When it comes to the range of the flute, people will say, isn't it just two and a half sets? There seems to be no need for further discussion. actually not.

When I was young, the flutes I used were all "even-hole flutes" (that is, the distance between the six sound holes was nearly equal). The rhythm of this flute was adapted to the needs of folk music at that time. Although Zheng Jinwen of the Datong Music Society designed a "Lv-style" flute whose pitch requirements were very close to the twelve equal temperaments in 1931, this type of flute did not spread because it was not suitable for the requirements of folk music. . I remember that in 1955, my teacher, Professor Gan Tao, gave me an eleven-hole flute (this flute was designed by Mr. Zhang Xielin in the 1930s, and should belong to the twelve equal laws), and I have never seen this flute circulated. Come on. This old-fashioned uniform-hole flute generally has two groups of sounds, and the sound is not sharp.

Some people may say that the range of the flute does not need to be so wide, and it is enough to have two and a half sets. In fact, people will not meet the dynamic requirements of musical instruments. The fact that Mr. Zhao Songting designed the "pan flute" is the best proof: I hope that the range of the flute is wider (not entirely a comparison of timbre and tonality).

It is very possible to widen the range of the flute to three groups. This is based on the following.

A flute has only six sound holes, how can it play two or more sets of notes? It turns out that some of these tones are fundamental (such as bass 5 - middle 4 tones, some are first overtones (such as middle 5 - treble 4), and some belong to second overtones (such as - various sounds) (treble). la- the high-pitched do at the upper two points). It can be seen that the more overtones played by the flute, (such as the second overtone, third overtone, and even fourth overtone), the wider the range. It is well known that the excitation of overtones can With the help of the "overtone hole" (commonly known as the treble hole), the flute does not have an overtone hole. If we add an overtone hole on the flute, the range of the flute should be wider, right?

The fingering of the fundamental tone and the first overtone of the flute is the normal fingering, and the "fork" of the sixth hole is to change the pitch of the sound hole, which is a special case. But the second overtone is all cross fingering, why? The overtones of stringed instruments have their inherent laws: 1/2, 1/3, 1/4.... Is there no inherent law when the flute overtones are excited into sounds? The sound range of a uniform-hole flute is only sixteen degrees, and the sound range of a twelve-equal-tempered flute can exceed two and a half sets. Does this mean that the sound hole is positioned properly or not, and it has a decisive significance for the excitation of overtones? It should be noted that the interval of the twelve equal temperament is very close to the third law of profit and loss! What's more, the twelve well-tempered flutes are not necessarily authentic in today's production of flutes - in fact, the wind instruments made of natural materials bamboo cannot be authentic. When making a flute, slightly moving the position of the sound hole up and down will never affect the pitch, because we can also adjust the pitch through the size of the sound hole. If we can seriously study the relationship of overtones affected by the position of the sound hole, the range of the flute will be widened.

Different tunes have different requirements for the diameter of the pipe. The author found that the smaller the ratio of the pipe diameter to the pipe length, the less likely the fundamental sound to be played, or even impossible to sound; the larger the ratio of the pipe diameter to the pipe length, the less the number of overtones. It is for this reason that we should strengthen our research on this issue. Regarding the ratio of pipe diameter to pipe length, most of the ancient Chinese literature records that Huang Zhongzheng's law is 1:30. Boehm (Theobald Boehm (1794-1880) also set the ratio of the diameter to the length of the flute as 1:30 when he shaped the flute in 1847. I don't know the reason for this regulation by Boehm, nor do he Whether this regulation is influenced by the ancient Chinese tuner or not. However, in the study of flute production, we should still pay attention to the issue of the influence of the ratio of pipe diameter to pipe length on the sound range and timbre of the flute.

The sounding principle of the bamboo flute is: the air beam (mouth wind) in the mouth passes through the splitting of the edge of the blowing hole to generate a vortex to generate an edge sound, which is resonated by a certain length of air column to make a sound. The pitch of the flute is inversely proportional to the length of the pipe and proportional to the strength of the mouth. The edge of the blow hole is the key to affecting the edge sound, so the blow hole has an important influence on the range and intonation of the flute.