"Mixed Marriages"

[Aanvil]

I married a Japanese girl.

Does that count?

The music is beautiful too... er... um... most of the time, anyway.

[m31]

Yeah, isolation of experimental variables, i.e., flute materials, dimensions, and variability in air stream, etc. is an age old problem. Wood in itself is unlikely to be acoustically isotropic, yielding slightly different resonant qualities depending on the grain, moisture content, finishes/oil or any other black magic treatments the maker may have subjected it to.

Ooh, I just found this in googling a fourier/spectral analysis of the flute:
http://www.tuftl.tufts.edu/MIE/research ... usions.htm

Edit: It seems flute player and distance from the flute makes the biggest difference, assuming the microphone resembles anything like an ear drum.

[monkey587]

I have four different headjoints that all fit my flute. The original, two Jon Cs, and one from a baroque flute restored by Daniel Deitch, who recut the embouchure fairly big and round. The last one, I just discovered will fit last night. It's the only one that sounds drastically different, and it's suddenly my favorite. That could change tomorrow, though. So, the more the merrier.

[Gunslinger]

No way, Tintin. You're just downright wrong with your theories.

There's just no way any body cavities resonations can affect the sound of flute or whistle. Think about it: the player only produces air stream and shapes and directs it and that's all. After the air has escaped from player's lips, it's gone. There's nothing resonating in the player's body cavities or at least should not be with an exception if the player has been eating beans or something like that and even that kind of air resonance, though it may be audible, has no effect on the sound of the flute.

Any questions?

[tin tin]

Well, they're not "my theories," although personal experience supports them. Like I said, try playing with a cold. Try throat tuning. Try changing tongue position. Try changing the shape of your mouth cavity while playing. All have an effect on tone. The player begins to shape the tone before the airstream even hits the flute. Despite your insinuation, I'm not talking out of my a**. Reading a variety of pedagogical material will make clear that these are not my ideas and that they have legitimate scientific and experiential basis.
Here are some related comments by Robert Dick (he taught at Boxwood a few years ago), who's is a cutting edge (and deeply scientifically informed) virtuoso and innovator:
http://www.larrykrantz.com/rdick.htm#ton

[Gunslinger]

Hello, Tintin.

You still don't have me convinced and I still think what you're telling are just theories. OK, not "your theories", but theories anyway. And theory remains a theory until it can be proven.

I think what you and this Robert Dick guy came up with equals that the player starts shaping the airstream even before lips come into action and that is where different vowels meaning basically different tongue positions have an effect.

But what is the mechanism that should trasport the air resonance in the tube to your mouth cavity (and if the resonance could enter there, why it should stop at throat and not enter lungs also? It's an open air channel anyway all the way down there.)? The answer is there is not such a mechanism.

If you can find something like scientific evidence about that I may have to reconsider my views but for now this where I stand!

Br,
Heikki Petäjistö

PS. I agree that with reeds and brasses this might be different because of totally different sound production.

[m31]

I lack the skills to effect tonal or pitch variation using throat or oral cavity manipulation but apparently this effect is well documented. For example, in addition to Tintin's reference:

http://digitalcommons.lib.ttu.edu/disse ... AI9610833/

Other examples of pitch/ tuning effects via oral cavity manipulation:
- saxophone players and altissimo (above the normal range playing)
- blues harmonica / note forward and backward note bending
- portamento on the clarinet
- etc.

Just an FYI, no theory can ever be "proven". Proof is a state of mind where the slightest doubt is absent. OTOH scientific theories are supported by observations, the kind that are reliable, repeatible and verifiable. Even then, a great number of supporting observations does not banish all doubt. The best theories still have holes. IOW, scientific evidence (i.e., observations) is not the same as proof.

[TheSpoonMan]

blues harmonica / note forward and backward note bending

I know that with harmonica, bending the note means changing the part of the reed that your breath hits, which changes the pitch somehow. Could it work in a similar way with flute?

[Gunslinger]

Terve, m31!

Hey, this is getting more and more interesting, a real discussion!

I already agreed that reed instruments are totally different from flutes from sound production point of view. With clarinet and sax the sound generator (reed) is actually in your mouth causing pressure changes to your mouth as well as into the tube.

Too bad that the document you linked was not free as a whole. Anyway, I read the first 24 pages and found nothing but air stream control hints. All I found about body cavity resonance were merely opinions.

Maybe you understand better what I mean when I tell that the resonance does not enter oral cavities if you study this link.
http://www.tinwhistles.us/fipple.htm
It is about a whistle/recorder, but the analogy is obvious. The air stream (well directed and formed or not) leaves the player, hopefully hits the blade (or what is it called w/ flutes), causes pressure changes near the blade area that cause resonance in the tube and that products the sound. The air stream remains constant.

You could actually test this by blowing a whistle with a huge balloon. That should be equal to large oral cavity and the balloon should resonate like a "muhfuh" if this throat tuning mumbo jumbo is any true, but it does not. Think about that!

