The daunting task

[rick alan]

Hello folks,

I've finally gotten my hands on a proper flute. I've begun my tone exercises with it, but I have to say: Any version of "E" (low, middle, high) is substantially less resonant for me than any of the other notes I'm playing. I know high E is a pain on the Boehm flute until you can get used to it, maybe that condition is parallel to both instruments?

Is this normally a note that is a little under-vented? Any tips/advice would be fantastic.. It's really the only note that's causing me a headache. I absolutely love the sound of the wood flute in all other respects.

Cheers..!

[Jose' Scotte' Este']

I hate to say it, but it could be your flute.... I never noticed the E note being different/particularly difficult to sound fully, except the high E on some of my low flutes...

[Flutern]

It's not a bug, it's a feature

As you've probably noticed, hole #6, which vents E, is very small, which is why this note is weaker. Enlarging this hole would sharpen the pitch, so it would have to be moved down to compensate, and this in turn would make it difficult/impossible to reach. The same thing goes for A to a lesser extent. The Siccama flute was designed to address this very problem.

On a keyed flute, E has a stronger voice when it is vented with the Eb key. Modern keyed flutes, however, are usually designed to be played without venting, so E tends to be sharp when it is vented and might need to be lipped down.

[tstermitz]

Yep! Vintage flutes are designed to expect using the Eb key to open up the tone and volume of the E note. But even on modern flutes the E, and to a certain extent, the A note also suffers from volume, tone, tuning and/or sonority.

F-Nat key is often recommended to open up F#.

I would recommend learning to vent with the Eb key, although most ITM players accept things, and turn the foot joint away, which makes the E rolls so much snappier. With effort it's possible to hold down the Eb while doing the roll, but that effort isn't typical.

[rick alan]

Thanks! Glad it’s not me.

I’m on a keyless, so venting that Eb isn’t going to be easy.

[kkrell]

Thanks! Glad it’s not me.

I’m on a keyless, so venting that Eb isn’t going to be easy.

E being a weaker note is indeed fairly common.

While it's probably not an option for you within your short timeframe, Dave Copley does do retrofits, adding keys (I presume post-mounted) on request. Alternatively, he may be able to provide you with just a replacement foot joint with an Eb key.

[rick alan]

If it’s fairly common I’ll just get used to it. I play enough woodwinds to know there are quirks and compromises on EVERYTHING. cheers.

[tstermitz]

Yeah, the E note has always had issues, and traverso flutes (baroque) usually had an Eb key for that reason, plus it permits the most difficult Eb/D# note.

WRT A, try using this fingering: XXO OXX, which provokes the high E harmonic and can improves the tonality of A. (It's usually not worth the extra effort, though.)

[oleorezinator]

E is the stuffiest, most out of tune note on woodwinds in general.

[Flutern]

E is the stuffiest, most out of tune note on woodwinds in general.

Which woodwinds are you talking about? I can't think of a single E that's stuffy or badly out of tune on the clarinet. Throat notes, on the other hand...

[Conical bore]

E is the stuffiest, most out of tune note on woodwinds in general.

Yes, but If you're mainly playing Irish trad dance tunes -- jigs and reels at full dance tempos, how often do you get a chance to hear that one slightly soft E note in the middle of a flurry of other notes?

I think that's the reason many of us who play keyed simple system flutes built on the 19th Century models don't bother venting the E even when we have an Eb key. I don't, because the note just isn't exposed for that long unless I'm playing a slow air, where I might vent it if it feels a little weak. At 112bpm (counted 2/2) for a reel with a continuous stream of 8th notes at dance tempo, who is going to hear it?

[xabeba]

Isn't it common among Irish flute players to attack the E "cutting into" it from a D, precisely to address this problem? I don't know what name a "cut from below" has as an ornament, but that is what I mean.

[chas]

Some makers definitely do a better job with the E note than others. I have two other somewhat conflicting points:

The player can compensate quite a bit for the veiled E note. It's usually much less (intrinsically) veiled than the cross-fingered notes on a baroque flute. Listen to a good baroque player, and you can hardly hear any difference in the timbre among the notes.

On the other (other?) hand, if we really really wanted all the notes to sound the same, we'd be playing Boehm flutes. Part of the allure of the simple-system flute is the each note is different -- it sounds different and needs to be played differently. There's much more of the player in the wooden flute than in the silver flute.

It's not a good or bad thing, but it's way different.