Trevor James Sliced Lip Plate

[chellede]

Hi Everyone!! Hope the new year is treating you well.

Here's my question..

I work in a music store and have access to many different types of flutes. When I was ready to purchase one, I tried EVERYTHING. After the blind test and everything I narrowed it down to the Amadeus and Trevor James Virtuoso with a sliced lip plate.

After the final test I decided it was the Trevor James I was going to buy.

I had a customer who bought the Trevor james Sliced Lip Plate one so I had to purchase another one at one of our other stores.

I love the flute, the tone, the quality.. but now everytime I play I feel air on my shoulder. I have tried to redirect my airstream, and I still can't get all my air to go into the flute..what's up with this? Is it me or the sliced lip plate?

I dont know if anyone has a sliced lip plate, or has any knowledge to this issue, but I would greatly appreciate any feed back.

Thank you!!

[fluteguy18]

Well, I would like to help, but I have never heard of a 'sliced' lip plate.... can you describe it for me so that I may be of some assistance? If anyone out there has any info on this, I would gladly like to know more about this.

[chellede]

Well this is from Trevor James site... which everyone at work refers to it as sliced lip plate.. while Trevor James refers to it as a shaped lip plate.. here's a pic too. Here's word for word from TJ's site

Thanks!!



The ‘Shaped’ lip plate The lip plate is slightly ‘shaped’ enabling your lip and chin to come closer to the embouchure hole. The shoulders of the lip plate are also raised from the side to the centre allowing the chimney to be greater in height, especially at the sides of the chimney. These features generally assist a greater volume and ease of immediate tone production. Especially obvious is the strength of the low and mid range notes, whilst the high notes tend to be uncompromising and speak freely. The sides of the embouchure are rounded at the top and have slightly more undercutting at the sides than the traditional lip plate. This lip plate certainly encourages ease of sound production.

[chellede]

well I might have solved my own problem...

I did a test. I took my Trevor James with the Shaped Lip Plate and my back up flute with a regular lip plate...

With any curved surface you can not blow ALL the air into the whole.. so the air that is escaping with the traditional lip plate is pushed outwards.. with the shaped liplate its pushed down..

so I guess I have a new question (lol)....When you play.. hold your hand by the lip plate.. do you feel air?

[fluteguy18]

It sort of depends on where I hold my hand, but yes, I do feel air. This is because you must acknowledge how sound is made with a flute. You aim a column of air at a precise edge. The edge splits the air; half goes into the flute, and the other half/ portion is deflected by the lip plate beyond the blowing edge. So, naturally, you will be able to feel the air somewhere. However, sometimes, you may not notice the air hitting your arm or shoulder or whatever for quite a while. Then one day, you will notice it, and think ' what is going on?'. I wouldnt be worried about it. It is just another aspect of your playing.

[sinebar]

It sort of depends on where I hold my hand, but yes, I do feel air. This is because you must acknowledge how sound is made with a flute. You aim a column of air at a precise edge. The edge splits the air; half goes into the flute, and the other half/ portion is deflected by the lip plate beyond the blowing edge. So, naturally, you will be able to feel the air somewhere. However, sometimes, you may not notice the air hitting your arm or shoulder or whatever for quite a while. Then one day, you will notice it, and think ' what is going on?'. I wouldnt be worried about it. It is just another aspect of your playing.

I guess this is somewhat off topic but I read that the air is not split but actually alternates between going in the hole and deflecting away from the hole. Of course I don't know if this is true just something I read.

[woof]

It was my understanding that it was the split in the air column that set up the vibrations which then resonate through the tube as sound. That is the principle in the Japanese and native American flutes and I would think the same applies to keyed flutes???

[fluteguy18]

I am pretty sure that it actually splits. I have read a couple of books on simple system transverse flutes, and everytime it discussed sound production, it had a diagram of how the air is split.

[Mark]

correct.

The air reed splits against the edge.
the tone production foundations are the same in these flutes
as in the others. Just the application is a little different.

mark

[kdell]

ok, no offense 2 anyone...but i think that all u guys going so in depth about how air is split is kinda funny...but its still sorta interesting. thx 4 the new info on different lip plates!

[flutepicc06]

It's important to understand how the flute works if you're going to be playing it, at least from my point of view. Knowing what you're doing to produce a sound is something that ost other instrumentalists learn ealry on. Trumpets buzz their lips, violins move their bows across strings, clarinets make a reed vibrate....But flutists are rarely taught why blowing makes the sound it does. This information becomes especially valuable if you're in the market for a new headjoint, in which case an understanding of why different traits might have certain effects is priceless.

[Mark]

oh.. and no offense taken