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An Examination of Correlations between Flutists Linguistic

Practices and Their Sound Production on the Flute



Linda Landeros Lamkin, Department of Woodwinds, School of Music, Indiana University, United States
llamkin@indiana.edu

Proceedings of the Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology (CIM05)
Actes du Colloque interdisciplinaire de musicology (CIM05)
Montral (Qubec) Canada, 10-12/3/2005

Abstract
The purpose of this project is to study the recorded flute sound and articulation of flutists in
comparison with the recorded speech of the subjects native language (L1) and other
languages they may speak [L2, L(n)]. Three hundred years of pedagogical literature
recommending shape of mouth, embouchure placement besides the use of linguistic
comparisons with four consonants, /t/, /d/, /k/, and /g/, along with every vowel have been
used in syllable combination to recommend the optimum output, that of beautiful music.
Language culture can influence subtle choices in tone production; hearing ranges of timbre,
clarity, rise and fall, cadences, and rhythm could be the basis from which players develop tone
as well as maintain repetitive precision in the execution of syllable choice(s). The performance
recordings revealed correlations between vocal and instrumental timbre using sound analysis
software. The initial alveolar stops of speech matched that of the subjects flute playing in the
spectral envelope in the power spectrum, as well as in the harmonic envelope in the
spectrogram. Implications for further research in music perception, semiotics and
ethnomusicological analysis, flute pedagogy, performance parameters of the communication
of emotions and vocal imitation are discussed.

Introduction
Qui va la?
Qui que tu sois,
Parle, Transparence!

Tor Takemitsus Voice: for solo flutist, (Takemitsu, 1971) asks in a Japanese haik poem in French,
Who goes there? Speak, Transparence, whoever you are! The performer must say the words into the
flute, as part of the special effects, which include multiphonics, amplified flute, whisper tones,
growling, and flutter-tonguing. Takemitsu notated almost all the fingerings so as to get the slightest
differences in timbres of notes of the same pitch. One can almost see the composer calling past a veil
in an effort to elicit a response to his question from the unknown muse. In the same way, some of the
most gifted performers on the flute almost seem to be speaking when they play, drawing the audience
in with their musical storytelling prowess. Likewise, some compositions beg the performer to recall
some prosody or some poetry that is just out of reach of the definable melody. One of the principal
aims in the performance of music is communicating. We, the listeners, are attracted to the beauty and
contrasts in the process of that communication. Among some of the most important processes of
sculpting tonal contrasts in flute playing is articulation. Flute is the only instrument whereby the sound
is generated with a jet stream, crossing to the back wall of the embouchure plate, with nothing in the
mouth to impede the movement of the air or the tongue. The instrument truly closest to being able to
speak the music is the flute. This study will examine four aspects of music and speech: music
production as compared to speech production, and speech perception as compared to music
perception.

Music production: (a) flute performance
In performing in different venues, as an orchestral flutist, chamber musician, and recitalist, the author
has had opportunity to evaluate both strategies and outcomes in an effort to seek a better output in
her performance. When performing off the North American continent, the author noted that much of
the time her playing had improved. After discarding reasons such as more practice time, fewer
distractions, more focus, more hydration, more rest, and a higher standard of living for performing
artists, the main difference had to be a synchronized learning process involving better acoustic
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Linda Landeros LAMKIN
feedback from the architecture and more lingual practice using the tongue differently in languages
such as Italian, Spanish, French, and Hebrew. Which came first? Was one more influential than the
other? Making minute adjustments in articulation was so much easier and faster, giving more time to
focus on phrasing, expression, vibrato, dynamics, and colors or timbre of tone in different pieces.
Flutists imagine sound to be created, involving complex interactions of physical formations, breathing
and aural reaction to reverberation. Flutists assess whether or not the sound matches their internal
imagination by making changes based on stored based on muscular information learned from practice
and cultural information (lore, practice, culture, language). Where do flutists obtain this image in the
first place? This paper is part of a larger document in performance to provide a basis to discuss
modern flute performance practice, integrating pedagogical, acoustic, linguistic, and aesthetic
considerations, for the completion of the doctorate.

In the twentieth century there were and still are at least four schools of flute playing: the French,
German, English, and American schools. There are differences in tone quality (particularly in the low
register), articulations, and dynamic ranges. In master classes or sound recordings of Jean-Pierre
Rampal, James Galway, Severino Gazzellloni, Peter Lloyd, William Bennett, Barthold Kuijken, and
Julius Baker, and Andras Adorjn, the author has heard these differences readily. These flutists have
spoken about the different tone qualities, articulations, and dynamics in their teachings. Perhaps the
most proven measurement of their opinions is the volume of sales of music. The vast majority of
music enthusiasts have democratically chosen, through dollars spent on recordings and concerts,
which artists have the most convincing musical communication in performance. Pilar Estevan
interviewed Jean-Pierre Rampal, the most recorded flutist in history, (Estevan, 1976, 7). A self-
confessed natural player, Rampal takes the interviewer through his view of interpreting musical
phrase:

If some people overblow on the flute, they should be asked, "How would you sing this phrase?" Not
as a singer, but naturally, without any effort -- for the pleasure. Try it out with a man who has a
bad style, and he will not sound the same because he is singing naturally. You can not [sic] force
something which is natural. So listen to your playing, listen to your singing -- that is the thing, to
play like you sing or like you act, like you speak. Then you will find the truth.

Music production: (b) pedagogy
Music performance research has not concentrated on the creation and control of performance as it
happens. Instead, for the past three hundred years, most pedagogical treatises have concentrated on
the articulatory preparation and execution. To be fair, historically, the development of humanistic
approach to study is about the same age as the first writings to appear to include how to play wind
instruments in general, and the German flute, in particular. Ardall Powell described the writings of
Thionot Arbeau, in a 1589 French dancing manual, Orchesographie, about the articulation of the
Swiss military fifers used in that day(Powell 2002, 30-32). He described a characteristic Swiss playing
style, in which fifers using a special hard articulation played together with large side drums, Arbeau
noted that the fifes bore as very narrow, only the thickness of a pistol bullet, it has a shrill note,
(i.e. pitch or tone). One wonders what flutist would not use a hard articulation to get a sound out of
narrow bore instrument, possibly two to three feet in length.

In an attempt to categorize articulation choices, all permutations of the use of the articulators in the
forms of a consonant-vowel syllable (CV) for /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, and /r/ (not as a liquid, but a flapped
alveolar stop) in combination with all vowels were found in the literature. The list here is merely
representative of the large body of treatises, manuals, and articles that have attempted to guide
generations of flutists on how to tongue on the flute. There are more CV combinations than listed here,
but five variations should incite some discussion.

/Ca/ includes descriptions of articulations by John Barcellona ([no author] 2001)
/Ce/ includes descriptions of articulations by Louis Drouet in the nineteenth-century in an
article by Kathleen Goll-Wilson (Goll-Wilson 1990)
/Ci/ includes descriptions of articulations by Johann Joachim Quantz (Quantz, (1966) 1752)
/Co/ includes descriptions of articulations by James Pellerite ([no author] 2001)
/Cu/ includes descriptions of articulations by Jacques-Martin Hotteterre (Hotteterre, (1968)
1707)

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Even in the latter half of the twentieth-century, there was a reluctance to talk about how to make
color, or harmonic differences in the timbre of flute tone using language changes, as a rule. Even after
the richness from one of the golden ages of flute playing, with Marcel Moyse firmly adding to the
opulent pedagogical heritage established by Paul Taffanel and Philippe Gaubert of the Paris
Conservatory at the turn of the twentieth century (Moyse 1934, 1928, 1978; Taffanel 1923 and 1958),
one developed it within the routines of technical mastery of the flute.

