I’ve been playing with my Casey Burns Folk flute and started having problems with the stability of the low D. I was getting nice hard barks down to the E and then the D just wouldn’t stay in the lower octave bit insisted on jumping. What really annoyed me was that it used to work ok!
A few weeks later, it occurs to me that what I am doing different is tuning the flute to 440Hz, i.e. no longer playing with the headjoint pushed all the way in. I go back and try it and sure enough, this is the problem: Headjoint pushed in - good low D, headjoint pulled out about 1/3 of an inch, poor low D.
So, I guess what I need are “tuning rings”, i.e. something to fill the space left by the opening of the joint caused by tuning. Not having space for a lathe to turn some beautiful Mopane rings myself, I wondered if any of you had some good suggestions for how to do DIY tuning rings? Otherwise it is going to be thick plastic hose cut and wrapped to fit for me…
It’s also possible that when you pull your headjoint out 1/3", you’re losing your seal and getting a small leak. If the joint is loose, you may want to try wrapping it with a few turns of waxed dental floss. I have done this on my Burns flute, and it helps keep a firm fit. Good luck!
I personally wouldn’t use PVC plastic hose or any similar materials to make tuning rings. Those materials tend to damp vibrations. I made a whistle from PVC hose to try out that material for whistle making (hey, a rollable whistle, that’s cool!), and though it produces a basic sound, there’s no resonance at all. PVC tubing works far better since it’s harder, so tuning rings could be better made from PVC tubing.
I agree with crookedtune and CranberryDog, it’s probably a little leak at the joint, and you should add a bit of thread.
But, if that doesn’t solve your problem and you still want a ring to fill the gap, how about one of them rubber O rings? If you got the right size it would stay in place nicely.
To Cork: I can bend my tone quite a long way, but I prefer to play my flute with my main ear on the quality of the sound I am making. This dictates certain embouchure relationships that work for me. With this in mind, I like to extend the tuning slides on my flutes till they are at the target pitch (440Hz in this case) when I am playing with, what for me is the best sound. I don’t feel up to playing the FF in a substantially different manner to my other flutes (which mostly have tuning slides…) - so I want to play with the head pulled out a bit…
To Crooked Tune: I had tried testing for a leak by wrapping the whole of the outside of the joint with teflon plumbing tape in an attempt to make sure the joint was airtight - don’t know if this is a valid test, but it didn’t solve the problem, so I wanted to try some rings to fill in the fairly substantial gap left in the bore by pulling the head out.
To Gabriel and seisflutes: Thanks, I will have a look at the local DIY market for the hard PVC piping and hard rubber O-Rings and see what I can find in roughly the right sizes. The point about having a soft material in the bore acting as a damper is one that I can relate to.