Makers didn't want to replicate all that key making, and customers probably couldn't afford to pay for it. So a cheaper and less capable solution was found, namely the tuning slide.

I find it interesting that flutes from other countries, for example USA, do not tend to have this flat foot syndrome. Or at least it is nowhere near as common as it is in British flutes. I think this can be explained by the fact that they were targeting a narrower range of pitch standards which was centered slightly higher (say A=442, for example) and the demand for band instruments at higher pitch standards didn't have so much influence on orchestral flute production.

I think that even if there had existed a single pitch standard, the flutes would have still exhibited some tuning anomalies, due to targeting a particular blowing style or temperament to favor playing in certain keys, but that these anomalies would have been much smaller than we observe with flat foot syndrome.
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