Roger S. Stevens 1967 monograph entitled Artistic Flute: Technique and Study provides unique
oscillographs of flute tones with descriptive analysis (Stevens 1967, 53-56). Mr. Stevens was a former
principal solo flutist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as one of the teachers at the
western United States musical center, the University of Southern California, who had studied with
Joseph Mariano and William Kincaid, founders of the American school of flute playing. Not only did he
go beyond the routines developed by Kincaid (Kincaid 1967, 1968, 1975; Krell 1973) and his
(Kincaids) teacher, Georges Barrre (Barrre 1935), but he exploited the timbral transparence of the
flute within a thirty-three-chord routine (Stevens 1967, 90). His book is also the book with the lips,
photographs of embouchures of some of the most famous Los Angeles studio musicians of that era
(Stevens 1967, 14-16). His photographic study of embouchures offers a tantalizing view of the
possible interpretation of different uses of vowels. Mr. Stevens was a master at assisting the student
to attain acoustical awareness of timbre through his use of rigorous arpeggio routines, enhancing the
frequency components with incredibly strenuous workouts, if done properly, with embouchure control.
By far and away, the best routine to develop harmonic acoustic awareness using the natural harmonic
features of the flute and simple octave relationships was exploited through travel of the three or more
octaves, in overlapping segments, building signal strength in the interlocking harmonics. Mr. Stevens
had one of the most beautiful color or timbral ranges on the flute, but avoided the question of how to
produce them: Very little will be said in this section regarding the specific regimens for developing a
versatile color spectrum and for further refining the tone. It is suggested, rather, that the advanced
flutist use the tone development routines already established as a means of increasing his aural acuity
and color flexibility, thus providing a more complete palette of the colors latent in the instrument,
(Stevens 1967, 52). One other master teacher must be mentioned in conjunction with Mr. Stevens
and the study of flute color, and that is Mr. Robert Willoughby. The author has had no experience with
this flutist, but through personal communications with colleagues, as well as perusal of the American
flute journals, by all accounts, he invested his art in the study of colors on the flute.

There are not many acoustic studies of the flute sound itself. J. W. Coltmans and N.H. Fletchers three
to four decades studies of wind instruments in the physical acoustics literature, and of the physics of
the flute and organ flues, in particular, provide information about the action of the jet (breath) and
possible explanations of the sound wave through the open system (Coltman 1979, Fletcher 1975 for
examples). Studies in vibrato will be discussed later in this paper.

Speech production
In flute playing, flutists shape the inside of their mouths in a fashion similar to the way they do in
speaking. In speaking, people with different language cultures use mouth and tongue formations to
make the consonant and vowel sounds of their own language. A language culture is a group of people
speaking a language with a particular style or inflection. For example, Belgian French sounds different
from Parisian French. British English sounds different from English spoken in Australia or the United
State. The Spanish language sounds different if spoken by persons from Spain, Mexico, or Argentina.
Even a politically defined region of the world has different dialect sounds. American English sounds
different in the Southeast than in the Northeast. It is possible that players from different language
cultures use different mouth and tongue formations and placements while playing the flute, similar to
those of their native tongue.

The Experiment
The acoustic studies of languages, linguistic comparisons, learning languages, and speech production
abound with methodologies to snare the phonetic components held within subject populations. A study
by James Emil Flege offers validation to test subjects speech habits by looking at part of their spoken
speech in the same exact CV combinations noted in the flute pedagogical literature (Flege 1984).
Fleges experiments in ascertaining foreign accent recognition are examples that prescribed a
preliminary model by which to organize and qualify not only /tu/ and other stop combinations, but also
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Linda Landeros LAMKIN
the /t/-burst and all accompanying articulatory choices. Fleges experiment was comparing the
comprehension of speech spoken by native French speakers and native English speakers. He
specifically looked at /tu/: /tu/ was edited from the phrase two little dogs and two little birds. The
segmentation of /u/ from the following /l/ was based on changes in waveform shape and/or intensity,
(Flege 1984, 695).

The experimental method used in this process included recording speech and flute articulation samples
to examine spectrographic evidence for any correlation between the two acoustic phenomena, using
sound analysis software.

Speech
Linguistic choices were based on the subject pool. Participants were to be asked to speak several
sentences in English and in the subjects own native tongue if the latter was not English. Those
languages included French, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German, and Hebrew. Native
speakers and high-fluency speakers of the languages chosen were asked to design sentences to
feature /t, d, k, g, dl, u, o, y/ specifically. The individuals who designed the sentences included
professors of the different languages at Indiana University (IU), the principal designer of the
experiment, Dr. Nina Fales, a world-renowned timbre expert who had done postdoctoral work at the
Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris, France, and the author.
(Please see acknowledgments at the end of this paper.) The sentences were designed so that the first
and last words would not be used due to changes in pitch inflection in speech habits in all languages.
The target syllables were placed in word-initial, inter-syllabic, and word-final positions. Not all
permutations sought were incorporated into the sentences. (Please see the section on design
improvements.) In addition, appropriate federal government permission protocol for use of human
subjects was applied for and granted.

Speech perception could only be obtained through a self-rating process at this point. A
questionnaire instrument was designed to acquire the subjects personal statistics, including age,
length of playing the flute, native language, knowledge of other languages, and experience in taking
flute lessons in a language other than the subjects native language. Included in the questionnaire
were a release document, an eighteen-question survey, and a short section for the participants to
write their own perceptions of hearing their own sound while they play. They were told that their
identities would be kept confidential forever. This aspect of confidentiality was crucial as most of these
individuals were just starting their careers as performers, if not actively pursuing performance
opportunities around the globe. In the high sensitivity field of music, the respect and care for the
musicians was paramount to the experiment design. No assignation as to the character of an identified
individuals playing would be jeopardized for his or her career.

Music production: the repertoire choices
Six pieces were chosen to elicit typical playing behavior on the modern flute. These pieces were well
within the playing ability of all the subjects. Some subjects may have had some of the excerpts
memorized for orchestral auditions. They were placed in an order that hopefully would allow the player
to exhibit contrasting articulation tendencies with enough rest between the three targeted articulatory
demanding excerpts.
The first piece played was the Allemande from the Suite in A Minor, BWV 1013, by Johann Sebastian
Bach (Bach 1990). This piece was chosen for its endless single tonguing. The author thought that the
fatigue factor the movement usually engenders would cause the subject to keep to his/her most basic
linguistic practices in the perpetual attempt to stay relaxed enough for the duration of the selection. It
was placed first so that player would be at his/her freshest playing condition. The second piece chose
was the Largo from the Concerto in F Major, "La Tempesta di Mare," for Flute and Orchestra, F. VI, n.
12 by Antonio Vivaldi (Vivaldi 1971). The primary reason it was chosen is that it allowed the player to
rest his/her tongue. The Vivaldi was chosen also because the preliminary document proposal used the
excerpt in recordings by James Galway and Severino Gazzelloni to illustrate the harmonics seen in the
tone production spectrogram in isolation on the speech analysis software, SoundScope. This work was
also chosen for future work on studies in vibrato and expression. The third selection was the first
movement, Prlude gravement, from Concert Royaux, No. 4 by Franois Couperin. While this piece
was probably not as familiar to all the subjects, its inclusion served several purposes. The first
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purpose was to see if there would be any exhibition of characteristics that would also be found in
French speech tendencies in the spectrogram analyses, as it is one of the high points in the French
Baroque flute literature. The second purpose was to provide a break from the other pieces as they are
some of the most played pieces in the literature. This piece was a great equalizer among experienced
and inexperienced alike, to practice sight-reading skills. Whatever the linguistic practices the flutist
would normally be smoothed away by years of practicing, would be sufficient distraction in the reading
of the notes to be able to elicit the most natural response. The fourth piece chosen was the most
employed audition piece around the world, the first movement, Allegro maestoso, from the Konzert in
G fr Flte und Orchester by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Mozart 1986). Whatever tendencies the
flutist may have in linguistic production would be influenced by years of flute study with at least one
professional-level teacher. This piece also had more variation in the rhythmic articulation passages
than the Bach and Mendelssohn excerpts. Probably one of the most recognized pieces in the flute
literature, Syrinx pour Flte Seule by Claude Debussy (Debussy 1927), was included as a resting
stage before the final excerpt. As with the Vivaldi, this piece will be used for future study in vibrato
and expression. The final excerpt has been one of the top three orchestral excerpt selections
requested by professional orchestra audition committees, the Scherzo from Midsummer Nights Dream
by Felix Mendelssohn (Mendelssohn [n.d.]). The piece allows the player to exhibit double-tonguing, a
rapidly repeating /CV/-/CV/ motion from the alveolar stop to the velar stop and back again. The piece
served to elicit tonguing contrasts between front and back stop releases within the vocal tract, causing
fatigue. The players performed the first section within the first formal compositional section of the
movement of each piece only once.

