Embouchure Holes

[daiv]

Price doesn't have much to do with shape of the embouchure hole, but it sure does affect the sound and response.

I don't quite agree wtih that. I don't know that I have ever played a flute with a more pleasing sound than my Folk Flute. And I've tried a few of the expensive ones. Not that I can do any of them justice, but man that Folk Flute is an amazing thing.

they were referring to boehm flutes in this case.

there is a lot more variance in price in quality in wooden flutes, as many makers are hobbyists and don't intend to make a lot of money.

[peeplj]

With all respect to everyone, Dana is someone you should listen to.

I do.

--James

[Doug_Tipple]

With all respect to everyone, Dana is someone you should listen to.

I do.

--James

So do I, James. I was only joking when I took Dana comments as they were written. I think that what she meant to say was that the shape of the embouchure hole (and not price alone) has a lot to do with the sound and response of a flute.

[Dana]

With all respect to everyone, Dana is someone you should listen to.

I do.

Awr, shucks.

I think I meant that yes, the shape of the embouchure hole does affect the sound and response, along with the level (entry vs. artist quality) of flute. However, I wouldn't say that the actual shape of the embouchure hole (round vs. oval vs. squared) depends on the price level in Boehm flutes.

There's been a trend toward more squared embouchures in recent years, but I think we're now headed away from that trend, which is a good thing in my opinion. I've never liked extremely squared-off embouchures. (On the other hand, I don't know how you Baroque flutists play those tiny little round embouchures).

Dana

[talasiga]

With all respect to everyone, Dana is someone you should listen to.

I do.

--James

Hmm, what I heard when

I find that with Boehm flutes, so-called student models tend towards the round holes, while upscale flutes tend toward the oval. Is that too much of a generalization?

Yup. Most Boehm embouchures are oval to rounded rectangle. Price doesn't have much to do with shape of the embouchure hole, but it sure does affect the sound and response.

Dana

is a challenge to jemtheflute's assertion that standard Boehm flute embouchure is rectangular only.

Remember jemtheflute? He's the poster that pointed out to Cubitt that his terminology is wrong if he says (as he did) that he plays an oval embouchure Boehm flute. Jem's logic seemed to be that, as the standard is rectangular Cubitt's description was wrong.

From what Dana is saying it is obvious that there are a variety of Boehm flute mouth holes from oval to rounded rectangle. Of course that doesn't mean that the standard isn't as jemthflute is proposing BUT it doesn't mean that everything is covered by the standard. A standard is just that - a predominance that acts as a benchmark. It does not exclude other types.

Therefore if Cubitt talks of an oval mouth hole it is not useful to immediately conclude his terminology is wrong just becuase your perception of the standard is that it is not oval. Even if it does not fit the standard it does not follow that it does not exist. Its best to ask for clarification rather than launching on a regurgitaion of half digested readings of European flute history.

[Denny]

I'd like to thank Cubitt for starting this wonderful thread.

hint: next time get 'em to agree that there should be one first


oh, dear....they look so alike

[Doug_Tipple]

I'd like to thank Cork for starting this wonderful thread.

hint: next time get 'em to agree that there should be one first

Where is Cork, anyway?
Tally Ho!

[Denny]

prob'ly slipped out the end

[jiminos]

i don't know squat about embouchures... and since this thread appears to have been horribly hi-jacked .....

while i don't know squat about embouchures, i can see with little or no problem whatsoever that talasiga is not one who, as he asserted on another thread, enjoys discussion. talasiga blatantly and obviously is taking pleasure in taking shots at jem and, it seems, anybody else not in accord with him. you are not looking for pedantics or discussion from what i can see. you are yanking people trying to get arguments. you were rude in the extreme in another thread toward not only jem but other posters, and i see the same thing here....

simply rude, talasiga. rude.

btw... the rules governing the definitions of words and their usages strongly supports jem's position regarding the issues you were "discussing" on the other thread..... yank on that.


i apologize for further disrupting this thread.... you can have it back now, cubitt... i beg your indulgence.

be well,
jim

[Dana]

H'mmmmph. I wanna fight. Anyone care to step outside?

[Denny]

yeah! sure kid!

ah, I'll be right there :roll:

[jemtheflute]

My digestion is fine, thankyou, Talasiga, and I never regurgitate. Dyspepsia is not my problem.

I have re-read Cubitt's original post as well as the one I responded to above, and I stand by what I said (oh, and I never told him or anyone else they were "wrong"). He referred to "round" and "oval" on Boehm - and my choice of wording did invite, though not explicitly, a clarification (that hasn't been forthcoming). I think it is perfectly legitimate to refer to the rectangle with small rounded corners as "standard" (which word I actually and obviously used exactly in the sense you advocate above!) on Boehm as it is what the man himself used and, with subtle variations, has remained by far the most common shape on Boehm and Boehm derived flutes of all grades of production up to the present. The main exceptions I dealt with previously.

So, what did Cubitt mean by "round" - which most of us would understand as meaning "circular" or very close to that, as seen on Renaissance, Baroque and many ethnic flutes, but virtually never on Boehm ones of any period? I suspect, without wishing to put words into Cubitt's mouth, that he uses "round" to signify "elliptical" (commonly termed "oval") and "oval" for the commonest "rectangle with rounded corners". Others have taken him to be using the terms in their more conventional usages.

My previous contribution was never about pedantry or "correctness" for its own sake - I had quite specifically perceived in this thread a highly probable mis-communication, with different posters meaning different things by the same terms, to the extent that the thread was ceasing to make sense and was at significantly crossed purposes: it was about clarification and functional communication.

