How can you construct a chromatic flute?

[Sylph]

I was wondering... How can you take an ethnic flute, say the Turkish ney, of which there are 11 types depending on a base note (when all the holes are closed), and which differs from Arabic and Persian ney, and make it a chromatic instrument?

Or any other flute, the Indian bansuri, Indonesian suling, Arabic kawala...

Pedro Eustache, a famous ethnic winds specialist very well-known in Hollywood film music circles, on his website has a photo of what he calls king bansuri and which is, if I got it right, his own perfected, modified version of bansuri so that it's a chromatic instrument.

[jochanaan]

I've played a number of those ethnic flutes; I have a couple of Navajo flutes, a bamboo flute tuned to the classical C scale but with Indian influence in its making, and a ney that was just given to me.  You can actually play a lot of chromatics on these by half-holing (covering the fingerholes only partway) or using "forked" fingerings (one hole open but the next lower one or two or three covered); in fact, on most ethnic flutes you can do slides and pitch bends that are very difficult on modern orchestral flutes.  Even on recorders you can do some interesting microtonal work...

[Sylph]

Even on recorders you can do some interesting microtonal work...

They are great for that sort of thing! Which is obvious because they have been constructed to suit the particular modal musical system (e.g. Arabic maqams or Turkish makams / makamlar).

For example, a makam called Nihavend:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6snHADExcM

[Cato]

I've played a number of those ethnic flutes; I have a couple of Navajo flutes, a bamboo flute tuned to the classical C scale but with Indian influence in its making, and a ney that was just given to me.  You can actually play a lot of chromatics on these by half-holing (covering the fingerholes only partway) or using "forked" fingerings (one hole open but the next lower one or two or three covered); in fact, on most ethnic flutes you can do slides and pitch bends that are very difficult on modern orchestral flutes.  Even on recorders you can do some interesting microtonal work...

Yay!  How about multiphonics!?    

For chromatic fingerings and a few multiphonic fingerings for Flute:

http://www.wfg.woodwind.org/future/#flmulti

See this for clarinet:

http://www.wfg.woodwind.org/clarinet/cl_mult_1.html

[jochanaan]

I haven't explored multiphonics on recorder, Cato, but I'm sure they're both possible and enjoyable.