Rudall - Rose, Prattens. Direct inj air column - embouchure

Irish Flute
1

I often muse over the various theories concerning blowing and flute embouchure design. I knew I was doing something different to most blowers. Most talk of the importance of the opposite side of the flute embouchure, cut, sharpness etc. I tend to play with a very relaxed upper and lower lip, get the flute up into the air column (having no fold of lip getting in the way as I have observed in many players) and aim the air column at the second button on my shirt. For me, this technique produces a strong, immediate, and direct responsive sound.

Recently I was playing a flute with an embouchure badly chipped on the furthermost edge (from my lip), it was a good head prior to this. It played excellently. I was surprised as despite the fact that I know my technique very well, I wasn’t expecting the head to blow as well, expecting some air to go over the top of the opposite edge and therefore be effected by the fault.

I experimented & I stuck a piece of 3mm high blutac to the opposite side of my own head joint emb. & blow and behold, it didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. I guess what I’m doing must send most of the air directly into the flute. I also anticipate that the air will circulate down the flute in the opposite direction as from splitting the air column with the furthermost edge as most do. (The head fitted into the tuning slide of both a Rudall Rose and a Prattens, and the results repeated)

Understanding this is important not just to blowers but makers too, even though few players appear to use the technique. I find it’s easier to keep a flute in tune and helps temper the flat foot problems of older flutes.

I think I need one of those pyrex flutes and a smoke generator to understand this better.

The still picture was taken after to illustrate and when I was blowing in the video clip the blutac was right on the edge.

http://www.youtube.com/user/holmesway#p/a/u/0/mhC9d3u8hXk

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii286/holmesway/Blutacembouchure.jpg

Regards

H

2

It would be interesting if you managed to video that clip but from a side angle (or two)

There’s probably a lot of research still to be done around what exactly make the music happen in a wooden tube with holes in it

Boyd

3

Hi Holmes

Nicely illustrated. This is the approach to embouchure recommended by at least Gunn, Nicholson and Rockstro in the 19th century.

http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/Nicholson_on_Tone.htm

http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/Gunn%20on%20Tone.htm

http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/Rocksto_on_tone.html

Something else that occurred to me recently was a simple experiment to illustrate the difference between the “fluteplayers smile” embouchure and the “fluteplayers frown” embouchure. With your hand in front of your face, adopt the “smile” and blow. The jet hits your hand well directly in front of your mouth. Now adopt a “frown” and blow. The jet moves down towards the heel of the hand. When applied to the flute, the jet will aim for the edge if smiling, and towards the centre of the flute if frowning.

How’s this for starters:

http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/FluteTone-Picklist_of_Potential_Investigations.htm

Terry

4

Holmes, I didn’t understand from your description whether your embouchure is allowing the embouchure edge closest to your lip to split the air column, (and so the blue tack or chip on the far edge don’t matter), or think that it’s the far edge that splits the air column, but if the air is going down, imperfections of the edge (or near it) don’t matter?

If you cover part of the embouchure then it has to be the second possibility, but I wasn’t quite clear from your description if this is the case.

Hugh

5

It’s pretty clear from what Holmes wrote that he’s not trying to split the air column at all. He’s driving all (or nearly all, as much as is humanly possible) of his airstream into the flute. This is the key to achieving a strong Irish-sounding tone on the wooden flute - something that was first brought to my attention by Marcas O Murchu in a workshop I took with him about ten years ago now. He had us do an exercise where we would play a low G (i.e. top three holes covered) and hold our free hand directly in front of and slightly below our mouth - right where the air stream would hit the center of our hand if there was no flute in the way. The object was to play the note without feeling any air hitting the hand - meaning that the air column was going into the flute and not being split by the opposite edge of the embouchure hole.

