Lip it up...

[Steve Bliven]

I have a flute with a noticeably flat C# (at least the way I play it). I've been advised to "lip it up" into tune, but I haven't quite figured out how to do that. At least not enough to get it into tune.

So what is/are the technique(s) to raise a note some 30 cents or so?

Thanks and best wishes.

Steve

[benhall.1]

What sort of flute is it? Keyed or keyless? Modern or antique?

[plunk111]

The only way I know is to roll-out a bit. If it's a keyed flute, you might try a combination of venting (but this normally only works to flatten notes). You could also have a maker look at it - some undercutting may cure the problem, too...

Pat

[Steve Bliven]

What sort of flute is it? Keyed or keyless? Modern or antique?

Modern, keyless.

Thanks.

Steve

[benhall.1]

Ah. Right. There was a reason behind my questions. If it had been an antique keyed flute, then there would have been something to be done with keys which might help. With a keyless, I guess there's only one option.

Big caveat: I've only been playing flute for 3 and a half years. My, admittedly inexperienced, answer then:

If you play a constant note and make different adjustments to the flute and to your embouchure, you can get quite a range of pitches out of it. Rolling it in and out will, as already suggested, change the pitch, but not as much, in my opinion, as changing the shape of your embouchure (YMMV). Try really tightening your embouchure, either horizontally by pulling the corners of your lips apart, making your mouth wider, or vertically by really squashing your lips together, or a combination. Then try relaxing your mouth, and making the air hole formed by your lips bigger. Try aiming the air column first up, then down. Do all of these things, whilst trying to maintain the tone of the note, and you should find a fair old variance in the pitch, and quality of sound, you are able to produce. Then try and figure out which one you need.

As a cautionary note, have you got another player to try your flute to see if they also find that the C#s are flat?

[Sillydill]

Hey Steve,

I prefer flutes with a slightly flat C#. Many Modern Makers do this so the Cnat can be fingered OXX OOO.

But blowing a bit harder or slightly rolling the flute out will make it a bit sharper.

Best of Luck!

[an seanduine]

I would tend to agree with what has been said. I would also add, that in my experience, the amount of latitude in 'lipping' a note is also impacted by the size of the embouchure aperture. Some makers will use a larger embouchure aperture to allow greater power and volume, but along with this comes a certain (or more precisely an uncertainty) in intonation. This is where your manipulation of your lips and air pressure will have a little more impact on the intonation. Again, this is in my experience and YMMV.
Again, C# and C are problematic in ITM. Different makers may have different takes on these notes. There is always the 'piper super C and C#' and these notes can require various fingerings and humouring strategies on pipes. I know we are speaking of flutes here, but again the maker's choices may have had an effect here.

Bob

[jemtheflute]

Common enough on keyless flutes - one of the many reasons I'm not keen on them (pace another current thread! ), and yes, that silly obsession with an oxx ooo C nat exacerbates what is an inevitability to at least some degree. (Put on an Eb key and) Set the C# tone-hole for the much better (as in easier to use as well as better in tune/with better tone) oxo ooo(,) cross fingering and it needn't be as flat. That may well be a possible modification. I have done it in the past with some success to a Seery and a better-than-average Pakistani keyless.

[Steve Bliven]

Thanks for the advice — and please keep it coming if there's more to add.

I generally use a OXOXXX for C nat, which works fine on this instrument. After warming up the flute, I still get the C# between 25-30 cents flat (using Flutini). "Squeezing" or "pinching" my embouchure (is that the same as "focusing") can get it to less than 20 cents flat but at this point it's hard to do that regularly, particularly with any sort of speed. Guess this is the next big thing to work on....

Best wishes.

Steve

[Peter Duggan]

Common enough on keyless flutes - one of the many reasons I'm not keen on them (pace another current thread! ), and yes, that silly obsession with an oxx ooo C nat exacerbates what is an inevitability to at least some degree.

Well, I quite like that fingering and don't think it's silly at all, but I also really like the C nat thumb holes on my keyless bodies, which not only give me the choice of usable OXXOOO, OXOXXX and XOOOOO + open thumb Cs, but also venting options for the C#s (with OOOOOO + open thumb now my first choice over OXXXOO for the high C# as well as having a more subtle sharpening effect on the lower OOOOOO when/if felt necessary). But I'd also have to stress here what I've said elsewhere about thumb hole offset being critical (where you're freer to adjust your position more on the open-standing key on a Boehm) and a thumb hole in the wrong place (for the player) being worse than useless!

[jemtheflute]

Well, I quite like that fingering and don't think it's silly at all...

I didn't mean the fingering was silly, Peter - there are instruments it works well on, and if so, use it, fine. I meant the obsession in design terms of providing for that fingering rather than opting for the easier to design for/less compromising oxo xxx and teaching players to use it - with its other advantages in fingering patterns. Or one might say "trying to provide for oxx ooo C nat" because on many flutes/for many makers that indeed leads them to making the C# unacceptably flat. That there are flutes with near-enough C#s and good C nats with oxx ooo shows it can be done (don't ask me how - I'm not a flute maker!), but I've met a good many modern flutes whose makers advocated that "standard Irish" fingering yet their flutes either didn't play best with it (i.e. the standard simple system oxo xxx fingering or another variant was better/preferable) or the C# was way too flat. Much the same is to be found with whistles, IMO, though there oxx xox C nat is more commonly the optimum fingering option. I know this is a bit of a hobby-horse of mine - but with good reason, I believe.

[Peter Duggan]

I didn't mean the fingering was silly, Peter - there are instruments it works well on, and if so, use it, fine. I meant the obsession in design terms of providing for that fingering

Yes, I know, Jem, but was just trying not to use more words than necessary! (And why not try to provide for a fingering you like?)

rather than opting for the easier to design for/less compromising oxo xxx and teaching players to use it - with its other advantages in fingering patterns.

Interested to know why it's less compromising when it's actually marginally sharper than OXXOOO on most flutes and whistles I've tried (could just be the ones I've tried!)... which suggests that the flatter OXXOOO you might get with an in-tune OXOXXX shouldn't be good news for the C# unless there's some other difference in play?

[boyd]

I have had a number of flutes, by various makers, over the past dozen years and all of them seemed out of tune here and there.

I have handed each one to a better (than me) flute player and he blew them all perfectly in tune pretty well straight away.

I realised I needed to adjust what I was doing.

I went off and worked on my embouchure and each time the flute I had came "into" tune with practice. The "in-tune" notes remained good and the "problematic" ones got better once I worked it out.
The journey was painful sometimes.

The only exception so far (ie in tune straight away) was a bespoke American maker's flute.


If you have a really good flute player anywhere near (better still if he/she plays the make of flute that you have) you should get him/her to blow the flute and see if the C# is better.
When I did that sort of thing I remember almost being annoyed when the tuner went green for every note.
It was worthwhile. It was painful.

[JohnB]

I'd agree with Boyd - I found that working on the embouchure improved the out of tune notes that I was playing and for me moving the airstream around rather than rolling the flute worked better. There is a lot good advice on this subject on this forum do a search for embouchure / tone etc.- vist Terry Mcgee's site he gives good advice. There are some interesting videos on youtube of James Galway on intonation.

[Rob Sharer]

Try using this fingering for C#: oox xoo

It may or may not work on your flute, but on some it changes the venting to make it easier to blow C# up to pitch in the first octave. It can also add a pleasant "hairy edge" to the note on airs. Try overblowing along with whatever "lipping up" or other pitch-raising techniques you're investigating; you might find your C# is more malleable with this fingering.



Rob