hi, ive recently purchased a new flute. trevor james have been really please with it so far but yesterday my flute tutor told me the flute sounded flat and said i needed to push the head joint furthur into the body but the headjoint was already all the way in, she said take it back to the shop which i did, they tested it on a tuner and said its in tune, they did this by blowing in to the flute with no keys pressed down, he told me the natural note is a c. when i contacted my tutor she said the natural note is nearer to a c sharp not a c, so the flute it still flat, can anyone tell me what needed to be done to my flute to sound correct, ive not been playing long and now very confused.

I assume they checked the cork position...those flutes are actually built sharp, any of us here on the forum would have to see how you are playing, such as posture, angle of your head when you play, hand position and embochure , to accurately answer that question..

how do u check the cork position sorry if i sound dumb i dont know a great deal about the flute itself. my tutor has played my flute and it sounds the same when she plays

You check the cork position with the line marked on your cleaning rod. Put it in the headjoint, The line should appear to be in the center of the embouchure hole with the end resting up against the cork plate.

It is practically impossible for your TJ flute to be built flat. You may have the cork position out a bit too far if it is flat, but most often this is an player induced syndrome.

So check the cork position. If it is flat, Patrick's advice is correct. Work more on embouchure.. There are lots of situations from players problems that lead to sounding flat. Airstream angle and speed, covering too much embouchure hole with the lip, etc..

Joe B

right you are Joe...email me with any updates on things down there and the new little one..

hi Alieannie my tutor is my flute tutor she has played my flute and she says its flat when she plays it too, ive played her flute perfectly, when we have used a tuner it also plays flat. does adjusting the cork damage the flute in anyway? ive only recently brought this flute as i previously had a no named flute that was really bad had leaks etc, so i hope ive not made a mistake with this trevor james flute

lubylou,
One other option,
Is your head joint original to the flute or is it some other brand?

<Added>

also, is it generally flat or just flat on certain notes or areas of the range?

Non-flute-playing flute fixer's 2 cents

If Joe's recommendations don't seem to fix it, it may be an environmental phenomenon. However, if your teacher has a tuner in front of you and the machine says flat than that shoots this theory down.

I have taught countless saxophone and clarinet lessons in rooms where the resonance of the room played tricks on my ears. Due to the sympathetic vibrations and difference tones present in various environments, playing in tune may not "feel" the best. You adjust to play where it "feels" in tune and according to fancy modern gadgets and gizmos you are 20 cents out in one direction or another.

First step, check a tuner. Second step, have someone else check the tuner for you so you don't adjust to what you are seeing.

I will be the last person to second guess your teacher, but if he/she is tuning by ear rather than machine the teacher's sense of "in tune" may be based on response and/or resonance of the instrument on certain pitches. It could be the environment, or it could be subtle leaks and inconsistencies messing with the overall response.

New does not mean leak-free. I am sure Joe can agree with me that the majority of factory-new flutes have the capacity to be improved further.

BTW gratz on the new baby Joe!

Jeff Dening
Jeff's Woodwind Shop
Holland, NY
woodwindfixer@roadrunner.com

One other thing....If using a tuner, check to see that it isn't mis-adjusted to a higher pitch...My students can sometimes hit the up button on the A= section til it's at a=445 or so.


Another one, Is this an Alto flute That would make it play a tad flat.....just kidding.


Realizing that this most likely isn't the problem because other flutes have been tried and they aren't flat, some players do have a tendancy to roll back a lot and cover over most of the embouchure hole with their bottom lip. They may also be holding the flute tight against the lower lip/chin. These things would cause flatter playing. If a teacher does this and advocates this, then both teacher and student would play flat.

As a last resort, "then it is a very simple operation for a well equipped technician to remove a few mm from the tenon end of the head."
As micron said. BUT this should be considered a very last resort because it isn't reversible and it may result on an out of tune scale if this isn't the real cause.

One thing to do is to place your flute next to this flute that does play in tune. The lengths of the two flutes should be very similar between the key locations and the head joint hole. If the keys pretty much line up but the head joint hole is way out there, then the HJ may be in fact too long and cause this flattness.

thanks to all that have responded i think its best i take it to a specialist and get them to check it out, then they are independant from my tutor and the shop where i brought it, i want it to sound good for when i take my grade 1 next yr

As a last resort, "then it is a very simple operation for a well equipped technician to remove a few mm from the tenon end of the head." As micron said. BUT this should be considered a very last resort because it isn't reversible and it may result on an out of tune scale if this isn't the real cause.

Shortening the head is never a problem logistically because you can always pull it out to the original position.