The subjects: the speakers and the players
The participants were from the flute studio of the Department of Woodwinds, School of Music, Indiana
University. All participants were highly trained flutists pursuing performance and education degrees at
one the largest schools of music in the world in one of the largest flute classes in the world. All three
professors of flute agreed to the study, Professor Jacques Zoon, Professor Kate Lukas, Professor
James Scott. The professors allowed recording time to coincide with the time the regular master class
met during the school week. The subjects understood that the recording process was to be an
opportunity to practice audition techniques in exchange for reading sentences and being in an
experiment for the authors doctoral document requirement. All participation was voluntary, and the
subjects were told that they could withdraw their participation at any time. Not all flutists of the studio
participated.

Thirty-three students out of forty total participated. Seven countries were represented including Israel,
Japan, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, Canada, and Venezuela, and the United States. Seventeen states
from the United States were represented including 40% from the Midwest, 28% from the South, 20%
from the Pacific Coast, and 12% from the East Coast. The subjects years in the United States ranged
from seven months to thirty-six years. Eleven individuals had spent time outside of their native
country. Twenty-one individuals had not spent time outside their native country. Five subjects were
participating in performance intensive programs, and twenty-seven were participating in academic
degree programs ranging from a Bachelor of Science with an Outside Field to a Doctor of Music.
Thirteen subjects studied with Professor Jacques Zoon, eleven subjects studied with Professor Kate
Lukas, six studied with Professor James Scott, one subject studied with Jan Gippo of St. Louis, and
one subject did not have a current flute teacher. The shortest time any subject had been playing the
flute was 6.5 years. The longest time any subject had been playing the flute was twenty-four years.
The average number of years playing flute was 11.94 years. The mean age of starting to play the flute
was at twelve years old. Only eight of the twenty-four subjects claimed to not play another instrument.
The subjects had a difficult time interpreting two questions about playing other instruments as they
did not know if other meant instruments other than those of the flute family, i.e. piccolo or traverso or
alto flute. Twenty-six subjects claimed English as L1. Two subjects spoke Hebrew as their native
language, while there was only one subject for each of the Japanese, Mandarin, Dutch, and Spanish
languages identified. Twenty-six claimed some familiarity with L2-n. Six subjects had no foreign
language experience. The subjects, again, had confusion, this time in answering fluency self-ratings
because reading, writing, and speaking, were not separated out from the main question. Only 25%
had flute lessons in languages other than L1. Of that small group, only 25% were native English
speakers. The languages of the flute lessons included English (6), French (2), Spanish (1), and
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German (1). Thirty-three subjects answered questionnaires. Thirty-two subjects completed the
recording section of the experiment. One subject withdrew from the experiment.

The recording process
The recordings took place in a choral classroom on the fourth floor of the Music Annex at the School of
Music during the time of the regularly scheduled flute master class. The room was adjacent to the
master class room. Several make-up sessions were accomplished to accommodate schedule changes.
The recordings took place over a period of time from March 25, 1997 through May 13, 1997. The
author enlisted the services of colleagues who handled the analog tape equipment and video
equipment. The microphone set-up was the same for speech as for flute. The subject stood in front of
a music stand with the microphone hanging from a boom over the music stand, approximately
thirteen to fourteen inches from the subjects face. The only change the subject had to make was to
move the pages from one side of the music stand to the other to see the next excerpt. The subject
first answered the questionnaire while waiting outside the door for his/her turn to participate. The
subject was instructed as to the proceedings of the experiment, provided with the test instruments
and told to start when ready. The English sentences were read first. If the subjects native language
was not English, the especially sentences constructed in his/her native language were read after the
English sentences. Finally, if the subject knew any more languages, those other language sentences
were read, in order of self-rated level of fluency. The subjects spoke each sentence at least twice. If
the speaker made a significant mistake or the frequency of mistakes within the sentence was high, the
speaker repeated the sentence once or twice more. At no time were the subjects coached in the
pronunciation of any word. After speaking the sentences, the subjects were then asked to play
selections from the standard flute repertoire.

The Results
One subject was fluent in four languages. That subject, Subject 42, is the study of this paper.


Computing
In the Folklore and Ethnomusicology Sound and Video Analysis and Instruction Laboratory (SAVAIL),
at IU, the data was digitized and cut into word length .aiff sound files and stored in different media
around the IU campus. Different versions of the SoundScope software were used. The program uses a
Fourier Analysis equation to make the picture of the sound that was recorded in an analog format. A
sound wave can be described as a fluctuation of air pressure over a period of time. The pressure
change event is evaluated using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm based on the principle of
Fouriers Theorem, which states that any timewave can be expressed as a sum of sinusoidal waves.
The more complex the sound, the more frequency components, or harmonics, occur in the picture,
called a spectrogram (Coughlan 1992, A-1). After some experimentation with the data, the author
realized she had no experience reading the spectrograms to make appropriate observations of the
event presented.

Joseph P. Olive, A Greenwood, and J. Colemans book entitled Acoustics of American English Speech A
Dynamic Approach, With 211 Illustrations, served as a textbook to learn about identification of
formants, consonants, and vowels in the American English language (Olive, Joseph P, A. Greenwood,
and J. J. Coleman, 1993). Problems with hardware on which the original version of SoundScope
program was located forced the author to move to another sound editing software program, CoolEdit,
which was bought by the software company, Adobe, to be reincarnated as Adobe Audition. The data
sound files were finally installed in one location to be able to be brought up into the software for quick
comparison. In that environment, the author was able to create stable, reproducible spectrograms in
which measurement markers could be saved.

The following is a list of equipment and software used so far in this flute-linguistics project.

