I have been searching the flute forum for a link that was given recently for a website that talked about how different and good their headjoints with a smaller chimney depth played. Now I am not sure whether I read that or not. Since I have been down with the flu for the past five days, maybe my fever-induced imaginations have gotten the best of me. Can anyone help here? Something other than go to bed and drink lots of liquids, please.
I received a question today about this same subject, and I was trying to respond to it half-way intelligently. Again there are many variables besides chimney depth that can influence how a headjoint will perform, but are there any generalizations that can be made on chimney depth alone? For example, for my flutes made from pvc pipe (wall thickness approx. .125 inches), I think that my flutes without a lip plate play more freely, are more responsive in the third octave, but are somewhat weaker in the first octave, whereas the lip plate flutes offer more resistance, have a strong first octave with a very weak third octave, and seem to be preferred by most ITM players when they play both flutes side by side.
Ammending my original post above, the thickness of the lip plate segment is .070". The chimeny depth of my lip plate flutes is .125" + .070" = .195".
i would think the other way around, where the deeper chimney flutes (4mm-5mm)
like Baroque and even R&R played better on the upper range then the Nicholson and Prattens
that had a bigger embouchure and shallower chimney…
but i may be wrong.
An interesting topic, Doug. I’d certainly agree (as does science) that a thin wall (low chimney) at the embouchure results in a weak low end. I think the top end (especially third octave) response is less clear and probably more influenced by other treatments you might give the hole. It’s certainly my feeling that too deep a hole can make the top end (even 2nd octave) sluggish and dull unless you take steps to ameliorate that.
Interesting to look at some examples pf chimney depth, past and present.
Caleb Gedney, 1769 - 5.225mm, 0.205"
Richard Potter, 1782 - 5.28mm, 0.208"
Original Firth & Pond (GLP inspiration) - 4.775mm, 0.188"
Nicholson’s Improved, c 1820 - 3.5mm, 0.138" !!!
Typical later Rudall etc - c 4mm, 0.157"
20th c Boehms (eg Haynes) - 4mm, 0.157"
Modern Boehm flutes - circa 5.2mm, 0.204"
Modern Irish flutes - typ. 4mm, 0.157"
Doug’s, no lip plate - 3.175mm, 0.125"
Ditto, if doubled - 6.35mm, 0.250"
My Eccentric Bore head - 4.5mm, 0.177mm
My Thinned Head - 5.2mm, 0.204"
So, we can see in the old days, holes were over 5mm deep, giving a rich bottom end but average top. Nicholson went quite mad, and dropped it to 3.5mm. OK for him, he had buckets of tone, not so easy for his students. But agile. (I prefer his flutes with my heads, and I understand from a post here recently that Patrick makes his Nicholson heads the same as his Prattens’ heads, so he hasn’t felt the need to go thinner.)
Early Rudalls (Willis fecit) and Rose’s Edinburgh flutes were fat like the 18th century ones, but they and others seemed to settle on 4mm as a good compromise. That carried over into the Boehm flute era, but when thinned heads came along (and the metal fabricated equivalent), hole depths were increased again to about where they had been in the 18th century! The difference now was that the outer diameter could be much smaller due to the eccentricity of the inner and outer diameters, and so you could for the first time have your richer low end and more agile upper end in the same flute.
Turning now to present company and we see that the typical modern Irish flute follows typical 19th century practice at 4mm. Doug’s flute without lip plate is thinner than all of the rest, confirming Doug’s perception that it produces a weaker bottom end. Doubling it (eg putting a split section of the body material over the head to make a lip plate) would take it a bit more than the rest, and maybe at risk of making the top end less agile. Somewhere in between might be best. (Heh heh, I’m not sure the word best can be safely used in the same sentence as the word embouchure, except perhaps to say “It would be best not to assume anything about embouchures”!). A lot of scope there for trying different approaches, including some shaping, like a thinned head. I could visualise a sanding jig that would achieve that fairly easily.
Finishing up with my offerings, my thinned head offers the same depth used by the early makers and the modern Boehm makers. The early makers heads, being fat and cylindrical, were a bit of an imposition in the face, whereas with thinned head approach, the outside diameter perceived by the player is no larger than a typical Rudall head. My Eccentric Bore head offers greater depth than the traditional, without anyone noticing. Looking at the original instruments depths, you can see why I offer them, as well as the standard 4mm deep cylindrical head.
I don’t think we should assume we’ve exhasted the possibilities of embouchures yet. Being the interface between human and flute, it has to remain the most critical part.
Thanks, Denny. I first one is old and no longer up. The others are not what I was looking for either. If I recall correctly, it was a small, highlighted link to a website about upper end headjoints, where they mentioned that their headjoint with a lower chimney was preferred by some players and why.
I should have known that I need to write down the address of something when I come across it and not think that I can easily get back to it later.
Thanks, Terry, for your comments. Your examples and explanations put everything into better perspective for me. With regard to the thickness of the lip plate segments that I use, I actually bore out a piece of pipe in order to get a thinner piece for a lip plate. The thickness of the lip plate segment is .070 inches. That would make my lip plate embouchure depth (.125" + .070" = .195"), which is right in between two of your flutes that you mentioned.
Did Haynes really make an embouchure hole that was only .157" (4mm) high? Are you referring to a wooden Haynes headjoint or a metal one? I had no idea they made them that low, but of course I have not spent much time measuring wooden headjoint wall heights.
In my experience with metal headjoints, the higher the wall, the more resistant the high register becomes. Although the low will most likely be stronger. A lower wall makes a high register more responsive, but weakens the low register. To these generalities one must add that the hole size and shape, etc. will vary your results.
I might point out that Albert Cooper, who set the standard for many modern headjoint makers, set his nominal wall height at 5 mm (.197). Over the years, I have increased the wall height of the heads I make as players ask for more resistance. I think that, in my market anyway, people have gotten accustomed to the more efficient Cooper-style cut and have learned to use their air accordingly. Albert always said that, given a choice of several headjoints in a trial session, most flutists will choose the loudest one. I don’t know if that still holds today, but it’s interesting to think about.
Good discussion, Terry, Doug, Denny and eilam–thanks!
I believe I have that right, Elizabeth, but I don’t have anything here to check. This is back in the days of plain wooden heads.
I do have an 8-key by Moon of Plymouth with a Boehm bore with a plain (non-thinned) head whose diameter at the embouchure is 25mm. Less about 17mm on the inside , divided by 2, gives 4mm walls. I also have a Rudall Carte cylinder flute with 26mm OD; giving a 4.5mm wall. I guess these makers figured that 4mm was enough on the old conical 8-keys, so should be enough on Boehm flutes.
I’ve also measured an RC thinned head chimney depth of only 4.375, so even when thinned heads came along, they didn’t imediately take full advantage of whtat they had available. I agree with what you say about the other things we do to embouchures - undercutting, etc are important to prevent the resistance becoming too high. So deeper holes only really became viable once these other techniques were developed.
Albert’s comment about most players choosing the loudest embouchure makes sense to me. Most players do not find playing the flute naturally easy, so a head that makes it easier (plays louder for the same amount of effort) will attract them. That’s not to say they will necessarily play it loudly; it hopefully means they can relax a little on tone production and put their remaining effort into musicality.
