Flute fingerings / The Virtual Flute

I know some people are already aware of this amazing website (there was a thread about it back in 2007), but it can't hurt to post again The Virtual Flute:

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/music/flute/virtual/main.html

The most awesome surprise for me was that you can actually plot the acoustic impedance spectrum of the flute for any key combination you can think of. (If "acoustic impedance spectrum" means nothing to you, don't worry about it.)

The academic paper about it is http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09298210601045559

I ran across this because my girlfriend was like "you should write some xenharmonic music for me to play on my flute", but I didn't know what form of notation would be best, and the issue of fingerings came up.

Anyone else have good xenharmonic flute fingering resources? This table of quartertone fingerings seems useful:

http://www.sfz.se/flutetech/06.htm

Even if you don't plan on using actual quartertones, they make the largest bend you need half as small (25 cents instead of 50).

Keenan

Hi Keenan.

It's interesting how each of us favores different parts of one thing; ever since I learned about the existence of the Virtual Flute back in 2002 or so, the first of the three offered facilities there was actually what I was using the least of all -- simply because I never thought I needed such a thing. In contrast, the other two options (i.e. finding alternative fingerings or multiphonic fingerings) have been very valuable to me in a lot of situations.

Please note that flutes can differ remarcably and this is actually not reflected in the Virtual Flute.
For example, the flute acoustics website lets you hear a recording where the flutist modified the standard E4 fingering in such a way that he released his left-hand index finger. While I can clearly hear a dyad like Bb4-E5 on the recording, every flute I've tried it on immediately started sounding like B4-E5 when I used that fingering -- including mine.

Also, for the D5 fingering stripped of the left thumb (which results in a dyad of D5 and a very low C#5), it's important to be aware of how much your headjoint is pushed into your flute and in what angle you turn it towards you or away from you. If it's one of the "extremes", then one of the two tones has a strong resonance and the other one is very weak. If it's somewhere in-between, then you can actually find a spot where you can get both tones sounding together.

Petr

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Petr Parízek <petrparizek2000@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Keenan.
>
> It's interesting how each of us favores different parts of one thing; ever
> since I learned about the existence of the Virtual Flute back in 2002 or so,
> the first of the three offered facilities there was actually what I was
> using the least of all -- simply because I never thought I needed such a
> thing. In contrast, the other two options (i.e. finding alternative
> fingerings or multiphonic fingerings) have been very valuable to me in a lot
> of situations.
>
> Please note that flutes can differ remarcably and this is actually not
> reflected in the Virtual Flute.
> For example, the flute acoustics website lets you hear a recording where the
> flutist modified the standard E4 fingering in such a way that he released
> his left-hand index finger. While I can clearly hear a dyad like Bb4-E5 on
> the recording, every flute I've tried it on immediately started sounding
> like B4-E5 when I used that fingering -- including mine.
>
> Also, for the D5 fingering stripped of the left thumb (which results in a
> dyad of D5 and a very low C#5), it's important to be aware of how much your
> headjoint is pushed into your flute and in what angle you turn it towards
> you or away from you. If it's one of the "extremes", then one of the two
> tones has a strong resonance and the other one is very weak. If it's
> somewhere in-between, then you can actually find a spot where you can get
> both tones sounding together.

Oh, I'm sure. Fortunately my girlfriend is a fan of Robert Dick and has studied from his extended technique books, so she knows about this stuff already.

On the other hand, I'll be damned if I can make any sound other than breath noise to come out of the thing!

I think we're mostly going to use the second feature "input pitch, output fingerings" too. And we're going to use it interactively, like
"Try this one, how easy is that to play? Does it actually produce an Eb +40 cents?"

Keenan

Keenan wrote:

