Does humidty effect the pitch of a Flute?

Ben Shaffer · Post by **Ben Shaffer** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 5:09 pm

My Flute is spot on A440 for low A, but the high A is consistently sharp almost 20 to 25 cents. I've rolled the Flute embouchure, taped one of the holes, moved the cork,pulled out the tenon, but still have this issue to a large degree. When played for some time I usually need to pull out the MDT tenon about 4mm to bring the low A back into pitch, but the high A still is very sharp.
Today in North Carolina we've had a bunch of rain and the humidity level is up around 55% in the house , whereas it is normally 45%. The high A is now only about 8 cents sharp. The question then will high humidity flatten the pitch of a Flute to some degree? It sure seems to be the case considering no change in any other varibles
Ben Shaffer

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 6:32 pm

I suspect your head cork may be out of position.

As to the humidity, I've not personally found that it makes much of a difference in intonation, but it can definitely alter the response of the instrument.

Wooden flutes in particular don't seem to play their best either when the air is extremely dry or extremely wet.

I'll admit that this is very subjective on my part, and I can't prove it--and wouldn't know how to start. It's not limited to flutes, either: my old wooden recorders also don't play their best when it's either very dry or very wet.

--James

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 7:14 pm

I don't know whether humidity affects the tone of a flute, but, evidently, the color of the flute does. It's amazing what you can learn when you read the ebay ads. The seller mentions that "the Superb Pink finish helps to give this flute a much warmer sound, allowing for a rich tone with enough variance to be expressive with your music". I didn't know that.
ebay ad

Jack Bradshaw · Post by **Jack Bradshaw** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:50 am

Doug_Tipple wrote:I don't know whether humidity affects the tone of a flute, but, evidently, the color of the flute does. It's amazing what you can learn when you read the ebay ads. The seller mentions that "the Superb Pink finish helps to give this flute a much warmer sound, allowing for a rich tone with enough variance to be expressive with your music". I didn't know that.
ebay ad

Translation: The metal is so thin that it needs a thick layer of varnish to make it stiff enough to play....

Humidity per se has a slight sharpening effect.......the flattening might be due to a lower temperature accompanying the change in (relative) humidity............

talasiga · Post by **talasiga** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 4:51 am

my blackwood bodied Seery consistently reads sharper in hot dry weather and cold dry weather and flatter (closer to concert pitch) in what we fancifully term "irish weather" down under, namely, drizzly, cool or misty weather.

I raised this issue in Talasiga's Irish Flute topic some time ago if you're interested.

Jack Bradshaw · Post by **Jack Bradshaw** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 2:46 pm

Changing the humidity from 0% to 100% increases velocity of sound by 0.37%.....ie. sharpens by 6.4 cents....

Expansion or contraction of the flute is another matter ........

Edit: Thinking about it, increased wall losses would have a flattening effect. Funny though, the viscosity and thermal conductivity of air both decrease w/ humidity so the increased loss would have to come from a change in the bore surface..humidifying the wood surface or maybe condensation....be interesting to compare to a metal flute sometime....

Ben Shaffer · Post by **Ben Shaffer** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 6:26 pm

Jack and Talis,
this is one of those topics that seem to defy a definitive answer.
Jack as you point out humidity increase ultimately sharpens a note. ie speed of sound, but with humidity increase does the bore not expand and will a narrow bore not flatten a note?. I know since I've had an increase in humidity in my town, my notes have flattened, but I also wonder if I'm playing more focused and down into the chimney which of course flattens a note. Hey, but why lose any sleep on this subject, all I know is my Flute is sounding great:D,
but I'll see how I sound at the next session:o
Ben S

Carey · Post by **Carey** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 7:57 pm

Relative to playing the flute I can't picture a change in relative humidity being very noticable to the wood of the flute. Now a goatskin is another thing altogether.

By the way, when I first saw the title of this thread for a moment I thought it said "Does humility effect the pitch of a Flute?"

Which of course it does.

Jack Bradshaw · Post by **Jack Bradshaw** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 7:59 pm

Certainly a much bigger effect !