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The flexatone or fleximetal is a modern percussion instrument (an indirectly struck idiophone) consisting of a small flexible metal sheet suspended in a wire frame ending in a handle." Flexatone Sound Samples", CompositionToday.com. Used in classic cartoons for its glissando sound effect, its sound is comparable to the musical saw.
The instrument was first used in 1920s jazz bands as an effect but is now mainly and rarely used in orchestral music.Holland, James (2005). Practical Percussion: A Guide to the Instruments and Their Sources, p.23-4. . "Perhaps the most famous example is probably still Khachaturian's Piano Concerto (1946)...However, when Khachaturyan came to the London Symphony Orchestra in the early 1970s he immediately ruled out the flexatone on sight, before a note had been played, and wanted a musical saw or nothing! Just how the flexatone came to appear in the score in the first place remains a complete mystery."
Wooden knobs mounted on strips of spring steel lie on each side of the metal sheet. The player holds the flexatone in one hand with the palm around the wire frame and the thumb on the free end of the spring steel. The player then shakes the instrument with a trembling movement which causes the beaters to strike the sides of the metal sheet. While shaking the handle, the musician makes a high- or low-pitched sound depending on the curve given to the blade by the pressure from his or her thumb: "As the thumb depresses the vibrating metal sheet, the relative pitch of the instrument ascends; as the thumb pressure is released, the relative pitch of the instrument descends." A vibrato is thus produced. While the instrument has a very limited dynamic range, volume can be controlled by how vigorously or delicately the player shakes the Flexatone.Peinkofer, Karl and Tannigel, Fritz (1976). " Handbook of Percussion Instruments", p.75. Mainz, Germany: Schott.
"Vibraphone generally make a perfectly acceptable alternative, especially when the music is somewhat indeterminate anyway."Spiegl, Fritz (1984). Music Through the Looking Glass: A Very Personal Kind of Dictionary of Musicians' Jargon, Shop-talk and Nicknames, and a Mine of Information about Musical Curiosities, Strange Instruments, Word Origins, Odd Facts, Orchestral Players' Lore, and Wicked Stories about the Music Profession, p.123. Routledge. .
An alternate technique involves removing the two wooden knobs and their mounting springs, and then using a small metal rod (e.g., a triangle beater) held in the free hand striking the strip of spring steel. The pitch is altered in the same manner as the previous technique. "This method give the player greater control of the sound of the flexatone as it eliminates the need to shake the instrument." This method of playing results in a different, more constrained sound. The flexatone may also be bowed along its edge with an orchestral string instrument bow.
The flexatone is notated using tremolo lines (rolls) to indicate shaking the instrument and lines to indicate the desired direction of the glissando or a wavy line (chevron) to indicate alternating thumb pressure. If using the instrument with the balls removed, indicate strikes with single notes followed by arrows indicating the direction of the glissando (similar to a guitar tab pitch bend). It is recommended that pitch designation should only be approximate, as, "specific pitches are difficult but possible; glissandi without specific pitch are easily executed."
The instrument is not often used in classical music, but it appears in the work of Arnold Schoenberg, Hans Werner Henze, Sofia Gubaidulina, György Ligeti and others.Holland (2005), p.169. Schoenberg employed it, "unrealistically...accurate bursts of widely spaced sounds being hardly obtainable with such abruptness," in his Variations for Orchestra Op.31 (1928) and his unfinished opera Moses und Aron (1932). The cellist in Sofia Gubaidulina's The Canticle of the Sun (1998) plays a bowed flexatone before the final section.von Rhein, John (2002). " Gubaidulina: The Canticle of the Sun" review, ChicagoTribune.com. Alfred Schnittke used it in his Faust Cantata (1983), in the Tuba Mirum movement of his Requiem (1975), in his Viola Concerto (1985)," Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (1985)", MusicSalesClassical.com. and in his score for the ballet Peer Gynt (1987), the flexatone represents the sound of the moaning wind. György Ligeti used it in many of his works, such as his 1988 concerto for pianoSteinberg, Michael (2000). The Concerto: A Listener's Guide, unpaginated. Oxford University. .Lochhead, Judy and Auner, Joseph; eds. (2013). Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought, p.134. Routledge. .Joseph Henry Auner, Judith Irene Lochhead (2002). Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought, p.134. Psychology. . second movement and his opera Le Grand Macabre (1977).Holland (2005), p.145. Peter Maxwell Davies uses it in the third movement of his Symphony No. 1 (1976), as well as three of them at the climax of his opera The Lighthouse (1980)." The Lighthouse (1979)", MusicSalesClassical.com. Vivian Fine owned a flexatone,Cody, Judith (2002). Vivian Fine: A Bio-bibliography, p.168. Greenwood. . and used flexatone music in compositions such as The Race of Life (1937).
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