tibbie said: So, it seems that what we are looking at is the player's response to the instrument, independent of its engineering. If the flute FEELS (to the player) warm, or cold, or comfortable, or slippery, or itchy...the player's response will be affected.

You have misinterpreted the phenomenon I was discussing. While there is this player bias effect as well, it is completely different that the one I am discussing.

You will obviously be more comfortable playing a flute that IS comfortable for you to play. The fact that anyone can make a piece of garbage flute sound good is not the point. What I am attempting to portray for you has nothing to do with an effect being independent of engineering.

What I have portrayed is the interaction of Flute and player and what happens with variation at the driving end of the air column. The Air column does not begin or end with the flute, there is an interaction outside the instrument as well and most specifically this is at the driving end of the standing wave.

You appear to be confusing the player bias of feel for a real interaction. This can lead to the effect you speak of, but the effect you described is not the one I am talking about.

Flutes are engineered for many players. Particularly, the reason there are so many people making headjoints out there is precisely the result of what I have described. And that is, when a unique person's physiology manifested while playing is coupled to a flute, the differences in sound are caused by the player. BUT, I am saying that many flute factors, metal, thickness, etc, when coupled to so many different players will yield consistent results for the given player, not the given flute.

After you get past that and you've found a flute that you sound good on and gives you good feedback, does the phenomenon you described begin. The trick is not let it getting caught up in the first two parts, which is where many people make the mistake when selecting a flute or making comments about material.

Joe B

I don't know how you would do a double-blind test with a wood versus a metal flute or piccolo. I can smell-and even taste, if I'm tomgueing notes too hard- the wood, and feel the difference in heat conductivity (much higher for metal).

The person (or, better yet, the machine) playing the flutes would not be the same as the one who listens to and tries to identify which material the flute is made of.

The double blind requires that both the person playing and the person listening do not know what instrument is being played. It is simply not enough that just the listener ignores the instrument type (which obviously must be the case).

It is true one could get hints from thermal conductivity, weight and the like. One partial solution would be to play with gloves. Long sustained notes can be played without much problems on a plateau flute even if the player wears suitable gloves. I can think of other ideas about this problem, but this would be the general approach.

The double blind requires that both the person playing and the person listening do not know what instrument is being played. It is simply not enough that just the listener ignores the instrument type (which obviously must be the case).

That is not the case. A double blind experiment would require that the participant (the one being asked the questions) and the researcher (the one asking the questions) both don't know which material the flute is made of. If the researchers just played recordings of each of the different flutes (without knowing which was which) and asked the participants what material the flute sounds like it was made of, that would be a double blind experiment.

I do not see the necessity of a supposed researcher asking such a question.

The main problem is not to have a third person just to ask a question that has been settled in advance (the listener knows he/she is there for that specific tests,) but to avoid the effect of player bias and feedback. Playing recordings of the the same player on different flutes would not solve those two problems. It would be just the same, only mediated by electronic devices that could only add their own distortions.

The problem somewhat approaches the dilemma of the influence of the observer on the result of a test.

Fine, just have the participants listen to the different flutes (without seeing them) and then write down on a piece of paper which material they thought each flute was made of. No need to have a researcher asking the questions if you don't want.

I still contend that having a machine (a robot?) play the different flutes would be best since the person playing the different flutes might consciously or subconsciously play the wood flute how they think a wood flute should sound, the gold flute how they think a gold flute would sound, and so on.

A machine played would be the best, if such a thing was available. I do not know, really.

Human players are handy, though there those problems we have discussed.

I believe that most tests performed under strict scientific criteria involved a human player. Other opinions and references to tests are welcome, of course.

I still contend that having a machine (a robot?) play the different flutes would be best since the person playing the different flutes might consciously or subconsciously play the wood flute how they think a wood flute should sound, the gold flute how they think a gold flute would sound, and so on.

The inherent problem with that is that 2 people can sound different on the same flute. So while you can "prove" that material doesn't matter by using a robot apparatus as the driver (yes it has been done), big deal. What does that prove?

The purpose of this whole debate is to dispel a myth that material makes a difference in sound. The Player has more of an effect on the sound than the material but that varies from player to player. We have all said that a player can influence a playing test. Like I said, why is that? There is the feedback the player gets matched with a flute that gives them the opportunities to exploit the instrument more fully. So who cares what the material is if one feels better and responds better for you.

You can say until you are blue in the face that material doesn't make a difference in the sound and you'd would of course be right. But that is only one singular dimension in finding a correct instrument. Proving a scientific point is one thing. Making it the all encompassing caveat is quite another.

Right now I have the luxury of having many different materials of flutes available for me to make comparisons. I've played flutes that I've sounded terrible on that the next person sounds great on an vice-versa. So which is it, the material or the players? I say it is the particular combination of both. The sum is greater than the parts in this. When you add the right flute to the right player, the total adds up to more than each would added separately.

Joe B

Science can not tell my ears what I am hearing. Plain and simple. The end! Some people put way too much thought and waste time into things like this.

"Science can not tell my ears what I am hearing. Plain and simple. The end!"