Recording Set-Up:
Sony AF AutoHandcam Video 8, Model CCD-V5
Sony Professional Stereo Cassete-Corder, Model TC-D5M
Sony ECM-959A Electret Condenser Microphone 90 setting with RadioShack Microplug Stereo
Mono Adapter Macroplug, 1 AA battery
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Linda Landeros LAMKIN
Sony Walkman Professional Stereo Cassette-Corder, Model WB-D6C
RadioShack PZM Semihemispherical Microphones (2), 1 N battery in each
Playback System:
Sony Walkman Portable CD Player, Model No. D-CJ406CK, 2AA batteries
RadioShack Goldseries 42-2570 4" (10.1 cm) Stereo Headphone Cable Y-Adapter
Sony Dynamic Stereo Headphones MDR-51
Sony Walkman Headphones MDR-027
Computer Software/Hardware:
SoundScope (Digitize analog recordings and analysis of .aiff files, with GW Sound card
installed)
Adobe Audition 1.0 (Measure VOTs and MOTs)
Adobe PhotoShop (Snapshots of Spectrograms, various versions)
Grab (Screen capture of spectrograms from SoundScope)
Preview (Screen capture of spectrograms from SoundScope)
MS Word (Text)
Excel (VOT Lists)
Peak TDM 2.53 (Create an audio file to burn on a CD from an .aiff file)
Roxio Toast Titanium 5.1.4 (CD burning, and older version)
SCSI Probe 4.3 (Compress .aiff files for storage)
Various File Transfer Protocols and Storage Arrays
MacOS9 G4 Hard drive
Mac OS X G5 Hard drive
Power Computing Power Tower 200e
Sony Trinitron Amultiscan 17sfII Computer Monitor
NTSC EV-C100 Videocassette Recorder
Roland Sound Canvas
Sony Trinitron TV Monitor
IU LAN Appleshare for Macs, IU LAN for PCs

Linguistics
The stopped consonants in English can be placed in two general categories of voicing quality and place
of articulation (Olive 1993, 81). In the category of voicing quality, the stop may be voiced /b/, /d/, /g/
or unvoiced /p/, /t/, /k/. The voiceless stops have two allophonic realizations of aspirated or
unaspirated. The second category of place of articulation indicates the placement of the stop in the
vocal tract. The stops which have placement at the lips are called bilabial /p/ and /b/. The stops which
have placement at the alveolar ridge located just behind the front teeth include /t/ and /d/. The stops
which have placement at the velum are called velar stops /k/ and /g/. The length of time from the
release of the burst of the stop to the time the vowel sound starts is only milliseconds long, yet that
area within the action of release is what turned out to be the telling area of individual characteristics
in an individuals speaking compared to flute playing. In fact, the aspiration length after the burst of
the stop was only of secondary importance. Beyond the aspiration, if present, the following vowel
would have more importance in the anticipatory preparation found in the preceding consonant. This
phenomenon is called coarticulation (Olive 1993, 36). The shape, height, and amplitude of the
frequency components of the burst were the most significant features that could be compared to the
same phenomenon in the spectrograms of the music. The length of time from the beginning of the
burst to the onset of any formant start of the vowel was measured for the Voice-Onset-Time or VOT
(Olive, 81-82). The same parameters used in the speech measurements were used for the music
measurements, Music-Onset-Time (MOT). Microsoft Excel was used to create spreadsheets to catalog
each utterance of /t/, /d/, /k/, and /g/ for VOT. The same was done with the initial attacks in the
music (MOTs). At the time of this presentation, an ANOVA had not yet been completed. Adobe
Audition was used to create the voice-onset time and music-onset time tables. Soundscope was used
to make the spectra.

One of the problems in the design of the tools used in the experiment was in both the sentence
construction and the choice of music excerpts. No English sentence contained a /d/-initial word. Not all
vowels combinations were used in all the languages for CV. The music excerpts did not contain enough
silences so that the jet stream carrying the sound wave could disappear before the appearance of next
articulation. While one could hear the articulation, the amplitude of the sound wave was high enough
(or too loud) that it continued past the time of the ensuing burst. It is a problem for the experimenter,
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not for the player. When the sound continues in that manner, the flutist has achieved true control of
the air stream in terms of maximizing resonance of the tube a vocal tract combination in producing
flute tone. There were much fewer measurements able to be made in the music samples.

The appearance of the stops /t, d, k, g/ on the spectrograms is small compared to the exquisitely
shaped vowels, sometimes very faint (low amplitude), and appears very high in the frequency range,
and usually well above the second and third formants or above three kilohertz (kHz). In Zaki B.
Nossair and Stephen A. Zahorians examination of acoustic features for initial stop consonants, they
find that a consistent presentation of a stop consonant is an elusive target in speech recognition
research analysis when they wrote: The identification of invariant acoustic correlates for stop
consonants remains one of the most challenging problems in acoustic-phonetic research, (Nossair,
Saki B. and Stephen A. Zahorian 1991, 2978). The most important part of the stop is the burst for the
study of flute articulation. In speech recognition The burst onset appears to be the critical timing
point in the signal, (Nossair, Saki B. and Stephen A. Zahorian 1991, 2989). More importantly, in
another study, the burst provided very reliable information about stop place since listeners identified
correctly 87% of the stops, without a priori knowledge of the following vowel Performance however
was context-dependent, (Bonneau, A., L. Djezzar, and Y. Laprie 1996. 555). The burst provides
important information that can be difficult to see on spectrograms.

For the purposes of this presentation the author provided a study of alveolar stops of Subject 42 to
demonstrate the wide variability in pronouncing /t/s and /d/s. Sound files are provided of each
sentence spoken using the target words.

The sentences listed below are the ones used in the study of alveolar stops.

Dutch sentence for tafel:
Een delegatie van dreihondertachtendertig peodels zit rond een gammele, gedekte tafel
delicatessen te proeven.
English translation of Dutch sentence for tafel:
A delegation of 338 poodles sits around a wobbly set table to sample delicatessen.
[Insert Sound File 42 Dutch tafel.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_2) here.]

Dutch Sentence for discotheek: Nadat de ganster de garderobe van een discotheek
leeggestolen heft, stapt hij met zijn viola da gamba in een wachtende taxi.
English translation of Dutch sentence for discotheek:
When a gangster has robbed the cloakroom of a disco, he gets into a waiting taxi with his viola
da gamba.
[Insert Sound File 42 Dutch discotheek.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_1) here.]

French sentence for dignit and for tte:
Avec dignit, le vieux professor dodelinait de la tte aux sons de deux instruments
discordants, parce que lexercise didactique du xylophone et de la guitare tait difficile.
English translation of French sentence for tte:
With dignity, the old professor shook his head gently at the sounds of the two discordant
instruments, because the instructive exercise of the xylophone and the guitar was difficult.
[Insert Sound File 42 French dignit tte.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_4) here.]

English sentence for took and for today:
I and my fiddle took two taxis today to go to school.
[Insert Sound File 42 English took today.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_3) here.]

German sentence for Tcke and for den:
1


1
The reader is correct in that the sound files for Tcke and for den appear to be or sound the same. They are not.
They are of two different iterations. The word Tcke was stated in the second iteration of the sentence in the
speech recordings. It was a better choice between the two iterations of the word Tcke. The word den was from
the first iteration of the same German sentence and the number 2 after the word, den, represents that it is the
second den in the sentence. In the original catalogs of subject, sentences, words, and music, the name of the
sound wave file reflected the numbering schema.

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Linda Landeros LAMKIN
Mit List und Tcke schwang der tolle Xaver das Ruder und traf den doofen Trken, der nun
ber seine x-Beine stolperte und in den Tmpel fiel.
English translation of German sentence for Tcke and den:
With a sly mind, the mad (insane) Xaver swung the paddle and hit the stupid Turk, who now
stumbled over his own knock-kneed stance and fell into the pond.
[Insert Sound File 42 German Tcke.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_6) here.]
[Insert Sound File 42 German den2.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_5) here.]

Spectrograms of the words as well as accompanying sound files are provided.

Please see Figure 1. A Study of Alveolar Stops [Please insert Figure 1.]

