"... in rapidly closing the keys a very audible and disagreeable clap or rattle is produced ..." [141]
"A good embouchure depends for the most part upon a normal formation of the lips and teeth." [135]
"Experience shows that all wood-wind instruments are affected by the manner of blowing so that they become either better or worse with regard to the tones and their production ... The reasons for this have never yet been satisfactorily explained. But it is known, that even after all swellings and deformations of the wood are removed from the flute tube as much as possible by the most careful swabbings, the influence of the manner of blowing still remains perceptible. The best flute loses an easy speech by overblowing and its bright clear quality of tone by a bad embouchure, and conversely gains in speech and tone by a correct handling and a good embouchure." [114]
"The mouth-hole, the centers of the upper holes on the middle joint, and the axles of the foot keys should coincide in one straight line." [111]
"... the certain speaking and pure quality of tone of a flute depend in a great measure upon a perfect closing of the key, and this again upon a good padding." [106]
"To prove that all the keys on the middle joint or on the foot joint close perfectly, stop one end with a fine cork, and blow into the other end, while all the keys are closed with the fingers; one can then determine whether or not the air leaks out. By strongly blowing in tobacco smoke it will be easily seen which key leaks. But a more certain way is to draw out the air, after which the fingers are removed; if then all the keys remain closed of themselves, it is a sure indication no air leaks in." [105-6]
"Even though kept from violent injuries, the flute, like other mechanisms, will occasionally need repairs. In practical use the keys move up and down a countless number of times, and all metal being subject to wear, the appearance of defects from this cause is unavoidable, even in the most solidly constructed mechanisms. A spring may break or lose its elasticity; the oil, with which the axles and pivots must be covered, will become thick and sticky with time, and especially by the entering of dust, thus hindering the easy movement of the keys; or it may be necessary to replace an injured pad." [100]
"Since the fifteen tone-holes of my flute tube could not be covered by means of the fingers, because the holes were too large and in some instances too far apart, it was necessary to furnish them all with keys which had then to be so arranged that they could be opened or closed at will. For this purpose but nine fingers are available, since the thumb of the right hand is indispensable for holding the flute. The deficiency in fingers must therefore be made up by mechanism, whose systematic coupling makes it possible to close several keys at the same time with one finger." [59]
"Having determined the dimensions and material best suited for the flute tube, it was then necessary to devise a system of fingering by which all scales, passages, and trills in the twenty-four keys could be played, clearly, certainly, and with the greatest possible ease." [59]
"The silver flutes are made of a 9/10 fine alloy; and for the manufacture of wood flutes I usually employ either the so-called cocus wood, or the grenadilla wood of South America. The first, of dark or red-brown color, is especially desirable because its brilliant tone, notwithstanding that this wood contains a resin, which, in very rare cases induces an inflammation of the skin of the lip." [55]
"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-mâché, 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 or twenty years have rivaled the wood flute." [54]
"... the tones of a flute will be more easily produced and the development of their full strength will require less effort in blowing, the less the weight of the flute tube. Upon a silver flute, therefore, the thin and hard drawn tube of which weighs only 129 grams, the brightest and fullest tone can be brought out and maintained much longer without fatiguing blowing, than can be done on a wood flute, which even when made as thin as possible still has double the weight, namely 227 1/2 grams." [53-4]
"That the tones of a flute may not only be easily produced, but shall also possess a brilliant and sonorous quality, it is necessary that the molecules of the flute tube shall be set into vibration at the same time as the air column, and that these shall, as it were, mutually assist one another. The material must possess this requisite vibration ability, which is either a natural property of the body, for example as in bell-metal, glass and various kinds of wood, or has been artificially produced, as in the case of hardened steel springs and hard-drawn metal wire." [53]
"... it happens that a wind instrument cut in two in its middle does not give the octave of its fundamental, but a considerably flatter tone." [34]
"For the exact determination of these positions and the other tuning proportions, I had a flute made with movable holes, and was thus enabled to adjust all the tones higher or lower at pleasure." [30]
"The notes of the second octave are produced, as it were, by overblowing the tones of the first, by narrowing the opening of the lips, and by changing the angle and increasing the speed of the stream of air; this results in the formation of shorter tone-waves." [29]
"From accurate investigations it is shown that the disadvantages just mentioned, become imperceptible only when the size of the holes is, at the least, three-fourths of the diameter of the tube." [26-7]
"In order that these proportions might be accurately verified, I made a tube in which all the twelve tone sections could be taken off and again put together, and which was provided with a sliding joint in the upper part of the tube to correct for any defects in tuning." [25]
"The tone-producing current of air must be blown against the sharp edge of the mouth-hole, at an angle which varies with the pitch of the tone. When the air stream strikes the edge of the hole it is broken, or rather divided, so that one part of it goes over or beyond the hole, while the greater part, especially with a good embouchure, produces tone and acts upon the column of air enclosed by the tube, setting it into vibration." [21]
"... the formation of the nodes and segments of the sound waves takes place most easily and perfectly in a cylindrical flute tube, the length of which is thirty times its diameter and in which the contraction begins in the upper fourth part of the length of the tube, continuing to the cork where the diameter is reduced one tenth part." [16]
"The higher tones of the first octave are obtained by shortening the length of the vibrating column of air, for which purpose lateral tone-holes are bored in the tube. The holes should be as large as is possible, since the effective shortening of the tube is proportional to the ratio of the size of the hole to the diameter of the bore." [15]
"The bore of the head-joint is gradually reduced in diameter by two millimeters, from the joint upwards to the cork. The free speech of the tone and the correct tuning of the higher octaves depend upon the particular form of this curvilinear reduction in the diameter." [14]
The Flute & Flute Playing
Theobald Boehm
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