Tuning the Indian Love Flute

The Native American style flute is a musical instrument of elegant simplicity. Because of this simplicity the Native American style flutes are easy to play. This makes it an ideal instrument for the casual player. But with simplicity come certain limitations.

When I say tuning I am referring to bringing the various notes of a Love flute into a standardized relationship with each other. Tuning the Love flute was not a technical issue for the Native American player. He was interested only in producing sounds that felt right to him. When he tuned his flute he did not measure the tonality of the instrument by any external standard. He was satisfied with what was pleasing to his own ear. It was literally a matter of anything goes as long as I like the sound of it. In the late twentieth century Native American flutes began to gain acceptance beyond the confines of the Native community. In the hands of Native and non-Native flute makers and players the Indian Love flute began a period of rather rapid development.

The most fundamental change was to bring the Indian flute into conformity with Western standards of tuning. Various makers adopted the mode one minor pentatonic scale. They felt that this rather melancholy scale was appropriate for what was being expressed through the Indian love flute. The resulting instrument had five tone holes and could play a five-note (pentatonic) scale plus the first note of the second octave (six notes total). When a sixth hole was introduced it became possible to easily produce two different pentatonic scales on the same flute - mode one and mode four. Love flute makers began to tune their flutes to the modern concert standard of 440Hz for the note of A above middle C on the piano.

The next challenge that Love flute makers took up was to craft a flute that could play a full chromatic scale. A chromatic scale divides the octave into twelve semi tones (notes) of one half step each. There is an equal interval between each note. A pentatonic scale uses only five of these twelve notes. In between those five notes are the other seven notes. You can think of them as hidden notes. You can see this illustrated in detail on my website www.atflutes.com on the Playing the Flute page. You can also see the pentatonic notes and hidden notes when you look at a piano keyboard. The piano keyboard has a sequence of twelve notes that are repeated over and over. Five of the notes in the sequence are the black keys. Think of these five black keys as a pentatonic scale (which in fact they are). You can visualize the white keys as the hidden notes between the notes in the pentatonic scale. These hidden notes can be played on some Native American style flutes using the techniques called cross fingering and half holing.

With a full chromatic (twelve note) range at a player's disposal it is possible to play music in diatonic (seven note) as well as pentatonic (five note) scales. You can also play music in major as well as minor keys.

To make playing a chromatic scale on the Indian flute possible the flute maker must tune the flute so that the hidden notes are playable and in tune. These notes must be tuned so that there are 100 cents between each adjacent note. This challenge has been met with the exception of the two notes that lie between the fundamental and the first open hole note. Half holing (rather than cross fingering) must be used to produce these two notes. It is not easy (or in my case possible) to sound both of these notes distinctly. So in practice we have an almost complete chromatic scale available on a modern, well-tuned, Native American style flute.

The Native American style flute has another limitation. It is standard practice for flute makers to tune their flutes at an ambient temperature of 72 degree Fahrenheit. A limitation of the Love flute is that once the flute is made it's tuning cannot be adjusted. If the flute is in tune at 72 degrees this means that it will be out of tune if the air temperature is higher or lower than 72. Warmer air temperatures will make the Indian flute play sharp. Cooler temperatures will make the flute play flat. A change in temperature of 10 degrees higher or lower than 72 will make a flute play about 15 cents out of tune one way or the other.

The length of the barrel of the Love flute determines the fundamental note of the flute. The longer the barrel of the flute the lower the tone. A shorter barrel raises the tone. As a matter of convenience we will say that the barrel length is measured from the splitting edge at the front of the true sound hole to the foot end of the flute. The standard metal concert flute has a telescoping slip joint on the barrel of the flute. This joint allows the musician to lengthen or shorten the overall length of the barrel. This changing barrel length allows the user to adjust the flute to compensate for differences in temperature. The Indian Love flute does not have this capability. It is solid wood from one end to the other with no telescoping joint.

Another factor effecting the tuning of the Native American style flute is that the tone of the flute is sensitive to the breath pressure going into the flute. When the Love flute maker tunes a flute at a particular breath pressure it will be in tune only when played at that pressure. If the flute player uses a higher breath pressure the flute will play sharp (it will also be louder). When the player uses less breath pressure the flute will play flat. How sharp or flat depends on the amount of deviation in pressure from that at which the Indian flute was originally tuned.

Does it matter if the flute is sharp or flat? Not if you are playing solo. Remember the flute is in tune with itself. The different notes of the Love flute are in a harmonic relationship with each other. So if the flute is sharp all the notes are sharp to the same degree. If flat all the notes are equally flat. Because of this there is no dissonance between the individual notes. Few amateur musicians are able to detect minor variation from 440 Hz.

The tuning of the Love flute is important when it is played ensemble with other instruments. If you are out of tune relative to your guitarist friend to the extent of 15 cents there will be a noticeable cacophony between the two instruments. A guitar can be tuned. Because the guitar can be tuned it can be tuned to your flute. This solves the problem on one level. Now you are both either sharp or flat to the same degree. The two instruments are in harmony with each other.