Hi all,
I’m trying to learn to play a full chromatic scale on my Olwell bamboo by partially covering holes. But the notes sound muffled and weak when I half-hole. I’d appreciate any tips for getting clear loud notes.
Regards,
Nash
With practice, some semi-tones can successfully be made by half-holing, but please don’t ask for anything much more than that.
A chromatic scale, on a keyless six-hole flute, including cross-fingerings, and without muffled and weak tones?
No, that ain’t happening, long story short!
save the Eb 'til last…or later
C, Bb & F nat shouldn’t be too bad
G# is a bit dodgy
all of the above are assuming a D flute…work it out
As a starting exercise, I’m practicing the major scales for each fully closed note (d, e, f#, g…). So far, am able to play the scales for D, E, G and A easily, but am having more trouble with F#, B and C# (particularly the Eb note as Denny said).
The smaller the hole is that you are trying to vent, half hole, the harder it will be, both for pitch and tone.
On the earlier flutes, with small holes that were designed for cross fingerings, the only key was Eb.
Rick Wilson’s Historical Flutes Page
Baroque flute
What Denny said, as when it comes to half-holing, the smaller the hole, the harder to control.
The Baroque one-key flute, with the Eb key as shown above (thanks, Denny!), was the first flute to be chromatic*, but even that flute required cross-fingering, half-holing and embouchure gymnastics in order to get all twelve tones from the flute, and, as the fact, it is literally impossible to avoid “veiled” tones by such a system, veiled meaning muffled and/or weak. (* = capable of playing in all twelve keys, with the understanding that the one-key flute was developed somewhat before the advent of equal temperament, in the fully chromatic sense.)
To avoid such veiled tones, flute makers then added more keys to their flutes, where perhaps a four-key flute could be a minimum, and a six-key flute preferred.
Please, I’m well aware that telling an artist that something “can’t” be done could sometimes then inspire them to try to do it anyway.
But, honestly, if you really want a chromatic scale with “clean” tones, then get keys!
As others have said, playing loud clear tones on all of the chromatic notes of a 6-hole simple system flute without keys is probably not going to happen. On this youtube video Jem Hammond is playing one of my pvc low D cylindrical flutes with fairly large tone holes. First he plays a two octave diatonic scales in D and then in G. Then he plays a two octave chromatic scale in D. Some of the chromatic notes are fuzzy, but at least you can hear them. When Jem made this video he had only just received the flute. I expect that if he was more accustomed to playing this flute, he might improve some of the notes a wee bit. However, with only a few days of practice he is playing the iffy notes better than I do.
YouTube Video
yep, and the Tipple is the easiest to half hole, followed by bamboo
Just to point out that in that vid demonstrating Doug’s flute I mostly use cross-fingerings for the non D diatonic scale notes, only half-holing where a tolerably functional cross-fingering is not available - for the Ebs and F nats. Personally I prefer to cross-finger where possible, and where it isn’t I would tend to choose to play a different instrument - one with keys or chromatic cross-fingering (like a Baroque traverso or a ecorde) - for a piece of music demanding such technicalities.
It is possible to become pretty proficient at half-holing on keyless flutes and whistles and to play quite fluently using half-holed notes for occasional accidentals, but to get fluent enough to use them exclusively for playing in keys remote from the home diatonic scale as one might play using the cross-fingerings on a Baroque traverso or the keys on later flutes would take a hell of a lot of dedication, determination and hard graft, not to say foolhardiness!
I’m now seriously considering buying a silver flute for my chromatic needs and using my bamboo for ITM. Where can I find a cross-fingering chart for the simple-system flute?
Rgds,
Nash
Here is one that I put together.
fingering chart
That’s an awesome chart. Thanks Doug!
Rgds,
Nash
As Jem was saying, there’s a lot that can be done with a keyless six-hole flute, provided that the keys played in don’t wander too far from the tonic key of the flute, and I see that you’ve already discovered that. For instance, with one cross-fingering, Cnat=oxx ooo, a D flute can also play in the key of G. Yes, even more than that could be done, in yet other keys, but then the keys could wander further away from D, and, frankly, there’s a practical limit as to how much wandering can satisfactorily be done, as above mentioned.
Another strategy is to have more than one keyless flute, but in different tonic keys, again with the limit that the keys played in don’t wander far from the flute’s tonic key, but, by having different flutes, a player could then play in several different keys, and not just a few. The advantage here is that keyless flutes are usually much less expensive than keyed flutes.
Now, if you simply need a fully chromatic flute, for whatever reason, and looking beyond the limits of the Baroque one-key flute, you basically have two choices. You could lay out some serious money for a four-key or a six-key conical bore wood flute, or, you could get a Boehm flute, where these days even the low cost beginner’s models are pretty good, provided that you go with a well known brand. The Boehm flute has its own fingering system, but don’t worry, you’ll learn how to switch back and forth between the two systems, Boehm and keyless. The advantage here is in the relatively low cost of the Boehm flute versus the much higher cost of a chromatic wood flute.
