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Every Sunday afternoon we have a Breton singing session at my place (my girlfriend is from Brittany and sings traditional songs). I sing a little but mostly accompany her on Bb flute and 12-string guitar. Yesterday I put my guitar across my lap, Dobro-style, while I was playing the flute, and suddenly we heard amazing sounds as the open strings of the guitar started resonating to notes I was hitting on the flute. I've had similar things happen with harps and pianos while I was playing flute, but the 12-string definitely comes up with the most interesting sounds, with lots of intermingling overtones.

bradhurley wrote:Every Sunday afternoon we have a Breton singing session at my place (my girlfriend is from Brittany and sings traditional songs). I sing a little but mostly accompany her on Bb flute and 12-string guitar. Yesterday I put my guitar across my lap, Dobro-style, while I was playing the flute, and suddenly we heard amazing sounds as the open strings of the guitar started resonating to notes I was hitting on the flute. I've had similar things happen with harps and pianos while I was playing flute, but the 12-string definitely comes up with the most interesting sounds, with lots of intermingling overtones.

that sounds interesting. do you think you could record the results for us? there's nothing more fun than accidental, sympathetic resonating. if nothing else, it provese that you were playing in tune!

daiv wrote:that sounds interesting. do you think you could record the results for us? there's nothing more fun than accidental, sympathetic resonating. if nothing else, it provese that you were playing in tune!

I actually tried, but even with the mic a half-inch over the guitar's soundholes, it didn't pick up much of the resonance as the flute drowned it out. But you can definitely hear it in the room...just not very well on a recording.

I've noticed the same effect with my stringed instruments which are sitting on a guitar stand, especially after a BIG sneeze. I suspect there would be more sympathetic vibration if the 12-string were tuned exactly to the flute.

I've heard them called sympathetic notes, but I think they're only patronizing.

I've experienced the same thing with my tenor banjo if I'm playing next to it (it's on a stand near where I often play while watching a fish tank - very relaxing way to practice tunes BTW). If I'm more than a few feet away, the banjo doesn't seem to pick up the vibrations, though.


Eric

My flute playing effected my computer screen when I hit certian note. does that count?

Jon C. wrote:My flute playing effected my computer screen when I hit certian note. does that count?

Augh! Mine does that too!

The only resonance I ever hear in the room is a little unsympathetic...

Sounds like "SHUT THE ...... UP"

Chiffed wrote:The only resonance I ever hear in the room is a little unsympathetic...

Sounds like "SHUT THE ...... UP"

Blackout_Entertainment wrote:Augh! Mine does that too!

oh, okay...she doesn't

I experienced this sort of this all the time in my music room. I have several stringed instruments including a couple wire strung harps, a sitar, and a hammer dulcimer. You should hear it when I have my uilleann pipes going in there!! They are loud enough that you don't notice until you stop.

I'm inheriting a piano soon... I wonder how that will add to the halo of sound!

This effect has freaked out more than a couple of my wind students, not to mention they parents.

ceadach wrote: I'm inheriting a piano soon... I wonder how that will add to the halo of sound!

My flutes make my wife's piano resonate nicely.

Not a very surprising phenomenon in general - we often used to notice this happening with our guitarist's instrument (DADGAD tuned 10 string - bottom 2 courses of a 12 string left single) in the Welsh TM band I used to play in, especially while tuning up. My ex-wife's cello used to do it too.
However, the reason I'm posting this at all is that, at my regular local session a fortnight ago I was tuning my flutes and playing a few low Ds to warm up when I heard an ethereal ringing sound - quite loud, bit like the old moist finger round the edge of a cut glass trick, or a Tibetan bronze bowl gong thingy, and others heard it too. Took me a little while to locate it; it was coming from an old brass-bodied oil lamp (converted as an electric table lamp) standing behind me on the corner ledge of the wall-length pub bench seats. We've seshed in that room for a decade, and I frequently sit in that corner where the lamp has always been, but I've never noticed it resonate before! (Not saying it hasn't done so, but who knows? Why just then?) A bit of experimentation showed that it only resonated in sympathy to a bottom octave D, and when I tried altering the tuning of my R&R with the patent tuning slide, as the note sharpened or flattened from a concert pitch D the resonance faded out. Same result with my recently acquired Rampone "Ziegler System" that I bought for a bit of fun - always fancied fiddling with all those extra keys and a low B! (BTW, it's a bit of a beast - quite beefy, but a very different tone from the R&R.) Other instruments present didn't seem to elicit any response from it, so the frequency signature of the flute may have been relevant.
So it's not just strings that do it! In case anyone's wondering, we didn't try rubbing the lamp!
Happy tooting, and keep it sympathetic!
Jem.

My band played a gig at the Newburg Music Center in Newburg Oregon. We were positioned in front of a wall of guitars all resonating along with us... It sounded amazing.

Don't know if this is a similar phenomenon, but my flute playing used to set up a peculiar resonance effect in my cat. The cat is now dead, by the way.