> I think we're mostly going to use the second feature "input pitch, output fingerings" too. And we're going to use it interactively, like
> "Try this one, how easy is that to play? Does it actually produce an Eb +40 cents?"
#1. Were she able to keep her lips and her flute in a constant position allover the playing session (which is physically impossible), then you might test those fingerings that way. Neither can a human voice sing exactly the same pitch twice in a row. While such attempts with a very-well-trained voice can differ by as little as 3 cents, on a standard Boehm flute these differences may vary somewhere between 3 and 10 cents, depending on how much of the flute length is involved. For example, when you play an E5 (which is always played as the 2nd harmonic of E4), a much longer part of the flute length is in action than when you play a C#5 (which is still in the range of the playable 1st harmonics -- i.e. the full tone register).
#2. Also, it would be appropriate to agree on a common "reference" pitch (like A4=440Hz or A4=435Hz) which should be appropriate for her flute so that she needs to make as few extra intonation adjustments as possible in terms of 12-equal. Compared to continuous intonation adjustments, generally, considerably less attention seems to be payed to the tone hole scaling of the particular flute. But for people like us who aim for possibly the most efficient ways of staying in tune, it's a very important topic. Only recently (maybe about 15-20 years ago) it's became clear that the intonation of a flute which was scaled for A4=435Hz can be very difficult to manage if the same flute is to be played with A4=440Hz. Fortunately, many flute makers nowadays are aware of this and therefore many "newer" flutes claim to have their tone hole positions scaled "properly". The primary reason for this inconvenience was that Boehm had designed his scaling system at the time when A4 was still at 435Hz. Later, when the pitch standard kept rising and people complained for their flutes sounding too low, most flute makers, instead of rescaling the tone hole dimmensions and distances, just started making shorter headjoints, which, of course, is nonsense because it changes the ratios of the effective wavelengths. So if you have an electronic tuner which shows you how much an imcoming sound deviates from 12-equal, what I would recommend is to find such an A4 (or whatever you choose as a reference pitch) where these deviations over the entire flute range are as small as possible when she doesn't actually make any extra intonation adjustments at all.
Petr

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "petrparizek2000" <petrparizek2000@...> wrote:
> #1. Were she able to keep her lips and her flute in a constant position allover the playing session (which is physically impossible), then you might test those fingerings that way. Neither can a human voice sing exactly the same pitch twice in a row. While such attempts with a very-well-trained voice can differ by as little as 3 cents, on a standard Boehm flute these differences may vary somewhere between 3 and 10 cents, depending on how much of the flute length is involved. For example, when you play an E5 (which is always played as the 2nd harmonic of E4), a much longer part of the flute length is in action than when you play a C#5 (which is still in the range of the playable 1st harmonics -- i.e. the full tone register).
> #2. Also, it would be appropriate to agree on a common "reference" pitch (like A4=440Hz or A4=435Hz) which should be appropriate for her flute so that she needs to make as few extra intonation adjustments as possible in terms of 12-equal. Compared to continuous intonation adjustments, generally, considerably less attention seems to be payed to the tone hole scaling of the particular flute. But for people like us who aim for possibly the most efficient ways of staying in tune, it's a very important topic. Only recently (maybe about 15-20 years ago) it's became clear that the intonation of a flute which was scaled for A4=435Hz can be very difficult to manage if the same flute is to be played with A4=440Hz. Fortunately, many flute makers nowadays are aware of this and therefore many "newer" flutes claim to have their tone hole positions scaled "properly". The primary reason for this inconvenience was that Boehm had designed his scaling system at the time when A4 was still at 435Hz. Later, when the pitch standard kept rising and people complained for their flutes sounding too low, most flute makers, instead of rescaling the tone hole dimmensions and distances, just started making shorter headjoints, which, of course, is nonsense because it changes the ratios of the effective wavelengths. So if you have an electronic tuner which shows you how much an imcoming sound deviates from 12-equal, what I would recommend is to find such an A4 (or whatever you choose as a reference pitch) where these deviations over the entire flute range are as small as possible when she doesn't actually make any extra intonation adjustments at all.
> Petr

Yeah, these are all valid points. One way of playing microtonal flute which, though not ideal, would definitely work in practice, is just to use standard fingerings but lip all the notes up or down the appropriate amount. After all, the maximum adjustment you ever need is 50 cents, and practically every note can be lipped up or down that much.

But alternate fingerings will definitely be useful because, if you're aiming for the note C +40 cents, it has to be easier and more reliable to use a fingering that produces C# -45 cents and lip it down 15 cents, than to use a standard C fingering and lip it up 40 cents. If you can do something easy to get you much closer, why not do that?

Also, Hannah has an expensive, advanced flute (a Miramatsu), so I'm going to assume it's manufactured correctly for A440 and all the standard fingerings are close enough to 12-equal.

Keenan

I wish I had a Miramatsu!

