Dimensions for a PVC F3 flute
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Hi everyone! A few months ago I told you how delighted I was after building my first bass/baratone flute in F3 (175 Hz). Several folks contacted me from my Native American Flute Wood Working Yahoo group or at my blog asking for dimensions. I must say that every flute seems to have a mind of its own, so if you want a finely tuned instrument you are going to have to start with smaller holes and tune carefully… however, these dimensions will get you close! These dimensions are from my 6th F3 flute, so the hole sizes are getting pretty consistent after tuning – Yea!
I made my F3s from 1.5″ Sch 40 PVC. The kind I bought is about 1.6″ true inner diameter with .15″ walls. It has a tough, shiny white exterior unlike some “flat” finished PVC that easily scratches and gets dirty like flat paint. This stuff is easy to wipe off and does not scratch easily. I belive the brand is Cresline (hard to read…).
In a recent exchange with Mike Jones from my group, he mentioned that an average human can not easily play holes spaced more that 1.6″ apart… so, if you glance at the finger space chart below, clearly there is something going on here! I accomplish the 3.38″ reach by moving the holes around the circumference, by skipping fingers and by placing holes 3 and 6 180 degrees around to the back! I play them with my thumbs. The right thumb plays easily, but I am still fairly sloppy with the left thumb. For some reason the left thumb is just not so eager to jump off the hole, so I get a pitchy note or sloppy transition. I am hoping to add a support ring or hand strap like bassoons have to convince the thumb that it can let go!
Keep in mind that almost every flute I make is tuned to a diatonic scale… Even my shakuhachis! So, these will not work with traditional fingerings. Nor are they like recorders. They are really like Irish tin “whistles”. In steps it is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half – just like the white keys on a piano in the key of C. To play in various “modes”, such as the minor pentatonic, I keep some holes covered and play some together (e.g. 2&3 together and 6 covered). (6 hole NAFs also keep certain holes covered except for cross fingering.) Of course, some other NAF/NASF builders also tune to a diatonic scale. I am sure that the flute builders group members could use flute-o-mat to redesign this for a more familiar NAF tuning schema if you want to.
There is no way I could reach the holes if I was trying to blow into the end of this thing! After all, the kids call her Big Bertha… So, I used a couple of 3/8″ 90 deg elbows and some white 3/8″ tubing to make a 9″ blow tube. I drilled a hole in the SAC and pressed the elbow in. I use a little heat to install the elbows onto the tubing and I put a little soft tubing on the very end to avoid the sharp ridges on my lips. I can pop mine off and put on a new one if some one else wants to try playing it – fun! It is nice being able to adjust the position and tilt of the blow tube. It turned out that an end cap for 1″ PVC makes a perfect end cover internal plug for the SAC! I routed a little channel and installed an o-ring to make a tight seal. I pop the top off to blow out condensation and for drying out. You can see more pics of F3 #1 a few posts back and I have not changed it much.
F3 (175), 1.6″ Dia, 32.17″ bore, K1=.5, k2~=3″, Flue 1″, 3/8″@45deg SAC vent
hole 4 winds 1 2 3 4 5 6 TSH
Pitch G 196 A 220 Bb 233 C 262 D 294 E 330
From end 3.50 9.75 13.13 14.44 18.06 20.72 23.22 36.09
Finger Span 3.38 1.31 2.66 2.50
Hole Dia .53 .50 .57 .48 .56 .50 .50 .22x.60
Hole placement R.65 Rear L.60 Rear
I took about 25 hours work to create my first “cheap” F3… my wife wants to know what I pay myself per hour… ya’know? Someone asked me how much I would charge for one and I said $1250. After the guy picked himself up off the floor I said, “well you have to remember that the PVC only cost $2, so I can keep the materials charge way down.” I had to duck after that…
Here is a little sound sample of my 3rd F3 playing a background and my new C4 (wood veneer) playing a lead over it. Very fun.