All opinions are welcome. I opened this thread because I also perceive a difference and I wanted to know the *why*. But please consider that this could be a waste of time for you, but no for so many others. I believe it can be taken for granted that some people do perceive a difference.

With 75 posts, this thread has become very popular, one of the most active since the time of (the unmentionable). And as to this being "The end!", I wish it was, as it would mean that we have contributed to a final explanation and settling of this issue. In fact we are far, too far from that.

I think the controversy will remain alive for ever, because, as you say, there is no way to make people believe what they do not want to.

Science cannot tell anything to anybody's ears, it just tries to gather evidence to proof a theory. It does this using strict researching protocols and subjecting the results to peer revision, control and tests of repeatability.

The theories that science deal with, try to provide explanations to phenomena we do not understand and this is the point of this thread, not so much whether we perceive or not a difference in tone due to flute materials but as the "why" of it.

It's up to you to believe or not to evidence and to reputed opinions. And I do not think we can ever put too much thought in anything controversial, but this is my personal approach and I do not ask others to have the same.

"Science can not tell my ears what I am hearing. Plain and simple. The end!"

Science can analyze, explain and therefore tell your brain what your ears are hearing. For example, A sawtooth wave form has a certain footprint that can be graphically represented and once we see and hear this we understand better what we are perceiving and why. So an educated ear hears things differently from a less educated one because the brain knows what to look for in the sound.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawtooth_wave

So yes in one respect, every person perceives their enviornment individually from others. Part of the enviornment that they are experiencing is the aural one. In this realm, the sound of a musical instrumet (timbre) is based upon the waveforms being created at any given moment as well as the attack and release of the individual tones. This attack (beginning of the note) may be either toungued (initiated) in a fairly infinite number of ways or it may also simply be slurred from one note to the next.

So too, part of the individual sound that we perceive may be the instruments response from any one note to any other in the instrument's range. On the modern Boehm concert flute we have ~42 notes and this alone creates a rather large possibility if you consider the variables of attack (Slur, soft staccato, shorter staccato, accent, Etc...) and how any one individual player approaches the issues of embouchure formation to achieve any one of these events.

Now as one sustains a pitch for any length of time, the instruments capabilities of producing the specific mix of fundamental / overtones will afffect the timbre of each of the notes in it's range. As wel as the players ability to maintiain the pitch and their capability to produce the instrument's variables in tone.

This following is a translation into English by Dayton C. Miller of the book that Theobald Boehm woriginally rote "The Flute and Flute Playing" 1871.
P-54:
"Any variation in the hardness or brittleness of the material has a very great effect upon the timbre or quality of tone. Upon this point much experience is at hand, for flutes have been made of various kinds of wood, of ivory, crystal-glass, porcelain, rubber, papier-mache', and even of wax, and in every conceivable way to secure the various desired results. Heretofore all of these researches have led back to the selection of very hard wood, until I succeeded in making flutes of silver and German silver, which now for 20 years have rivaled the wood flute. [Silver flutes were first introduced by Boehm in 1847.] Nothwithstanding this it is not possible to give a decisive answer to the question, "Which is best?"

The silver flute is preferable for playing in very large rooms because of it's great ability for tone modulation, and for the unsurpassed brilliancy and sonorousness of it's tone. But on account of it's unusually easy tone-production, very often it is overblown, causing the tone to become hard and shrill: hence it's advantages are fully realized only through a very good embouchure and dilligent tone-practice. For this reason wooden flutes on my system are also made, which are better adapted to the embouchures of most flute players; and the wood flutes posessess a full and pleasant quality of tone, which is valued especially in Germany."
End of quoted section.

So,
There is also a section where he (Boehm) refers to the weight of flutes (Silver 330 Grams /Thickness of tube: 0.28 Vs. Wood 440 Grams /Thickness of tube: 3.7 mm. and how this weight factor contributes to fatigue. Remember that not only is the wood flute 13+ times thicker in tube, the harder and generally more denser wood generally weighs more than other types of wood.

And finally, he also wrote some concerns about the difficulties of producing the wood flute and then not being able to guarantee the consistency of the wood after it has been used by a flutist. I believe that his concerns were about mistreatment of the instrument primarily resulting in splitting of the wood. From this point, I'd also surmise that as a wood flute is played or even if it's not played, with time and natural humidity changes, certain alterations happen to the wood with respect to maybe very fine measurements that can change it's bore diameter to a less regular shape (warpage). This can also affect the embouchure hole/edge where the tone is initiated and can make the wood flute less stable in tone, tuning and attack. In other words, a wood flute will probably change considerably in response depending upon how much you play it.

~bilbo
N.E. Ohio

Interesting to know that Böhm attributed such a great influence to the material of the flute.

He surely knew about flutes, but at his time there were no electronic instruments to measure the parameters.

I seems that much later reserching proved he was wrong. But this is also difficult to swallow...

Sorry, you misunderstood. I meant it was "the end" as for me, as far as my opinion was concerned and my statement. I know it will never be the end for many others.

Sorry for my misunderstanding.

No problem at all. I should have made myself more clear to begin with.