 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: FT
Date: 2002-01-09 01:15
Is it because they're side blown????
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2002-01-09 01:47
Maybe the mouthpiece section is working as resonator. The sound creation principle of flute is quite different from reed instruments. The circulated air inside the mouthpiece is impinged by exhaled breath split at the chimney edge creates sound. Unlike clarinet, only pulling out the mouthpiece does not make intonation lower. The impingement angle too does affect it. In recent years, many flultists have tendency to pull out very much to obtain more resonance space. If you have an opportunity to watch William Bennet, you will find he is pulling it veryyyy much.
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Author: Rene
Date: 2002-01-09 05:40
I find this an interesting question. Can only guess. First of all, The clarinet bell works only for the long tones, where all holes are covered. It makes these more resonant and improves pitch. A flute has two open ends, which emit sound. So a bell would not be effective anyway and only make the flute heavier. Hiroshi's comment about pullout to improve resonance on the other hand makes me ask, if a bell wouldn't do good to the notoriously bad low tones on the flute.
Rene
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2002-01-09 07:54
The bell acts as an open hole (effectively the same as all the other side holes on a clarinet) .
Most of these kinds of questions (they're good ones & not readily apparent) are pretty well answered in Arthur Benade's "Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics".
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Author: ron b
Date: 2002-01-09 07:57
I don't know. Why don't flutes have bells? (sorry... I couldn't resist, FT) :|
It's a good question and my guess is as good as anybody's :]
So, here goes: Flutes don't *need* bells 
Open tube, straight bore Flutes overblow in octaves. It's in their nature to do so. Stubborn rascals need lots of coaxing and coddling to get them to behave. Once they settle down they become very sweet and expressive. They get along with almost anybody. They're very down to earth. Tonal divisions are in eighths. Side blown or end blown, it's all the same with them. Very pragmatic. The tone holes are pretty much uniform as is the length of the instrument from one octave to another. They are beautiful just as they are. They have a long heritage and are quite comfortable with themselves. Because of this inherent uniformity and self confidence there is no need for a bell shaped end.
Closed tube, straight bore Clarinets, on the other hand, are relative newcomers to the music world, overblow in twelfths and are not at all uniform from one register to another. That's their troublesome nature. To accomodate their idiosyncrasies, the tube needs to be proportionally longer/shorter to make the same notes as their neighbors. Remember also that the larger the bore (diameter), the higher the pitch. This is important. The clarinet bore increases, flares, at the lower end to take advantage of this bore size increase, pitch raising characteristic. If it didn't, the lower section would be at least half again as long as it presently is and the fingering mechanism would become even more complicated (and heavier, ugh!) because the RH finger spread, as we know it now, would be impossible. The obvious solution has been to enlarge the bore and the holes, the lowest being the biggest tone hole... the bell.
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2002-01-09 13:32
I think a better question is "Why do clarinets need bells or do they?" I haven't read the book Mark recommends, but I strongly doubt they are even needed. Of course, one can't simply remove the bell and expect the lowest note on the instrument to be in tune. A proper length cylindrical extension would be needed to replace it. Or one with a properly placed hole to sound the lowest note.
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Author: Bob Arney
Date: 2002-01-09 14:46
Cause it's too hard to shake them while still trying to blow?
Bob A
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2002-01-09 22:39
From my struggle with Bernade a few years ago I have a vague memory that the bell is needed in an attempt to get the B in tune with the E (all fingers down for both), these being a unique pair of notes because they are the only ones using an open ended tube for venting rather than a tone hole. Compromises can be made with the location, length, diameter and undercutting of a tone hole; these cannot be made with the end of a tube, where the only compromise available is bore diameter.
This compromise is not needed on the flute because all-fingers-down is used ONLY for the lowest note, C. If this C is overblown it goes up an octave, but for this higher C the all fingers-down fingering is never used.
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Author: willie
Date: 2002-01-10 01:28
Well for one, they would have to redesign all those cute little flute cases. They would then look like one of those cases for a metal clarinet.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2002-01-10 02:25
There is an acoustic wording - bell effects. The bell is working to pull up ill-tuned lower partials. By the way I play flute,clarinet, trumpet,saxohones, blockflotes.
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Author: diz
Date: 2002-01-10 02:46
Hiroshi - you sound very interesting person. Are you an "ex-pat" living in Japan or a native Japanese person? The most beautiful flute playing I ever heard was by a Japanese man who played the (can't spell it) but it's your "native" flute.
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Author: diz
Date: 2002-01-10 03:04
Mark - as always, you level of knowledge is like a huge, bottomless pit.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2002-01-10 03:06
Thanks, I think ;^)
I've got 4 or 5 shakuhachi CDs - lived in Japan for 5 years & married to a wonderful Japanese woman. I ended up accidentally knowing something about traditional Japanese music (koto, shamisen, shakuhachi, taiko - the big drums), etc.). Great stuff for a westerner to listen to!
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Author: Lynn
Date: 2002-01-12 22:28
LOL Flutes don't need bells because the sound resonates from the head joint. The better the head joint, the more resonant the tone. Of course, silver will ring much more easily than plated brass.
