tunning

esharp · Post by **esharp** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:32 pm

Im wanting to see if my flute is in tune. A guitar is tuned to a 440 A. What is the reference for a flute. Maybe I can cheat and use my guitar tuner.

Dana · Post by **Dana** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:34 pm

If you have a D flute, just play an A, which should hopefully be A-440.

Dana

esharp · Post by **esharp** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:40 pm

looks like Im flat about 45 cent. Thats pretty far out. I see the adjust in the head joint but Im not sure how to effect it after I unscrew the cap.

esharp · Post by **esharp** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:43 pm

I have a FE Olds Custom flute which is silver plated brass alloy or something. I think its in the key of C but Im not sure. Im trying to figure out all this basic stuff. Im just starting to learn to blow with the body assembled and hit the higher notes. Im real new to it but Im excited

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:21 pm

Since you're new at this, i'd venture to say that it's your blowing and your lip position (embouchure) that isn't up to par yet. If you can find a teacher to help you in this stage, it would save you a lot of time.

g

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:21 pm

If your Es are sharp, they become Fs.

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 8:44 pm

The following is how an ex-geologist thinks about tuning with regard to the Irish flute. It is an excerpt from my Flute Buyer’s Guide.

A Word About Tuning: In western music (as opposed to world music) the octave is divided into twelve notes or half tones. Although it is contrary to what a musically sensitive person hears, to simplify the tuning of instruments (especially keyboard instruments) it was decided to make the interval between these twelve half-tone notes exactly the same size, with each of the half-tone intervals being further broken down into 100 units or cents. Therefore, the octave is divided into 1200 cents, with half-tone intervals being 100 cents and whole-tone intervals being 200 cents. This system of intonation is called equal-temperment, and it is the standard for all electronic tuners, except for the more expensive tuners that allow tuning to the exact frequency.

Human beings have an innate sense of relationship, both visually and aurally. For example, without using any measuring devices we are able to divide a pie into eight equal pieces. Similarly, with regard to music we can sense certain basic musical intervals in the octave. It turns out that the basic intervals that we sense are related to rational numbers or fractions. The simplest relationship is the octave interval (twice the frequency) or 2:1 ratio. The perfect fifth interval has a ratio of 3:2, and the fourth interval has a ration of 4:3. As the integers become larger, it becomes more difficult to sense the interval. For example, the interval of a seventh is 15:8. A system of intonation for intervals arrived at in this fashion is called Just intonation. However, with Just intonation the intervals are not all the same size, and in the past this caused many technical problems in tuning, so this system was abandoned in favor of equal-temperment..

Our current equal-temperment system of intonation is obviously convenient, but this convenience has been bought at a price. The price is that the scale doesn’t sound right to a musically sensitive person. For example, it is nearly impossible for a musician to tune a piano, because the “correct” notes don’t sound exactly right. In fact, three of the eight notes in a one-octave diatonic, equal-temperment scale vary between 14 and 19 cents from the same notes in the musician’s scale of Just intonation. Also, as an orchestra tunes by ear to an A440 pitch on the oboe, the string section tunes their instruments by ear (no tuners) by listening for perfect fifths between the strings, and somehow the whole orchestra comes together and sounds in-tune to the listener. But actually there are many variations in pitch that are not perceived by the listener. Because of variations in attack strength and embouchure, the side-blown flute is especially vulnerable to frequency fluctuations, and frequency fluctuations up to 4 per cent have been observed, even among concert musicians. I can play my Irish flute in front of an electronic tuner and have the needle swing from 20 cents below to 20 cents above standard pitch just by the way I blow and the way I shape my lips (embouchure).

And lastly, quoting from the classic book “Music, Sound, and Sensation” by Fritz Winckel: “Although completely pure intonation is most difficult on the flute, it is also of least importance, for the (flute) tone is poor in overtone content, and a slight distuning can have a positive equalizing effect.” In other words it may be a good thing to be slightly off-pitch. And that is my main thesis and purpose for writing the above comments about tuning. I believe that some people have unreasonable expectations about pitch and intonation. They think that their $20 electronic tuner set to equal-temperment is the gold standard and that any variation from “dead-on” pitch accuracy is not acceptable. To the contrary, my attitude with regard to flute performance is to lay perfectionism aside and accept some variations in intonation as inescapable and perhaps even a good thing.

Best wishes and happy fluting (give or take a few cents here and there)

clark · Post by **clark** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 10:31 pm

looks like Im flat about 45 cent. Thats pretty far out. I see the adjust in the head joint but Im not sure how to effect it after I unscrew the cap.

E#,

I was concerned when I read that you saw the adjust in the head joint after unscrewing the cap. It sounds like you are talking about the cork and that you are unscrewing the cap at the head of the head joint. This is not how you tune the flute. It affects the internal tuning of the instrument (upper and lower registers in tune with each other). You tune the whole thing flatter by pulling the head joint out a little and make it sharper by pushing it in a little.

