One of the most popular flutes in the Asian cultures is the dizi. Rather than describe the dizi at length here, I am giving the links to two sites that describe the dizi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dizi
http://www.fournotes.com/asia/china/dizi.php
Here is a video of a beautiful woman playing a dizi.
http://www.esnips.com/doc/c8df0758-d03f-42f8-8944-9f911fc799e3/change.flv
Here is another video showing how the membrane is applied and how the dizi sounds afterwards.
http://www.eason.com.sg/docs/How-to-fix-the-dimo.wmv
A customer asked me if I would drill an extra hole between the embouchure hole and the first finger hole in my low D Irish flute in pvc in order for him to play it as a dizi. I said that I would give it a try. I was so impressed with the sound of my pvc dizi that I have decided to offer the addition of a dizi hole to any larger-bore Irish flute for +$10 with the purchase of a new flute. As I mention below, it is very easy to play my flutes as either a standard 6-hole Irish flute or a 7-hole dizi flute. The photo below shows my personal Irish/Dizi flute with the extra hole (covered with the dimo membrane). A pack of dimo, a stick of traditional donkey-hide glue, and a paper strip for adjustment are also shown in the photo.
The following is a topic about the dizi that I posted on the flute forum at www.chiffandfipple.com. There have been over one thousand hits to this thread, and many of the questions that you may have about the dizi are answered in the discussion.
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=46819&start=0
In this one minute mp3 Tod Barry of Temple City, CA plays my 3-piece, 7-hole low D dizi. Tod writes, "I've attached a sample of a traditional Chinese tune on your flute using the the "Dimo" membrane - it works quite nicely, the volume is increased and the tone can be adjusted by the membrane tightness - this one is recorded with a light amount of buzz that changes the timbre of the notes a bit (there are no added recording effects)".
http://dougsflutes.googlepages.com/tippledizi.mp3
Although I do not try to pass myself off as a good flute player, I decided to record a short demonstration mp3 of the flute pictured above. I am playing the American tune, "The Water is Wide", and I start the recording with the dimo membrane completely exposed for maximum buzz. Continuing with the same piece, I cover most of the membrane with the paper slide allowing for a lesser amount of buzz. Finally, I completely cover the membrane so that it does not vibrate significantly. At this point the flute sounds more like an Irish flute. To make the recording, I am using an MXL 990 condenser microphone going into a Behringer mixer/preamp and then directly into the sound card on the back of my computer. My sound card is the basic card that comes with the Dell XP PC. I am not using any sound enhancement with the recording.http://dougsflutes.googlepages.com/tippledizidemo.mp3
I want to add that any pitch variations that you may hear in the demo mp3 is due to my embouchure and not to the flute. I seem to be able to play right on pitch when I am looking at a tuner, but in front of a microphone my pitch control needs a lot of improvement.
I take the liberty of copying a few of my posts on the chiff and fipple thread mentioned above:
The "dimo" or dizi membrane arrived today. I also got a stick of the traditional Chinese glue like the man is using on the video showing how the dimo is attached over the hole. The dimo and glue stick plus shipping was $7 (see thread for where to purchase). At first I didn't understand about how the dimo was made, as the strips looked too thin to be of much use. On closer inspection I saw that the little strips of very thin clear membrane were actually a flattened tube, which means to me the the dimo is an extruded shape (extruded rice paste, I believe). You need to cut open the tube and lay it flat for it to be wide enough to have enough area to glue over the dizi hole…………
I finally had a few minutes to experiment with a prototype dizi pvc flute.
I drilled a 5/16" hole inbetween the embouchure hole and the first finger hole. This seems to be an ideal size of hole for the width of dizi membrane that I have. Following the video instructions, I didn't have any problems in attaching the membrane to the surface of the flute. I was successful on my first try. To glue the membrane to the flute, I used the traditional glue made from donkey hide, although it seems to me that any white glue should work as well
Once the glued membrane was sufficiently dry, I pushed in with my finger to stretch the membrane slightly. I saw the instructor in the video do this. With regard to results, the first octave on my low D flute plays with a loud and consistent buzz with the notes. It also seems to make the flute sound louder. I notice that a couple of the notes in the middle of the second octave seem to fall off in terms of buzziness. I am guessing that there is an art to adjusting the membrane with just the correct amount of tension to vibrate throughout the whole range of the flute……
|
| |
|
Experimenting with my pvc dizi, I have found two things that may be of interest to anyone interested in making or playing a dizi. First, it is very easy to make a convertible Irish flute/dizi. Wrapping a one inch-wide strip of paper around the flute and securing the paper strip with a piece of tape, the paper strip can be slid over the dimo or dizi membrane, which on my flute covers a 5/16" hole. Completely covering the dimo will cause the flute to play with no buzz and sound like a regular Irish flute. If you slide the paper to reveal a small area of the dimo, you will get a slight buzz with the flute notes. Naturally, if you expose the whole dimo, you will get the maximum buzz. | |