I recall getting into a rather heated online discussion of this some years back - maybe it was here, maybe it was on the woodenflute list - with people of a scientific bent who claimed that the flute would not sound unless the airstream was being split. That’s only technically true, though, because what is making the sound is the vibrating column of air inside the flute and that air can be set to vibrating simply by the pressure of the air coming in and bouncing against the lower edge of the chimney created by the embouchure hole. This not only creates the vibrating air column inside the flute (which would not be created if a tube dispensing air was sealed up tight to the hole, because then the flute would just be serving as another form of conduit, i.e. a pipe) but it also dirties up the vibrating air column via edge effects to create the characteristic flute tone. So technically yes the column of air is being split when it hits the side of the chimney. But from a practical perspective, the player is most definitely not using the opposite edge of the embouchure hole to split the airstream as is taught for classical flute playing. To get a proper tone on the wooden flute, the airstream needs to be directed into the flute, not across the opposite edge.

6

Thanks John Kerr for saying it, I don’t believe that the air column gets split either.

Thanks Terry, I’ve read those (your) pages too. I just didn’t really understand what I have been doing all these years!

Are there any theories on the direction that the air spirals down the flute? I guess this way it will be anticlockwise looking down the button end and clockwise if the furthermost edge is used. It may make a difference?

Regards

H

7

Just tried this… a little bit of blutak (as in pic) doesn’t make much difference but a higher wall does and if it is right on the edge then
it very much does. I made a little flap of stickytape 1/2 inch high if it leans back at 45 degrees or so then you can blow OK but any steeper then it
progressively effects the sound. Oddly it narrows the room for error so if your blowing isn’t spot on it then you loose the tone.
So I think the stream is split, just not evenly which makes sense I’d guess. Also on a cold day with my metal banded Wilkes you can clearly see the
condensation on the cold metal of the tube so there must be some flow. The best tone seems to be when condensation forms a small sharp vee.
There must be a larger proportion going into the flute as where else would all that moisture come from?

8

John, I understand the arguments and their history. But if your model is right, then the art of embouchure cutting is in getting the chimney right, not the edge. Changes in embouchure shape should be important if they change the chimney. Changes in edge shape shouldn’t matter if they don’t change the chimney shape. Do I understand you correctly?

Here’s a thought experiment for you. If one blew through a small diameter straw (same diameter and shape as the opining in your lips) inserted just into the embouchure, so that the airstream couldn’t hit the blowing edge, but wasn’t inserted so far to significantly mess up the rebounding molecules, do you think you would hear anything? If I understand you, your model says yes, because air hitting the edge/chimney on the way in doesn’t matter. Easy enough to do. If the experiment works this would save having to develop an embouchure, and make the flute like playing a whistle. I’ll be rich, rich !!! (evil laugh…)

It seems to me that when I go up an octave, I am changing the direction of the airstream (less down), and when I go to the third octave I blow even less down (and with higher velocity). It’s not obvious how this works if the edge/chimney isn’t doing anything to the incoming air. I bet my straw blown flute wouldn’t change octaves.

Most of the molecules bouncing off th round surface of the head tube from a downward directed airstream will be scattered, and thus only a small percentage of them will hit the chimney on the rebound, given that the surface area of the chimney is small relative to the surface area of the headjoint tube in the region of the embouchure.. (Or more accurately, little of the energy imparted to the air column will come from rebound effects on the chimney). It’s surprising to me that embouchure cut matters so much to response and tone of a flute if it’s just rebound that matters. My intuition is that the edge and chimney must influence what happens to the incoming airstream, and not just be a surface to rebound from.

I don’t have any data that would be useful, but it would be interesting to examine chimney and edge design and correlate with acoustic performance (generation of overtones that give the reedy sound) to see if one could substantiate such a model. It’s interesting that anecdotal reports suggest that careful finishing of the embouchure at right angles to the blowing edge can have a big effect on sound, which is consistent with the edge not being the only thing that matters. Is anyone able to comment on this?

As an aside, not trying to split the air column isn’t the same as not splitting the air column. As Holmes says, one needs to actually look at this. I’d be surprised it if hasn’t been done. I always see a little bit of condensation on the other side of the blowing edge, even if I can’t feel anything with my hand.

