Overtones?

[ThwackFlute]

Hello. My friend wants me to play overtones in my flute. So I am here to ask: what are overtones in short, are they possible to play with the flute, and if so how is it done?

[wulf]

When you play a note the sound you hear is actually made up of a number of harmonics - air vibrating at different speeds. As you play higher pitches on the flute the tone gradually changes, especially when you have to switch embrochure to reach the next octave; that is because the changed angle at which the air hits the hole strips out the lower harmonics leaving only the higher tones, hence why lower notes sound fuller and richer.

I am a much more experienced bassist than I am flautist, so know about harmonics and overtones from a different perspective. The more experienced flautists will be able to correct my mistakes and give more detail. However, I find that I sometimes get what I would describe as overtones when I am not quite hitting one octave or the other but getting what sounds like two distinct notes at once.

Unlike my bass playing, where I can pull harmonics off reasonably well, the flute overtones aren't under my control and I need to learn to play more clearly before I mess with them too much. However, I imagine the answer lies somewhere around having enough control of how you blow to deliberately hit those nodes where the you are getting two types of sound at once.

Wulf

ps. looking to learn myself on this one.

[ThwackFlute]

I know the phenomenon of what you described. I'll see if I can gain some control in that area. Meanwhile we'll wait till someone who knows tells us.

[fl0utist]

Wulf described it pretty well -- basically you change your airstream and embochure while holding one fingering; once you become proficient at this it helps a lot with control and strength of the embochure.

For example, you can hold the fingering for E1 but fiddle with your airstream and embochure to get E1, E2, B2, and E3. As a warm-up sometimes I like to do overtones for C1 through about F1, then it gets really hard to control as you get up there.

It does take a bit of practice to get the hang of, especially the higher notes which sound quite terrible at first. Once you have a basic grasp on what you're doing, it really helps to do them with a tuner.