Spectrograms of the words as well as accompanying sound files are provided.

Please see Figure 1. A Study of Alveolar Stops [Please insert Figure 1.]

Sound File Names:
1. 42 Dutch discotheek.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_1)
2. 42 Dutch tafel.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_2)
3. 42 English took today.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_3)
4. 42 French tte dignit.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_4)
5. 42 German den2.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_5)
6. 42 German tcke.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_6)
[Please insert the listed sound files here.]

Acoustic study of the eight words revealed that the /t/s exhibit a wider range of frequencies than
the /d/s, although the French /t/ and /d/ are remarkably similar except for the French /d/s lowest
formant which the French /t/ does not have. Each subject had a remarkable variation of VOTs within
the /t/ and within the /d/ of his/her own L1 and within L2 if he/she spoke another language. In this
case, Subject 42s French VOT range for each of /t/ and /d/ was much smaller, as compared to the
other languages the subject spoke. The sound had much more of a chance to be consistent in French
than in Dutch, English, or German. French is a syllable-timed language, where as the others are
stress-timed languages. Another added piece of the puzzle is that the French /t/ are dental
consonants, whereas English /t/ are alveolar consonants, (Bonneau, A., L. Djezzar, and Y. Laprie
1996, 564). The salient features of the stop bursts can be decomposed in the following successive
segments: the transient, the fricative segment which contains frication noise, and the aspirative
segment, although the aspirative segment is generally absent from French bursts, (Bonneau, A., L.
Djezzar, and Y. Laprie 1996, 564). One may ask why the /d/ was matched, when the /t/ had higher
amplitude. It is possible that while the /t/ has more energy, the other factors of frequency, length of
time of occurrence, as well as lack of aspiration could account for a better match. Bonneau, Diezzar,
and Lapires research indicate that dentals are less intense than alveolars, and the amplitude cue
could be less reliable for dentals than for alveolars, (Bonneau, A., L. Djezzar, and Y. Laprie 1996,
564). The choice of vowel is important because the burst conveys information about the identity of
the following vowel, (Bonneau, A., L. Djezzar, and Y. Laprie 1996, 563). The results of the study by
Bonneau, et al., showed that the identity of the following vowel influenced the identification of the
stop place, thus confirming the existence of a phonetic influence on feature identification, (Bonneau,
A., L. Djezzar, and Y. Laprie 1996, 563). It is possible that the shape of Subject 42s vocal tract while
playing the flute mirrors that of when the subject says /i/, following the /d/ for coarticulatory reasons.
For these reasons, the word dignit was chosen to demonstrate correlation with the Subject 42s flute
articulation.

The music recording of Subject 42 was examined for articulatory presentations. The written music
example is shown below in Figure 2. [Please insert Figure 2 here.]

The first note of the excerpt was used in the analysis of the flute sound. Please see Figure 3. SUBJECT
42: /d/ of dignit (French) vs G4 of Mendelssohn with Power Spectra.

[Please insert Figure 3 here.]
Sound File Name:
7. Mot42Mn.aiff.wav (LAMKIN_L_7)
[Please insert the sound file here.]
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Linda Landeros LAMKIN

The researchers, Bruno H. Repp and Hwei-Bing Lin studied Acoustic properties and perception of stop
consonant release transients, in which the subject of their experiment was a native German speaker
who had spoken almost exclusively English for the preceding eighteen years, who still had an accent
(Repp, Bruno H and Hwei-Bing Lin 1989, 379-396). The most important part of the /d/ or /t/,
according to them, is the burst (Repp, Bruno H. and Hwei-Bing Lin 1989, 380):

The most consonantal part, then, should be the initial release transient, which represents the
impulse response of the vocal tract to the sudden pressure release (the explosion). According
to acoustic theory, the spectrum of the transient should contain peaks reflecting the vocal tract
resonances immediately after the release. Since the excitation is so brief and uniform, the transient
provides essentially an acoustic snapshot of the vocal tract (Repp, Bruno H. and Hwei-Bing Lin
1989, 380).

Even though a clear vowel shape cannot be seen in the spectrogram of the flute playing, the transient
is isolated and very clear: If transients could somehow be isolated, they might provide excellent
information about the state of the vocal tract immediately after the release, especially with regard to
the extent of its preparation for the following vowel (i.e., anticipatory coarticulation). (Repp, Bruno H.
and Hwei-Bing Lin 1989, 381). The two initial transients, that of /d/ in dignit and the first note of the
beginning of the music excerpt show a correlation in the envelope of the power spectra, a phonetic
match, as well as a correlation in the envelope of the harmonic spectra, a perceptual match.
As with the Bonneau, A., L. Djezzar, and Y. Laprie 1996 study, the Bruno H. Repp and Hwei-Bing Lin
study foresaw that:

[Initial stop consonants] consist of three distinguishable phases: an initial transient, a fricative
segment, and an aspirative segment. The transient represents the response of the vocal tract to
the impulse of the sudden pressure release; the fricative segment results from turbulence
generated at the constriction while it is still narrow; and the aspirative segment reflects a glottal
noise source that replaces the frication as the constriction is widened. These phases overlap in
natural speech and cannot be easily separated in the waveform. It is likely that, even within the
short time span of a 10 to 30-ms release burst, there is considerable acoustic structure and
dynamic spectral change. As the oral constriction widens rapidly, the release burst becomes
increasingly vocalic and less consonantal. (p. 380)

Here is the perceptual value of this information: flute articulation and quality of sound are directly
correlated with the way the flutist speaks.

Design Improvements
The experiment design would benefit from many improvements. Initially, the tools of the experiment,
the sentences and the music, need to contain a more precise load for eliciting clearer comparison. The
CV inventory could have been more strictly adhered to so that, for instance, there would be a word-
initial /d/ in English. When the author spoke with the various contributors of sentences in the different
languages, the emphasis was on /t/ and on /u/. A better syllable library for the contributors from
which to work would have been more ideally suited to make up for the missing combinations. The
music choices were too long and did not contain enough silences to allow the articulation to be
prevalent in the recordings. Perhaps beginning etudes would be more conducive to elicit a higher
percentage of beginning sounds. Other articulation exercises, such as Moyses principle articulation
exercise in De La Sonorit would have been a better choice (Moyse 1934, 16). The questions on the
questionnaire pertaining to L2 fluency should be parsed out to delineate the elements of speaking,
reading, and writing.

The author attempted to accommodate the flute professors requests to not interrupt the students
schedules in recording in the room immediately adjacent to the regular master class room. The air
conditioner was very loud in the room, and may have contributed to the poor recording quality of
some of the subjects contributions. Perhaps recording in a performance hall or a sound studio
elsewhere in the building would be a better choice for future experiments. Using a minidisk player,
instead of the analog tape recorder would vastly speed up the process of being able to see the data on
the sound analysis software.

The choice of sound analysis software needs to be re-evaluated. The University of Lund in Sweden has
software called Pratt that may be easier to operate than SoundScope. There is other measuring
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Linda Landeros LAMKIN
equipment with significantly higher cost used by professionals in other fields that may be more
sensitive to the pressure wave captured by the microphone. In this study, the author looked at the
measurement of the sound pressure wave as it exited the flute embouchure hole as recorded by the
microphone to compare data with that of the players speech. In a study by J. Epps, J. R. Smith, and J.
Wolfe, acoustic resonances of the vocal tract using a non-invasive technique (real-time acoustic vocal
tract excitation or RAVE) were measured that involves exciting the vocal tract just outside the lip with
a broadband acoustic current source and suppressing the speech signal component of the measured
pressure spectrum, (Epps, J., J. R. Smith, and J. Wolfe 1997). In other words they used the inversion
of this experiment. The device outside the mouth pushed the sound pressure wave into the vocal tract
to excite the vocal cords to measure activity.