I admit my sentence structures and syntax are often over-complicated, but I think their meaning is usually clear to the careful reader and can at least be worked out logically with a little patience. I suggest, Talasiga, you re-read my previous post as you have clearly failed to interpret me accurately in several respects and have also misunderstood or misrepresented things other posters have written. I do try not to look askance on people who not only persistently and wilfully misread carefully chosen words but also pervasively neologise and also mis-use extant vocabulary that they apparently do not understand.

[Terry McGee]

Heh heh, what you guys would give for what's sitting on my desk right now (pictured):




One of my acoustical gurus, Prof Neville Fletcher, had this made up some years ago for the edification of his students.

You can see three heads, made to fit a standard Boehm flute. One has the standard Boehm head bore, one is perfectly cylindrical and one has a more extreme taper. So, these illustrate to the player the need for the right taper - both the cylindrical head and the extreme taper head resulting in pretty sad tuning.

Secondly, the heads come with a rotating embouchure sleeve. All of the heads have the usual "rounded rectangle" embouchure holes available, in a range of sizes. The standard taper head also has a second embouchure sleeve offering circular holes. Neville was interested at the time (20 or 30 years ago) in modern rectangular holes and circular baroque holes - no-one in the world of acoustics then would have been interested in the 19th century elliptical hole. How times have changed!

So, ignoring the cylindrical and extreme taper heads for now, we have these options available for your delectation:
- circular, 8, 10 & 12mm holes, straight bored
- rounded rectangular, 10.6 x 12.6; 10.9 x 12.6 & 11.9 x13, undercut

I guess some day I should get to and make a set of elliptical holes to complete the set for our purposes. I'd probably do it for a cylindrical head that could fit a conical body though.

I know it's not as good as being here, but if anyone has a specific query about how any of these heads or embouchures work on a Boehm flute, I'll try to answer it.

I'm interested though in the question that seems to be vexing some - what did Cubitt mean by round and oval holes? Is there a choice to be had anymore? I suspect that none are offering perfectly round holes. Are any makers still offering elliptical holes (as made by Rudall Carte, etc in the late 19th, eary 20th centuries)? I would have thought that all modern makers were using a rectangular hole, rounded to varying degrees. With perhaps a Two Semicircle approach being closest to round. But I'd be fascinated to find otherwise!

Getting back (at last, you say!) to Cubitt's original question, the more area of the embouchure, the louder and brighter (all other things being equal). So a more rectangular hole will be louder and brighter than a circular hole of similar diameter. Too small a hole and the flute will be stifled. Too wide a hole and the player will have difficulty with focus. But as others have pointed out, there is as much happening below the surface as above. Undercutting serves different purposes on all the four surfaces of the chimney. The amount of the undercutting matters. The depth of the chimney matters. Whether the chimney wall is straight or curved matters. Both acoustics and aerodynamics are at play. It's hell in there!

Terry

[Doug_Tipple]

Getting back (at last, you say!) to Cubitt's original question, the more area of the embouchure, the louder and brighter (all other things being equal). So a more rectangular hole will be louder and brighter than a circular hole of similar diameter. Too small a hole and the flute will be stifled. Too wide a hole and the player will have difficulty with focus. But as others have pointed out, there is as much happening below the surface as above. Undercutting serves different purposes on all the four surfaces of the chimney. The amount of the undercutting matters. The depth of the chimney matters. Whether the chimney wall is straight or curved matters. Both acoustics and aerodynamics are at play. It's hell in there!

Thank you, Terry, for the photos and informative commentary.

If I can further generalize, embouchure holes with larger areas are ideal for the modern concert flute, where brightness of tone and maximum volume are desirable. Keep in mind that a few flutes players in an orchestra are surrounded by clarinets, oboes, bassoons, french horn, trombones, drums, to name a few. Being heard when the full orchestra is playing is no easy task.

Secondly, I think that embouchure holes with smaller areas are more desirable for Irish flutes. Smaller embouchure holes tend to produce a less bright and more complex tone, a desirable tonal quality of an Irish flute. Also, smaller embouchure holes take less air to fill, so it is possible to play longer passages with one breath, again an ideal quality for ITM players.

I recently did an experiment with my cylindrical-bore pvc flutes. I made two nearly identical flutes, one with a circular embouchure hole of about 10 mm in diameter, and the other with a larger oval embouchure. I was really excited about the larger oval hole, thinking that it was louder and an improvement over the circular hole that I had been using for years. Both of these flutes were taken to a session in California, and the reports back to me indicated that all of the good players who tried both flutes side-by-side actually preferred the smaller round embouchure hole.

On the other hand, just this month I made a flute for a musician to be used in a Broadway show. He returned it two me with the instructions that it needed to be louder. He also sent me a bamboo flute made by Patrick Olwell to indicate what kind of embouchure that he wanted. Patrick's embouchure was a large oval of about 12 x 11 mm with significant undercutting on the sides and back of the embouchure hole for the E bamboo flute. I duplicated this embouchure on my pvc flute, and my customer was pleased with the increased volume of the flute. However, the flute took a lot of air to blow (partially because of the 20 mm bore diameter of my flutes), and I doubt that it would be desirable as an Irish flute, but I may be wrong about that.

[Liney Bear]

Talasiga has been on my list of people to ignore since the years I browsed the forum before joining. Pompous, argumentative, and highly ignore-able. I don't know why anyone would engage his posts and feed his narcissism in the first place.

Jem, on the other hand, is a gentleman.