Flute acoustics: measurement, modelling and design - School of ...

140 CHAPTER 9. APPLICATIONS AND FURTHER DIRECTIONS
the sound of putative flute designs to get aural feedback on the tuning and timbre. Secondly,
it is likely that the tuning of a note is not completely determined by the frequency of its impedance
minimum, particularly when there are other minima in the impedance spectra near
the harmonics of the note. If these do not coincide exactly in frequency then the frequency
of the fundamental may in shifted. Experimental investigation of this possibility may allow for
greater precision in tuning predictions. Thirdly, flute players in different traditions use very different
embouchures. The corrections derived in Chapter 7 were based on the playing of three
classically trained flutists. It would be interesting to widen this study to include players with a
wider range of experience.
In its present form FluteCAD predicts the acoustics of flutes with a given design. It is up to
the maker to use the information to improve such flutes. The next step in the development of
the software is to include optimisation. Given a suitable set of constraints, procedures could be
written to find the best possible tuning. Currently, the software is probably too slow for such
optimisation, but perturbation theory could be used to quickly calculate the effect of incremental
changes. It is also not trivial to add constraints to the flute design. For example, the
finger holes on a flute cannot be moved relative to each other without considering the reach of
the fingers. Also, changes in bore profile need to be machinable (this often means that the bore
diameter of each joint should change monotonically over the length of the joint). However,
with ongoing collaboration with flute makers, problems such as these may be overcome.