Using DaTuner Android App

[Blue]

Now that I have a tablet computer, I've been playing with Android apps such as DaTuner (Lite) and experimented it with the King of Xiao's 6-finger wooden xiao that Xindi gave me.
The xiao is pitched in G, so I would assume that the scale would be
d e f# g a b

What the DaTuner gives me is this with respect to fingering:

x xxxxx ==> d4
x xxxx0 ==> e4
x xxx00 ==> f4
x xx000 ==> g4
x x0000 ==> a4/g4#
x 0x000 ==> a4#

Good thing that I'm not one of those musicians who can tell the absolute difference between flats and sharps without any aids, and good thing that I play flutes by myself. Otherwise, I would be so picky about the tone accuracy of all the flutes. What's more important to me is that the flute can efficiently transfer my breath into sound . . . . . . .

But still, I'm curious how DaTuner will respond to the pitch of the other flutes . . . . . . . And perhaps I should perform a meteorology comparison against other tuners out there . . . . . . . . .

[Blue]

If Ziman is still out there reading this forum, perhaps he could also share his experiences with using a tuner with respect to flutes . . . . . . .

[ziman]

Yippie yep, here I am! Most of the time, I use a tuner app on my Android phone. I experimented with a few a couple years ago and found that:
1. Many tuner apps seem to have been designed with stringed instruments, most commonly guitar, in mind.
2. Therefore, they vary in their sensitivity and accuracy when used to tune xiaos. Some wouldn't even pick up the sound of my xiao.

That said, the app I currently use/ have been using for a couple of years is gStrings. It also seems to be optimized for stringed instruments of the guitar and violin families, but so far it has been picking up on my xiao's sound fairly well. The main downside of this app, though, is that it is very sensitive to interference by surrounding noises-- if you are trying to tune while everyone around you is chatting loudly or tuning their own instruments, this app tends to get confused and not pick up on the "right" sound you are trying to get it to focus on.

When forced to tune in noisy environments, I usually borrow a Korg tuner from my bandmate (who is a dizi player). That works fine for my purposes.

As far as tone accuracy in xiaos go, my own workhorse DXH is accurate on all notes in its range except C4# (all holes open), which is slightly flat.

I've noticed that this problem (flat C4#) is extremely common on xiaos in general. My personal theory on this (in part, after observing how C4# is played in other flute-type instruments e.g. the western concert flute) is that because the finger holes on our xiaos are both smaller and fewer in number than, say, on a western flute, opening all holes on xiao still provides insufficient venting to produce an accurate C4#.

This is especially evident when one looks at a western flute equipped with a C# trill key (which also has the effect of making the C4# note on those flutes more stable and in-tune). What does the C# trill key do? It opens up an additional tone-hole high up on the flute. Improves venting when you play C#. It's too bad that the location the C# tone hole needs to be placed at isn't convenient for fingers to cover, if (as on xiao) we need our flutes to be keyless.

From what I gather, reading through the blogs of xiao-makers, a few makers have solved this problem by making adjustments to the interior of the flute bore. Since this is a meticulous hand-shaping process and needs to be very precise, though, it would raise the cost of making the flute. Thus, I don't think I've seen a fully corrected C4# on xiaos that aren't at the custom-commissioned price level (think prices like Donsiau's). What's more common is deciding on a tradeoff between the tone accuracy of C4# and C4, where the former is less flat than it would normally be, but in exchange C4 is a little bit sharper than it should be. This can be achieved without the complicated bore adjustments, by merely moving the position of the thumb-hole by a slight amount. Each person would have to decide on their own whether they find such a compromise acceptable. If, for example, one plays pieces in the key of D very frequently, and often must play C4# in the middle of fast musical passages, then I think this compromise might be useful, as it reduces the amount of embouchure/blowing angle adjustment one needs in order to make C4# sound acceptably close to in-tune.

One interesting thing I would like to check out is whether the maker Ren Jin has managed to reproduce the bore adjustments to correct C4# intonation in his CNC-fabricated composite flutes. He is one of the makers known to have successfully done the bore adjustments in his handmade bamboo flutes, so I do hope he's found a way to replicate that with his composite ones. I will get my pair of composite flutes from him very soon, so we'll see about that.