"An instrument I cannot bear"
June 9, 2006 6:45 AM Subscribe
The virtual flute - courtesy of the music acoustics group at University of New South Wales. If exploring the fourth octave or pondering multiphonic possibilities isn't for you, you may still enjoy a wander through the long and technical history of the instrument.
I'm disappointed that the history links died. Here's a cached version of the last-linked article, but there's no way to reproduce the timeline.
There's a wealth of interesting stuff worth exploring on the UNSW site if you're even remotely interested in instruments and acoustics, whether you play or not. How does a didgeridoo work? How do you perceive loudness across the frequency spectrum? What exactly does helium do to speech?
The virtual flute gadget is certainly more interesting if you play the instrument, but it offers some insights even if you don't. For instance, you might hear some time that the Prokofiev sonata is (in)famous for its high D's, and you might wonder why that's such a big deal - after all, just put your fingers in the right position and blow hard enough - but if you ask the virtual flute for fingerings of D7 you'll find it reports 636 ways of fingering that note! They're not all equally useful, but there are still probably dozens among them that might be useful in various ways. Sifting through all the possibilities and their relative merits is a feature of wind playing that might go unthought of to a non-musician, or even someone who's aquainted with piano, guitar, or other stringed-instrument techniques.
Thanks for the world cup updates.
posted by Wolfdog at 9:35 AM on June 9, 2006
There's a wealth of interesting stuff worth exploring on the UNSW site if you're even remotely interested in instruments and acoustics, whether you play or not. How does a didgeridoo work? How do you perceive loudness across the frequency spectrum? What exactly does helium do to speech?
The virtual flute gadget is certainly more interesting if you play the instrument, but it offers some insights even if you don't. For instance, you might hear some time that the Prokofiev sonata is (in)famous for its high D's, and you might wonder why that's such a big deal - after all, just put your fingers in the right position and blow hard enough - but if you ask the virtual flute for fingerings of D7 you'll find it reports 636 ways of fingering that note! They're not all equally useful, but there are still probably dozens among them that might be useful in various ways. Sifting through all the possibilities and their relative merits is a feature of wind playing that might go unthought of to a non-musician, or even someone who's aquainted with piano, guitar, or other stringed-instrument techniques.
Thanks for the world cup updates.
posted by Wolfdog at 9:35 AM on June 9, 2006
I'm a trumpet player myself, and the discussion of high note playing on the flute is familiar -- trumpters seem to be obsessesed with high notes. Funny thing is, the quest for those high tones is often helped by seeking after the low notes below the standard range of the horn.
posted by cubby at 9:46 AM on June 9, 2006
posted by cubby at 9:46 AM on June 9, 2006
I'm dismayed that the author failed to mention Heinrich Eduard Baack, German-born 19th century American flute maker and my greatx3 grandfather.
Apparently his instruments are in high demand from collectors these days, including one version of his flute that had an adjustable mouthpiece that allowed the flute to be played from either direction (a revolutionary idea, at the time).
posted by thanotopsis at 10:51 AM on June 9, 2006
Apparently his instruments are in high demand from collectors these days, including one version of his flute that had an adjustable mouthpiece that allowed the flute to be played from either direction (a revolutionary idea, at the time).
posted by thanotopsis at 10:51 AM on June 9, 2006
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posted by tellurian at 9:01 AM on June 9, 2006