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| 01/01/2008: "Still more on tuning"
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Let's kick off 2008 on the right foot by posting on bamboo flutes.
Tomorrow a new D minor is going out in the mail, along with a second D Major that I didn't make. The customer had mentioned that although he'd owned this other flute for quite some time and liked it, it had tuning issues, particularly in the second octave. It was made by *someone* who shall remain nameless but who has a very prominent Internet presence by bamboo-flute standards.
As we finalized the order, I suggested that the customer send this "problem" flute along with the money order for the new one: although offering no absolute guarantee, I was pretty confident sight-unseen that improvements could be made in short order. Sure enough, the flute turned out to be a prototypical "hippie-quality" flute, vast numbers of which are churned out annually. I've seen far worse and the tone wasn't bad at all, but octave tuning was pretty shaky indeed. Quoth the customer:
It's a low D and it was touted by its maker to be in standard (A=440) tune. He said it would be tuned electronically, and therefore would be infallible. Wrong. The first octave was in, but the second octave was out of tune.
--Ahh, it's the old "electronically tuned to A=440" schtick! This flute was a classic example of "wishful tuning" as I've dubbed it: it could be forced to play in tune with much strenuous effort, but that hardly makes for a pleasant musical experience! After all, the mark of a good flute is an ease of tone production along with a ready playability well in tune throughout its range. One shouldn't have to Fight the Flute in order to play it in tune.
At one point my customer had asked another well-known flutemaker about the tuning issue (this maker used to produce well-regarded bamboo flutes but now concentrates exclusively on wooden ones.) His reply was that "...a bamboo flute *could* be made to play in tune through its full range, but it's a tricky science."
True, it is a bit tricky, but it ain't rocket science! It's somewhat surprising that more bamboo flutemakers don't know how to make the necessary adjustments, but on the other hand bamboo flutemaking isn't exactly a field that attracts the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree... gulp Er, mea gulpa?
Sure enough, a half hour's effort vastly improved that hippie-quality flute. This is the second such rehab job I've done on someone else's mediocre instrument in the past few weeks, and perhaps there's a market for such services: for merely what you originally paid for the flute, I'll make it three times better or your money back!
Anyone can make idle claims about electronic tuning and A=440, but flutemaking is an inexact science requiring good judgement, experience, and talent-- which is more important than dry technical analysis. I've encountered very smart people with vastly more acoustical knowledge than I'll ever possess who still somehow managed to make mediocre flutes. There are many, many intangible aspects to this racket, which is what keeps it interesting-- and what ultimately elevates it to the realm of art.
More tomorrow in this general direction...
--r.
[Previous entry: "Auld Lang Syne"]
[Next entry: "Poster Putty Paean"]
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