Flute key click conventions

Dorico
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What is the current convention for notating key clicks as done by slapping fingers on the holes on a flute? I thought it was to put a small “+” (plus) sign above the otherwise normally pitched note, much like an articulation mark, which is what I did 60 years ago in the project I’m making a new edition of and what I’ve been doing in the new Dorico version. But today there are so many extended techniques I’ve been left in the dust and no longer know what other composers do now.

Also, what can I do about making these play back in a manner suggestive of key clicks? I use NotePerformer for playback. I’m guessing there isn’t a dedicated sound for that but that maybe something can be contrived — which would be a new experience for me.

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You might find these useful:

Rachel Beetz

Eftihia Victoria Arkoudis (thesis)

Carolyn Nussbaum

mentioning in this section: Use Reliable Resources two books which might add to your research

I realize you might have already searched with relevant words like, contemporary flute techniques notation so you might have seen these (and more) websites and are actually asking the question addressed to many of the professional (and others) Dorico engravers here (which is what I am assuming) so the above might not be what you are wanting, just adding it here for anyone coming here in the future.

Related to sample libraries (if you have not found it already)

You can create your own samples (presumably you are a flute player) and use them in Dorico. One thread here:

I have used Sforzando VST in the past but not in Dorico, see this thread for information.

Feel free to ignore this reply if it is not of any use!
:slight_smile:

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These are all extremely useful.

I should have added by way of background, that the flutist who first performed the piece I’m working on, Tom Howell (now deceased), though not a composer himself, was an expert in extended techniques and wrote down a great deal of what he’d discovered. At the time we worked together he had created a list of perhaps ten photocopied pages of multiple stops he’d catalogued, including fingerings. He was ulimately a professor of flute somewhere and wrote a book of extended flute techniques.

In my score of 1966, I used a simple + sign above or below the notehead, and Tom didn’t complain about this. But I’ll add that at the time extended flute techniques were just getting rolling. I knew of a couple of piece that did some extraordinary things, including some work by Berio.

There was an error in my thinking at the time though. One of the references above points out that key clicks can be used only in the lower octave. Until today I’d never thought of that. This is obviously true if the only source of the sound is the click itself. However, when I wrote them, I notated pitched sounds, and I conceived of them being played with pitches at places other than the lowest octave, which means there has to be air blown. I played a TEENY bit of flute for a while, just barely enough to get a feel for how the instrument works (I also play recorder FWIW), and I guess my idea in writing these key clicks was to accompany them with a tiny burst of air, nothing from the chest or throat but the kind of ptui a person might do when he senses something on his lip (like a hair or piece of dust) and it trying to spit it off. (Which I know everyone has done. I’m not advocating spitting.)

This is the only kind of key click I use in my score (but probably at least 50 times). It seems like perhaps the best thing to do would be to select an appropriate notehead and cover it in the performance instructions.

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Nice to read your reply :slight_smile: Lynn, glad it was a useful post.

I am not too familiar with key clicks being used in flute music (I’m still stuck at Bach et al.) :slight_smile: but I got out my alto flute and open hole (standard soprano) flute and started tapping some of the keys/holes out of curiosity, not blowing or giving any air at all.

I noticed if you hold down the thumb left hand and press another key for the click, like LH middle finger it will make a different sound than if you do not have the LH thumb down due to changes of resonance of the bore/where the sound escapes from.
And with different combinations of keys down (similar to a recorder’s forked fingering) while key clicking another key(s) I could almost hear differences for each combination, some were quite different from others.
I do not have my closed hole soprano flute with me at the moment so could not compare open vs closed holes and if that makes any difference (I presume it does) and I heard the same kind of sound differences on my alto flute with the pitch of the clicks being lower.

It probably depends on how you want your key clicks to sound/pitch, as to which holes/fingers are down at the time, and which are being pressed for the clicks.

I found a reference to blocking the embouchure hole also, causing the pitches to lower:

Recorders
I got out my alto and tenor recorders, I found the same kind of result, a bit quieter (both wood), again, depending on which holes were closed, and tapping an open hole somewhere, resulted in different sounds. The tenor was more resonant than the alto obviously.

Then I got out my bass recorder’s (Aulos plastic) middle joint, placed it on some soft plastic horizontally on the table and “played” the holes a bit like a piano, holding down a “chord” (combination of holes, sometimes forked) then tapping an open hole/key, different combinations. I stopped before the fun ran out :slight_smile:

Just out of interest, are you coming to all of this from playing a Paetzold (or similar) recorder?

(or in the part, add a QR code for a video of what is required and how it is to sound? hmmmm…!)

Berio, yes that triggered some memories, never attempted to play any of his music, well beyond me! Thanks for mentioning him.

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@arco, thanks for the additional insights.

In this case the level of detail I’m getting into is beyond my actual needs, but it’s interesting. I watched that video you supplied.

Much of what I knew in my student days was learned from recordings and scores and also from being a personal friend of the flutist I mentioned in my last post. I also knew flutist Patrick Purswell rather well at the time, who became known as both a composer and performer of new music.

You asked about my recorders. It happens that my recorders, like yours, are plastic Aulos instruments. I was good enough to get through the Handel sonatas on them, but it was never a serious pursuit. I did once have a lovely German pearwood alto. I don’t know what happened to it. My instruments have basically rotted from disuse. I don’t know how that can happen to plastic instruments.

In conclusion, it turns out that the flute part in the score I’m working on has about 20 notes with + signs, meaning key clicks (I’d said 50). And a few of them are not short, punctuated notes, but notes that are sustained for a bit, indicating that I wanted more than just a raw click.

So I’ve elected to replace the noteheads and explain it in the performance instructions.

As for playback — I haven’t got a decent solution for that, but I may just skip it. Few people other than me will ever hear it.

I consider this thread resolved.