Silversmithing

Boehm, the inventor of the flute, was known as a very fine flutist, composer, scientist, and a master silversmith.

Being a flutist, a composer, and a scientist already, I decided to take up the one last required skill, metal smithing.

So I made a trip to Kotagede, Yogyakarta with a friend of mine, Himawan, to learn this ancient craft in Studio76 under the guidance of Mr. Agus, a local silversmith. Kotagede is the center of Indonesian silver art, home to hundreds of craftsmen, located at the southern part of Yogyakarta. The first one from the left was a mobius ring made by Himawan. The other two are mine, a G-clef liontin and a ring.

So, while we're there, we decided to visit some architectural jewels of the city. The Tamansari Water Park (former residence of Mataram's Kings), the Kraton Yogya (current residence), and the megalitics structure scattered throughout the city, especially the Sewu Temple, Prambanan Temple, and the Ratu Boko Complex. We didn't have enough time to visit the famous Borobudur which is out of range of the city bus. The tour is completed by a trip to Dagadu (T-shirt factory) and a Batik gallery, and of course, "Gudek" for lunch.

She sells sea shells

I found this particular kind of sea shells, the one that has a naturally shaped embouchure hole. Take a look at the picture, it looks like a flute's lip plate. Using a weird embouchure similar to the Egyptian Ney, they can readily make a whistle-like sound.

Lipping technique gives each a range of about major third between the lowest and the highest note. So I purchased a pair of these, the biggest they have and the smallest (the one in the foreground is actually the smaller one, but appears larger because of perspective). Together, they give a range of approximately a fifth apart.

As usual, here is the sound sample:

Twin Shells.mp3

Sea-urchin-o-phone

This is an instrument I created last year, made from a sea urchin shell. I applied thick internal lacquer to the shell as naturally, the sea urchin shell is very porous and not suitable for a wind instrument. After sealing the pores completely, I shaped the embouchure hole, and drill 4 finger holes in it following John Taylor's ocarina design.

With this scheme, the instrument, pitched in concert C, is capable of producing 1 fully chromatic octave. However, with the open, flute style embouchure hole (as opposed to the flageolet ocarina style embouchure hole), lipping technique can bring the low notes of this instrument all the way to G below the treble staff.

Sound sample is here:

Seaurchinophone.mp3

The Flutarina

Behold, a new generation of wind instrument has arrived! Well, it is my original design, the flutarina, a flute - ocarina hybrid. It's made of bamboo, which is a traditional material for flutes. It also has the flute embouchure hole. But the embouchure hole is located right in middle of the instrument, making the acoustic closer to ocarinas than flutes.

Unlike standard ocarinas, the hole placement counts. Finger hole further away from the embouchure hole produces lower pitch. But
unlike flutes, the hole size plays more important role than location.

This instrument has 9 finger holes, 2 of which are the natural hole formed by bamboo ends, operated by thumbs. It is pitched in Eb, with a range of approximately from middle C up to Bb (nearly 2 octaves). Just like ocarinas, overblowing doesn't work on this instrument.

It features internal lacquer (white colored), embouchure hole and finger holes inlays, bamboo-tree carving, and a matte-lacquer finish. I haven't figure out all of the fingerings yet, but I believe full chromatic should be possible. Because it is basically a stopped pipe, its length is about half of that required for a flute with the same pitch. May I call it the eco-flute?

Another nice thing about it is its extreme ability to pitch bend. And the thumb-operated end-holes can serve as a special effect device simillar with the koudi (The koudi is a very very short flute with no fingerhole used to imitate bird songs).

How about the sound? Well, you be the judge. Listen to the sound here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?vdemmtztxxy

Shakuhachi Project

I finished my first Shakuhachi, the Japanese traditional end-blown flute.

Following the "standard" specification, it has 5 equal sized finger holes, beautifully arranged at even spacing of 1/10th of the flute's length.

After drilling the bamboo nodes to create a continuous pipe, the bamboo was initiated with fire. The heat treatment process left burn marks on the bamboo, which I found aesthetically appeasing.

The next step is cutting the utaguchi (blowing edge) at the end of the bamboo. Finally, the finger holes were drilled. Fine tuning was done by adjusting the finger hole size and adding or removing materials from the bore.

For finishing, the word Shakuhachi (in Japanese character) was inlaid at the back of the utaguchi. Then three strips of rattan binding was introduced. The strips served as decoration as well as adding some strength to the bamboo.

Finally, a thin layer of lacquer was applied to give the bamboo a nice, smooth, shiny appearance. Listen to the sound of this instrument here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?xogmvzcuxst