I was just watching this video of Jean-Michel Veillon playing what appears to be an F flute, but tuned in some kind of minor
scale. Perhaps a natural minor or maybe a Phrygian scale?
Here is a video of him playing it where you can listen to the notes.
And here is a video of him playing another flute, but at around 1:30 in you can see a closeup of the flute in question on his flute rack.
It is the boxwood one that is along side what appears to be a conventional F flute in blackwood. This allows a direct comparison of tone
hole positions.
Comparing the two, it looks to me as if the boxwood flute has a flat 3rd (the second to bottom tone hole is significantly lower down the bore)
and maybe also a flat 2nd (the lowest tone hole also seems to be further down the bore). This is what had me wondering if this might be a Phrygian
tuned flute (flat 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th). This appears to be a Lehart flute, but I suspect it is a one-off, and so it is not surprising that nothing is
mentioned on his website.
Well, I’m quite curious about this now, and I’m hoping that someone with inside knowledge, or a better musical ear than me, can shed some light
on this.
"For a long time, I played on keyless, one- or 3-keyed flutes: Holzapfel (in D)/ Bruce du Ve (in D)/ Hamilton (in D)/ Lehart (in D, Bb, Eb, F, and a G with an old Breton scale). And two or three great bamboo flutes by Patrick Olwell.
Then, three years ago, I started to play on three 8-keyed flutes: an old Cook in D and an old Rudall & Carte in Eb, and a D flute made by Peter Merebeth in Brittany.
I now play a D 8-keyed and an Eb 8-keyed Pratten model, both by Chris Wilkes, who makes fantastic flutes. I still play some of the Lehart flutes. As some of these flute-makers know, I have a hard time explaining and choosing exactly what type of flute I want! I can’t say more."
You’re right, it doesn’t sound quite like equal-temperament tuning, especially the 2nd and 3rd notes of the scale. I’d like to know more about this too…
…but for his interpretation of the tune I don’t find any info, you would probably have to ask him how he arrived at that. The tune is Breton (medieval possibly) and simpler scaled versions are all else I find online e.g.
"The scale is analyzed in details in the article “Dossier : Mesures d’intervalles – Méthodologie et Pratique.” Revue Des Traditions Musicales Des Mondes Arabe et Méditerranéen 1, no. 1 (June 2007): 181–235. http://foredofico.org/CERMAA/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Beyhom_2007_Mesures_d_intervalles_RTMMAM_n11.pdf by Amine Beyhom (notably p. 195-202), and follows the approximate progression a 3 b 3 c 4 d 4 e 4 f# 2 g 4 A (numbers correspond to intervals in multiples of the quarter-tone). This corresponds, in the lower part from a to d, to the scale of maqām Ḥusaynī in Arabian music[3]. Subsequently, the Graphic scale features a b- instead of a b.
The whole song spans one octave to the most, with the initial tonic slightly rising; the base tonic was measured around 31 s_a (for 31 seconds of the analysis as shown on the graphic output – to differentiate this time from video time in seconds or “s_v”) equivalent to 39 s_v. The second degree is clearly zalzalian (with bordering approximate three-quarter-tones intervals) and the fourth and the fifth degrees are slightly raised[4].
The graphic and video-analysis (with Praat) and editing are by Amine Beyhom and feature an intensity curve (relative) in maroonish color.
[1] The bombard is a conical-bore double-reed instrument with a powerful sound played by sonors for traditional dances in Brittany. It is usually played with the Breton bagpipe, the binioù, in the binioù khoz (“old bagpipe”) version. The melodic range of the binioù lies one octave above the range of the bombard. Most bombards are tuned to a ≈ 440 hz.
[2] The form and material of the reeds impact the resulting notes – and consequently the scale.
[3] The “mode” used is however – and clearly – neither Ḥusaynī nor any other Arabian maqām."
I think the same flute is used on track 13 of Jean-Michel Veillon’s “Beo” CD. In the cover notes it is referred to as
“flute Lehart en fa gamme ancienne”, which I take to mean Lehart flute in F old scale.
Thanks for the links greenwood! The information on “Old Breton modes”, which seems to be a research paper or
book chapter from 1910, actually looks to be very relevant, but my French is rusty enough that even working through
it all slowly I’m sure some of the most important details have slipped through the cracks. But it does seem to provide
plenty of evidence that the Phrygian mode (and its plagal variant) are quite commonly used in Breton songs.
Here’s a version of the same paper that is not password-protected: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01446708/document
It’s the version available on the French open archive for academic papers (HAL), so it’s legit . You can then copy and paste the text in your translator of choice: for French to English translation, I find the performance of DeepL rather impressive
. You can then copy and paste the text in your translator of choice: for French to English translation, I find the performance of DeepL rather impressive 