I tend to think of electrons not as discrete little blobs but as wave forms in resonance around the nucleus of the atom. If there are n cycles in a particular orbital there would be (n + m) in the next orbital out, where n would be some integer and m some small integer. This would be perfectly analogous to the flute and bugle examples where n=m=1 in the flute example and n=3 and m=1, 2, 3 in the bugle example.