I’ve been dabbling in making some flutes and I even went out and bought a lathe and a drill press to work my stock and the question I have is. What is the difference between a cilindrical and conical bore and there benifits?And do they realy use a conicle bore on an Irish flute?or is it just the whistle and recorder.
And does any one know if there is a formula for building them.Allthough I’ve had good success I could still use the help.
Thanx
Brian
Brian,
A conical bore flute is almost universally preferred for Irish music. The configuration is a parallel tube down to about 6 inches from the embouchure hole, and then a taper (decreasing diameter) below that, with sometimes a flare out over the bottom inch or so. A simple straight tube design cannot be made to be in tune with itself (it will be flat a the top of the upper octave) and would also require an uncomfortable finger spacing for the lower holes. The Boehm system flute has a cylindrical body, with the head tapering toward the embouchure hole. This solves the tuning problem, but has a tone quality which most people find unsuitable for Irish music.
A good place to get some measurements of classic conical bore flutes is Terry McGee’s web site (www.mcgee-flutes.com) where he has posted some dimensional data and graphs.
Dave Copley
Loveland, Ohio
Dave,
so what could one expect from a keyless-wooden-bohem style flute?
/Peter
On 2002-09-06 04:12, Pan wrote:
Dave,so what could one expect from a keyless-wooden-bohem style flute?
/Peter
The closest I have played to what you describe was a wooden flute made by Boosey, with the Boehm-style bore (cylindrical body, tapered head) and simple-system keywork. It seemed to play somewhere in between a metal Boehm flute and a conical bore “Irish” flute. I was a little disappointed with the tone, though obviously that is influenced by a lot of things other than the bore shape. A lot of classical flute players are now favoring Boehm flutes with a wood head joint, or all-wood Boehm flutes.
Dave Copley
Loveland, Ohio