One suggestion Dr. Robert Port, Professor of Linguistics at Indiana University, and world authority on
phonetics made, was to insert a small tube into the side of the flutists mouth to measure the pressure
changes in the back of the vocal tract. The pressure changes would indicate more information about
the CV combination. N. H. Fletcher, an Australian acoustics pioneer, broke ground in 1975 when he did
use a small tube in his vibrato measurement experiment: the air pressure in the players mouth was
measured using a 1-mm catheter tube inserted into one corner of the lip opening, (Fletcher 1975,
233). Isabelle Cossette and C. William Thorpe did attempt measuring flute playing qualities with other
measuring devices on or near the flutist:

Five professional flutists, playing on the same flute, performed four well-known pieces of the flute
repertoire in invasive and noninvasive conditions. The invasive condition consisted of apparatus on
the flute head joint to measure the jet velocity and lip aperture, and trans-nasal catheters to
measure respiratory pressures. The acoustic output of the flute was recorded and characterized by
measuring the fundamental frequency and relative magnitudes of the harmonics. The results did
not show any significant change in the acoustic parameters overall, although several subjects
exhibited some differences (<6 dB) in harmonic amplitudes between the conditions. We therefore
conclude that, in professional players at least, performance is not unduly compromised by
experimental constraints, (Isabelle Cossette and C. William Thorpe 1999).

The author believes that, though the Cossette-Thorpe experiment was worthy of investment, it does
not reflect invasive procedures of the vocal tract. The playing conditions were certainly less than ideal,
however the change in (<6 dB) would be significant given the already low amplitude of the stops.
When the author has one hair in the lips while attempting the flute embouchure, she can feel the
difference in her playing, and immediately takes out the offensive hair. Playing with a small tube
inserted into the corner of the mouth would not reflect real playing conditions. On the other hand, it
would not hurt to just try the process.

Data collection could be enlarged through travel to other conservatories, universities, flute clubs, and
national conventions. A better statistical significance is possible with a larger pool of subjects. Finally,
engaging the assistance of a psychoacoustician earlier in the process may lead to a deeper
understanding of the vocal tract process and presentation of data in both recordings and sound
analyses.

Discussion of Implications
Music Perception
Music teachers have made great efforts to incorporate analogies of sensation descriptions in their
instruction. Marilyn Shotola stated that because Moyse taught that articulation should express the
mood of the melody, articulation development is important in the studies. To begin a tone, no tongue
noise should interfere and the sound should ring immediately as a bell tone, or as Moyse described it,
with the ping of a triangle when struck ([no author, a compilation from past publications including
remarks from John Barcellona, Donald Peck, William Montgomery, James Pellerite, Marilyn Shotola]
2001, 23). Aniruddh D. Patel and John R. Iversen wrote an article entitled Acoustic and Perceptual
Comparison of Speech and Drum Sounds in the North Indian Tabla Tradition: An Empirical Study of
Sound Symbolism in which analysis revealed that acoustic properties of drum sounds were reflected
by a variety of phonetic components of vocables: spectral centroid, rate of amplitudes envelope decay,
duration between the releases of consonants in a cluster, fundamental frequency, and the influence of
aspiration on the balance of low vs. high frequency energy in a vowel, (Patel and Iversen 2003). They
completed a perceptual experiment in which nave listeners were able to match vocables to their
corresponding drum sounds. In addition, their study provided strong evidence of sound symbolism in
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Linda Landeros LAMKIN
the North Indiana table drumming tradition, an area within ethnomusicological analysis. Maybe these
are the best descriptors of timbre creation in the imagination of the musician, triangles and drums. An
example of one study that provides hope to go beyond verbal analogies are studies in the
neurosciences. Katja N. Goydke, Eckart Altenmller, Jrn Mller, and Thomas F. Mnte have studied
whether or not the brain is capable to preattentively discriminate tones differing in emotional
expression or instrumental timbre, (Goydke, Katja, N., Eckart Altenmller, Jrn Mller, and Thomas F.
Mnte 2004, p. 351). The results of their study

indicate that the brain is not only able to use simple physical differences such as pitch for rapid
preattentive categorization, but can also perform similar operations on the basis of more complex
differences between tones of the same pitch such as instrumental timbre and the subtle timbral
differences associated with different emotional expression. This rapid categorization may serve as a
basis for the further fine-grained analysis of musical (and other) sounds with regard to their
emotional content.

Understanding that the articulation changes can create great changes in the perception of a
performance is difficult in and of itself. The possibility of understanding what about a specific timbre
makes a human react with a specific attitude, namely an emotion, may effect changes in the way a
musician creates the music.
Speech Perception
How are music and language related? Where are they related? To what are they related? Who relates
them? Following the connections human beings make in the brain provides some suggested answers
to these questions. When we are involved in speaking, traditionally it had been thought we were using
the left side of our brain. When we are involved in music making, traditionally it had been thought we
were using the right side of our brain. The neuroscientists, Susann Deike, Birgit Gaschler-Markefski,
Andr Brechmann, and Henning Scheich (2004), have found that a type of listening relying on timbre
involves the left side of the brain. In their words, [the] left auditory cortex is selectively involved in
this complex sequential task [steam segregation performance] although the available cue for
sequential grouping was timbre, usually attributed to right hemisphere analysis, means that the
perception of sound other than that associated with speech found its way into the home office of
speech in the brain. Conversely, another group of researches in the field of speech noted that English
listeners perception of [Zulu language] clicks as nonspeech is supported by recent evidence that
whereas Zulu listeners show right ear superiority for click discrimination in a dichotic listening task,
presumed to reflect left hemisphere language specialization, American English listeners did not, in a
discussion section of their study entitled Discrimination of non-native consonant contrasts varying in
perceptual assimilation to the listeners native phonological system, (Best, Catherine T., Gerald W.
McRoberts, and Elizabeth Goodell 2001, 778). This means that a non-native speaker of Zulu heard the
language sound on the right side of the brain, where music resides. The yin and yang of music and
language may just be what one hears.

Semiotics and ethnomusicological analysis
In the last decade several articles have been published which have begun to explore the relationship
between music performance and language in a historical language context. Patricia Ranums article
entitled Tu-Ru-Tu and Tu-Ru-Tu-Tu: Toward an Understanding of Hotteterres Tonguing Syllables is
an exploration of the performance of French Baroque music in relation to contemporary French poetry
rhyme schemes (Ranum 1996). The strict adherence to traditional poetic writing rules reveals an
incredibly strong language culture influence in the compositional process of non-programmatic music.
Sven Hansells article Italian Prosody as a Guide to Musical Structure: Accent, Articulation, and
Accompaniment in the Flute Sonatas of Giovanni Platti (1743) is a speculative discussion of the idea
of interpretation of flute music based on the rhythm found in the Italian languages (Hansell 1992).
Both articles deal with specific repertoire and poetry of the Baroque era, comparing the language
rhythm of the poetry and its meaning with the musical elements of rhythm, phrasing, articulation, and
form. They find matching patterns in the natural accentual rhythm of the respective languages and
specific metrical phrasing patterns in the music. They use linguistic features as evidence for
performance characteristics.

