material... true or false?

[Cathy Wilde]

I tried to play a concrete flute once. OK, in reality it was a matter of smashing my mouth into a concrete culvert when falling off my bicycle ... it sounded terrible.

[cadancer]

I just like wood. I guess I am simply lucky that you can make a flute out of it.

...john

[Nelson]

Rama, how do you know the concrete story is invalid. Have you done research on this or are you just a ramar manger? Have you done spectrial analysis and established the Fourier components of the sound from concrete flutes? Have you done mathamaticanal analysis of the behavior of flutes as in http://www.flutephysics.com Where did you get your degree in acustical physics? If you hold a fork in your hand over your plate at dinner and let lose of it, wil it go up or down? You can say up all you want but if you try it you will find that the fork will go down and hit the plate every time. This, like the sound made by flutes is straight forward simple Newtonian physics.

[CranberryDog]

laughter ...

[cadancer]

...like the sound made by flutes is straight forward simple Newtonian physics.

Actually, the sound is the sound. Physics is just a tool used to *describe* what is happening. The flute doesn't wait around to find out what Newton thinks before sounding like a flute.



...john

[Terry McGee]

nope again, as far as i can tell coltman's experiment did not involve a "concrete flute".
from my understanding, a wooden "tube" was compared to a copper "tube" and a silver "tube", no fingerholes, same sounding length of tubes. and only one note (g4) was played on the three seperate tubes.

Ah, I think I can bring some light to this. John Coltman (who is still alive, in his 90's and is as bright as a button) put quite a bit of effort into trying to convince Boehm flute players that they were wasting their money buying flutes of increasingly expensive materials. One of his experiments is the one Rama quotes above. From memory, John mounted three tubes of differing materials between two wooden plates, fitted with protruding handles, so that the blindfolded player could rotate the bundle and play any of them, without knowing which one they had selected. Each tube was fitted with a plastic embouchure cast from the same mould. It's probably fair to say that he proved successfully with this that tubes of different metals will not produce sounds sufficiently different for even the player to perceive. I've seen this paper (probably have a copy "somewhere") so I suspect this was given to a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, or some such.

But the Scientific American story was of a different presentation to this. I suspect (but don't know) that this was a presentation to a more popular audience rather than an acousticians group. National Flute Association, or something similar. A player (I don't know if that was John), on stage behind a curtain played three flutes - from memory made of cedar, concrete and something else - and the audience was invited to identify them. They coudn't. I think John successfully proved that an audience is incapable of determining the material from which a flute is made. I can't remember it those flutes had a range of tones available. I imagine the player had little difficulty in telling.

Good stuff, and I'd agree with John that, providing the same care and skill was used in constructing flutes of different metals, it's unlikely that anyone would be able to tell the difference between them. In my Flute Myths Exploded extract quoted earlier, I'm eager to point out that John's experiments don't fully apply to the situation we are in. His various metals are still fine containers for air. Our various materials are not equally fine. I would expect an experienced player to be able to tell the difference between the same flute made in delrin, blackwood, boxwood and a lighter wood. I wouldn't necessarily expect the audience to. I would expect the player to identify the delrin as the most efficient (responsive) of the flutes, but not necessarily the one they liked most.

It would be a most noble experiment to carry out at Boxwood, or some other place where woodenflute folk gather.

Perhaps they would rename the festival Delrin?

Terry

[rama]

i can't seem to find anything in coltman's archive describing concrete flute experiements or demonstratons....strange since there is a ton of other stuff (minutia) to be found there.

however i did find a description of the event terry mentions on another website. from my reading of it: i believe it was not actually a concrete flute per se, but a tube that was lined with a some form of cement such that the it was the only "...material that enclosed the air column.." (this is how it is worded, ...all other aspects of the two 'alleged' flutes being identical). so for example, take a rudall and rose, (or maybe in coltman's case a cherrywood tube) pour some contact cement (glue) down the bore, smooth it out a bit to a very fine thin coat, get a workable dimension, and sound one note. and you have a concrete flute accordingly.

so once again i say, to date, there is no concrete flute. i obviously could be wrong but i haven't seen the evidence to the contrary. the closest thing being cathy wilde's story.

[scheky]

This claim is supported by the concrete flute story from
Scientific American.

the concrete flute story is invalid, contrary to popular belief.

Care to elaborate what makes it invalid?

[chas]

One thing I think we can all agree on: concrete chews up gun drills and reamers like nobody's business.

[Jack Bradshaw]

so once again i say, to date, there is no concrete flute. i obviously could be wrong but i haven't seen the evidence to the contrary. the closest thing being cathy wilde's story.

True enough (sadly )...I have lots of ceramic flutes though...they play nice

[peeplj]

If, as one post suggested, they used a plastic headjoint with a concrete body, then they didn't build a concrete flute; they build a concrete tube.

As already pointed out, no part of the flute has more influence on its total sound than the headjoint.

A plastic headjoint with a concrete body would play like a plastic flute.

If you want to know how a concrete flute really plays, the headjoint would have to be concrete too.

I think you'd find it wouldn't play well at all (if at all).

--James

[rama]

if jack b. could cast a mold, we'd be in business. mass production: just pour in concrete, let it cure overnight, and presto instant concrete flute. we could pump them out faster than the pakistani flutemakers!

[chas]

If, as one post suggested, they used a plastic headjoint with a concrete body, then they didn't build a concrete flute; they build a concrete tube.

As already pointed out, no part of the flute has more influence on its total sound than the headjoint.

And I suspect this was not a high-end headjoint by a Peter Noy or Patrick Olwell or Miramatsu or Powell, in which case any details of the flute body would make even less difference.

[pancelticpiper]

Nancy Toff, in The Flute Book, writes:
"Almost nothing can start an argument among flutists faster than a discussion of the relative merits of various materials for constructing flutes...There are several aspects to this issue: the effect of the material on responsiveness (perceptible only to the player); its effect on tone quality (evident to both player and listener); and the more concrete (no pun intended) questions of ease of fabrication, durability, and dimensional stability. Added to these is the long arm of tradition, a powerful force in the musical world and one that in this case carries strong nationalistic overtones. The scientific arguments are too lengthy and technical to be of much interest or assistance to the flutist...Among players, not surprisingly, the choices between materials are largely unscientific, a matter of tradition and intangible personal preference...often perceptible only to the player...I participated in a trial of two Lamberson flutes, one gold, one sterling silver, a scene undoubtedly repeated at many times in many places. With backs turned, a group of (flute) students listened to our teacher alternate between the two instruments, noting which one we thought we had heard. Our accuracy record was notably poor...When we each played the two instruments ourselves, however, we had strong personal preferences."
I myself have owned and played Irish flutes in boxwood (1830), blackwood (modern), and cocus (1860), and each material seems to have its own properties. At a flute convention I tried a number of wood headjoints on the same silver (Boehm) body and once again each type of wood had special properties, though as Ms Toff points out these may be much more apparent to the player than to the listener.

[Jon C.]

if jack b. could cast a mold, we'd be in business. mass production: just pour in concrete, let it cure overnight, and presto instant concrete flute. we could pump them out faster than the pakistani flutemakers!

Ya Jack, when is my concrete flute going to be finished?