(Click to play mp3)
C4 and F3 Duet (Improv)
Charlie
New flute material – wood veneer tubing
Thursday, August 12th, 2010 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
New flute material – wood veneer tubing
I had an interesting trip to the Colorado Renissance Festival this Summer. I was walking by the elephant ride… you all know where that is… right? There was this bamboo flute stand…
Rod Baird ( Sound Creations ) has been making flutes since 1974 and coming to the festival for a while but I think not every year. I don’t make it every year either, so I may have missed him and I did not remember him. We got to talking and I mentioned that I make mostly PVC flutes. We compared notes about several styles we make… side blown fifes, shakuhachis, Native American style flutes… I said I really like working in the PCV medium but it is certainly not beautiful like a lovely wooken flute…
Then Rob said… “Oh, you are going to like this…” He pulled out a lovely wooden flute, but said this is “wooden PCV pipe”! Actually, hardwood veener prefabricated tubing! Whoa! Was that beautiful! And as easy to make a flute as PCV pipe!… almost…
Well, mechanically it is as easy, but there are differences too. Like, that I can save the time to craft the tube, but I still have to finish the wood which is not needed with PVC! Sealing and protecting the wood tube is obviously a very important part of this flute material, but it is basically the same as a fully hand crafted flute in regard to sealing the sound producing mechanism. Wooden and PVC flutes will both “wet out” by condensation obstruting the “flue” and cutting edge which ruins the sound until it dries out again. With wooden flutes it is a lot more serious problem especially if the wood is not adequately sealed and the wood expands from absorbing moisture, which PVC does not do! So… I would have a new experience making my first wooden flute! I have made a few bamboo flutes, but bamboo is not as sensative to the moisture as wood!
Over a few days I searched the internet for suppliers of wood veneer tubing. It turns out that there are many uses for the stuff! One of the really nice uses is to cover metal or 2×4 columns and change them into a beautiful wooden column! It is very structurally hard and strong even with 1/8″ walls which make it very light. It also uses our dwindling hardwood resources very efficiently. I connected with Ed Nash at Lenderink Technologies ( http://lenderink.com ), and as luck would have it, they were making some smaller tubes! Ed said he had some 1″ (cedar), 1.25″ (Southern Pine) and 2″ (Walnut) tubes available right then! Cool!
It took a few weeks to save my pennies (although it was not expensive, it was not as cheap as PVC!) then I had to lay out a design. I decided to do a 1.25″ C4 flute first and I had never built that key flute before. I usually figure that my first flute in a new key will be a throw away. I get the design close, but by the time I get it tuned there are usually one or more finger holes that are too big to play reaasonably. This time I was delighted to see very consistent and easily playable holes! Woo Hoo! It sounds pretty good too!
Here are some pics of the C4, 1.25″ Southern Pine flute. The sound mechanism is similar to the system used by many Native American and pipe organ flutes. For you flute afficianodes, the diameter/column ratio is 19.74 which in the acceptable NASF range. There is a pre-chamber (SAC or slow air chamber), then a short “flue” that shoots a jet of air onto a cutting edge. If you look carefully at the end shot you may be able to see the wood and glue laminations. The inside and middle layers are poplar on the pine tube. Click the thumbnails to enlarge them.
The sound samples were recorded hastily with my Zoom H4 and also hastily cleaned up with Audacity. For the first sample I just recorded one track of the traditional hymn “Oh Sacred head Now Wounded”. For the second sample, I laid down an adlib background track, then adlibed a lead track over that. I think it came out nice for one-takes. It reminded me of the woods just as the campfire is dieing down. So it is “Evening Forest”.
(Click to play mp3)
F3_BF1_Evening Forest (original)
F3_BF1_OhSacredHead (Hymn)
I hope you enjoy it Ed and Rob! Thanks Ed for giving me the opportunity to try out this amazing new-to-me material!
Kraut Bierock made easy
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Charlie’s German Kraut Burritos
I suppose you might not think that cooking is a Right Brain activity, but it seems to me that it is as much as poetry writing or playing music… especially the way I do those things… too much left brain in there! Good chefs must be great artists, great managers, and great technicians at the same time! Even engineers sometimes!
Below is a modern take on an old traditional German dish called kraut bierock or “cabbage bread” or “beer rocks”. While this is an old tradition in my family, I found a new link so you can see what they look like: http://cabcooks.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/kraut-bierock-bieroch/
Traditional bierocks have no cheese, no carrots, and no ketchup!
Plus, you grate the cabbage by hand, make bread dough and then laboriously
roll out rounds to wrap around dollops of the cabbage mixture… a lot of work!
We have recently started making them like a Stromboli, which is like a
pizza except that it has the cabbage mix on top! You roll it into a long
loaf, bake and slice to serve… a little easier.
Now, I have gone one step farther and lost the bread dough completely… I invented German Kraut Burritos! Just make the cabbage mixture, then spoon a dollop onto a tortilla, add optional cheese, then roll it up and take a little ketchup if you want! Enjoy!
