I’ve been playing my McGee GLP w/ improved elliptical embouchure for about a year and a half, am very comfortable with it, and I can usually get as much volume as I want from it. This week, Jon C. sent me a couple of flutes to try out, which brings up this question. One of the flutes, a William Hall is very similar in most ways to my GLP, and I’m pretty comfortable playing it, although there are differences. The other one, however, is giving me fits on the bottom end. It’s a J. Wallis 8-key Rudall type flute, and is a really strong player for me down to F#, then the E is weaker, and the D is weaker yet. Last night, I was finally able to get the D, C#, and C to speak fairly reliably, but they were all pretty quiet. Definitely can’t get any kind of strong, hard sound out of the D without it jumping into the second and sometime third octave. It seems that if I give it more than the least little breath, it jumps.
Does this sound like a difference in embouchure, a difference in flute design, or is it me? Thoughts?
It almost sounds like you’re leaking from one or both F keys.
Sometimes in shipment boxes get banged around pretty good…eyeball those keys closely and see if you can tell if the pads are actually sealing on all sides, or make yourself a feeler guage and check with that.
I know that the long F was leaking on the first night. Seemed like it had a bit too much play in the keyway. Anyway, I talked to Jon about oiling it, and he said to go ahead, so I removed all the keys and oiled 'er up. I also cleaned the key seats and keyways, and wiped down the keys as well, just to be sure that nothing was causing any of them to swing out of true, let it sit for a while before wiping off the excess oil and putting it back together. That stopped the leaking on the long F, and the short one looks good as well. After that, the D and E both improved, but are still not where they ought to be. I also did the suck test, and can’t locate a leak anywhere. I wonder if the leaking could be around the tenon when it’s put together? The joints seem to be fairly tight, but still wobble a bit.
I’m with James, check the F keys. You can do a “suck test” with the RH section by placing your left thumb over the socket and covering the holes with your fingers and then lightly sucking on the tennon. If the keys and pads are good, the section will hold a vacuum. If your thumb doesn’t fit in the socket you could use the palm of your left hand…
You can check each section this way and then try to check with the sections joined.
I’ve also found that many of the older keyed flutes E’s and usually F’s sound much better with the Eb key vented.
You should also suck test the head to make sure the tuning cork and slide are sealing.
Hmm… if it leaks in the lower octave, shouldn’t it leak in the second octave as well? It’s really strong from the G on up through the second octave to the third octave d.
Okay, that makes sense. I’ll give it another look when I get home tonight. Thanks for the advice, guys. I was thinking that my lip might have been sprung or something, lol.
On the joint fit, they seem good and tight going together, but then once they’re all the way in, there’s a bit of wobble sometimes. I’m not sure why it doesn’t seem to be consistent. Could it just be my inexperience with threaded joints? the McGee has cork.
I think I’ve got it. It might be that the thread is laid on a bit thicker on the end of the tenon, and might need a bit more on up toward the shoulder?
The thing to remember is that even a leak the size of a pinhole, almost too small to see without a microscope, will still suck the life out of the lowest notes, but will have much less effect on the second octave and up. It doesn’t have to be a great big leak; a very very small one will suffice.
I have an 8 key flute with a lined head that wasn’t sealed well. It would just get weaker as it went down. Got it sealed, low C honks. Little feckin’ holesss.
My old 8-key was always a very temperamental beastie.
Some days, it would just sing…other days, it would be so stuffy it would barely play a note.
I finally traced the problem several years ago to a hairline crack in the head which was allowing an air leak where the embouchure hole met the liner of the headjoint.
Having corrected this, the flute plays solidly and predictably now. The days of that flute only playing well on rainy days are gone.
By the way, the crack wasn’t visible to the naked eye. I found it with a 30x hand-held microscope.
The suck test is important to test the condition of the pads, but it doesn’t check the setting of the keys. You can have a situation where the key is not quite closing firmly, but a suck test will pull the pad onto the seat giving it a perfect score. Follow up your suck test with a blow test. You shouldn’t be able to easily blow any of the pads off the seat.
Check that the C key and particularly the C# key (over the D hole) is opening far enough. Sometimes the springs get a bit sleepy and allow the pads to droop down, partially shading the hole. You could pull the pin on the C# key and remove it and see if the D responds dramatically better.
You probably can’t expect an 8-key to respond quite as well as your GLP on the D - the GLP is designed to optimise the D, whereas an 8-key has to stretch the response down to the C. So the bore can’t just be optimised for the D, and the venting of the D is considerably poorer, reduced by a length of tube of decreasing diameter, and side-vented by two holes both partially obscured by pads looming over them.
Interestingly, players seem to react to this difference in different ways. Some find a D-terminated flute far better than a C-terminated flute, some seem not to notice the difference. An odd issue, and one that deserves investigation. Sigh, Research Agenda Item #6392.
