C sharpe flute ???

Irish Flute
1

Hi guys, I want to find out if any of you have ever seen or heard tell of a C sharpe flute, or has one ever been made ?

WHY ? ( glad ye asked that )

I am a huge fan of flat pipes and having a B flat and C Nat flute means I can play nice tunes in the house with some of my piping buddies. Recently a good friend of mine had a lovely half set of C sharpe pipes made and they sound devine, so any info would be appriciated. B flat and C fluting is great why should pipers have all the funnnnnnnnnnnnn. Haaaa


Cheers folks


Brendan.

2

I have seen a C sharp made by Coyne (of pipemaking fame) so they’re not unprecedented

3

I make low flutes in Db or C#, but, as you can guess, I rarely sell them.

4

Remembering that another way to look at C# is a D flute at 415Hz, then there are lots of them around, made for early music at “baroque pitch”. I’ve even made them myself (I do a 1-key after IA Crone at 415Hz).

You’d probably find a 1-key a bit quiet (unless it’s a very muted set of pipes!), so your next option is a flute from the start of the 19th century (Potter, Astor, etc). They tend to play quite well around 415 with the slide drawn out as necessary. But again, you might find that a bit quiet.

A new flute in C# (or D at 415Hz) should present no problem to any of the makers who do D and C flutes. You could even go for a “corps de rechange” arrangement (separate LH sections for C# and D) either with your current flute or a new flute.

Terry

5

Hundreds of bansuri makers make hundreds of these because they generally make flutes in every key. I have one. Usually described as F# tonic bansuris because the trend is to describe bansuris by this note:-
XXX OOO.

6

contact sam murray..he did(or is) making one

7

I thought he was only doing a C Natural flute ??

8

Maybe Terry could confirm this. If the head or barrell was shorten on a C nat flute would that give a ture scale in C sharpe.

Cheers.

9

No, it will give an expanded scale. Removing length from the head end will sharpen the first hole more than it will sharpen the end hole.

This is why I suggested the “corps de rechange” approach. When you affect the length between the first and last holes, you change the scale of the instrument.

You may be able to illustrate this with your current D flute. Pull it out equally at each joint (hopefully you drive a Rudall style flute rather than a Pratten style - that gives you an additional joint to pull out). 5mm at each joint should be about right. Pull out your tuning slide (about 15mm extra) to tune xoo ooo to Bb and then adjust the other joints until xxx xxx gives C#. You may be able to optimise the scale by moving the RH section up or down a little.

Careful! You are becoming a flute designer!

Terry

10

I’ve done what Terry describes here (though much less scientifically; thanks for the good instruction, Terry!) on a couple of occasions when our group tuning has gone pretty far south, and have achieved something resembling C# tuning. Not ideal, but sufficient for those purposes. Give it a try!