Having said that...
Deviating from the correct headjoint length in proportion to the scaling (size and relative position of toneholes for any given pitch) will cause inherent problems with the scale (out of tune with itself). This will happen whether or not the flute is flat, sharp, or otherwise. The more you deviate from an optimum headjoint length for its scaling's octave length, the worse the intonation within the flute itself will become.

How are you exactly determining it is flat? Checking one note? Checking the scale with play testing?

Here's where the rubber meets the road. Measure the length from the exact middle of the Low C tone hole (or end of the flute if C foot) to the exact center of the Thumb key tone hole. Then measure from the same starting point to the exact center of the embouchure hole when pushed in completely.

This will give you the correct proportion. It is highly, HIGHLY unlikely that the octave length proportion (tone hole scaling) is too long. Once you have that established you can see what the resultant headjoint draw is in proportion to that or too long. If it is your flute will be flat AND out of tune with itself. You can't just be flat given how the tone holes are drawn to scale from the same scaling jig!

Joe B

"Shortening the head is never a problem logistically because you can always pull it out to the original position."

Or maybe ending up buying a new head joint if you are wrong.
Normally, I would agree with you but in this insance, without actually seeing and hearing the situation, I would be very cautious about recommending this procedure before further investigation. If it turns out that a technician does the procedure and it may be something else, then what you may have is a short headjoint. If this instrument is playing a 1/2 step flat (re-read first post) then it may take a considerable amount of tube length removal to get a chosen pitch in tune. However if it is later discovered that this isn't the problem then you've basically amputated about 1" off the tuning end of the head joint for no good reason.

There are a few things that bother me about this post.

1) ...back to the shop which i did, they tested it on a tuner and said it's in tune, they did this by blowing in to the flute with no keys pressed down, he told me the natural note is a c.

Aside from the fact that the open keys will produce a C# and not a C, the technician or salesman which did this should also know that you don't over-all tune a flute to that C# fingering. I would also not call the most open fingering the 'natural note'. If anything, I would reserve that nomenclature for the most closed fingering BUT on the flute, that 'natural note' title shouldn't exist anyway. It's fine for pipe organs and Syrinx (pan flutes) but if you go back historically to the Baroque Traverso you may say that the most natural note fingering would be the low D1 for the concert flute which may still have some justification for it's use on today's Boehm contraption since the D major scale is hidden into the natural fingering scheme.

2)Cork position? We have had no feedback as yet on that location from the owner. If that's off, of course the whole scale and tone quality is all out of whack.

3)Is it generally flat or just flat on certain notes or areas of the range? Again no feedback so we can't eliminate this issue.

4) Check to see that the tuner isn't mis-adjusted to a higher pitch...My students can sometimes hit the up button on the A= section until it's at a=445 or so.

5)Micron just mentioned bending notes on another thread. It is not inconceivable that a person could bend a note 1/2 step by improper blowing angle, support and or lip placement.

6)I believe that we have a fairly young player or at least fairly inexperienced one (working on Grade 1).

7) This whole post disturbs me a tad that this flute that should be playing sharp while the head joint is pushed in all the way but it is actually playing ~1/2 step flat. I believe that we all know that it should be designed to A=442 and with the head in too far, should probably be fetching a good A=446 or so on the tuner and not something like an A=435. My synapses are misfiring. This does not compute Will Robinson.

Of course it could be the unusual concert B natural flute and everything needs to be transposed up 1/2 step.

That being written, I agree where we have written that comparative measuring of the lengths between two flutes would be the best and fairly easiest way to go at this point. I would estimate that this 1/2 step is going to put it off at somewhere about 1 inch of overall length even from the emb. hole to the 1st LH index C key.

Respectfully,
~bilbo

I do agree with you Bilbo.

There are too many strange, unanswered questions.

My point about shortening the head is that doing that is most likely not needed. But if you do remove a couple mm from the tenon end, you can still pull it out to it's usual amount, and still have more than you will ever need to pull out as well. You are not going to ruin the head. You may affect resale because someone will be wondering what you were thinking in doing that though...

That part of the head is not tapered so there is no subsequent affect in that specific regard.

Joe B

It might also be as simple as your teacher having a flute at 442 or 444 an yours is at 440.

The first thing I would do is get a tuner and run through all of the major notes one at a time. It'll tell you which notes are out, if any. Yes, it does sometimes happen, though. I once got a bass made(had to send it back) that was a quarter tone out at the 24th fret. Just came out of the shop with the bridge set half an inch off.(so fixing it was at best a kludge)