Clark

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 11:07 pm

As has been previously said, a common misconception is that you can change the pitch of a flute by adjusting the tuning cork in the headjoint. The only way to change the fundamental pitch of a flute is to change the length of the distance between the blow hole and the end of the flute ( or to the exhaust ports in an 8-hole flute). This change can be made at the joint between the head joint and the flute body. Moving the tuning cork will only adjust the intonation of the flute. Intonation means that the flute is in tune with itself. For example, if the tuning cork is set correctly. the fundamental, first octave, and second octave D should be in tune with the tuner. If not, you need to adjust the tuning cork.

esharp · Post by **esharp** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 10:04 am

Gentlemen, I must say thank you for taking time to give me insight into the flute. I have learned that I should be aware that all three pieces of my flute should be "smack" together and that I can tune from the head. Ill worry about intonation some other year. I am grateful for your willingness and generousity. Thank you. Ill be back! Oh, and esharp was merely an attempt to be clever.

bang · Post by **bang** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 10:17 am

a quick addenda to Doug's rap on temperament: while it's true that equal temperament is a compromise, it's also true that it is *the* compromise used by many other instruments. when playing w/ guitar/accordian/piano/etc we need to be able to play in equal tempered tuning or it sounds pretty awful. (i guess flute players sometimes have a bad reputation in this regard.)

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 10:26 am

Basically, tuning is always a compromise. Orchestral flute players speak of a common situation where the flute holds the top note in the harmony, while the rest of the orchestra changes "chords" under it. In this situation, the flute player can't just hold that note steady, but must make small corrections to continue to sound in tune in each harmonic context. When playing with something that's strictly fixed pitch, like a piano, you look for the sweet spot that sounds as good as possible.

Moving the cork to compensate for personal style of playing is an important skill to have, but it's something you can develop only after you're sure of the fundamentals of how to play a flute in tune. Cork adjustments are typically in the order of 1.5mm or less.

If this is a very old flute, there's a chance that it's in lower pitch, for example, A=435 instead of A=440Hz.

Again, in these initial stages, a teacher would save you a lot of time. Other than that, you have to be patient. It seems horrible in the beginning, and then suddenly your lips learn and it "clicks".

g

Cathy Wilde · Post by **Cathy Wilde** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 10:37 am

Doug, that was absolutely fascinating! Thank you!

For me, it's those out-of-sync sonorities and timbres that are crazy-making -- it seems like five people can all tune to the A, but still sound just plain wrong together. (Of course being a flute player I'm always tuning from note to note with my lip, so maybe I'm more aware of this)

Is that sort of what relative tuning's about?

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 1:45 pm

When I first started making Irish flutes from PVC pipe, in my ignorance, I had a problem with tuning. I got the fundamental pitch for the flute from a digital reference, but I used my ear to set the intervals in the flute. If it sounded good to me, that is where I put the finger holes. Needless to say, I kept getting comments from customers that my flutes were not in tune with their tuners. Now, I have learned to use a tuner to set the notes of the scale, whether or not the notes sound good to me, and most people are satisfied with the tuning. After all, there is a convention, and just like driving on the highway, we have to agree to certain rules if there is any hope for us to play music together.

Not long ago there was a thread that dealt with the Indian bansuri bamboo flute. I remember reading the bansuri flute was tuned using Just intonation. I assume that accompanying fretted string instruments are going to need to retune for each different key that is played. That is one of the advantages of non-fretted string instruments, like the violin or the oud, in that the performer is able to play any note that they can hear, just like you can do with the human voice if you have a good ear. But please don’t ask for a sound clip of a perfectly Just scale using my vocal technique. My cat will run out of the room.

To try to answer the question that was posed, it seems like I read somewhere that "relative tuning" was a special tuning that you used when you were playing with relatives. It was getting late at night, and I may have read that incorrectly. However, unless someone thinks that they have a better answer, I'm sticking with mine.

bang · Post by **bang** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 2:10 pm

Doug_Tipple wrote:Not long ago there was a thread that dealt with the Indian bansuri bamboo flute. I remember reading the bansuri flute was tuned using Just intonation. I assume that accompanying fretted string instruments are going to need to retune for each different key that is played.

fixed frets, a la guitar or tenor banjo, are pretty hard to tune. :-) and i can just imagine the looks from the button accordian players. :-)

AFAIK, Indian classical music is largely solo "lead" melodic + percussion + unfretted drone strings. fretted melodic instruments like the sitar are equipped w/ moveable frets and tuned to a wide variety of perfect intervals that go beyond the 12 western just intervals.

there's a fascinating chart in the back of Bart Hopkin's book on woodwind making, _Air Columns and Toneholes_, that shows equal vs just vs a few Indian raga tunings vs blues & a couple of other tuning systems. fascinating stuff & a highly recommended book even if you don't intend to make flutes.