We’ve been talking about ways to get the hard, dark Irish flute tone on and off lately. It bothers me that such information doesn’t seem readily available. I finally got around to putting a piece on my web page about it. Hopefully it will be of value to someone!
http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/Getting_the_hard_dark_tone.htm
Terry
I think it will be of value to many!
I’m just a few years in, and mostly figured out what I should be doing on my own, (not that I can always do it). Recently, I sought out a far better player than myself, and had a few lessons, which focused largely on embouchure and tone. Your advice is virtually identical to what I was told, and I consider it spot on.
Thanks for remembering how tough it is for those just getting started!
Hi Terry,
Some help from modern flute techniques will help here as well. Its important to look at the entire system of flute and player from lungs to lips as one instrument. Its important to keep one’s windway open - and enhance it some sort of in the back of the throat by a sort of yawning while maintaining the embouchure. The body should not be twisted much to keep the throat open. Blowing from the diaphagm somewhat forcefully helps. I find such techniques help with that “hard D” tone.
Casey
I will try that Terry… Although I like my tone at the moment - pretty loud, pretty strong, maybe I’m not sure where the airstream hits, since I’m not covering the embouchure hole at all with my lips, as other players I’ve seen.
on that note, would somebody confirm that after drinking hot cup of tea, the flute sounds much better and is more responsive?
Dark? When my flute sings, it’s bright.
would somebody confirm that after drinking hot cup of tea, the flute sounds much better and is more responsive?
Tried this some time ago, doesn’t work for me…
Never noticed any such effect. My tone/embouchure are often better after eating - I guess because mastication gives facial muscles a work out and leaves them more pliable and better toned… though a full belly is not conducive to long-windedness…
I’d agree with that, Trip. I imagine the hot liquid helps flexibility. For those I characterise as “genetically predisposed to flute”, it might not make any difference, but for the rest of us poor urks, it might be of critical import! If I’m right about flexibility, it might be best taken at the start of a session, before getting into the cool drinks!
Conversely, I find astringent food and drink difficult, especially red wine and apple cider. So I guess they are moving me in the other direction.
I also believe that whiskey makes my flute playing sound better, but I think we have to look to quite a different explanation for that one!
Terry
Confirmed.
Rob
I hesitate to add much to this, as I have definitely NOT mastered what I’m about to describe, but I’m excited enough by it that I’m going to offer it up.
The one showing me how to go for that tone (who, of course, can chime in any time) described an Irish player he knew who could consistently sound both the first and second octaves of most notes simultaneously. He demonstrated, and I’ve been working with that for the last few weeks.
With the headjoint turned in, a focused downward blow and some practice, you CAN get both notes buzzing in unison. It’s that reedy, dirty, edgy sound that I could never get before, (because I never had the right flute, I wanted to think). It was an epiphany that I wouldn’t have reached just by reading about it.
My challenge now is to tame and control it…whoa hoss!
When done on bassoon, it’s called crowing.
I had no idea it was possible on flute.
Congratulations on your epiphany, crookedtune!
Now I can think of two ways to interpret “both notes buzzing in unison”. There are things called “multiphonics” sought out by avante-garde flute players. These occur when one fingering permits two or more notes, and by careful adjustment of jet transit time, you can get both going at once. It’s not often a pleasant effect as the notes are rarely in good tune with each other.
But I suspect you are really talking about balancing the amount of fundamental and 2nd harmonic so that each are approximately equally perceptible. Or indeed going beyond that so that the 2nd harmonic is more perceptible than the fundamental, even though we still perceive the basic pitch as that of the fundamental. Which is what I’m talking about.
Or do you think you are talking about a different effect?
Terry
You’re the best person to ask this - is there a qualitative difference in the physics of a note played with a closed fingering and one produced via an open fingering? In the former, the tube is unbroken from embouchure to the lowest hole (let’s call that a simple tube), while in the latter the tube has several perforations, creating a complex tube. To my unscientific eyes, the physics of each case should differ. Does it?
I was thinking about ‘multi-phonics’ or whatever they’re called just last night. Basically because, while playing two octave leaps from the very bottom up to the top (for embouchure development, apparently), when I got to doing the E flat, the top note produced a clear three-note chord. There was definitely the Eb itself and the Bb above it, plus one other that I’ve forgotten now. I found that I could hold it by concentrating really hard. Mind you, it sounded 'orrible, so I don’t know what use it was …
My grandfather used to describe how for a prank kids would stand in front of the bandstand sucking a lemon.
Yes. The case with a closed (or simple fingering), eg G = xxx ooo, is pretty easy to follow. Both ends of the tube (defined by the embouchure hole and hole R4) are open to atmosphere, so there cannot be dramatic pressure change there. The action all occurs pretty much inside the closed bit. (The action extends a bit beyond the closed bit as the holes are smaller than the bore.)
But there are at least two types of open (or cross) fingerings, the flattened and the vented, and they are radically different.
In the flattened, eg G# = xxo xxx, the action is pretty much the same as the simple case, except it extends further down the tube (which is why the note is flatter).
In the vented case, eg third octave e = xxo oxx (or something similar), the lower part of the tube is also actively vibrating, whereas in the flattened case not much happens down there.
You can often experience a difference between one and two systems vibrating with 2nd octave B. Play it as xoo ooo, then add the right hand to make it xoo xxx. Sometimes it messes things up, but often it makes the resonance considerably stronger.
Not sure if I’ve answered your question, so come back if I missed the point.
Terry
What I’m talking about is Terry’s second category. For example, you can play a first-octave G right on the edge of where it breaks to a second-octave G, and literally hang on exactly at the point where both notes are sounding. It’s hard to do consistently, and is one of those techniques that you’d want to use in tasteful moderation. But it’s a great, edgy sound.
Anyway, it was the turning in of the headjoint, and the focused downward airstream that I hadn’t really explored fully until now. That opens up a lot of possibilities, and has broadened the spectrum of sounds available for me.
That’s a literary quotation from somewhere. I seem to recall reading the relevant passage in an English lesson in school when I was about 14… but I can’t recall the source. Anyways, I rather doubt anyone much ever did it - it’s more like one of those urban myth things - someone wrote the book, loads of kids read it…
Personally I find a moderate quantity of good farm cider very advantageous as well as delightful in its own right! (A modicum of alcohol helps relax the lips, of course… too much and your embouchure collapses way ahead of anything else!)
Isn’t there a track on one of Paul McGrattan’s CDs where he plays an extended passage with multiphonic octave-splits? On first listening I assumed it was double tracked, but then…
It’s from the book Lentil by Robert McCloskey. The character Old Sneep got on a rooftop above the bandstand and sucked on a lemon.
Cheers,
Kirk
Yes, there must be something about warm humid air. Sometimes I practice while giving my kid a bath and the flute never sounds better. That might sound odd but I’m dead serious. Try filling the tub with warm water then stand in the humid room and play for a while. It’s amazing. I can honk low D until the cows come home.
-Kirk