Flute playing a half step flat

Irish Flute
1

I have been focused entirely on breathing, scales and fingerings for a couple of basic tunes, but havent really paid much attention to how in tune I really am playing each note. Yesterday I turned a tuner on and worked through a couple of scales and noticed that all the notes (most markedly the first octave) were almost a full half step flat.

Also in parallel, I had noticed over the past week that the flute actually wiggled at the tenons now and didn’t have a tight snug fit as it did when I first received it. Is it normal for this to occur once a flute starts to get played in? Im a bit nervous to add more windings since when I first got it the flute would go from slightly loose to extremely snug depending on how long I played it.

Are these two issues related? What else could make a flute play flat? Its a Burns folk flute so no tuning slide. I have been oiling the flute weekly since receiving it.

2

There are several factors that can cause a well made flute to play flatter than A=440 hz. One factor is room temperature.

The A=440 hz tuning standard assumes a room temperature around 20 degrees C. If you have a flute that was designed to play A=440 hz at a room temperature of 20 degrees C, but you play it cold in a room that is only 15 degrees C, say, it will play flat (around 15 cents flat, or something close to A=435 hz). There is nothing wrong with such a flute. Its just behaving naturally in a cold room. If you have a tuning slide you can try to compensate for this.

Similarly, but to a lesser extent, humidity also affects pitch, because it affects the speed at which sound travels inside your flute. A low relative humidity (lower than the humidity at which the flute was made and tuned) will make your flute play flatter. Low humidity is very common in winter, especially in cold areas with centrally heated houses. During cold winters in certain areas of North America, for example, relative humidity inside homes can become extremely low, and be problematic for wooden instruments. If I remember correctly, you are in Montreal. Is that correct. That would be a very cold environment with very low indoor humidity in winter.

Very low relative humidity will affect the wood that the flute is made from, causing it to dry out, shrink, and potentially crack. If you play such a flute for a long period of time, the moisture in your breath will rehydrate the flute, but probably too quickly, and this too can be a problem, and can cause damage. Lose tenons might be a symptom of a flute that has dried out too much. Swollen tenons that jam in the sockets might be a symptom of a flute that has gathered too much moisture, perhaps as a result of bing played for a long time in a cold room (causing a lot of condensation inside the flute).

The solution to the drying out problem is to keep the flute in a humidified container (to prevent it from drying out too much). Ideally, you’d store your flute at a similar humidity level to the one in the environment where it was made. The solution to to rapid intake of moisture is to warm the flute up slowly before playing, and to oil the bore regularly, to prevent the flute from taking on moisture too quickly when you play it.

Other factors that can make the flute play flat are leaks, perhaps due to drying out and shrinkage of tenons, or cracks, both of which can result from letting the flute get too dry. Also, the way you blow the flute can make it play flatter or sharper than it did when the maker tuned it.

3

I was typing up a response but paddler covered some of it.

Since you are a beginning player I’d be nearly certain, as much as possible without sitting in the same room with you, that the tuning issue originates with you. Is it possible that you haven’t developed enough breath support to get the flute up to pitch? How far do you have the headjoint pushed in/pulled out? Was the flute cold when you were playing it with the tuner? Do you have the headjoint turned in?

Here are some possible solutions for those issues: If the headjoint is all the way in; try to put more air pressure through the flute. If you have it pulled out a bit push it in until it is up to pitch or as far as you can go. Ditto on the cold flute problem; a cold flute will play flat if you were tuning right when you started playing try putting the flute to a tuner after 15-20 minutes and you should notice a change. If you are turning the headjoint in adjust the angle; the closer your lips are to the edge the flatter the flute will be. It is more likely to be one of those issues than something more dramatic.

As for lose tenons; you are in Canada correct? The winter months in a cold climate will contribute to this problem as having a heater going in the house will cause the relative humidity to drop substantially and that is more than likely the problem. Paddler has some good advice on that end. I would not advise leaving a flute in a container like that all the time, especially if you are playing it a lot and during wet weather periods. I find that lose tenons usually solve themselves after a bit of playing so I rarely do anything when I experience the problem. However I live in a pretty temperate climate and the relative humidity in my house is usually ideal for flutes. (I think 60% is where flutes like it but if anyone knows better please correct me).

4

Unseen and Paddler, thanks a lot for the sound advice. I am in Montreal and it does get cold and dry in the winter! However, not where I keep my musical instruments. I keep the flute assembled, and out in my practice area which is always comfortably heated and humidity controlled to 46-50% humidity at all times. Its necessary since I also keep my acoustic guitars and violin there as well. I prefer to keep my instruments handy as it keeps me motivated to go back to practice, and it appeases the lazy man inside me. I have been playing the flute daily (about an hour on average), and oiling it weekly.

