Daniel’s use of “complex” is good, I think. “Broad” or “colored” are words I sometimes use, and “woody” and “reedy” are bandied about, too. Once I had someone asking, based on its tone, if I was playing some type of oboe.
A sound producer once asked about a particular accomplished ITM fluteplayer’s tone (not me!), wondering why it was “so quinty”. I’d never heard the term before, and I eventually realised he was referring to the extra harmonics going on with any given note and with certain techniques that make that sort of thing really stand out. I tried to assure him that it was a sought-after aesthetic quality in this case, and not a sign of bad playing, or a bad flute. It seemed to me he suspected that I was not quite right in the head about that.
If it helps any, I’m always listening to see if I’m in tune. I hate being out of tune. Hate it.
If no one’s complaining, could be you’re just fine.
I think it’s very difficult. On any instrument. As a n00b fluter, I find that flute has its own difficulties, of intonation, and of hearing one’s intonation. But … I always bear in mind the many sessions, in Ireland and elsewhere, that have been ruined by fluters playing consistently sharp, and, somehow or other, I am determined not to be that sort of fluter, as I learn to play this thing.
I took my flute to a session last night for the first time, and played it quite a bit. I know that I started out a bit flat, but I adjusted the slide, and came up to concert, in line with everyone else. It took me some listening to do, and it meant more adjustment of my embouchure than I was prepared for - controlling a tendency to sharpness in the upper octave whilst bringing up to pitch the lowest notes - but it can be done, provided you are prepared to listen all the time you’re playing.
Ain’t that the same (sort of) on any instrument?
The irony is that playing sharp is playing out of tune.
How do we hear how we are, or are not, in tune?
Does she know that a cold flute goes out of tune once it’s a wet flute? If not, tell her, and suggest that she’ll need to retune after the first set. Used right, you can use this to get her to retune often without getting her back up. You also might want to explain that flute usually sounds differently to the player because of where they have to be in relation to it, so she should try playing into a corner to hear the difference.
For my satisfaction, I have to do that overall until I know the stick’s warmed up and found its level. After that, I pay attention to those notes I have to play into tune. I think listening to oneself in relation to others is key, no question. I don’t think of it as a chore.
I’m still wondering about relative ability to hear what is in tune, and what isn’t.
Free reeds, not so much. 
True. Free reeds. Perhaps I should have specified musical instrument.
Yeah, that I get, only the irony wasn’t hers. She was dead serious for whatever reason. I guess you’ll just have to trust me on this one.
She knows about warmup and cooldown, being a seasoned trombone player. Could be she’s not been remembering that, though, new toy and all. Here’s some more info about the flute: at first I, and another fluter as well, thought she’d mistakenly gotten herself an Eb flute, so she checked with the maker, and it turns out that while it does play beautifully in Eb, it’s made to be played as a D instrument! The trick is that you have to really play down into the embouchure cut, and it works famously. I never thought to see the like - Eb and D with the same body - but it works. That’s some killa embouchure cut.
So she knows - it was demonstrated to her, and she’s done it herself - what she needs to do to get into good pitch. She has shown that she can get decent tone, for her level, playing that way, but it looks like she gets careless and start playing more across the cut, and so sharpens up that way, and on that flute the difference is big. I’ve reminded her from time to time to remember to play more down into the cut, the beast being what it is, or otherwise use the tuning slide more. I have not been harping at her about this - I’ve probably only brought it up about three, maybe four times in a couple of months’ time, and in a kindly way at that - but she’s started getting irritated with me, and now the feathers are really ruffled.
To repeat, it’s not just a tad sharp, but way sharp. No doubt she’s not been hearing herself, being flushed with the enjoyment of playing her new flute, but I can’t rest easy letting that slide. Other people might not be as charitable about it later on, and I’ve been trying to help her forestall that eventuality best as I know how.
Maybe the exercise of playing into a corner could help. It’s just that it’s baffling to me how one can be a quarter tone sharp, or even more, to everyone else and not hear that.
Quite frankly, she was in such a huff that I’d be surprised if she ever even came back at this point, which is something I greatly regret considering how I could have perhaps better handled things.