Cheers
Hugh

9

This is really a very interesting discussion since I’m working hard at developing my embouchure. As I read some instructions in earlier posts on this thread and from other videos and literature I’ve watched and read so far, the lower lip should be over the back edge of the opening making it impossible to blow on the back edge. So, using a silver flute so as not to get into whose flut were you playing arguments, I placed my lower lip near the center of the embouchure hole and got and nice clear tone (as I have been instructed). Then to experiment I then placed my upper lip just over the back edge making my lower lip well down on the lip plate - so I would be blowing down on the back edge. With very little adjustment I was able to draw a clear tone - somewhat sharper and weaker than the first tone - but then I’m new at this anyway. I suppose one could work at and adjust from either position (I have no theory about why this works, but the back hole approach under discussion seems a little like blowing the Japanese Shakuhachi flute. It doesn’t really have a front edge as I recall.

I could not easily change octaves, but can make a clear note - a beginning. So then I tried bowing into the top and bottom edges of the embouchure hole and I also made a tone - as long as I directed my breath at an edge. At least there was a beginning tone and of course we humans can always adjust and continue to learn to encorporate whatever. It kind of reminded me of the first time I saw a YouTube video of a flute maker playing his flute - it was tilted down at about 30 degrees and he was blowing into the upper-front edge of the embouchure’s hole - and making a nice sound - playing a great tune. Ancient philosopher say many paths lead to top of same mountain :wink: I’m sure some paths are much more difficult, especiallyfor the newbees

10

I still hold with down as opposed to across and the benefits that brings, in my opinion, i.e. better in tune, stronger tone ,better projection.

Here I blow into a bottle with 7mm blutac right over the opposite edge; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vv_Evsh2-w

11

Since we’re getting all geeked out about this anyway, I wonder if infrared photography would allow us to see exactly what that warm air does as it enters/interfaces with that embouchure hole. Anybody got the 'quipment?

12

Is it the edge nearer to you that matters on bottles? Seems to work on flutes too I can blow so that almost none of the back edge is getting air
and still get a sound, but I agree more down than across. Though direction counts I feel a really fine accurately placed reed of air is what really counts.
If your stream of air is only a couple of mm across then just hitting the edge is a challenge, I’m guessing most people myself included play with far too much air.

13

Two things are being mixed up here. We all agree that directing air downwards gives a sound with more overtones (dark and reedy), and thus that it’s helpful to visualize the air going down (I use Terry’s picture of trying to blow a crumb off one’s chin). Where we disagree is on the function of the edge in getting the sound-ie whether the airstream is split or not.

Try blowing into your palm with the smallest lip opening you can manage to get air out of. I feel air over a surprisingly wide area, even when my palm is very close, suggesting that the airstream isn’t as focused as on might expect. So it wouldn’t surprise me to find that at least some of the air is being split by the edge.

Hugh

14

I believe you are right about too much air being used (full disclosure - my background is with reed instruments, mostly clarinet). Listening to Miko Russell recordings it seems like he is taking a breath every few notes and I personally would prefer at least a phrase per breath. But maybe that’s required to get the sound he wants from the instrument he is playing.

That is probably a sac religious statement even though I enjoy listening to his recordings.

I have read scientific explanations of how/why hollow tubes make various tones and why the holes change the pitch, etc - but even the lowly bottle can slightly change pitch, tone just with the way you blow in, around or across it - no holes required. Whistles change a bit with fipple design and sound different with different materials and sizes also - some slide easily into the second register and float up to the 3rd octave without effort - others are a struggle. It mostly depends on how precisely the airstreams is split.

But the flute allows much experimentation with the human to instrument embouchure - instrument thickness, hole design, lip placement, and air stream. And like a fiddler (my main instrument) most players will find what they like to hear best with the instrument they can afford and go from there. Good or bad - subjectively of course.

15

I didn’t intend to get geeky over it, I don’t even suggest that any one way will suit all. I surprised myself on how little I rely on the opposite edge of the embouchure (by accident). Any scientific ways of looking at it may produce more questions than answers but I’ll give the thermal imaging a go.