More recently, Patel and Iverson, were joined by Jason C. Rosenberg in an article entitled Comparing
rhythm and melody in speech and music. The case of English and French, (Patel, Iverson, and
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Linda Landeros LAMKIN
Rosenberg 2004). In this study the researchers found, using a recently developed quantification
process called the normalized Pairwise Variability Index, that by plotting rhythm and melody
together, a striking pattern emerges, suggesting that a nations language exerts a gravitational pull
on the structure of its music. Using a variety of linguistics, speech, phonetics, and acoustic
methodologies, we can begin to understand our more revealing relationship between words and music.
The eternal struggle determining if words serve music or if music serves words may cease to be
viewed as a struggle. In an article entitled Bridging the Past and the Present, in Musical
Repercussions of 1492, Encounters in Text and Performance, Julio Estrada and Peter Garca have
noted that Music cannot be disassociated from phonetics, for while generating interval relationships
music also contain multiple internal inflections in the purely aural realm, (Estrada and Garca 1992,
92).

One conjecture this author would like to put forward is that of a parallel development of the proto-
languages across any of the continents and the transverse flute, in whatever permutation it existed,
given its allegorical and mythical past. In addition to lulling fair maidens into a false sense of security,
it is possible the flute may have waxed and waned as it followed the dissemination of language
wandering over the peaks and through the valleys of past civilizations.

In the past, flute researchers have not used ethnomusicological methods or have delved into speech
production or speech perception research in studying flute performance of Western art music. Almost
no research has examined the linguistic cultural context of flute performance. No information has been
available about current American flute performance practice in its context of American English.
Anthony Seeger writes in his article, Performance and Identity: Problems and Perspectives, in
Musical Repercussions of 1492, Encounters in Text and Performance, that The result of our increased
historical sophistication will be a much better union of historical and systematic musicology, which
have so often been arbitrarily separated. If we had considered the shifting patterns of influence and
the mobility of musicians in Europe during the past few centuries to be the norm rather than the
exception, we might have looked at musical traditions in the Americas very differently, (Seeger 1992,
459). Although this article referred to the influences and profound changes that occurred with
Europeans arriving to the American continent, and the ensuing swirl of cultural loss, mix, and
evolution, his descriptive analysis could be said to parallel some aspects of American language
education. Often, the American flutist has little exposure to foreign languages, much less comparisons
of articulatory motions of flute playing to other language motions. While the most experienced flutists
usually do have much foreign language experience, if not travel experience, the young flutist, even in
the graduate level classes in universities does not.

Flute pedagogy
The importance of being able to describe how to produce a beautiful tone on the flute with all the
variations of timbre and articulation to a student who may be a non-native speaker of British English,
French or German or Italian cannot be underestimated. The language one speaks influences and
changed both sound and style. The author believes that it is highly desirable for a teacher to be able
to describe the shape and sound of various vowels and diphthongs to the student. Robert Dicks
insightful articles pay homage to speech-articulation correlation connection, but without measurable
proof (Dick 1987). James Galway, this centurys flute master, (Galway 1982, 120-121) concurs that

Articulation is a big heavy word for a very simple thing. In our context it refers to speech. How you
articulate the English language means how you organize your tongue, vocal cords and so forth to
say words. It also means the effect of those words. The articulate person has a way with words, he
or she can express himself or herself, he or she is eloquent. The same goes for the flute.
Articulation means the techniques for playing legato or staccato, and it also means the eloquence
which these techniques allowThere are different devices for learning to tongue a note. Some
teachers advise their pupils to say 'tu', others prefer 'du', others yet again 'tee'. The reason for
these minor disagreements between experts is that half of them don't speak the same language to
begin with, and even those who do come from different regions and speak with different dialects.
My own preference is the French word 'tu', which has a rather special sound unknown on this side
of the Channel. If you have never heard it said, and would like to try my system, you will have to
check with a French teacher. The reason I prefer 'tu' to the alternative is that it brings the tongue
well forward and shapes the lips into a position more natural for flute-playing. Every French person
says 'tu' without pain or thought, which may explain why France has produced so many good flute-
players over the last few centuries.

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Linda Landeros LAMKIN
It is true that non-native speakers often have considerable difficulty in pronouncing the sounds of a
particular language. The speech production and speech perception literature overflows with
experiments to see if various learning models can influence change in foreign word pronunciation, one
of the most notable being the pronunciation of /l/l and /r/ in English by Japanese speakers. What the
literature in this area of research does agree upon, is that some experience with a foreign language,
at any age, is better than no experience. If flutists could gain some familiarity with any foreign
language pronunciations, in order to perform music with greater choices in contrast, the end result
might be a more aesthetically pleasing product. In American flute classes, private lessons, workshops,
large and small, it is very rare to hear the teacher actually pronounce any foreign terms, much less
attempt an analysis of the spoken habits of the student under scrutiny. The author suggests that
teachers and students, alike, may profit greatly from even an introductory session in a foreign
language to hear and to see the acoustic and gestural varieties that we humans can make, and have
fun experimenting in the process. It is important to observe the way a flutist makes vocal sounds
through identifying different resonances in the head and body, as well in the placement of the tongue.
Teachers and writers have made great efforts to bring that knowledge to the lesson. Gestural
information is not enough. Knowing these acoustical ideas, a teacher may be able to influence the
student flutist to create different timbres.

Ethnomusicological methods may provide a means to explain the process, especially in recognition of
different dialect sounds even in one language. If flutists could gain some familiarity with any foreign
language pronunciations, in order to perform music with greater choices in contrast, the end result
might be a more aesthetically pleasing product. Should that language be French? The French guard
their language and language-influenced culture zealously. Not only is the French school of flute playing
one of the most respected styles of playing; it is also the longest lasting. There are other
characteristics in the other schools of flute playing--the dark timbre of the German school, the
brightness of the English school, and the capacity for a huge, open sound of the American school all
of which would be terribly missed if they did not contribute to the sonorous palate of the flute
phonology.

Performance parameters of the communication of emotions and vocal imitation
The metalanguage of music, the communication process on a nonverbal level includes the study of
vibrato. Vibrato is one of the most controversial topics in all of music. Whether discussing the physical
acoustic attributes including amplitude, width, and speed, or the intended meaning evoking memories
of emotions in the listener, vibrato remains a secret ingredient in performance. Many flutists are
taught vibrato after rudimentary beginnings manifest themselves in young players. Biofeedback
processes using sound analysis software might assist in the learning process of incorporating a healthy
range of vibrato styles. The delicate throat is an indicator of stress in any individual, and its condition
is merely amplified with the use of vibrato in flute playing. While a wide range of studies have been
done in the vocal research, only initial studies have begun in flute. N. H. Fletcher found vibrato above
the first two formant areas:

Harmonic analysis of flute tone shows that amplitude variations from piano to forte are largely
confined to the upper partials, particularly for notes in the low octave. A study of vibrato shows
that this normally consists of an amplitude modulation of the upper partials of the tone with little
change in the fundamental. The vibrato frequency is consistently about 5 Hz and is associated with
a 10% variation in blowing pressure at that frequency, (Fletcher 1975, 233).

Jochen Grtners pioneering research stands as a milestone in the beginnings of study of the
physiological aspects of flute vibrato (Grtner 1981). Adding to this work are acoustic studies such as
one by Shigeo Ando (Ando 1993). In his study he compared the vibrato of the violin, flute, and oboe
using a discrete Fourier transform. In particular he found that

C
5
flute tone spectra of both playing styles [with vibrato and nonvibrato] are roughly the same
except for the third harmonic. The amplitude level of third harmonic with vibrato is -16 dB relative
to that with nonvibrato. The standard deviations
A
of amplitude level variation of the fundamental,
with both playing styles, are about 0.5 dB; those of other harmonics are 3.5 dB. for the
nonvibrato case, there are weak periodicities in amplitude level and frequency variations of the
fundamental and the frequency variations of second and third harmonic. Inthe vibrato case, there
are strong periodicities in both the amplitude level and frequency variations which are synchronized
for all harmonics except the third harmonic (Ando 1993).

