Yes, I’ve found his flutes sweetly in tune. Also there is always the option of a C natural thumb hole (mentioned in a post above, I think), which solves the problem (and some others) for keyless flutes. Just saying. P.S. I believe Dave will retrofit keyless flutes to add a thumbhole or make them that way for starters.
I mentioned that some of my flutes play a flat C#. One of them is indeed a Copley 6 key. I found that I am able to blow it in tune but it took some work.
I also have to say that my experience with Dave was really great. I had him modify the flute a bit and he was really great to work with. I also have a Sam Murray and an Olwell, Daves flute is as good…
Just a quick note to remind everyone that we don’t know who made the OP’s flute. It was psychodonald who was (anonymously, but obviously) criticising Dave’s work and an indignant me who actually brought Dave’s name into the discussion, but the OP hasn’t said. I’d think that, being Delrin, it’s quite probably a Copley, but we don’t know. What I do know is that my unique Copley four-key is as near perfect as it could be and I wouldn’t swap it for anything. And that’s largely down to Dave’s skills, craftsmanship, understanding, willingness to make what I wanted, enthusiasm for the project and patience over a protracted period of development which included some experimentation with my equally-good-but-subtly-different keyless Delrin D/Eb combo. So I set him quite a challenge and he met it by producing an instrument of beauty, elegant simplicity and, above all, musicality… in a nutshell, the work of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing!
Hi All,
I was the one that started this thread and YES, it is indeed a Copley.
A little background, although I am a Newbe to the simple system flute I have been a instrumental music teacher for the last 37 years. My main instrument was sax and clarinet, and I was not to bad on classical flute although it was my weakest instrument. I am a PITA about playing in tune and, yes I could blame it on my under developed chops but the adjustment to my embouchure to play the C# it tune seemed too extreme and is bothering me.
My passion nowadays is playing ITM on the Anglo concertina, and was looking for a reasonably priced, keyless simple system flute in Delron to just entertain myself, have fun, and to just learn a couple of tunes. Of course it needs to have reasonably good intonation, and easy to play.
As I said in my first post this is the only issue I have with the flute, everything else is great.
I did contact Dave and he got back to me right away and said "I will be glad to do everything I can to get your flute playing the way you want it. "
I will give it some more time, working on building up my flute chops and see how it goes.
Thanks to everyone for the input and support
Doug
Just as an experiment this afternoon/evening, I checked out four flutes, each very different from the rest. I played each for awhile to warm it up, then adjusted the tuning for those that have slides. Since I play flat and one flute was non-tunable, this turned out to be about A436, tuned to the lower octave G. Then I played through The Snowy Path, which has a lot of C#s in it. The flutes are:
Bleazey boxwood, closely based on an early, very small-holed Rudall and Rose, damn near circular embouchure
Olwell in rosewood, based on a Nicholson
Noy 1-key in boxwood, original design, very slight taper
Copley Delrin
The Bleazey was 0-10 cents flat on the C#, the Olwell and Noy spot on (say plus/minus 5 c). The Copley was about 10-20 c flat with no adjustment. This was trying to play all identically, and since the Olwell is non-tunable, that was my starting point. As I said before, I don’t notice the Copley playing the C# flat – 10-20 c is noticeable, but easily blown into tune for me now.
(Edited after noticing Doug had posted while I was composing this.)
When the C# on these flutes is blown into tune does the overall scale become more even or less even, in terms of timbre and volume, than when it is left flat ?
Doesn’t really work like that, David. This isn’t the “get your blowing technique right and the scale will drop into place” scenario. This C# flatness is something which will persist even when you have optimised your embouchure to the flute and all else is sounding as best possible.
Personally, on a keyless flute, I’d prefer to have the C# more-or-less correctly tuned and to adapt my Cnat fingering. Even if the Cnat remains a little sharp with the flattest fingering, it is easier to lip an exposed/sustained note which comes out sharp down to target than to lip a flat one up. IMO much of this problem on modern keyless flutes comes from an excessive and obstinate addiction to the oxx ooo Cnat fingering.
Or get the C nat thumb hole. I hate it on whistles because it’s in the wrong place, but falls naturally on transverse flutes (though mine’s also been custom-offset to work with my L3 offset). It’s not why I got the thumb hole (which we added to my keyless bodies as a tester for no C key on my keyed flute), but such a great bonus that I wouldn’t specify a keyless flute without it now.
IMO much of this problem on modern keyless flutes comes from an excessive and obstinate addiction to the oxx ooo Cnat fingering.
While I sometimes still use OXXOOO (mainly for tunes I also play on whistles that take that), I think Dave’s possibly tuning to keep OXOXXX in range because that’s the fingering he recommended to me. From flattest to sharpest, the three fingerings I use are OXXOOO (also the stuffiest sounding), XOOOOO with open thumb hole and OXOXXX, but there’s not a lot between them in terms of pitch. Start adding RH fingers Generation-whistle-style to OXXOOO and I’d think you’re going to end up with a very stuffy flute sound.