Boxwood vs. Blackwood

[Loren]

There's no carrot but this video has something similar.

.

Hmph, I get a message stating: That video has been removed by the user.



Loren

[Bart Wijnen]

Same here.

Bart

[bradhurley]

And let's not forget the whistle from a drinking straw.

There's a guy here in Quebec named Richard Shuttlesworth who makes toy bagpipes (complete with functioning chanter and drones) out of drinking straws.

Thank you so much, Brad. My hero once again! I didn't have my reference with me (horrors!!!!), so I'm glad you remember.

And actually Sonny McDonough played a flute, not a whistle, made from a bicycle pump....I didn't notice until now that you had written "whistle" in your original post.

[cocusflute]

I think it was a pepper...

[flutefry]

To comment on some matters arising.

I've always used the fact that the flute vibrates as a guide to good tone production from wooden flutes, so I agree with those who suggest that the flute can contribute to the sound.

Similarly, it seems likely that any aspect of finish that impacts turbulence in the air column could affect sound, so it's at least possible that differences in materialsl lead to differences in finish. As a specific example, it also seems likely to me that bore smoothness makes a difference to sound. Rod Cameron used to modify plastic Aulos baroque flutes, and one thing he did was to roughen the bore with sandpaper.

In a post to another thread, I pointed out that scientific attempts to measure differences in sound contributed by materials are likely to fail because this contribution is likely to be swamped by changes in the embouchure, or contributed by the player. In other words, if there is a lot of variability in the experiment other than the variable you are attempting to measure, it won't work. Conversely, if one uses machine made flutes, or artificial but reproducible ways of sounding the flute, the resulting crudity of flute and blower will make it difficult to measure the contribution of the material.

My take is that as long as it is difficult/impossible to design a really clean experiment, the discussion will continue. Can't help noticing here a discrete silence from the actual physicists among us while amateurs like me guess.

Hugh

[Loren]

My take is that as long as it is difficult/impossible to design a really clean experiment, the discussion will continue. Can't help noticing here a discrete silence from the actual physicists among us while amateurs like me guess.

Hugh

No reason a well thought out experiment couldn't be done using tenor recorders or low whistles made from different woods - as the fipple largely takes "embouchure" out of the picture.


Loren

[Bart Wijnen]

My take is that as long as it is difficult/impossible to design a really clean experiment, the discussion will continue. Can't help noticing here a discrete silence from the actual physicists among us while amateurs like me guess.

Hugh

No reason a well thought out experiment couldn't be done using tenor recorders or low whistles made from different woods - as the fipple largely takes "embouchure" out of the picture.


Loren

And what (sorry Loren, I'm trying to be a good sport but it's not in my nature ) if we put a player behind a curtain with plastic and all different kind of wooden flutes and we try to guess what she/he is playing at?

Bart

[flutefry]

I wonder if it is easier with fipple flutes? Certainly having played the same recorder voiced by many skilled people over the past 25 years, I conclude that voicing is an art, and a complex one. I have had the same feeling trying to pick recorders from instrument makers who have many of the same model around-there is large variation perceptible to the player in terms of response, tone, volume, even among ostensibly identical instruments. So my surmise is that while materials contribute, the amount they contribute is relatively small, and that other variation will swamp this, and thus it will be hard to detect the contribution of materials. Note that this is not an argument that materials make no contribution-I believe they do. I just think it is harder to test this than people appreciate.

If asked to design an experiment, I'd do this: Take 10 blackwood (Black 1-10) and 10 boxwood (box 1-10) recorders. Have one player play a scale on each instrument under test, but each trial is a comparison of only two plays. In each case ask the audience to state whether the instruments sounded the same, or different. This should prevent listener fatigue, difficulties characterizing the sound, and makes the statistics easy. Then try the following trials in random order. Black1-box 1, Black1-Black1, Box1-box1, Black 1-Box-2, etc. This would soon sort out whether the audience can reliably detect when the same instrument is played, and whether the probability of detecting a difference between woods is any different from the probability of detecting a difference between different recorders in the same wood. My bet, based on Cathy's post, is that there would be at least as much difference detected between instruments of the same wood as there would be between different woods. I also bet that even when the same instrument was played in a given trial, that there would be enough variation from the player that the audience wouldn't score better when comparing identical to identical (black1 to black 1 etc) than they do at comparing two woods.

Hugh

[rama]

if a boxwood flute is played in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it still sound like a boxwood flute?

[AaronMalcomb]

depends on the kind of wood in the forest

[Cathy Wilde]

if a boxwood flute is played in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it still sound like a boxwood flute?

Only if a bear hasn't made an ocarina out of a pinecone. (or your toothbrush)

[eilam]

if a boxwood flute is played in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it still sound like a boxwood flute?

i think yes, but i'm not 100% sure

[jim stone]

If nobody is there in the forest to hear the flutes, they
all sound like delrin.

[Whistlin'Dixie]

no, they sound like hole-less McChuds

M

[chas]

My take is that as long as it is difficult/impossible to design a really clean experiment, the discussion will continue. Can't help noticing here a discrete silence from the actual physicists among us while amateurs like me guess.

Hugh

No reason a well thought out experiment couldn't be done using tenor recorders or low whistles made from different woods - as the fipple largely takes "embouchure" out of the picture.

Loren's got a point.

I see the gauntlet thrown down , so as one of two (or more) resident physicists, I guess I'll chime in.

First, let me point out that an advanced degree in physics doesn't necessarily give one great insight into anything but one's subfield. I'm no more qualified to comment on acoustics than I am qualified to comment on, say, computer architecture.

But I never let details like that stand in the way of speculation.

I do have a background in optics, the "other" wave science, and having done some modelling of optical reflections from surfaces, I can tell you that it's not that simple. Even simple things like the reflection of one wavelength from a complex surface requires approximations. Sound and light don't obey exactly the same equations, but they're not that dissimilar. So the theorists who say that simulations indicate that the material doesn't make a difference haven't taken into account everything, and if everything isn't taken into account, I don't think they can say that anything doesn't make a difference. (This hasn't been brought up in this thread, but it has before.)

So then you have the "experiments" that have been done. Those that I've read (at least one of which Brad cited) don't seem to have been conducted in realistic situations. Having a few tones played by one person blowing and another fingering the holes, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't address any subtleties, and I think we're all talking subtleties when we're debating different woods.

Then you have personal experience. As many have pointed out, boxwood is a little bit absorbent. If you take a well-aged box flute that hasn't been played in a few days and then play it for an hour or two, its sound will change. According to anyone -- player, listener, maker. This isn't comparing one flute to another, it's comparing a flute to itself. The surface changes, the sound changes. (Patrick Olwell once showed me a flute that he said takes two hours to warm up.) It's one of the things that I love about boxwood.

Then there's the "does it make a difference?" issue. What difference does it make whether in a vacuum (just an expression) the wood affects the sound or not? If a person plays box differently because it feels different from blackwood or rosewood, what difference does it make whether it's the wood or the player? If someone buys a boxwood flute because he wants the "boxwood sound", maybe the maker subconsciously makes a flute with a mellower sound. Is it a chicken or egg thing? I don't really care, but I have played lots of flutes and I do see a pattern. As a physicist, that's all I know. As a fluteplayer I know I love boxwood.

I hope this doesn't sound like a rant, it really isn't. I think it's an interesting question, and as I've said before, I don't think anyone's gonna convince anyone who's solidly in one camp that the other way of thinking is correct. And I think we all agree that the fluteplayer is most of the equation.