When locating holes on a “C” whistle or flute, it’s pretty easy to tune the first hole to “D”, second to “E” and so forth.
But how about other keys, where we have “chromatic” scales?
I heard something years ago about an open holed flute being a “non transposing instrument” or something to that effect, but never quite comprehended the significance of that.
I picked up a piece of 1" dia. heavy brass pipe years ago, and sawed off a 13" piece which, when fitted with an ambrochure and cork, produced a lovely tone a little flat of “A”; a little trimming brought it pretty much on the money, so I laid out the hole positions according to a formula I picked up on line which worked quite well on my walnut “G” flute.
My first hole came in a little flat, as expected since I drill an undersized hole just to be on the safe side.
When I filed it out to where it sounded about right, it registers about A# on the tuner.
Guess I’ll have to open it up a semitone, and hope it’s not so big when it hit B that my finger will fall through it.
That pretty much schitzes a flute, in my experience.
Now with “A” as my base or tonic note, should I tune the holes according to the key of “A” - ergo F, C, and G all #?
Or should I go right up the scale; 1=B, 2=C; 2=D; 3=E etc.?
I’ve botched up my last couple of projects by messing up the tone hole placement / tuning, and would like to get over it!
I think you need to be a little careful with your terms here and clear on your goal. These flutes are basically “diatonic” instruments, which means they play a seven note scale when fingered in the most simple progression. Now between the notes of a diatonic scale here are “big” jumps (whole steps) and “little” jumps (half steps) The holes on whistles and flutes and fifes and such are arranged to produce a major scale when fingered from “all closed” through “all open” and then the octave. Other scales (“modes”) are possible but you don’t want one.
I think the best way to get a sense of what’s going on is to sit at a piano and find a C note (the white key just to the left of a little group of two black keys.) and play only the white keys up (to the right) to the next C note. Seven notes plus the next C. You will notice there are two places where there are no black keys between the white keys, between E and F (the third and fourth notes), and between B and the octave C (the seventh note and octave) at the end. These are the little jumps, what are called “half steps.” If you listen closely you will hear there isn’t as big a sound change between the two notes in these pairs. It is the placement of these little jumps, the half steps, which determine what kinds of scale you’re playing. The formula for a major scale, the foundation of most the music we’re interested in, is whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half. Or, if you like, big-big-little-big-big-big-little.
So if your piece of pipe plays an A note at the bottom, you will want holes which will give you the following notes: B, C#, D, E, F#, G#. The next note, however you finger it, will give you the octave A. Your half steps, “little jumps” are between C# and D, and between G# and the high A. This follows the formula for a major scale.
Forget about the “transposing instrument” business. Saxophones, clarinets, and military fifes are transposing instruments and all that means is that for some weird reason their music notation is different from the actual sounds they make.
I downloaded the TWcalc thing which looks interesting, provided I can figure out how to use it!
I had a feeling that bore dia. and wall thickness had something to do with it, now that you mention it.
The formula I was using worked like a charm with one flute, but I couldn’t understand why it was way off on the next one. I guess I just got lucky with the first one, eh?
One potentially complicating factor with my wooden flutes is that I “jug” the bore out with a special scraper that I made between the ambrochure and the top hole in order to give it a more deep, mellow, “echoey” tone.
I have found that many of the old 19th Century fifes had a couple of constrictions in the bore, and I wonder if the old makers did that intentionally to compensate for the typically identically - sized and equally spaced holes they used on those old fifes.
A couple of antiques in my collection actually play pretty well, all things considered … and that they are about 150 years old.
I suppose that I could just estimate the average diameter and end up close enough. There is probably a fair amount of final tuning and tweaking with the hole arrangement even using these programs.
I’ve started my C# hole on the brass pipe - so far so good. I may try the TWcalc for the next 3 though, as the higher up the tube I go the higher I have to place the hole above it’s “calculated” position so that it isn’t too flat.
This latest flute weighs about 2 1/2 pounds of solid naval brass; probably a good instrument to use for a potentially rowdy gig, eh?
