I have read that the Pratten’s Perfected was in direct competition with the Boehm, so I was wondering if a Pratten has the same air requirements as a silver Boehm. Most comments say a Pratten has strenuous breath demands.
I would say it depends on your approach, and your familiarity with the family of flutes based on the Pratten design.
These flutes will take a great deal of air, so it’s certainly possible to use a great deal of air playing them. But in my experience they also respond well to a more efficient approach.
I think the same is true of the Boehm flute; however, I really think this is true of almost any flute to some degree.
It’s all in how you play it.
–James
Yes, it’s all in how you play it, but I think a Pratten flute tends to be a bit more demanding than a (good, well-adjusted) Boehm flute.
Jessie, I think you’re right.
I just wanted to make a further clarification: every make of Boehm flute I’ve played has also been different each from the other. Boehm flutes aren’t as consistent and homogenous as players on the Irish side might imagine.
So far the best Boehm-system flute I’ve played was a Rittershausen that I got to spend a weekend with, years ago. It belonged to Dr. Eugene Steinquest.
This was a lovely old flute, silver with engraved keys and a gold riser with engraved lip plate. It had the Boehm “crutch” for the left hand.
This flute would play with very little air, but as you gave it more air, you got this incredible thick, rich, creamy sound. It would take as much air as I could give it–that I could give it then, anyway. I wish I could try that flute again someday, but Dr. Steinquest was old when I studied with him and has to be gone now, that’s been a good twenty years ago. I’d love to see how it would respond to the embouchure I use now.
Whoever has that flute has a real gem. As was its owner.
–James
I have tried my friends Bohem before and found it was a lot easier to play blowing and tone wise it had a more clear tone and overblew very easily so I would say as a Pratten from what I have heard takes more air than a standard Irish Flute so my educated guess would be it takes more air to play a Pratten.
Thanks everyone! Then, does a Pratten play louder than the average Boehm, since it uses more air?
Well, the family of flutes based on the Pratten design certainly have good volume and projection.
There are a few Boehm-system flutes that I would say are quite a bit louder still; high-end Haynes and Powells come to mind. It takes quite a flute to be heard over a 150-piece orchestra.
Still, though, it’s really apples and oranges; who’s to say how loud a exceptional orchestral player could push a Pratten if he tried?
–James