I recently bought an antique English flute, (a Clementi Nicholson Improved) that I think might benefit from a head joint with a larger more modern cut embouchure. The question I have is a bit technical, but here goes. The sleeve on this flute is narrower than on my modern flutes. This makes it feel like less air gets in there than with the modern flutes I have. So, if I was to get a replacement head (and probably a matching barrel) is it best to get one with the original bore dimensions or does it not matter at that point. My instinct is that the bore should be the same, but I have no experience and wonder if anyone can give me advice. Apologies to those who think this is an awfully geeky question, but some of the members of this group know so much about these things, I had to ask.
Swapping out headjoints seems to be a kind of ‘rite-of-passage’ for some of us. I can tell you my experience. Others have had their’s. Some of the current flutemakers will have their ideas. I have an anonymous flute of French manufacture sold through an London dealer about 1920.
It had a half-lined head. I found I had a vintage American headjoint from a Pepper flute from around 1890. The headjoint was about a tenth of a mm larger in bore, and fully lined, with a ‘modern’ cut (lozenge shaped. or squared oval) embouchure somewhat larger than the original smaller oval embouchure. The barrel fit the body and was very close to the same length overall. The result for me was a very slightly sharper pitch ( I drew the slide out 1-2 mm more), and found I could drive the flute more, with a stronger bottom. YMMV.
Bob
I have found going from a 18.6mm bore to a 18.9mm bore will be benificial to “open up” the flutes volume. The playing length will change, as the wider bore will be sharper. As far as “TV tube” square embouchure holes, I think it compromises the tone of the flute, it will be easier to play, but it makes for boring tone. Better still is to train yourself to tighten your embouchure instead.
Michael Clarkson has an antique flute with a Murray headjoint. I’ve tried it, it’s wonderful.
G
I’ve adopted a new rule for myself. Whenever I’m tempted to say something rash, I have to wait at least an hour before doing so. Now that it has, I’ll just say, “yes, I’ve heard some people seem to have had great luck putting on a new head joint.” Actually, I do have one experience with this. I bought a Thibouville which was a beautiful flute, but hard to play. I sent it to Dave Copley and he made me a mopane one stained to match the cocus of the flute. It is a big big improvement, I was just curious about other experiences. Thanks, Steve (who is feeling better about not starting up a recent thread again.)
Libraryman,
There’s no shame in a good technical question once in a while.
A modern flute head can be different in three major ways: the basic diameter, the shape of the bore and the cut of the blowhole.
Modern flutemakers have the term, ‘modern cut’ regarding the blowhole; its shape is like the tv screen (a term mentioned here). It won’t play the same as the classic cut. On the other hand, if you’re a player of the metal flute, you’ll like it just fine.
If you use a head that was designed for a Boehm flute, it will have the parabol-ish taper, and this is rather incompatible with the diatonic flute with thick walls and classic tapered bore. Some of the intervals will be just bizarre. The upper harmonics may be unsupported, and this can give you a thin tone. The flute won’t sound anything like it did when it left Clementi’s shop.
If the bore is not the same diameter, you will be having a predictable change on certain intervals of the scale. It’s not at all about “restricting the airflow,” as though a great flow were fighting its way thru a bottleneck in plumbing. Instead, it’s about Rayleigh’s Rules of bore perturbations. Many of the classic flutes (and recorders) do well to have a sudden restriction at the lower end of the head. In this regard, some makers have a better understanding than others.
It sounds to me like you need a flutemaker who has samples of the different combinations for you to try out.
Walt
Thanks very much Walt. You understood my question perfectly. I can’t say I’ve heard of Rayleigh’s Rules before, but I think I get the idea. Anyway, I have sent the flute to LA to see if Jon C can address some tuning issues and will wait for his assessment. I appreciate your response and wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. Steve
I have an 1857 Metzler with a Hamilton head joint. Fantastic combination!
The original head joint seemed to be happiest at around A=456 or so, didn’t play well pulled far enough to get to A=440 so I commissioned Hammy to build me a longer head joint.
Now assertions like this always flummox me. If a new head is made with the same bore diameter as the original and the same size embouchure hole (cut affects tone quality and responsiveness but is not relevant to pitch/intonation, though the effective volume of the chimney can affect that) it cannot make any difference to scale tuning. The simple fact that the wood-covered part of the tuning slide is longer cannot possibly have any effect on intonation. The sounding length necessary to tune to 440 (or whatever) will be exactly the same, you just won’t have as much slide showing as with the original. If the original head can be tuned down to 440 within its design range there is (can be!) no advantage in terms of physics/acoustics in making a new head which is identical except in length.