Flutes don't resonate through the Length of the head joint - the whole concept has to do more with the thickness of the wall of silver, the type of materials, the shape of the lip plate/hole, the width of the interior of the head joint, and the insides of every person's mouth. My flute is no more resonant if the head joint is all the way in or not.
BTW part of the reason we have to pull our head joints out so much any more is because of that durn Cooper scale.....among other things. I can tell you that my own instrument has a "european head joint" which has different measurements than a lot of other head joints. I can play a junker flute perfectly in tune. Pick up my Pearl, and......grrrr..... But for a flute to play perfectly in tune, anyway, it would need to be about a half inch bigger around from about halfway down.
I would suspect that clarinets don't need the bell so much as they need the length so that B/E and C/F don't sound almost the same.... the bell shape is probably just to implicate that clarinets have a ringing sound. 
Lynn
(who studies flute in her very spare time)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2002-01-12 22:50
Lynn wrote:
>
> LOL Flutes don't need bells because the sound resonates
> from the head joint. The better the head joint, the more
> resonant the tone. Of course, silver will ring much more
> easily than plated brass.
And why is that? Not that I don't believe you, but I've read a few books on acoustics that state to the contrary - that the material the flute is made out of has little if no effect on the sound since the material is relatively thick. I've heard wooden flutes that resonate wonderfully and brighter than silver, when you'd think that the wood would dampen things if anything - and a flute made out of a kind of concrete that sounded just as fine as any other flute I've heard.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2002-01-14 01:26
And Yamaha, after extensive R&D have chosen to make their megabuck alto flute from brass because of a superior sound.
Alto flutes I have compared seem to largely sound worse from sterling silver than the same model in cupronickel.
Things aren't always what they seem!
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Author: Lynn
Date: 2002-01-14 13:53
I can't tell you why silver rings more than silver-plated brass. It does. Maybe it has to do with the engineering they put into the better material, and not with the material itself. So that might be the acoustical part of it. Maybe the silver is easier for them to work with. Or the purity of the material, maybe? Which is why a lot of people are using rose gold and gold head joints.
I can tell you that I do NOT get the same tone quality results from junker flute head joints that I do from my own. Neither do my students. Altus makes this Brittania silver that is just amazing, it's a higher amount of silver in the metal. I love their flutes, I WANT one. Their head joints do not fit into my instrument, unfortunately. But I would love to see a flute made out of concrete, tho, LOL. Would NOT want to hold it!!! What company made that?
When I bought my flute, it took me 3 YEARS to decide. I tried almost every make in existence, you name it. I decided on the Pearl because it was the best sounding instrument for what I wanted to spend.
LOL I wonder if that Yamaha alto flute sounds as good as my teacher's Powell or Haynes altos.....I can't imagine that it would. Nothing sounds like that Powell. BTW I think Yamaha flutes (of any sort) are overrated. The company has good marketing. Megabucks don't mean anything. I have a student with a $10,000 Yamaha flute, and my Pearl sounds 10 times better.
Lynn
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2002-01-15 12:49
Well don't apply your Pearl worship to their student flutes. I have a list of about 20 mechanical disappointments that make them unreliable. And I have seen some of these disappointments in their pro flutes also. The Yamaha satndard of manufacturer, in my experience, is far higher in Yamahas. I have had little contact with Yamaha pros.
Re pro flutres: Sometimes a flute can have high immediate appeal but for a very experienced player seeking more 'colour' in the tone they may have limitations. I'm not saying whether or not this statement applies to you or your chosen flute.
Are there top pro players playing Pearls?
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Author: Lynn
Date: 2002-01-15 14:28
LOL I don't have "Pearl worship" - I'd much rather have a Powell or an Altus! But it was the best quality for the money,with the best tone. Period. And sorry, but the Yamaha flutes, IMO, did not compare to that. And I am sure there are top players playing Pearls. That's not why I buy an instrument.
I've been teaching and playing flute for 25 years, and found Yamaha student models to be mediocre. Probably the most reliable student model I've seen are the Armstrongs. The Bundy IIs produce the best tone of the student models. Even tho I don't like that Armstrong offsets the keys for smaller hands (which in essence forces kids to have to upgrade when they get bigger, whether or not their families can afford to) they still are pretty mechanically sound.
Lynn
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2002-01-20 11:15
In line keys appears to be a local fashion that your sellers conform to and perpetuate. There is no rational reason for inline G and it is unergonomic, simply because the ring finger is shorter than the middle finger. In New Zealand perhaps only 2% of non-'student' flutes have inline G keys.
The student Armstrong flutes that come to New Zealand must be a totally different animal from what you speak of.
My experience of many hundreds of student flutes here indicates that Yamaha are by far the most reliable, followed perhaps by Gemeinhardt. Pearl would be quite well down. For tone, etc, teachers steer students towards Yamaha or Pearl. Student flutes here that come from USA almost universally have a particularly poor reputation for tone and reliability. However it is possible our Yamahas (from Japan) are a somewhat different animal (especially pads and set-up) from those in USA - I just don't know.
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