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

2.1. FLUTES AND FLUTE MAKING 13
offers flutes in Australian timber species such as gidgee and Cooktown ironwood. Timber to
make flutes needs to be geometrically stable and durable, relatively impervious to moisture,
and capable of being worked to a smooth finish.
High quality modern flutes are made from precious metals such as silver, gold and platinum,
a common conception being that more costly materials produce better flutes. The least
expensive flutes are made from nickel-silver (a copper-nickel-zinc alloy) which is then silver
plated.
Argument has raged over the relative merits of flutes made from various materials. Coltman
(1971) presented a series of experiments where he made three identical keyless flutes from silver,
copper and grenadilla wood. The three flute bodies were attached to identical headpieces
made from Delrin plastic, and the geometrical properties of the flutes were identical to within
0.1 mm. When the three flutes were played to two groups of listeners, one chosen as being ‘musically
skilled’, the other ‘unskilled’, neither group could distinguish between the instruments.
In a related experiment flutists were asked to play the flutes and were unable to distinguish between
the different materials. In a more recent study Widholm et al. (2001) used listening tests
to compare flutes made from many different metals and metal alloys. The findings of Widholm
et al. were similar to those of Coltman.
Clearly, materials which are highly porous or cannot be machined sufficiently smooth will
produce instruments of inferior quality. In Chapter 6, some experiments are presented showing
the effect of humidity and oiling on the impedance of timber bores. As part of this study, Terry
McGee made a flute from radiata pine (a light, highly porous timber, much more suited to
making a case for the flute than the instrument itself). The results are discussed in Chapter 6.
2.1.3 Contemporary flute design
The modern flute has changed little since its invention. Refinements continue to be made but
these are hardly equivalent to the changes to flute making that Boehm initiated in the 19th century.
Various makers have championed different schemas for the size and placement of holes,
the eponymous ‘Cooper scale’ being a prominent example. Meanwhile, makers such as Terry
McGee maintain that the modern flute is not well suited to many types of music, including
Irish folk music and classical music, and believe that there should be several divergent lines of
flute development. Musicians involved in the ‘original instrument movement’ use period instruments
(or good copies) to play music by composers such as Bach and Mozart, in an effort
to recreate the exact sound heard or imagined by those composers.
Niche markets exist for designing flutes for particular styles of music. For example, players
in the Irish and Cuban traditions use, respectively, classical and romantic flutes, but neither is
optimised for the requirements of that particular style. Contemporary composers increasingly
use multiphonics and microtones. The Virtual Flute (Botros et al. 2006) searches all possible
fingerings on the modern flute for suitable fingerings, but in the future flutes may be designed
with such requirements explicitly considered so that composers need no longer be limited to
what is available through chance.