Gabbage mixture…
Dice an onion and brown in a pan. Add 1 lb of lean hamburger, garlic, salt,and lots of black pepper – I go light on newbies! After that is all browned, add a bag of pre-grated cole slaw mix from the market. Cook the mixture until the cabbage is soft, but not mushy!
Not too hard – eh?
Charlie
The hex-flute experiment
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
The hex-flute experiment
There was a recent thread on the Native American Flute Woodworking Yahoo Group that I read about making square flutes. It made me remember a subject I wondered about a while ago. I searched the group files to see if this had been discussed before, and did not find anything… maybe this will be of interest to others too.
Many of you probably know that until recently most fly fishing rods were made from split tonkin cane. So, they are not one piece of cane, but are actually little strips of cane split to size and then glued together! It was quite a shock when I first found that out… I just did not notice it. All of my fly rods have been composite! : )?
My dad had a fine old cane rod that he passed on to me before his death. So I dug that out and sure enough it is strips glued together! Each strip only needs to be as long as that section of the rod, with usually 3 or 4 sections.
Anyway, I wondered about making a flute like that. Either from 1/4″ wood or from bamboo. It should be a lot less likely to split, but you have a lot more potential for glue seam leeks! I figured one could make a hexagonal or octagonal cross section pretty easily. You can get router bits with the correct angles. Or, I thought about building a “trough” with the correct angle, then sticking sand paper to the inside. Rough out the shape with a common 45 degree bit, then finish forming the bevels by sanding them in the trough. Finally, glue them together et voi la – a flute blank! Many drums are made this way… as well as barrels! You could leave them as shaped on the outside or turn them down to a cylinder… no need to change the inside.
Interestingly, one strip of a hexagonal flute would be almost exactly 1/2 the diameter… the perfect size for the TSH! Insert a hex plug to form the SAC which would also hold the shape while gluing with a dowel inserted a tiny bit into the south end. Of course you would build the wind way features into the final strip. After you made a few you might be confident enough to rough out the holes before gluing too. As the group mentioned before, this method would allow you to dress the inside of the finger holes. Wrap a rubber band or length of surgical tubing around it to hold it while drying.
One reason I thought the group had discussed this was in the back of my mind I remember someone talking about making a tapered square flute this way. Of course, that is exactly what the fly rod makers are doing, but with more strips! The angles are the same the whole way, so you should just be able to cut each strip on a taper, run all sides past the router bit and glue them up! The fly rod maker has a harder problem because each strip also gets thinner as it gets smaller.
As I move deeper into bass flutes, I wonder if tapering north to south would squeeze another note or two out of my limited finger stretch… ya’know? Especially if I put holes 3 and 6 on the back of the flute… Keys? I don’t need no stinkin’ keys! The hole placement geometry should be interesting to figure out…
I can here you already… Interesting! Give it a try and let us know how it works out for ya…
Charlie
The Bass Flute F3 Diatonic
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 | instruments | 7 Comments
OK, flute lovers… urban bamboo (PVC) aficionados… tooters…
A friend of a friend wanted a bass recorder, so the friend mentioned that I make PVC flutes. I said… Well, I do not make recorders… although I do make flutes… but I am not sure if I have time right now. Then, after around 25 hours of work, I had my first F3 flute! (157 Hz) The next one should be a bit easier!
This one ended up with fairly large finger holes after tuning. I will use this one to refine the design for the next one (for the friend) and should have an excellent flute for the 3rd one (for the fof)! Cool!
(Click Images to enlarge)
Above are some pics of BF1 (Big Bertha), an F#, and a C5. The F# was one of my earliest flutes. It has a D-shaped TSH (True Sound Hole) and the “flue” has been scraped, built up with fingernail polish, filled with PVC slivers on the sides… it is a mess! It has an interesting airy sound that I really like for some tunes. The “totem” is a “bird” a diving Hawk… can you see it? So I call this one the Hawk.
The C5, “baby”, is one of 30 flutes I made to send 24 with a missionary to African orphans. I wanted them to be very small and have no outside parts like most of my other flutes. It has a lateral oval shaped TSH and a very clear tone like a penny whistle.
All of these flutes are made using the methods of many Native American Style flutes. I am not a member of any Native American nation, and do not claim to know their heritage or culture. I appreciate the willingness with which so many of the Native American flute makers allow me to enjoy and participate in their craft. Thank You!