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Linda Landeros LAMKIN
Adding to the acoustical study of vibrato, Joon-Hee Beth Hwang and C. William Thorpe found in their
spectral analysis that the amplitude modulation occurs mostly in the higher partials of the tone.
These results strongly suggest that the larynx plays an important role in developing vibrato in the
flute tone. It appears that the larynx modulates the airflow, thus producing pressure fluctuations in
the mouth that generate the oscillatory vibration of the acoustic tone, (Hwang, Joon-Hee Beth and
C. William Thorpe 2000). Perhaps studies of produced flute vibrato compared to that of vocal vibrato
by the same musician using sound analysis methods would pull back the curtain of mystery
surrounding the sirens call.

Summary
A preliminary investigation of the comparison of flutists linguistic practices and their sound production
on the flute directly correlate, as outlined in speech and music recording extraction and analysis.
Sound analysis software designed primarily for speech analysis was used to reveal the timbre rich
environment of the flutists speaking voice and flute voice. An examination of one individual who
spoke four languages fluently demonstrated that the subjects linguistic practices in L1, L2, L3, and L4
did indeed have correlations with the subjects own flute playing. Spectrographic examples with sound
files accompanying the acoustic evidence were presented. Improvements in the design of the
experiment were noted. Suggested topics for further research in flute performance,
ethnomusicological studies, and pedagogy were considered.
It was an honor for the author to have access to such a highly specialized group of musicians. During
the course of explaining the experimental procedure to the flute class, the author was asked the
question, Are you going to prove that French is the best language to know for articulation? Some
forty attending musicians in one the largest American classes of flutists waited for answer to one of
the most hotly contested questions for three centuries. The author, not wanting a shadow over the
proceedings at the commencement of the acquisition of data, merely smiled, and replied that she just
wanted to know what happens when people play. A poet, Seamus Heaney, wrote the truth (Heaney
1987, p. 127):

There are the mud-flowers of dialect
And the immortelles of perfect pitch
And that moment when the bird sings very close
To the music of what happens.

There is an Irish legend where in the hero Fionn asks his warriors what they think is the finest
music. The men reply variously a cuckoos call, the ringing of a sword, the bellowing of a stag
across the water, the baying of a tuneful pack heard in the distance, the song of the lark, a girls
laughter. When they ask their Chief what he thinks is the best music, Fionn replies: The music of
what happens.

Acknowledgments. Many people have helped with this project. I thank all of them for their efforts in
thoughts and deeds. I would like to thank my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth and Olive Lamkin, for all
their suggestions, for their encouragement, and for their emotional, financial, and physical support.

The following individuals (and probably a few more than the author has in her memory) have
contributed their knowledge and assistance in the evolution of this project, including design,
implementation, critique, and presentation. If I have left anyone out, it is my mistake alone.

The Players:
The Flutists of the School of Music, Indiana University (IU)
All My Students
The Thinkers:
Dr. Ruth Stone, Ethnomusicology Chair, Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, IU,
Co-Chair of Document Committee
Dr. David Lasocki, School of Music, Head Research Librarian, IU, Co-Chair of Document
Committee
Dr. Austin Caswell, Musicology, School of Music, IU, Reader, Advisor, Thinker
Ms. Teresa Terrell, M. A., M. Div., Advisor, Bloomington, Indiana
Dr. Nina Fales, SAVAIL, Ethnomusicology, IU, Experiment Design, Project Development,
Recording Assistant, English and French Sentences
Mr. James Campbell, Professor of Clarinet, School of Music, IU, Document Committee
CIM05, Montral, 10-12/03/2005 15 www.oicm.umontreal.ca/cim05

Linda Landeros LAMKIN
Mr. Eli Eban, Professor of Clarinet, School of Music, IU, Document Committee
Ms. Eva Legne, Professor of Early Music, Recorder, School of Music, IU, Document
Committee
Mr. Francisco Tandioy Jansasoy, Professor of Inga, Quechua Linguist (Retired), University of
Nario, Pasto, Columbia, Native Columbian Flutist
Dr. Ward Drennan, University of Washington, Audiologist
The Muses:
Mr. Jean-Pierre Rampal, Solo Flutist, Professor of Flute, Paris Conservatory, France
Mr. Severino Gazzelloni, Professor of Flute, Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Siena, Italia,
Conservatorio Musicale di Santa Cecilia, Roma, Italia, Solo Flutist
Mr. Julius Baker, Professor of Flute, The Julliard School of Music, Principal Flutist with the New
York Philharmonic
Mr. Gary Woodward, Professor of Flute, School of Music, University of Southern California,
Principal Flutist with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, Studio Artist
Mr. Roger Steven, Professor of Flute, School of Music, University of Southern California,
Principal Flutist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Studio Artist
Mr. Jacques Zoon, Professor of Flute, School of Music, IU, Principal Flutist with the
Concertgebouw Orchestra (The Netherlands) and the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Mr. Peter Lloyd, Professor of Flute, School of Music, IU, Principal Flutist with the London
Symphony Orchestra, Guildhall School of Music, Manchester University, England
Ms. Kate Lukas, Professor of Flute, School of Music, IU
Mr. Andras Adorjn, Professor of Flute, Munich Conservatory, Bavarian Radio Orchestra,
Germany
Mrs. Frances Blaisdell, Professor of Flute, Stanford University, California
Mr. Ben Kanter, Woodwind Doubler, 1
st
call-NBC Studios, Los Angeles, California, Lead Alto
Saxophonist in the Benny Goodman Orchestra
Mrs. Ina Mae Holt, Flutist, San Jos, California
Ms. Katie Nail, Flutist, Sunnyvale, California
Mr. William O. Smith, Oboist, Band Director, Choral Director, Santa Clara County, California
The Lets-Figure-This-Out-&-Get-It-Done Stars:
Dr. Alan Burdette, SAVAIL, Department of Folklore, IU
Mr. Cullen Strawn, SAVAIL, Department of Folklore, IU
Mr. Anthony Guest-Scott, SAVAIL, Department of Folklore, IU
Mr. Robert Noel, MLS, Head Librarian of Swain Hall Library of Physics, Astronomy, & Math, IU
Dr. Robert Port, Department of Linguistics, IU
Dr. Stephen Katz, Hebrew Sentences, Department of Jewish Studies, IU
Ms. Inge van der Cruysse, Dutch Sentences, Department of Germanic Studies, IU
Ms. Elke Rogers, German Sentences, Department of Germanic Studies, IU
Dr. Yasuko Ito Watt, Japanese Sentences, Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures, IU
Dr. Margaret Yan, Chinese Sentences, Department of Department of East Asian Languages &
Cultures, IU
Ms. Corinna Kahnke, German Translations, Department of Germanic Studies, IU
The Recording Artists:
Dr. Helen Choi Rasmusen, Pianist, School of Music, IU
Dr. Tomasz Wojciechowski, Cellist, School of Music, IU
Dr. Erzebt Gal, Harpist, School of Music, IU
Dr. William Reni, Professor of Psychology (Retired), IU
Mr. Justin Clampitt, Pianist, Bloomington, Indiana
Mr. Joshua Clampitt, Pianist and Flutist, Bloomington, Indiana
Mrs. Amy Morgan, Linguist and Flutist, Recording Assistant, Bloomington, Indiana
Mr. Bill Morgan, Public School Music Teacher, Recording Assistant, Bloomington, Indiana

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