Yay, sour grapes because you chose the wrong week to come to Kernow…
You can be quoting and be ironic at the same time, and deadpan irony is the finest kind.
Are you really trying to claim that she takes her statement literally and believes that playing sharp isn’t playing out of tune?
There’s a right week?
I have never once claimed so or tried to claim so, nor have I assumed so. I have only reported events, and “dead serious” was descriptive of her manner. I’m no mind reader. What I can tell you is that she definitely decided to argue with me about it. She was standing her ground on no uncertain terms: Flat = out of tune. Sharp = not out of tune. She said it along those very lines, stuck to it, and I did not mistake her. I have witnesses, need I repeat much less put it in such terms, and there was resulting discussion and commentary from them afterward about the whole thing. The consensus was one of bafflement.
Whether or not she really believes it deep down and it wasn’t just pride talking is something I can’t know, of course. She would have to be the one to tell me as to the truth of that.
Really, at this point I’m more interested in how it is we hear what is in tune, and what is out of tune, how easy or hard it is for us to hear these things, and how we make compromises when we must (the above subject about the fluter’s statement is starting to bore me, to be honest, as I’ve already gotten the answers I came for in the question I posed as it arose to my mind out of that event. I don’t know what more needs to be said about it, and I think I’ve been clear enough throughout).
Regarding the wooden flute I found a phenomenon which made me wonder about the very same question for quite some time. I’m not playing the wooden flute for a long time (“seriously” since jan. 2007, that is) but have been playing music quite some time before: piano, different bagpipes, saxophone, and boehm flute as well. I never head problems being in tune (which actually isn’t an issue on the piano, I know), but on boehm flute, saxophone and such I always was able to hear if I’m sharp or flat or just in tune. But on the flute I constantly played sharp even if I was absolutely sure being in tune. Which I found was that if I think I’m in tune, I have to pull out the slide a wee bit more for actually being in tune, even if it sounded well enough for me before. The same is true for at least two fluters I know. So it might have something to do with the specific sound (spectrum) the flute produces.
Generally I hear if is in tune by listening for “beat frequencies” (dont know if that’s the right word) - if they’re there, my A/G is a different A/G than musician X’s A/G. Only works with well-tuned instruments, though. Wouldn’t want to trust a wet accordion. And I don’t use electric tuners at all. Never. They just don’t work for the flute - playing the flute involves constant checking of one’s tuning and adjusting it on the fly, if necessary. A tuner can’t help with that.
buried deep in the DNA of the wooden flute…
a need to return to high pitch
beware!
It might. The playing-sharp phenomenon happens in my neck of the woods, too, but those who do seem to have difficulty hearing it and seldom adjust for it, unfortunately. But of course it’s not universal. Once I was accused of playing flat by another fluter - but she usually plays sharp by my estimation (different lady than the aforementioned). Certainly I was flat to her, but to my ear I was pretty well in line with everyone else, and they weren’t complaining, so: was I in tune, or was she the only one who had the guts to say anything? Whaddayagonna do.
I find that my ear works more reliably for tuning my cittern. I’ve tried a tuner, and the result was that the strings, which are double courses tuned in unison, ended up pretty wet-tuned. I don’t go for wet tuning on my gizmo, so that was that.
When I have no choice but to do so, obviously I have to arrive at some sort of decision, so I opt for compromise. I try hear what the middle ground is, start by tuning accordingly, and see if it pans out over both octaves. It’s subjective, of course, so I’ll ask how it sounds to others, too. It comes down to making the best of a dangerous situation.
As I mentioned earlier, a session setting tuned (!) to a wet accordion can be and often is a wild thing. Then I just try to find the overall middle ground, but often enough I just wind up fiddling and re-fiddling with the tuning slide with no relief in sight.
Coming from Boehm system, i’ve noticed a difference with tone which can lead to tuning problems. With my boehm, if I’m in a group / session and can’t hear myself I can add an ‘edge’ to my sound using embouchure which just adds some more cutting frequencies to my tone. At a session last week I was drowning in sound and tried this on my simple system. I ended up having to pull out the tuning slide about a half inch to stay in tune.