Now, a different size embouchure will have some effect, and if the new one is smaller it will play flatter, needing a shorter sounding length, which might well improve the scale tuning if the SL is closer to the middle of the range the original tuning slide afforded. A larger new embouchure would play sharper overall and would require a longer SL for 440 than the original. If the flute in question is one from the era of English flute making where they shortened the heads to reach new, higher pitch standards, but didn’t shorten the scale length/revise the tuning (cf some of Terry McGee’s info on this topic), then a new, longer head might help, but only if the original runs out of safe slide extension sharp of the desired pitch.
I strongly suspect that any perceived improvements afforded by a new head in such contexts have little to do with length (which in all but a few cases is just a cosmetic matter) and plenty to do with better modern embouchure cutting, especially as many original antique ones are pretty ill-cut!
As a frequent playing partner of eskin, I can tell you that he is fastidious about tuning and intonation (and playability). And he didn’t say that the length of the head is the only difference. I think we can assume that, since the head was custom made, Hammy took all the necessary factors into account. To my ear, the flute plays well in tune.
I have two old flutes that I have been struggling to understand exactly why their performance improves dramatically when I substitute headjoints on them. I get two different types of improvements. One of each type on each flute. The substitute headjoints are within a very few mm of sounding length to the original. On one flute, the substitute headjoint has a far superior cut on the embouchure, with greater undercut on the target side, and a slightly larger ‘sweeping’ undercut on the upper and lower sides. Perhaps one to two degrees greater undercut. Small. but perceptible, and remarkable in improvement of tone. This same headjoint is a few thousandths larger in bore. This slightly alters the slide adjustment by a very small amount, but dramatically eliminates muddiness and burbling in the lower right hand notes’ tone as well as strengthens the bell note. On the other flute the headjoint is very close in diameter, but the tuning point is 1 to two mm greater extension. The embouchure cut is again slightly greater under cut, but the overall size of the embouchure is about 1 mm greater in each dimension, and
considerably ‘squarer’ in shape. Not exactly ‘TV’ shaped, since the aspect ratio is more square than lozenge, but with an appreciable difference in the size (length?) of the target edge. This flute experiences a dramatic jump in volume. Neither flute shows dramatic changes in their scaling when plaued against a tuner, or ‘flutini’. Jem’s clearly right when he says all embouchures are not created equal.
Bob
I don’t at all doubt eskin’s musicality or Hammy’s craftsmanship, it was more that eskin’s post raised an issue I have encountered a good many misconceptions about.
I did omit mentioning one factor which can influence intonation, usually of specific notes: to whit, extending the tuning slide causes a small enlargement of the bore between the end of the head liner/male part of the slide and the top-of-body where the tenon meets the socket shoulder in the barrel. The longer that enlargement, the more likely it is to have some effect on tuning- if any, usually sharpening of 2nd 8ve A & B. It is unlikely to cause poor tone response etc. nor other scale tuning problems, so far as experience and reading suggest to me. A simpler solution than making a longer head would be to create a simple spacer ring of metal tube of the same specs as the head liner.
To clarify, I am absolutely not saying a new, modern head or even a different antique one cannot improve the performance of a given flute - I know very well that it can. 
But just getting a longer head to reduce the visible opening of a tuning slide isn’t why…
Building on Jem’s last point about tuning slide extensions introducing a cavity in the bore that may affect tuning and tone, I think its worth noting that while this seems like a very small effect visually, it is actually rather large compared to the size of the irregularities in typical bore profiles. I’m in the early stages of learning to make flutes and have spent a lot of time recently profiling the bores of various antique flutes, and constructing reamers on a metal lathe to accurately match those profiles.
Bore profiles typically do not follow a straight taper, but instead vary from it by introducing cavities and constrictions at carefully selected locations along the bore. These cavities and constrictions tend to deviate from the diameter of a straight bore by only a small amount - typically one or two tenths of a mm, or less. In comparison, a typical tuning slide has a wall thickness of around 5 tenths of a mm, so the diameter of the bore changes abruptly by close to a mm when the slide is pulled out. This creates a significant cavity in comparison to the other cavities present in the bore. So, to the extent that different bore profiles have a noticeable effect on tone and tuning, I think it is reasonable to conclude that pulling out a tuning slide a long way could also have a noticeable effect.
Having said that, I do agree with the points Jem made.
The other factor that may be an issue is air leakage from the slide itself. If an antique flute head requires an extreme slide extension it can start to leak air as well as feel unstable in the hand. A longer head that allows a more closed slide position would fix both those problems and would yield a corresponding improvement in tone.
Jon
With the tuning slide pulled out to the extreme for tuning with other instruments does the cork in the head need to be adjusted as well or is that opening up a can of worms? I have screw adjustable corks in my flutes although I have never used them I have wondered why they are made to be adjusted so easily while I am suggested to leave them be.
Short answer is (basically) “Yes”. Slide out, stopper in and vice versa. But stopper position is always a compromise.