[tin tin]

Again, Gunslinger, I suggest that you give the techniques I listed a try (or learn them, as you don't yet seem familiar with them). Use your own tone production apparatus, not a balloon. If you're not keen on learning new techniques, listen to how your tone is affected next time you have a cold. Sure, the sinuses aren't a major component of flute tone (the throat and mouth having a much more pronounced effect), but being stuffed up still impacts tone quality.
This stuff is not mumbo jumbo or hocus pocus. These ideas are the foundation for understanding and achieving the best results in tone production (in the classical flute world, at least, although the techniques have nothing to do with musical genre).
There's plenty of reading to be done on the subject, but the ultimate proof is in the doing.

[crookedtune]

...should resonate like a "muhfuh"....

Definition can be found here:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=muhfuh

Seems it's a technical term applicable to flutes that "honk".

[jim stone]

Well, I'm still trying to attach a ballon to a whistle.

The part that I'm not sure I understand:
there's this tiny slit with air coming out of it at terrific
speed, so how is the sound of the flute supposed to
get into the mouth to resonate?

Entirely open minded here. Very interesting ideas.
Will try.

[Lucas]

Well, I'm still trying to attach a ballon to a whistle.

The part that I'm not sure I understand:
there's this tiny slit with air coming out of it at terrific
speed, so how is the sound of the flute supposed to
get into the mouth to resonate?

Entirely open minded here. Very interesting ideas.
Will try.

Jim,

With a balloon attached whistle you will have a difference but that's due to the drop in airspeed and pressure as the balloon empties.
Heikki (Gunslinger) is right of course. The oral cavity has no influence whatsoever on the tone, but this cannot not be proven. Why? Just try opening your mouth without moving your lips. You simply cannot 'shape' the airstream without use of the lips. But this also means that the air will hit the edge of the mouthhole at a slightly different angle and with a slightly different speed, hence the difference in tone.

As usual, just an opinion that can be discussed. I don't claim to be an expert.

Luc

[GaryKelly]

It's a bit mysterious and a subject of much controversy.

Still I think.... <snip>

my desperate guess is that <snip>

'scientific experiments'
alleging to show the contrary....you name it.

Yep, the "blind faith" versus scientific evidence controversy has raged for decades. Interesting use of the word "alleging" their Jim. After all, why let science interfere with desperate guesses and your personal beliefs?

Well, they're not "my theories," although personal experience supports them. Like I said, try playing with a cold. Try throat tuning. Try changing tongue position. Try changing the shape of your mouth cavity while playing. All have an effect on tone.

All of these things have an effect on the *player's* perception of tone, because the eustachian tube connects your ear to your pharynx (back of the neck and throat). Everything you've described has a direct effect only on the player's ear, and your "personal experience" substantiates that.

What needs to be 'proved' in order for this theory to gain acceptance is that remote listeners can hear the effects as markedly or as dramatically as the player when he/she alters the "mouth cavity." Since there is no mechanism linking the oral cavity *behind* the airstream to the tone generated *forward* of the airstream (as Gunslinger has said), that's going to be the difficult.

[johnkerr]

If you're not keen on learning new techniques, listen to how your tone is affected next time you have a cold. Sure, the sinuses aren't a major component of flute tone (the throat and mouth having a much more pronounced effect), but being stuffed up still impacts tone quality.

I think every flute player is well aware that having a cold results in loss of tone quality. But I would submit that the reason for this is not because the sinus cavities are stuffed up and not providing resonance for the tone that they would normally be providing if the player wasn't stuffed up. In dealing with flute tone, it's both a blessing and a curse that the player's own perception of the tone quality is not the same as the perception of the tone quality that a listener will have. It's a curse because every time we think we're producing great tone, it's not really as great as we think it is. But it's a blessing because when we think our tone really sucks, it's not as bad as we think it is. Why is this? Because what's going on inside the head cavities DOES have a huge effect on how we hear our own tone. If there's good resonance because our sinus cavities are empty, we'll think we sound great. If there's no resonance because we're all stuffed up, we'll think we sound bad. But to the listener, we sound basically the same.

Don't believe me? Try this experiment, which admittedly cannot be done overnight. Record yourself playing your favorite tune, and sock the recording away, labeled with nothing other than the tune name. Then, some time later, make another recording of yourself playing the same tune under the same recording conditions, with only one difference. If you had a cold when you did the first recording, do the second one on a day you're feeling great. If you were in great form the day of the first recording, do the second one when you have a muhfuh of a cold. Then wait several months, long enough for you to forget any specifics about either of the recording sessions (like "I really screwed up that cran the first time I recorded this" and such things that would enable you to tell which recording is which). Have a friend play them back to you in a random order, and see if you can pick out which recording is which based on tone quality alone. I'm betting you won't be able to.

If having a cold does have any diminishing effect on tone quality (and in reality it does, although again the effect is much more noticeable to the player than to the listener), the reason is not because the sinus cavities are clogged and unable to provide resonance, but rather because a head cold will deaden the lip muscles, causing embouchure problems, and also make the player tired, which will have deleterious effects on all aspects of playing. The flute is a very physically-demanding instrument to play, which not everybody realizes. It only makes sense that when you're sick you don't play as well as you do when you're healthy.