BBC Symphony Flute Falls

Bendix

Hey Folks,

is there a way to articulate falls for flutes?

Haven't found anything about it...

gregoryd

Not all of the instruments have the rips/falls articulation; I believe the piccolo is one of the only ones actually. Horns missed out on rips :*(

I believe the legato patch works pretty well to recreate that sound. You can add a staccato note to the first and/or last pitch to help it sound more natural. Or you can use it in tandem with the piccolo patch (if that works with your piece).

If you mean notate, you just put a curved line for a bendy fall (like a trombone) or a squiggle line for a glissando fall (like a piano).

Richard Ferrando

As gregoryd suggested, yes, you can make quite natural-sounding falls & rips using the legato flute patch. I've done this a few times with a quick succession of 1/32 notes. And you don't necessarily have to run down the full scale. In one instance I wanted a fall from a high A to an A one octave below and I got better results doing A-G-F-E then jumping directly down to A rather than hitting every note. It wouldn't necessarily work in every situation but it worked well for my purposes. I've also had good results with very tightly-spaced staccatissimo and a bit of reverb which can help it pop in a big section with most of the orchestra playing.