BTW, I came to keyless flutes from a Boehm flute background, and I can assure you that any time spent on a Boehm flute can only be helpful. Besides, given today’s cost of a really good chromatic wood flute, it can only be helpful for one to be fully prepared to physically evaluate such a flute, such as an ability to “test” play it, competently, before making such a financial commitment, and, it doesn’t matter how one gets such an ability, by keyless, by Boehm, or however.
Here is a fingering chart I produced to go with my conduit tube piccolos, for which it is specifically tailored. I deliberately separated the chromatic notes (apart from C natural) from the main chart and put them on a supplementary page as the chart is intended for use with complete beginners and I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.
It is substantially the same as the fingerings I used on Doug’s flute in that demo clip and should work fairly well on any all-cylinder keyless flute and on many whistles. There are of course many variant possibilities, especially in the 3rd 8ve, and others than those I give here may work better on different instruments and some of these may not work at all. Flutes and whistles with conoid bores will use very similar cross fingerings, but there will tend to be some differences in which particular variants are most likely to be the optimum ones. Bottom line is you need to experiment, preferably using multiple sources of possibilities; acquiring some understanding of the acoustical properties involved is also helpful, but not essential (I don’t want to overcomplicate things!).
For conoid bore Baroque and Simple System (keyed) flutes there are multifarious complete fingering charts available in print and on-line. Rick Wilson gives quite a few on his website. I have Quantz (Baroque) in book form and the chart-sheet Aulos provide with their plastic traversi for Baroque - others are sure to be found online, though I haven’t searched myself so don’t have links to hand. Rockstro gives all sorts of variants in his treatise for many different systems. The old Otto Langey flute tutor book published by Boosey & Hawkes gives a basic 8-key 3rd 8ve chart as well as open and closed G# Bohm charts and a Radcliff one, if I recall aright (I don’t have that book - just an old photocopy of the 8-key chart). http://www.wfg.woodwind.org/ is useful too.
If you’re playing a keyless flute, I’d advise to start off by looking at the baroque charts, but don’t expect everything to work on a cylinder bore/large hole flute, especially not the F naturals!
Incidentally, you simply won’t find half-holing as such cropping up in most of these charts.
(Edit) Oh, and as Cork quiet rightly points out, whether you half-hole or cross-finger, there will be veiled and weak notes - even the main open holes won’t be entirely even in voice on a simple 6-hole flute/whistle because of the size and position compromises necessary in order to get them in reach of normal fingers (e.g. E is notoriously weak because the hole has to be small and up-tube to be reachable) - that’s part of what drove flute development through the C19th culminating in Bohm’s tube with large, acoustically correctly placed tone-holes and never mind how you get to close them… Just how weak/veiled particular chromatic fingerings are is also rather variable dependent on fingering in question, instrument and player - good technique may reduce the problem, but won’t eradicate it. By half-holing or cross-fingering you are really “bending” the note normally formed at the highest open tone-hole - and disrupting how it is “meant” to speak. A smaller hole (which is what a half-holed one is!) won’t speak as openly as at its full size: cross fingering - shading a note by increasing the influence of the tube below the open tone-hole by closing up holes in it - is also bound to reduce clarity and volume of the tone to some extent, though generally less so than half-holing does; intonation is a bigger issue usually. You will only get evenly voiced notes by having a correctly placed and sized hole for every one. (These last comments apply to the fundamental and second octaves, chiefly. The third octave, which [including on Bohm flutes] uses assorted assisted harmonics, is another matter, where although some of the same things apply, there are other factors involved that influence strength, clarity and accuracy of tone-formation.)
Let me add, that because keyless flutes are relatively inexpensive, it gives a player an opportunity to sample many different kinds of flutes.
yes, thats a logical decision.
something in in this bansuri topic
may be helpful to you.
The bansuri is the non key mechanism chromatic flute par excellence.
However I doubt that even a bansuri veteran master would like to play every possible type of mode in every key from the one bansuri.
Cork, do you have recommendations of a good affordable beginner silver flute? There doesn’t seem to be a flute-rental place near where I live.
Nash
The silver, Boehm flute market is very competitive, and I’d say that any of the established manufacturers could produce a fine product, these days.
The big change came some twenty or more years ago, when a “new” tuning became universally adopted*, so look for a flute made since then.
That said, of more recently made flutes, I’d say that even low cost beginner’s models are good, from any of the established manufacturers.
And, if you can get one with a sterling silver head joint, all the better!
(* = with thanks in particular to the late Sir Albert Cooper)
Nash, you may want to ask your question about beginning silver flutes at the following flute forum.
http://www.fluteland.com/board/
For what it’s worth, I bought a new open-holed Venus silver flute on ebay for $150. As far as I can tell, it plays as well as the Yamaha flutes that I have owned.