I do not follow all of the normal guidelines, so my flutes are a bit different. For one thing they are almost all tuned like Irish whistles! (Even my shakuhachi flutes!) I’m just an old German ‘Celt’ monk who barely runs in mocs and toots PVC… I guess…
I call this bass “Big Bertha”! It is 40″ long with 33.2 of that being the actual sound column. There is a SAC (slow air chamber) on the top (north) with a blow pipe so I can reach the holes, and a tail on the south beyond “4-winds” tuning holes. The column length to diameter ratio is 21.25 which is a bit high and causes it to easily jump from the F3 to F4. The holes must be carefully sealed or the F3 is very hard to get. The next 2 flutes should be easier to play F3. The “baby” flute is only 11″ with a ratio of 17.6. That is a good compromise for me because I like playing the upper octave. Flutes with smaller ratios, like 15, are very mellow but do not play more than a few notes in the second octave.
Enjoy the sound samples. They are my first attempts at recording my flutes and my first Audacity project. I recorded with a ZOOM H4. I used a little bit of echo to add some warmth. Also please ignore the occasional bump and thump as I learn to better place the mic… and intonation is a big problem as I stretch to cover those over-sized holes… always learning!
(Click to play mp3)
F3_BF1_PartingGlass (trad.)
F3_BF1_Jazzy
F3_BF1_BygoneDays (Ivers)
F#_Hawk_BygoneDays (Ivers)
F#_Hawk_TimeAgo
C5_Africa_RakesKildare (trad.)
C5_Africa_10KftMeadowCreekMorning
The Coventry Charol – Lully Lullay
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 | Religeon, songs and carols | 3 Comments
A few years ago at Christmas time my heart was gripped by the hauntingly sad sound of the traditional Christmas carol Lully Lullay. Why such a sad song at such a joyous time of the year? I wondered if it had something to do with the sadness that plagues many people at that time of the year… missing loved ones, the passing of your life, time to reflect.
I could not get that song out of my mind, so I started a search for the story behind the song. As it turns out, it is sad indeed, and in exactly the correct season. First, let me assure you that I found similar information in several online sources. So, while I generally mistrust things I read on the internet, I believe that the sources here are in enough agreement that I believe this is a true account of the story and meaning.
The song comes from an English tradition in Coventry and some other cities in the 16th century. Some of the young priests asked if they could do plays to illustrate the Biblical stories because the services were conducted in Latin. They were allowed to do it, and the plays became more and more popular until they were moved outdoors! Eventually, the mode settled on was that the people would gather in several venues around the city and the plays were conducted on wagons. Each wagon was “owned and operated” by a guild, such as the masons, carpenters, goldsmiths and tailors. When all of the plays ended, a signal was fired and all of the wagons moved to another group of watchers! Cleaver! Everyone got to see all of the plays without moving!
Some of the wagons were very ornate and had incredible engineering such as moving platforms, rising stairs and etc. Usually the bottom level of the wagon was the dressing room, so the stage/s were on the roof. Shakespeare probably saw these plays in his youth.
As it turned out, over the centuries more and more humor made its way into the plays and that humor got to be more and more bawdy… so the church decided to put an end to it and all of the wagons, music, and scripts were lost… almost. One remaining piece was the haunting Lully Lullay.
Lully Lullay, now know as the Coventry Carol, was from a play put on by the Shearmen and Tailors about when Herod’s men went through Bethlehem killing all male babies 2 years old and younger. During the song two sisters try to quiet a baby boy so that they could hide him. Alas, they fail, so the soldiers find and kill the baby. I do not know the exact sequence, but read the words below and see if you agree with this:
Verse 1,2: The sisters try to quiet and hide the baby boy.
Verse 3: The soldiers break in, find the baby and kill him.
Verse 4: The sisters mourn over the dead child.
1. Lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, Thou little tiny Child.
By, by, lully, lullay.
2. O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.
3. Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young, to slay.
4. Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee,
And ever mourn and say;
For Thy parting, nor say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.
(http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/coventry_carol-1.htm , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Carol, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A8378733, http://www.archive.org/stream/religiousdrama2m007883mbp/religiousdrama2m007883mbp_djvu.txt (In the introduction E. Martin Browne says that the play was not actually a part of the Coventry cycles, but this is nevertheless the traditional belief.), http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Prayers+people/1111124/story.html)
It seems so obvious now that I was embarrassed that I did not know the meaning of this song before. However, almost no one I talk to knows about it’s meaning. May I always remember what incredible things God has done to pay the price for my sin. He sent his beloved son into the world that He might die so that I might be saved. I praise Him that in this time of danger the baby Jesus was saved by Joseph fleeing Bethlehem after being warned by an angle. I pray that I may be so responsive to my Lord’s voice.