As to her ‘if it’s sharp it’s not out of tune’ theory - tosh.
So, is it fair to assume you hear being in-tune on the Boehm and the simple system flutes differently somehow, Bramble?
I’ve played the Boehm flute for about 10 years now, and the Irish flute for about three. I played in a youth orchestra, various school, honour, and university bands, and the Band of the Ceremonial Guard (marching band in Ottawa…it’s fun trying to tune 7 piccolos! 
). I learned a lot about tuning in each of these groups. One thing I learned is if you can tell you’re out of tune but don’t know which way, push the note flat and bring it back up (ever listened to timpani tuning?). The reason is that the human ear hears pitch better this way (for some reason). Similarly (maybe?) human ears will notice flat players a lot easier than sharp players; if you’re going to be out of tune at all, best to push it a bit sharp (in general–obviously being out of tune, sharp or flat, should be avoided if possible); perhaps this is where that flute player was coming from?
I don’t have the greatest ear in the world, but I can usually stay out of trouble in a band/orchestra setting. ITM can get a little hairier. It is substantially easier to tune to similar instruments (i.e. in a band setting we would try as much as possible to stay in tune with the principal flutist); that doesn’t work so well in ITM since you may be the only flutist there, or the other flutists might be on the other side of the room and you can’t hear them, or your instruments’ tuning tendencies might be significantly different. The timbre of Boehm flutes is fairly consistent, but there is a bit more variation among Irish flutes, so this can add to the problem. Often while playing ITM music I am trying to remember the tune, or if I know it well enough trying to make it musical and interesting…I am listening to myself, absorbed in what sorts of sounds my own flute is creating, instead of listening to the rest of the group for tuning. In classical ensembles, you have notes on a page to do this thinking for you, so it’s a little easier to listen (I find). Or maybe I’ve spent so much time focusing on tuning with my Boehm flute that it seems natural, but when I come to ITM I just want to play the music and I forget about that side of music-making 
…because the Irish flute feels and sounds different enough from a Boehm flute that the tuning doesn’t come so automatically.
That is very interesting. Harmonicas are generally tuned to around A443. The usual reason given for this is that you tend to flatten the notes slightly when playing. This is very dubious, as you can’t really flatten the lower blow notes or the upper draw notes, so the result, if it were true at all, would be pretty inconsistent. For some reason, the slightly “bright” tuning sounds good with, say, guitars tuned to A440. I never allow anyone to tune to my harmonica, as this would negate that slightly bright tuning. I’ve always contended that very few people could detect that an A443 harp was “sharp.” By the time you get up to A445 I think most musicians at least would be able to detect it.
There’s nothing as much fun as playing a moody instrument with just intonation with people who claim they have perfect pitch and are getting cantankerous with you because not every note on your instrument is bang on in tune with theirs. Especially the Es and Csharps on a set of pipes. I’ve bailed on a session because someone gave me a hard time for being slightly out of tune when I was really doing the best I could in a hot and humid pub with zero ventilation. I stopped going to that session. In fact, I pretty much avoided that pub categorically after a while, even though it had sessions every night of the week, as I could never keep the bloody pipes in tune there.
While being in tune is important, I think you have to have some latitude when in a session. You’re not an orchestra, it’s not a band gig; so as long as everything is in a reasonable ballpark where it doesn’t totally suck, it’s fine. Most trad musicians I have played with are happy with the ballpark theory of tuning. Luckily very few – and the ones who do tend to be the ones claiming perfect pitch – get flipped out by the wet tuning of your average session.
Um, no, that’s not quite what I meant. I’m not explaining very well…
It’s about what I do to the tone. On my boehm flute i can change tones through reedy, edgy, warm, rich etc … if I’m in a place where I can’t hear myself I move away from warm and rich and more towards edgy / reedy as those higher frequencies cut through a bit better. The technique that I use to do this doesn’t affect the tuning at all on the boehm. However, when I try the same technique on my wood flute it makes me sharp, so I have to pull out considerably. I think it’s more to do with transfering technique between two differently constructed instruments…
Does that make more sense?
Having said all this, the OP was a trombonist so it’s probably irrelevent.