PVC Flutes

1
PVC Flutes

• an experiment in cheap instrument production
• Hannah Rossman
• Math 5
• May 30th 2005

2
Method

• Tools
• 3/4 inch PVC piping
• serrated knife or (preferably) hand saw
• tape measurer
• calculator
• permanent marker
• Method of Construction
• piping cut to desired length with handsaw
• mouthpiece carved at calculated length
• finger holes carved at calculated lengths

3
Mathematics

• Calculations

4
Obstacles

• Mouthpiece
• Original mouthpiece too small. Widening the
  mouthpiece made it easier to play, also made it
  possible to tune by adjusting position of the air
  source.
• Realizing the effective length
• Real world calculations of pipe length must take
  distance to mouth into account
• Calculations inaccurate
• Is the effective length changing? I noticed it
  was different for smaller pipes than larger,
  leading me to believe it was altering throughout
  the flute.
• Mathematical model fit better if flute was
  open-closed. Why?
• Difficult to play
• Instrument is difficult to play. This became
  easier when I made the decision to close one end
  of the pipe, less air required to make the flute
  sound.
• It is made out of PVC. Total cost per flute-
  1.25. Not too disappointed with sound quality

5
Analysis

• Sound quality
• Problem of 2 modes being excited simultaneously
• Hard to achieve a non-airy sound
• Pitch quality
• Proceeding up the scale, notes get more and more
  flat.