You were both right in that the root issue lied with me. Didnt expect that I could be blowing the note that flat! I experimented for a while this evening and the tuning was bang on once I worked on my embouchure and lip placement. Ill have to make this tuner exercise part of my warm up to make sure I always start on the right “note” :slight_smile:

As for the lose tenons, I will ignore for now I guess. It just bugs me that when I pick it up the pieces move as I adjust my hold on the flute, but as Unseen122 stated, after a half hour of playing it does improve quite a bit.

5

That’s just my own approach to it, no doubt others will have a different opinion. There is nothing wrong with adding more thread at times but if the tenons feel snug after playing for a while then I don’t think there is a need to mess with it. My own take is why try to fix a problem that is going to fix itself? Especially if more thread is more likely to cause other problems in the future. If you find it to be a chronic problem then you should absolutely consider putting some thread on there.

Oh yeah, not every flute maker and player would advise you to leave the flute put together; however I got a Bb from Casey recently and he does say on the care instructions that it is OK to do so and has told me he hasn’t had many flutes crack in 35+ years of making them. (Just in case anyone feels the need to tell the OP he shouldn’t store his flute put together). Also, Casey does recommend oiling the flutes more frequently than some others may.

6

I’ve experienced similar problems in the past with my Box Wood flutes and in addition to all of the sound advice already given, I began to oil the end grain on the tenons as well as oiling the tenon thread (a small amount). I should mention that those who have corked tenons, should not put oil on the cork. Placing oil on the end grain seemed to help out a great deal in addition to all of the other solutions offered.

7

Avery lives in Portland Oregon, well known for being a rainy, humid climate, especially in the Winter, right? Paddler, living well in-land in Hood River Oregon, experiences much drier air than Portland. Avery probably has fewer problems with keeping his flute humidified, even though household heat probably (hopefully) cuts the edge off that damp Portland air.

I’m pretty sure that the loose tenons are related to the flute drying out. Is your room really at 50% humidity? Central heating in a cold climate makes for an extremely-dry interior. Maybe you have a room humidifier. But then, wouldn’t your windows be dripping with condensation?

I have experienced shrinking in my flute to the extent that the metal rings easily slipped off. This happened despite playing at least every other day. It is hard for a newcomer to the flute to play extensively enough to put the humidity back in just from the breath. My flute maker immediately recommended that I re-humidify the flute because the tension that holds the metal rings on is essential to the integrity of the flute. Several days in a plastic box with humidifier and the loose ring problem eased and then went away.

Stable humidity is surely more beneficial than ups and downs. For that reason, I don’t humidify my guitar because it is used to a consistently dry atmosphere. For my flute I’ve decided to take greater care, and I’ll even look into a hygrometer.

8

My Burns Folk Flute was like that for the first 18 months or so, then it settled down. I added a few turns or took a few off to keep it so that it was snug when well greased. After the first time it was hard to get apart I never left it assembled again. I found that putting it together each time before playing and taking it apart afterwards made it easy to monitor how tight it was. Greasing the end grain of the tenon helped, but you may find that Casey has sealed it.

I also played flat to start with and still check the tuner when practicing on the assumption that it is no help getting in the habit of playing at anything other than A=440.

9

If you’re playing the flute an hour a day, I suspect the loose tenons are caused by compression: whenever I play the flute a lot, I find that the joints often get loose afterward simply due to the fact that the joints become tighter the longer I play, and that compresses the threads. If you add thread, try separating the strands of thread and add just a strand to see if that fine-tunes the fit.

As for playing flat, I agree with what Avery said above: many beginners play flat simply because it can take a few years to develop your embouchure and get a strong, focused tone. I have an acquaintance whose flute sounded very flat in the second octave when he played it. I checked the cork and it was positioned correctly, and when I played the flute it was perfectly in tune. He was playing flat in the second octave due to the particular way he blew into the flute, plus his embouchure wasn’t developed enough yet to have a focused tone. Once he worked on his embouchure, the problem went away and his flute sounded in tune when he played it. Most of the tuning problems in simple-system flutes disappear when a player has a focused and controlled tone, but it can take a few years of playing to achieve that.

When I see you next week I’ll give you a cool exercise to help strengthen your embouchure – it involves playing one-handed scales using harmonics. If you can get to the point where you can play those harmonics clearly and with very little breath noise, you’ll find that your tone on the flute is stronger and the flute should play more in tune.