Jayhawk wrote:Treeshark - with the caveat that this is just my opinion, I think it's because of the chimney depth on a flute versus most recorders or a whistle. The greater the depth of a tone hole the harder it is to truly half-hole a note.
Yes this is what traditional bansuri makers have told me when explaining why they prefer thin walled bamboo for the bansuris. Very well said Jaywahk
Thanks Tal! I'd observed the same thing when making my own flutes out of bamboo, PVC and CPVC, and it was reinforced when I noticed how clear half-holing was on a whistle compared to a flute.
G# is a ghastly note. Indeed, it shares all the same dreadful qualities as Ab. Its presence in a tune should be viewed by any flutist merely as a convenient breathing-spot, but if one simply must play that note, why then it should be played so fleetingly that the ears 'pon which it is inflicted fail to appreciate the full horror of its existence. There is, like much else in Creation, a reason why that note is known as "an Accidental."
"It might be a bit better to tune to one of my fiddle's open strings, like A, rather than asking me for an F#." - Martin Milner
On the strength of rave reviews on this forum, I just purchased a Tipple 8-hole three piece D flute in grey. Half-holing the G# in either register sounds pretty darn good, much better than on my other flute (in rosewood, by an apprentice of Casey Burns from when he was still in Oregon). Of course the holes on the Tipple are quite a bit larger than on my wood flute. In the lower register, xxoxxx works well if I focus the airstream a little more, and xxoxox is dandy up high, even without changing my embouchure.
Jayhawk wrote:The greater the depth of a tone hole the harder it is to truly half-hole a note.
I think the difficulty in obtaining a half-holed note is both dependant on chimney depth and hole diameter, not just chimney depth. Like with a large fifth hole it is quite easy to half-hole a F-nat on a wooden flute with its deeper tone holes compared to a bamboo flute. So the depth of the tone hole needs to be compensated with a much larger hole in order to achieve sufficient venting when half-holing. On a traditional shakuhachi one can still produces half-holed notes on a 11mm wide hole with a chimney-depth of 9mm. The problem with the G# is that the tone hole is usually quite small, because it needs to be higher up in order to be reached. But if you make all holes bigger the G# tone hole can be big enough and it will be easier to get half-holed notes.
Back to Jim's comment about getting A# in the second octave, I've been able to produce a solid cross-fingered note there using XXOXXX or XXOOXX, and blowing in the 5th above the second octave D (could this be properly referred to as the 3rd register as well?), or rather, A. Now, on my Dixon blowing XXXXXX in what should be a high A produces more of a flat high Bb, but this cross fingering brings it in tune, and seems to work on the ward flute that I tried as well.
I got this idea playing the bulgarian kaval, where players commonly use this register. Since we're a bit off topic from the G# at the moment..
Last edited by mcdafydd on Sun Nov 28, 2004 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jayhawk wrote:Thanks Tal! I'd observed the same thing when making my own flutes out of bamboo, PVC and CPVC, and it was reinforced when I noticed how clear half-holing was on a whistle compared to a flute.
Eric
I assume you mean on the scale of a high D tin whistle vs. a low D flute? I guess I should experiment with a 1/2" rather then 3/4" PVC flute..
I used 3/4" PVC for a low D flute, but I also tried CPVC which is much thinner in wall thickness. Wall thickness is primarily what I was talking about.
Ahhh, thanks. hmmm, now I am thinking about taking a trip to the hardware store to look for thin-walled 3/4" metal tubing of some kind. Then just use a PVC stopper glued on the end to make a suitable embrochure hole.
So, chimney depth then refers to the distance (including wall thickness) from the hole to the bottom of the tube, right? Now we're saying that chimney depth, wall thickness, and hole size all make a difference? Cool.. now to figure out exactly how to get all that to work together.
I am sorry, I think I used the word chimney-depth wrongly. The chimney is the part of the flute which raises the lipplate from the flutebody, so chimney-depth (or height) on a simple system flute is the thickness of the wall at the embouchure hole. I should not have called the wallthickness at a tone (finger-) hole chimney-depth, just depth (or height) of tonehole. The chimney is just measured from the outer embouchure edge to the near inner bore edge, not to the bottom of the tube. Sufficient chimney depth is important to get a good tone, to add a lipplate to a bamboo or thinwalled pvc flute will help a lot. If you use a fajardo wedge you can drill the embouchure hole through it thereby increasing the chimney depth. But the embouchure chimney has no bearing on the problem of half-holing and tone-hole sizing I think.
"It might be a bit better to tune to one of my fiddle's open strings, like A, rather than asking me for an F#." - Martin Milner