Jason

On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 20:57, Keenan Pepper <keenanpepper@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "petrparizek2000" <petrparizek2000@...>
> wrote:
> > #1. Were she able to keep her lips and her flute in a constant position
> allover the playing session (which is physically impossible), then you might
> test those fingerings that way. Neither can a human voice sing exactly the
> same pitch twice in a row. While such attempts with a very-well-trained
> voice can differ by as little as 3 cents, on a standard Boehm flute these
> differences may vary somewhere between 3 and 10 cents, depending on how much
> of the flute length is involved. For example, when you play an E5 (which is
> always played as the 2nd harmonic of E4), a much longer part of the flute
> length is in action than when you play a C#5 (which is still in the range of
> the playable 1st harmonics -- i.e. the full tone register).
> > #2. Also, it would be appropriate to agree on a common "reference" pitch
> (like A4=440Hz or A4=435Hz) which should be appropriate for her flute so
> that she needs to make as few extra intonation adjustments as possible in
> terms of 12-equal. Compared to continuous intonation adjustments, generally,
> considerably less attention seems to be payed to the tone hole scaling of
> the particular flute. But for people like us who aim for possibly the most
> efficient ways of staying in tune, it's a very important topic. Only
> recently (maybe about 15-20 years ago) it's became clear that the intonation
> of a flute which was scaled for A4=435Hz can be very difficult to manage if
> the same flute is to be played with A4=440Hz. Fortunately, many flute makers
> nowadays are aware of this and therefore many "newer" flutes claim to have
> their tone hole positions scaled "properly". The primary reason for this
> inconvenience was that Boehm had designed his scaling system at the time
> when A4 was still at 435Hz. Later, when the pitch standard kept rising and
> people complained for their flutes sounding too low, most flute makers,
> instead of rescaling the tone hole dimmensions and distances, just started
> making shorter headjoints, which, of course, is nonsense because it changes
> the ratios of the effective wavelengths. So if you have an electronic tuner
> which shows you how much an imcoming sound deviates from 12-equal, what I
> would recommend is to find such an A4 (or whatever you choose as a reference
> pitch) where these deviations over the entire flute range are as small as
> possible when she doesn't actually make any extra intonation adjustments at
> all.
> > Petr
>
> Yeah, these are all valid points. One way of playing microtonal flute
> which, though not ideal, would definitely work in practice, is just to use
> standard fingerings but lip all the notes up or down the appropriate amount.
> After all, the maximum adjustment you ever need is 50 cents, and practically
> every note can be lipped up or down that much.
>
> But alternate fingerings will definitely be useful because, if you're
> aiming for the note C +40 cents, it has to be easier and more reliable to
> use a fingering that produces C# -45 cents and lip it down 15 cents, than to
> use a standard C fingering and lip it up 40 cents. If you can do something
> easy to get you much closer, why not do that?
>
> Also, Hannah has an expensive, advanced flute (a Miramatsu), so I'm going
> to assume it's manufactured correctly for A440 and all the standard
> fingerings are close enough to 12-equal.
>
> Keenan
>
>
>

Keenan wrote:

> Yeah, these are all valid points. One way of playing microtonal flute which, though not ideal, would definitely work in practice, is just to use standard fingerings but lip all the notes up or down the appropriate amount. After all, the maximum adjustment you ever need is 50 cents, and practically every note can be lipped up or down that much.

Of course, every flute payer who has a "closed-keyed" flute and has run across microtonality probably has to try this one day. I have a closed-keyed flute myself and I have done this several times. It certainly works unless you're concerned about some timbre homogeneity which is lost -- and you can't play fast this way; and you nee to understand which tones are more affected and which tones are less affected by this method (if a larger part of the flute length is invoved, extra adjustments change the pitch by a smaller amout than when a smaller part of the flute length is active).
If you say she has a high-class flute, she probably has an open-keyed flute, which may offer much better possibilities for microtonality but then the Virtual Flute seems to be helpless because it only considers fingerings where a key is open or closed but not those where a key is partially closed, which is what you can get on an open-keyed flute. The reason I don't want an open-keyed flute (for the time being) is that I have trouble trying to fully cover some holes when fingering the lowest tones like C#4 or C4.

> But alternate fingerings will definitely be useful because, if you're aiming for the note C +40 cents, it has to be easier and more reliable to use a fingering that produces C# -45 cents and lip it down 15 cents, than to use a standard C fingering and lip it up 40 cents. If you can do something easy to get you much closer, why not do that?

Which is exactly why I suggested that it would be nice to know that the flute is currently more or less in tune with what you want it to be in tune with in the first place, before starting to experiment with some microtonal stuff.
Petr