Do not read this thread if you haven’t taken the test and might like to do so before learning the answers!
I’d originally planned to post the ‘answers’ on Monday 4th September, but work is going to interfere with that and I won’t have much (if any) access to the 'net from home this weekend. So I’m putting the answers up now.
Please don’t ‘spoil’ the test over on the other thread by posting comments relating to the answers there. Naturally anyone who hasn’t done the test and subsequently does is on the ‘honour system’!
As of 11 a.m (BST) Friday 1st September, the test track had been downloaded 294 times, and 23 people gave their answers in the other thread. I’m sincerely grateful to all of them for taking part.
I really do think this was/is an interesting experiment, and I’m rather hopeful that the interest it generated won’t fade. As far as I’m aware, it’s the first of its kind on the forum, if not on the web. It’s not a perfect ‘test’ by any means, but perhaps the interest it’s generated (128 replies over 9 pages at the time of writing) will serve to encourage others with a scientific bent, or simply food for thought when we’re not actually playing the instruments.
Thanks for posting the results - just read them - wow - amazing , and I must say I’m glad to know I’m not quite as mad as I thought although I clearly didn’t know some of the flutes were played more than once.
Well, and to tell you since you wondered about my age - I just turned 37 in July and only started to take up proper flute lessons in March. I have no musical background whatsover and since I started late I struggle a lot with what I consider to be a lack of musicality. Also, everything re music is new to me including the concept of rhythm but I am very lucky to have a wonderful teacher who has this amazing way of explaining things to me. Still, there is one particular hurdle which frightens me the most - the concept of learning by ear - and it frightened me because I always believed about myself that I was born tone deaf so I asked myself how can I learn to play music when I can’t hear it ‘properly’.
So, when I played along with the challenge, I not only played along for it for the fun but I had a rather silly hidden personal agenda : I kinda wanted to prove to myself that I can’t ‘hear properly’ - so I listened to the track, jotted down the answers and posted them on the forum, and then of course waited for the results to get the chance to tell myself how useless I was . Well, so you can probably imagine that when I saw the results I was completely shocked because although I didn’t get it right re amount of flutes played - still for some bizarre and strange reason I seem to have at least been aware when there was a change in flute which means I must be hearing ‘something’ .
So, in a way I must thank you, Gary, because thanks to your experiment I’m beginning to think I might not be as ‘tone deaf’ as I thought, and now I’m almost hopeful that if I persevere and keep practicing I might stand a little chance of perhaps acquiring the skill of how to properly learn by ear .
Well Vanessa, you’ve just blown my theory about your hearing clean out of the water! Here I was thinking you were probably 15 or 16 and were able to detect all sorts of high-end harmonics that I and others couldn’t
On a serious note, I’m delighted the exercise has helped in a way I couldn’t possibly have imagined! ‘Practice makes perfect’ is a pretty good adage I reckon. I don’t think you should have any problems, sounds as though you have a great teacher (which is a lot more than some us less fortunates).
Gary, all very interesting, and I do appreciate your efforts, even though I chose not to participate with guesses. (Although I’ll be happy to participate in any in-person blind listening tests, should the opportunity arise.)
Loren, I confess I’d not heard of dogwood before. Is it a common ‘tone-wood’ or something that’s just come into use for instruments? Have you ever worked with it?
I’ve got about 60-70 pounds of dogwood aging in my basement – I just cut the tree down in the spring, so it’ll be awhile before any of it turns into flutes or whistles.
It turns like a dream, although as I said, it’s not aged – I just turned a few squares into rounds. It may be completely different once the moisture has reached equilibrium. I believe it’s the densest of the (more common) North American hardwoods.
The native North American dogwoods are rapidly dying off from some sort of blight. (I thought the one I cut down was dead, but there are all sorts of shoots coming out of what’s left of the base.) Most of the healthy dogwoods these days are Japanese.
Oh, thank goodness my math sucks. Now I’ll have to figure out how I feel about liking a Rudall. I always thought of myself as a Pratten wannabe. Guess I’ll stick with my current flute then. (It is pretty sad that even with the answer key I cannot tell which flute is which.)
