AuLoS303 wrote:
...although it seems, like boehm flute, they might take a lot of air.
The Boehm flute does not take a lot of air. Nor does any other kind of sideblown flute, so long as it's well-made; the issue lies with the player's embouchure, not the instrument. If your embouchure is well-practiced and efficient, a Boehm or simple-system flute should take hardly more air than required for speaking and still play loudly even so, and I know this firsthand. Of course you have only my word on it, but trust me: it's true. It's all in the lips and their control of the air jet. So the instrument in itself does not require a lot of air; it's what you do with that air that counts. One would assume that with practice, the kaval player's embouchure can also become similarly efficient.
I seem to recall that you bought a Boehm flute not so long ago. If you find that it takes a lot of air for you to play it, it's just that you're new to it and haven't developed your embouchure. It can take some years to really nail this, and there's no getting around it; these things don't play themselves. Just because you
can get a noise out of a flute, it doesn't mean you're doing it right. When you practice your flute - any flute - always be very mindful of your embouchure and approach it with endless investigation, because for a long time - maybe forever - there will always be a better way.
michaelpthompson wrote:
I agree, I find pretty much all the sideblown music to be a bit breathy.
Maybe you're not listening to the masters, then (and take note in the following how crazy-long some of his phrasing is; that's just a good embouchure making a lot out of a little, as I said before):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYF_HFwQ6SwI contrast the kaval's hiss to playing such as this. I'm entirely convinced that the kaval's hiss has everything to do with the embouchure method, and that consequently it cannot be avoided. You seem to have mistaken this hiss to be a variant of the breathiness you have alluded to (and with rather a broad brush too, I might add) in your assessment of other instruments, but from where I stand it is not the same at all, and in that, you have mistaken my drift as well. As I might have mentioned, I've looked and looked, and even master kaval players have this very audible hiss, and it's quite different and more omnipresent than any passing breathiness you might come across in sideblown flutes where, with good players, breathiness is not a given but would be incidental, if at all. As the link illustrates, the sideblown flute doesn't have to have such a steady hiss as is found with the kaval, and in both cases that is definitely due to how the lips are used. In comparing the kaval to the sideblown flute, when we're discussing the player's embouchure, it's apples to oranges. Don't underestimate the importance of this difference.
I think that one should consider the kaval's hiss to be an integral part of the whole beast. With sideblown and notched flutes, it ain't necessarily so.