Dizi and Xiao for Contemporary Music

[jgorman]

Hi everyone,
I am just wondering what Dizi and Xiao a professional would use when playing Contemporary music that is chromatic.
It seems a Dizi D for example would probably not be able to produce all of the chromatic notes in the Western Equal Temperament.
But how much can a good performer do in terms of changing pitch with embouchure rather than fingering?

Thanks  

[davidmdahl]

I don't know about xiao, but there are dizi masters who are comfortable with more than the standard six holes. These are custom made, I would expect. I have never seen a chromatic dizi available off-the-shelf. I saw a Vietnamese ensemble in a Hanoi restaurant years ago, and his bamboo flute (sao) had eight to ten holes, I don't remember for sure. As I understand it, he made his own flute. I have a dizi in low G that has four holes for the right hand. This provides better tuning options, but I haven't explored how much tonal flexibility it has since I stick with traditional tunes on dizi.

In order to have a wide pitch range, the embouchure and finger holes need to be fairly large, such as on bansuri flutes. The dizi flutes tend to have comparatively smaller holes.

When I need to play in distant keys, I use a Boehm (Western) flute. It is a matter of the right tool for the job.

Best wishes,

David

[meoweth]

Using the shakuhachi mouthpiece on a xiao that is large diameter, you can do everything that a shakuhachi player can do, which is go up or down by one semitone. One semitone is easy, Its also not that advanced to be able to do 2 semitones down.

So you can consider the 8-hole xiao with shakuhachi mouthpiece, youll be able to chromatic playing quite easily if you are proficient (have played a couple years). And if you are really good, you can do everything with a 5-hole shakuhachi, just look up john neptune for proof.

[jingxin]

You will need to use half hole covering techniques to play chromatic scales. Yes you can play but it is not very easy to do.
See Chen Yue's performance on Bach's Air on the G string with Xiao
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhfUmVW2uVU