Haven’t worked with it myself yet. It’s not common for flutes, at all. Aside from the flute pictured, I hadn’t heard of another Dogwood flute until your posting today.
It has some promise as a flute wood, however, the one I have swells and shrinks considerably with RH swings, much more so than other woods I’m familiar with. Also, while the exterior of my flute is quite smooth, the bore is quite rough, which is uncharacteristic of an Olwell. This leads me to believe that Dogwood has a tendancy to tearout quite a bit more during reaming than many of the hard woods. Hand reaming may be required to get the best finish. Because my lathe is not yet up and running, I haven’t been able to polish the bore, to see what results I might be able to accomplish with that.
Dogwood is the state flower of Virginia, the state where I grew up and still live. Maybe dogwood is the state tree of Virginia as well. I don’t know, but regardless there are apparently a lot of them around here. I wonder about it as a flute wood, though. Why? Because when I was a kid in the Boy Scouts, whenever we would head out into the woods to gather sticks to use to roast our marshmallows or hotdogs with over the campfire, the adult leaders would tell us to be sure not to bring back any dogwood sticks. (Like I would have known a dogwood stick if I saw one.) I always assumed that was because dogwood was poisonous. But maybe it was just out of respect for the state flower. I suppose I could have asked why, but then again I could have asked them how the hell I was supposed to tell if a stick was dogwood, and I didn’t. What can I say? I was a kid.
But anyway, remembering that now, I wonder if there might be allergy or other issues with dogwood as a flute wood, as there are with cocus. Anyone know?
Yup, I’ve been playing this one for…how long has it been now Nano? The better portion of a year anyway, I think. No problems at all.
One of the reasons I really wanted this flute when it became available was because I had gotten tired of dealing with the wood “allergy” problems I’ve been experiencing since the time I became sensitized to certain woods through my prolonged contact with a Cocus flute several years ago. I now react to Cocus, blackwood, and cocobolo, as well as some other rosewoods and possibly now even to red lancewood.
Boxwood, Maple, and Dogwood however cause me no problems at all. Dogwood seems to be quite benign from the player’s perspective.
LOL, the flute sound I liked best came from one that I already have–a Ward delrin. It’s my “rough travel” flute for river trips and mountain backpacks. I still favor my blackwood Copley, but the two are close enough, I’ll never speak ill of delrin…
Well I have to say, I never would have picked that first one as one of Patrick’s, particularly not a keyless. I thought I heard a mistake at around 4 seconds, but because the other changes were so good (nice job on the editing) I put it down as a mistake and not a flute change. Interesting to hear that so many others where Gallaghers. I just played a dogwood he made and really liked it (is that the only one?). So I suppose I kind of picked up the pratten rudally last change, thinking it sounded like a Grinter, but suggested a change where there wasn’t one. Hell, knew I’d be rubbish at this. I think it would be really interesting and perhaps an experiment with a slightly better chance of a sensible result if you had one maker’s flutes in different woods and models played in the same way by the same player. Say:
Olwell rudall boxwood
" nicholsen cocus
" Pratten unlined boxwood.
etc. etc.
easier said than done to get one of each of Patrick’s models together to play of course, but would be great to try it.
By the way, Dogwood?!? I’ve only ever come across one dogwood flute for five minutes and I think it is the one played here. How on earth would anyone be able to guess at there being a dogwood flute?
)
,
, and I must say I’m glad to know I’m not quite as mad as I thought although I clearly didn’t know some of the flutes were played more than once.
. Well, so you can probably imagine that when I saw the results I was completely shocked 
because although I didn’t get it right re amount of flutes played - still for some bizarre and strange reason I seem to have at least been aware when there was a change in flute which means I must be hearing ‘something’ 
.
because thanks to your experiment I’m beginning to think I might not be as ‘tone deaf’ as I thought, and now I’m almost hopeful that if I persevere and keep practicing I might stand a little chance of perhaps acquiring the skill of how to properly learn by ear 
