Well, a most interesting day, chez nous. Visiting US flute-player, Grey Larsen, myself and Professor Neville Fletcher met to try to unravel some of the secrets of Irish flute playing, in particular stuff relating to embouchure approach. I think we learned a lot. Neville’s taken all the measurements and notes away to sift through them; once he’s reported back, I’ll make it all available.
But in the meantime, we’d like to invite some more participation from you to broaden our data base. You will remember that I’d already canvassed samples of the note G - these will be analysed and incorporated in our study. Now we’re looking for evidence relating to flow rate, embouchure hole coverage and jet length.
To get and estimate of flow rate, we’ll ask you to play each of the four test notes for as long as you can. Yep, take a deep breath and play whichever note it is until you fall comatose to the floor. Good to have a friend to record the times as you have your hands full. We took three readings for each note and averaged them.
Estimating embouchure coverage also requires a friend. You play the note in question, your accomplice looks along the flute from the side and attempts to estimate what proportion of the embouchure you are covering. You may find it helpful to put a pencil mark along from the axis of the hole so they can be sure of which side of 50% you are covering. Less than 50% means the hole is mostly open; more than 50% means it’s mostly covered.
And estimating jet length will also require help. Again your hapless assistant (it may be helpful to have some cheesecake in hand to act as a bribe) will look along the flute from which ever end suits them. They will attempt to estimate how far it is from the gap in your lips to the edge of the hole. It may help them if they hold a rule near the embouchure to “calibrate their eyeballs”. This is of course not as precise as we’d like to be, but we’re looking for generalities, and averaging will assist us to refine the reports. We think in mm over here, but can easily convert from imperial, so use whatever is easiest.
Here’s where to record your data. D4 is bottom D, G4 is low octave G. D5 is second octave D, G5 is 2nd octave G. Play all notes at your usual volume.
Flow Rate (seconds):
D4
G4
D5
G5
Embouchure coverage (%)
D4
G4
D5
G5
Jet length (mm or inches)
D4
G4
D5
G5
Player’s name:
Self taught: (Y/N)
Took Boehm flute lessons (Y/N)
Took Irish flute lessons (Y/N)
Assistant’s name:
Description of flute:
Thanks heaps for that. Send it to me at mailto:terry@mcgee-flutes.com
Terry