How to Tune a Wood Flute

The wood flute is a simple keyless flute that is often used to play Celtic and other folk styles of music. There are several ways to adjust the tuning on a wood flute. You will probably need to use all of them at some point or another to achieve that perfect pitch on your flute.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Electric tuner
• Cork grease

Embouchure Adjustment

1. Roll the flute slightly towards your lips so that the stream of air is directed more down into the hole. This will lower the pitch.

2. Roll the flute away from you, directing the stream of air across the top of the hole. This will raise the pitch.

3. Use an electric tuner to check your pitch. Embouchure adjustment is the simplest but most sensitive tuning method. Use it to adjust the pitch while playing.

Head Adjustment

4. Pull the head section out from the body. This will lower the pitch. Push it back in to raise it. This is the best way to make adjustments to the tuning of your wood flute. Although some are carved from a single piece of wood, most wood flutes are in two or three sections. The first section--the one with the mouthpiece--is called the head. The head joint generally slides inside the body of the flute.

5. 
   Tuning Slider

   Slide out the tuning slider to lower, and push in to raise the pitch if your wooden flute has a tuning slider built into the head.

6. Grease the joints if either the head joint or the tuning slider is dry, sticky or hard to move. Cork grease is available at most music stores.

7. Screw out or in the end cap as another method of adjusting the tuning. The end stopper of a flute is often a cap with a screw or a wooden plug wrapped with twine. Adjust this only if necessary. Too much tampering with the original setup can affect the tone quality.

Tips & Warnings

• When playing with other musicians, you will need to retune several times in the first few minutes. As you play, your breath warms the wood, raising the pitch of your notes and putting you out of tune with the other instruments. Remember to stop and check your tuning frequently to avoid funny looks from your fellow musicians!