Regards

H

16

One of the images I have run across referring to the production of sound in a flute is that of a compressable spring oscillating. Picture a slinky inside the bore of the sounding chamber (this image covers stopped chambers like a bottle as well as open chambers like a flute bore.)
The far edge of the blow hole is not as important as the ‘push-back’ of the ‘spring’ in the sounding chamber in causing periodic redirection of the blowing out and away from the blow hole. This image readily allows for more or less direction of the injected blowing air into or across the blow-hole.
If you think of a bottle being sounded as a flute, the far edge has almost no ‘edge’ at all.
This image is similar to various analogies to the action of resonant cavities being injected with microwaves.

For what it is worth,
Bob

17

Keep in mind that I’m not describing the only way to get a sound out of the flute, I’m describing the best way to get the sound that Irish trad players strive for. When I change octaves, I don’t change the direction of my airstream at all. I change the opening in my lips, which changes the cross-section area through which the stream comes out, which changes the pressure at which the air comes out, which either raises or lowers the pitch that’s sounding by some interval - not necessarily an octave. By changing embouchure alone, with any given fingering I can sound the fundamental (e.g. xxx xxx = D), the first harmonic (D’), the second harmonic (A’), the third harmonic (D’'), etc.

Re your straw hypothesis, if you could configure the straw to have the same cross-sectional shape as your (lip) embouchure opening and put out the airstream at the same pressure - and also cover up the same part of the flute embouchure hole as your lips inevitably do, then yes I think you would get a sound. But doing all that with a straw might not be possible.

18

Now I can’t even get a decent tone no matter how I try to blow my flute - front or back edge :confused:

below is a Physics site with some flute measurement/discussion points, but I would like to hear the results of any measurements that can be made here - they seem to ignore the back edge and maybe for bad reasoning:

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/fluteacoustics.html#together

and a quote:

‘Lipping’ up and down

The design of a flute involves compromises and many notes require slight pitch adjustment by the player. (See Tuning woodwinds.) Players lower the pitch mainly by a combination of drawing the chin back or pushing it forward, rolling the flute’s embouchure hole towards them or away and changing the jet geometry. These actions do several things: (i) they increase the fraction of the embouchure hole that is covered by the lower lip, thereby decreasing the size of the hole opening to the atmosphere, (ii) they decrease the solid angle available into which the sound wave can radiate (informally: they ‘get in the way of’ the radiation), and (iii) they decrease the length and change the angle of the jet .


Effects (i) and (ii) increase the effective length of the flute and so make the resonant frequencies lower and the note flatter. Rolling the embouchure away and/or extending the lower jaw have the reverse effects, and so raise the pitch. Technically, these actions work because they change the radiation impedance at the embouchure: when a note is ‘lipped down’, the embouchure hole is “less open” (both the hole and angle are smaller so there is more impedance to radiation from the bore to the external field). The effects of the jet itself are more complicated.

We have measured these effects explicitly by installing our impedance measuring equipment in a flute head and measuring the impedance at the embouchure hole. (This is the impedance of the radiation field, ‘looking out’ from inside the blowhole, which is partially blocked by the lower lip. The flutist’s lip and face also provide a baffle that reduces the angle for radiation. These results are reported in a recent conference paper - see our research papers site.) The interval that can be lipped depends on the details of the impedance spectrum and on some properties of the jet. It is easier to adjust the pitch of notes using a short length of tube, whose impedance spectra have fewer and shallower harmonic minima than do those of long tube fingerings. The analogous effects are much bigger on the shakuhachi, and are described on that site.

19

Is it not feasible to achieve both of those with manipulation of the lower lip muscles?

(check it out boyz and girrls…he is getting into bigger words!)

20

That’s the direction I am staggering in at the moment. I have for a while now been crushing my flute into my face
as per Mr Nicholsons instructions, and using my lower lip as an anvil for my top lip to push down upon.
But I’ve been playing other music that requires more dynamics recently and found that by lowering the flute on
my face a bit and rolling in less, I can get much more variety of tone and pitch because my lips can move around
more, it’s a little harder but I think has brought some benefits for me at least. It’s certainly less stressful and I might
still be able to play when my lower teeth drop out.