Another interpretation of 19th century flute tuning?

Irish Flute
1

Hi fellow fluters,

have been playing along with Kevin Crawford’s & Cillian Vallely’s “On Common Ground” on an antique flute and noticed that when playing in C, F or G minor, the tuning anomalies that appear when playing the flute in D (A sharp, D flat, F# flat) suddenly become much less noticeable, and the flute sounds just plain nice…okay, there usually isn’t a F# in C major, but anyway. Furthermore, I have read somewhere that the “old english flute” was known of performing best in flat keys. And flutes are usually not tuned to equal temperament, but more something like just intonation…perhaps on C, not D? I don’t know much about different tunings as I ususally trust my ear when tuning my flutes, and not some sort of tuner and frequency table…but I liked the idea.

That won’t explain the extremely flat foot found on many Nicholson flutes though…but the rest fits in quite nicely.

Maybe some of you want to give it a go…would love to read your thoughts.

Cheers,
G

2

http://www.oldflutes.com/articles/WNJmodes.htm

Cheers
Graeme

3

But in classical music all tonalities are used (as far as I know). On a flute by Camp I tried, if memory serves me well A was actually closer to Bb (and B was quite sharp also), it made the flute totally unplayable without some shellac on tone holes, despite being nicely crafted and having a really wonderful and powerful tone.
I mean, I can’t see the reason for having these notes so sharp, is it so hard to make the hole a bit smaller? What’s the advantage for not doing so?

4

Rockstro looked at a Rudall & Rose flute, 60 years after it was built, comparing its intonation with Meantone and Equal Temperament. While he made no pronouncement, his data speaks for itself:

http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/RockstroAnalysesRRflute.htm

I suspect until we get to the bottom of flute strangulation, we are not in a position to make any informed judgement on what the old makers were up to. The more I delve, the more far-reaching I suspect the impact is. Unfortunately, as I predicted, the far slower speed of response of a real flute (compared to the much reviled test tenon), and the wide range of matters to be tested are making the new series of experiments slow going.

Terry

5

Listen to very early recordings of violin and flute. It’s my impression (based on the recorded evidence that they’ve left for us) that people weren’t nearly so picky about intonation a century ago.

6

Hi to all, I’m not the better fluter but for what its worth…Lately I have been playing a lot on my old R&R flute. Knowing that this flute is perfectly playable in 440 so I started with laying an electronic tuner in front of me and watching it. I know through the former owner that he ‘lipped’ the sharper notes in tune and doing so I noticed that much of the intonation of a flute changes merely by slightly adapting the embouchure. I can imagine that in that way “melting” an old flute in a “modern” flute-tune would be possible. I also think that we tend to wanting it to sound nearly to perfection and having listened to old recordings I agree with the former poster that they weren’t so bothered with it in the old days.

7

Would the “not so picky about intonation” apply to traditional music, classical music or both? My thinking (all conjecture) is that in the classical, mainstream professional world, intonation was very important and worked on (can’t imagine Mozart or Bach with “whatever goes” intonation). In traditional music it wasn’t an issue because perhaps they didn’t know the difference, or rather they heard “out of tune” as “in tune” by their local experience. In this modern world, I know the difference, have opened the Pandora’s box of “correct intonation” (or Pandora’s flute as it were) and can’t close it now.

Jason

8

I have an early 20th c. recording of a Russian violinist playing Bach’s Sonatas and Partitias. The liner notes say he was a competition winning performer. By today’s standards he’s terrible. I only ever listened to it once.

My wife is a violinist. One day I loaded up the CD turntable with a variety of classical violinists. By chance, I loaded a CD of Itzhak Perlman, in his 20’s, just prior to a CD of Rachel Barton Pine, also in her 20’s. When the CD changed: “OMG,” my wife says, “Can you hear how much cleaner she plays?” It was pretty dramatic really.

There’s no way you can listen to those two recordings and not conclude that the standards of classical music have increased dramatically within our lifetime, and dramatically again before then and in recorded history (i.e., in recordings). There’s no reason to think folk musicians had standards any higher than classical musicians.

It is my belief (unsupported by any evidence) that this dramatic improvement is due primarily to recording technology. Today, I can record my playing, and use that to improve myself. I can record my teacher, and I can listen to recordings of pretty much any performer I want to. When my dad was growing up, the only people he could hear were others he knew, and only occasionally. Or maybe he had a few 78’s. 100 years ago, probably the only thing you could compare your own playing to was some other person, and only when you heard them, and only based on your memory of what you sounded like, having never heard for yourself what you really sound like.

There are stories of Bach seeking out the wolf in organs he tested, as a way of tweeking the organ tuners. So there’s no doubt that people have been able to hear “in tune” from “out”.

But there’s a difference between recording and live. And there’s a difference between sitting on a wolf and hearing a 1/16 note in context. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made a recording of my wife at some paid gig, where I thought her playing was really good, where when we play the recording back at home she says, “That’s bad.” And she’s right. But it didn’t sound bad at all live and in person. So there’s some aspect of recording, per se, that allows us to evaluate more particularly how something sounds.

9

Excellent points; very interesting. Like I stated, I only have conjecture, so I have little else to add except reading Terry McGee’s paper on Rockstro and Ellis’ research on the Rudall flute, they did have a way of empirically and scientifically assessing pitch. That said, probably only those with the most resources and in most contact with “in tune” musicians were playing in tune, and that probably was not many musicians overall.

10

after a recent experience and surgery experimentation, I’m with Terry on this one. I’d best not re-ignite the censored debate but I’m happy to verify a similar story to Terry’s account on his website of a recovering patient.

11

Terry,

Are you saying that this “flute strangulation” phenomenon is so far reaching that it impacts the entire flute bore such that all/most 19th century flutes are greatly distorted? Therefore, modern makers who use these 19th century flutes as prototypes for their new flutes are starting from severely flawed models of how these flutes should be originally produced?

12

Hi Jason

I’m not really sure what I’m saying, just yet, as the experiments are continuing. But some recent findings suggest the compression goes much further than just the tenons, and is even more common than I have so far proven. But I have more work to do to make sure that what I’m seeing isn’t misleading. I have two experiments on the run at the moment, that are designed to separate two possible explanations for the same phenomenon. Unfortunately, my writing up is falling behind my experiments, so it will be a little while before the results get out.

I think makers have always disagreed on what the bores should have looked like. Some, let’s call them purists, carefully measure, accept and faithfully reproduce every feature. Others, let’s call them simplifiers, make assumptions which are probably not supported by the evidence. And there’s probably every shade in between. Clearly, we can’t all be right. Clearly also, if the degree of compression is slight and localised, it probably doesn’t matter - the two approaches will probably not produce dramatically different results. So, everything hinges on how far and how great the degree and extent of compression is, so that’s why I’m trying to get a handle on it.

I think we’ll know when we get there, as it will explain some of the issues with old flutes that we currently can’t explain.

Terry

13

my experience is very limited (one example and no technical knowledge). What appears to be the effect of high tension tenon threading plus high moisture retention in the barrel socket (leading to visible bore constriction, ovoid distortion, tenon cracking) also appears to impact on left hand intonation (i.e. sharp A and B) and overall responsiveness weakening lower notes. Following approximate DIY version of Terry’s recuperation and relaxation regime there appears to be visible and audiable effect. However, I lack any expertise so it may be entirely subjective. I make no observation on modern makers by this. The patient was more aged.