I agree with your comment but I think thats just a loose talk rather than precise way of talking. What is meant by transposing instrument with reference to simple system pipes is that you can use the same fingering on every instrument for plaing the same piece in different keys. You can’t do this on a chromatic instrument becuase when you change keys (for the same piece) you change fingering. So, we could say the simple flute is a “kinesthetic transposer” but then, no-one would know what the heck you were talking about. Talking precisely and talking understandably can sometimes be a razor’s edge.
Doug Tipple’s flute site, Fluomat, and TWCalc (there are instructions for this programme on the Jubilee site) all work on the assumption of a regular cylinder for for your flute. As soon as you introduce conical bores or perturbations, the math gets really funky. Some bore layouts will even make it extremely difficult to get the octaves in tune. I’m just starting with perturbations (slight constrictions in the bore) and it doesn’t take much to mess up the hole spacing.
Brass? Very nice! I’d make a whole bunch of mistakes in PVC, too. Takes about 12 minutes to make something that plays sorta in-tune for two octaves, another 20 minutes with an Xacto knife to tune and undercut, and you’re playing! A low F flute in 3/4in PVC can be super fun.
I thought those were the things that the Supreme Court kept finding in the Constitution to justify all sorts of… well, never mind…
Perhaps that’s what those old fifes had - apparently the old timers had the math pretty well figured out. I always wondered how they got them to play more or less in tune with evenly spaced, identically sized tone holes.
I guess that you could say that my low D whistle (top on photo posted) which was made out of (fairly thin) brass tubing salvaged from a floor lamp (you guessed it; the same dump) has a “perturbation” (sounds like something that teen aged boys spend a lot of time doing) with the gas pipe reducer fitting that I jammed on the end. It flattened the whistle’s tone a bit and I just liked the way it sounded. And as an added feature, the hexagonal fitting keeps the whistle from rolling off of the table.
One whistle I made out of the tapered end of a ski pole (dump again, of course) and the darn little thing plays pretty jiffy!
Sometimes I get lucky.
Maybe these calculator programs will help me get lucky a little more often!
Oh BTW - a Music shop in NH, after examining and hearing me play the black walnut “Gilead” flute offered me about $300 if I could make another one (or more) just like it. So far, alas, I have been unable to, and it’s making me nutz!
Forget about the “transposing instrument” business. Saxophones, clarinets, and military fifes are transposing instruments and all that means is that for some weird reason their music notation is different from the actual sounds they make.
Talasiga wrote…
I agree with your comment but I think thats just a loose talk rather than precise way of talking. What is meant by transposing instrument with reference to simple system pipes is that you can use the same fingering on every instrument for plaing the same piece in different keys. You can’t do this on a chromatic instrument becuase when you change keys (for the same piece) you change fingering. So, we could say the simple flute is a “kinesthetic transposer” but then, no-one would know what the heck you were talking about. Talking precisely and talking understandably can sometimes be a razor’s edge.
John Gribble replies…
You’re probably right, although I would use “glib” or “dismissive” rather than “loose talk.”
My point in not going farther with that topic was that it isn’t germane to Uncle Jaque’s issue. He simply wants to make a flute which will play the right notes in tune. A side trip into historical and pedagogical rationales behind the questionable practice of notating music in pitches other than those actually coming out of an instrument wasn’t going to help him make an instrument which will play an A major scale.
Obsessive precision has great potential for gratuitous obfuscation. Have I made myself clear?
I would have gotten this up earlier, but we have a clear case of a hi-tech toy in lo-tech hands.
"Obsessive precision has great potential for gratuitous obfuscation. Have I made myself clear? "
That’s a hoot! I love it!; Mind if I plagerize it on occasion?
Actually I sort of like to learn things, if at all possible, so I really don’t mind some of the “theoretical” and technical stuff.
If it goes over my head (as much as it does) I’ll just duck under it and try to comprehend whatever sticks to the inner walls of my thick Yankee skull.
I’m a slow learner, but there is so much to learn about music, and I do enjoy learning what I can about it.
Ba-GONGggg… 
with the gas pipe reducer fitting that I jammed on the end. It flattened the whistle’s tone a bit and I just liked the way it sounded. And as an added feature, the hexagonal fitting keeps the whistle from rolling off of the table.