On my Casey Burns flute with its oval blow hole, if I blow with a relaxed embouchure, the sound is deep and woody. But if I tighten my lips (like pulling face muscles back for smiling), the sound is brighter, edgier - sometimes with a buzz.
Does a flute with a “cutaway” above the blow hole achieve the same edgey sound, but with a relaxed embouchure? CB and Skip Healy make blow holes with a cutaway:
My M&E has a cutaway, my other flutes do not.
I don’t think the cutaway does much except make it easier to drive the lowest notes hard without splitting the octave.
I can play in a variety of tone colors on all my flutes. The cutaway doesn’t seem to affect that one way or the other.
–James
Peeplj, do you have flutes with a modern (rectangular) embouchure too? Is the modern blow hole as flexible as the oval tonewise and does it have a brighter sound?
Oddly enough, my old German flute has a rectangular embouchure. Also my Gemeinhardt Boehm-system flute, but it’s a different beastie from these guys anyway.
All of my other flutes have variations of oval embouchures.
I have played many kinds of flutes with a wide variety of embouchure cuts through the years. I don’t find much difference between oval and rectangular at the same size; however, as a general rule I’ve found the larger the embouchure hole, the louder the flute is while requiring a more focused embouchure and stronger jet of air, and seem more pitch-stable; smaller embouchure holes are easier to blow but don’t give as much sound or projection and are less pitch-stable.
There are exceptions. My Hamilton flute has an embouchure I can’t really call any bigger than “medium,” yet it is a loud, projective flute and is extremely pitch stable over a wide range of blowing styles and pressures.
–James
I was just running into this yesterday. As my embochure has progressed and become tighter and using less air, I find that I have to really hit the right spot to get a really hard Low D.
It’s been interesting for me lately as well. Not having really been taught much when I first started, I figured an “efficient less and less air stream” was the ideal. It wasn’t until I started silver flute lessons that I learned how little I was blowing and how far away I was from cracking in each octave. My flutes were just itching to scream and not whisper!
Are your muscles tightening also forcing the air stream higher? That could be part of the low D problem.
I think the cutaways are supposed to make it easier to blow, and also reduce wind noise, right? http://www.drelinger.com has some more dramatic examples of silver flute heads with such things.