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Voicing and Tuning
Voicing a flute starts in the making of it. I have several specially designed ramp, channel, SAC vent and fipple designs which allow for very quiet flutes, very loud ones, or ones which can have both a flat bottomed block or a channelled block put on them for wide tonal ranges - the secrets for these designs will stay just that! The actual voice box mechanics can be very complicated in order to get the desired end result in terms of sound, tone, air flow, responsiveness etc. All SVF flutes are designed as 'clear-note' flutes, with a minimum of breathiness - although this can be built in if needed! The final voicing of an assembled flute, that is the incremental filing, sanding, shaping of the fipple edge, sound hole and flue, can be very quick or (more often) take hours or days. Once a totem (block) is tied onto the flute and the first fundamental note blown, the decision has to be made as to what refinement, if any, is needed to the sound. I cannot offer advice here - it's a personal choice, but I make the decision on how I want the flute to sound (clear, breathy, sharp, mellow etc.) and do most of the voicing work at this point before I fully tune it. Once I'm happy that the sound is falling within, or extremely close to, the final one, only then do I cut the flute to its real fundamental length (or its apparent length if it is to have tuning holes) using a special jig on the bandsaw.
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I tune my flutes to play on key at between 65-75 C (unless requested otherwise). I use a Korg CA-30 chromatic tuner, and for concert flutes I also check the tuning against keyboards. I'm also pedantic..I check the actual final length of the flute against the calculation of what it should be; this way I get an idea of how accurate the bore size is, which has a bearing on subsequent tuning calculations. Finally, I check the wall thickness along the bore length using a special jig, as this too affects tuning and playing hole placement.
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Having decided at the initial design stage on what key I want, major or minor, how many (if any) tuning holes there will be, whether there's to be 5, 6 or 7 playing holes, and what their diameter should be, this stage puts it into practice and is all maths. As I said, I'm pedantic..I derive the hole placement positions by a new set of calculations for each new flute; I've come a cropper too many times trying to mark hole positions across from an existing flute to a new one! Each flute is totally individual, even it it's been made to the same pattern as a previous one.
The calculations themselves are based on the formulae given by Lew Paxton Price in his invaluable books 'Secrets of the Flute' and 'More Secrets of the Flute.' However, I have taken his equations a little further such that I can derive hole placement positions by using a series of base equations to generate quadratic equations, for which there are some good, free, little computer programs around on the internet. Once I have the measurements for the flute I have just made, it only takes about 15 minutes to generate and mark the first hole position. One major plus doing it this way is that I can take anyone's hand graphs and put the playing holes exactly where their fingers fall - vital for the 7 hole flutes in particular!
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| Wrong! I keep my first disastrous solo attempt at tuning over the workshop door to remind me how important the calculation process is and not to shortcut it. |
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Once the first hole (be it playing or tuning) is marked up on the flute, I drill a 1/4" (6mm) pilot, clean the hole and then check the note. From there on, I follow the traditional route and burn the hole out to achieve the desired note. I use medium and large Ahoken Flutemaker's Burning sticks heated with a blowtorch. I far prefer burning because it's much more subtle than a drill or Dremel and there's a scope to make fractional adjustments to a note that you cannot otherwise easily achieve, including undercutting to open up a hole without widening its top diameter. Also, the aroma of the burned wood stays with the flute for a very long time, and is one of the sweetest I know.
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| Tuning tools |
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I usually aim for (and have calculated for) the playing hole to end up between 1/4" and 5/16" diameter for a normal (adult) flute. When the first hole has been burned, I will re-check against the calculations, see where the maths says the next hole should be and drill and burn that one. I would stress here that I do sometimes make intuitive adjustments to the spacing of the playing holes if, for example, the maths says the centre of the next hole should be 32mm away, but I'm fairly sure it needs to be a little closer to get the hole the right diameter. The rule is: the further down the barrel (towards the foot) the bigger a hole must be to achieve any given note; conversely, to produce the same note higher up the barrel would need a smaller hole. Playing hole size is very much a player's preference. I have seen some flutes with holes big enough to lose a finger in, and others where the holes are barely bigger than 1/8". |
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| Right! Good-sized burned playing holes |
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Having tuned the flute, I'll carefully sand (400 and 600 Grit) around the newly burned holes and make sure the holes are clean edged and walled. I then go back and check the voicing and do any adjustments necessary before putting the flute to one side to settle for at least two weeks. After that, I then re-check it and make any fine adjustments to the tuning before moving on to decoration and finishing.
• Wood - choosing, preparing and sectioning
• Cutting and routing the blank
• Fipples, voice boxes and flues
• Sanding, glueing and shaping
• Finishing
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| Click on images to enlarge them in a new pop-up window. |
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I have deliberately NOT gone into the maths of tuning. If you want further details, please feel free to contact me. I am well aware it is possible to take this to 'nerd' level, and that comparative marking off a sister flute can, and often does, work well enough. However, I make flutes in such a way now that I'm almost always making one-offs, so do not run a batch of similar flutes off at one go. I have also omitted some of the more advanced points such as sometimes tuning the playing holes slightly sharp to compensate for the flattening which can occur when the hole above is burned.
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The Owlhouse • Milford • Surrey • UK • dc@secondvoiceflutes.co.uk
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© Second Voice Flutes 2005 |
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