Flutes or player?- a blind listening test

Irish Flute
1

It is frequently debated on this forum whether the intrinsic properties of flute designs, or the style and embouchure of the player is most important in determining flute sound. This question is often asked by those looking to purchase a flute, and trying to decide between different makers, or different styles (Pratten vs Rudall; large hole vs small etc.)

If it is the flute that is most important, then a single consistent listener should prefer a flute by a given maker, no matter who plays it. If it is the player that is most important, then the single consistent listener should sometimes like, and sometimes dislike a flute by a given maker, depending on who is playing it.

I am a beginning traditional player, coming from 15 years of playing the baroque flute, and recorders, playing renaissance and baroque music. I’ve never played the Boehm flute, am currently using my “baroque” Aulos to play ITM. I like focused, dark tones and dislike open, breathy tones.

The Wooden Flute I and II CDs arrived yesterday, and it occurred to me that they offer a chance to test whether it is the player or flute that matters, because a large number of players on the discs play the same flute. Because I hadn’t listened to the CDs, and don’t know one player from another, or for that matter, have any experience myself playing different flutes, I didn’t go into this with any particular expectation of what the result would be.

I decided I would listen to a few seconds of each track, and just score them for tone quality, grading them “1” if I thought it was focused, “2” if it was reedy and had some centre, and “3” if it was edgy and hollow or breathy. Then after I finished, I went to the WFO web site and found out what instrument was being played in which track. For the sake of the test described below, it actually doesn’t matter what I like, as long as I am consistent about identifying what I like.

By listening for a few seconds, and scoring only tone, I am minimizing the likelihood of inadvertently scoring for how well I like the tune, or the ornamentation, or the style of the player. Because focus of the sound was my main determinant, it didn’t matter too much whether the few notes I heard were in the upper or lower register. But since I also like darker tones, it seems likely to me that I’d be biaised towards preferring players who happened to start out in the lower register. It took me roughly 3 minutes to score the 20-22 tracks on each CD, so I was making my decisions very quickly.

It also seems to me that there are at least two big problems here. One is that different recording conditions (miking, reverb, room) will make it harder to compare the sounds of the flutes. This is inescapable, and will make it more likely to have the results turn out randomly. In other words, I am more likely to find that it is the player that matters because I am fooled by differences in the recording conditions. The other problem is that I have to be consistent. Every time I hear a focused tone, I have to recognize it and score it. If I recognize it sometimes, but not others, then this too will make it likely that the results will turn out randomly. I did listen to the same CD twice and found that 18/20 tracks stayed the same, 1/20 went up and 1/20 went down. So my consistency is reasonable, but not perfect. There are many other problems, but these will all make it more likely to get a result showing it is the player that matters.

Given these problems, I thought it would be surprising if I obtained any result except random (sometimes I like a given maker’s flute, sometimes I don’t).

Here are the data. I list the maker of the flute, followed by its scores for different players,. Rudall= historical flute (I didn’t distinguish between R+R, R+C.

Murray 1,1,1,2,2,1,2,2,1,2,1,2,2
Olwell 1,1,3,1,3,1,2,1,2,2
Rudall 2,1,2,2,1,2,3,3,2,2
Grinter 1,1,1,2
Wilkes 1,2,3,2
Hamilton 1,1,1
Doyle 1,1
Byrne 1

As you can see, the first three are essentially random, meaning the player is more important than the flute. Put another way, all makers on the list had at least one player who produced a sound I liked, making it unlikely that for me there is a particular maker or style of flute that is better for me. I wouldn’t make too much of those makers with 4 samples or fewer, although it would clearly be interesting to have larger samples.

FWIW, it seems likely to me that the oft-repeated advice to play flutes before buying, and to learn to play the flute you have, rather than searching for the “right flute” is the way to go.

Hugh

2

Interesting, thanks Hugh.

If you can find someone to help you out, you could have them play all the tracks 3 times in a more/less random order, AND play a different segment of each track each of the three times they play it. That should iron out some of the bias. It would be interesting to see if you scored the flutes the same all three times you heard them.

-Brett

3

I am really glad you posted this. I like this kind of thing.

It’s quite the same thing with guitars (if they are played clean and without effects, which is much more common on the guitar than the flute, I suppose).

What I have found (with guitars. Take it for whatever it’s worth), is that though different instruments will certianly produce different timbers, The player always sounds like themselves. It maybe will be a few shades different, but it takes a human to make an instrument work. That is why programmed MIDI sounds more or less like plastic junk (even with high quality patches). On the guitar, the way you hold the instrument and allow it to resonate even effects the tone. The presure you use to fret the strings, and the angle and location of your pick attack all play much bigger parts in the prodution of tone than most players will give them credit for.

I imagine that with a woodwind instrument the responsability of the player is more still.

However, there is another side to this coin: Different instruments have different tonal properties, and you will hear the difference if the same player switches flutes (or guitars). When you try different flutes, you will like the sound of some better than others.

What does this mean? matching the player to the instrument is essentail for finding “the one”. Of course, if you think they all suck, you probably need to stick with one until you think it sounds good. The problem lies in technique. A good musician can make beautiful music on all but the most poor instruments. Of course, a good musician with the perfect match… that’s going to be something special. Still haven’t found any perfect matches on any instrument. You can draw your own conclusions about my playing :frowning:

4

This is why I chose a maker who was very close to me. I tried a lot of his flutes and picked out the very one I wanted (the delrin copy sounded quite a bit different). I chose this over other people’s opinions of great makers, after playing many other flutes (Hammy, Rod Cameron, Doyle, Olwell) I’m still extremely satisfied with my purchase. But as I have stated before, trying before you buy can be very hard for many people.

5

Ah, but now the big question …

… which of these flutes was a big-bored big-blowholed (often referred to as Pratten design for ease of reference) type, which was a smaller-bored smaller-holed design (often referred to as Rudallesque for same reason), and which was a hybrid i.e. a Nicholson or one of the maker’s own fashioning? (some makers do different varieties)

But no, I think it is mostly the player … and then the player’s willingness, ability, etc. to get the most out of his or her chosen flute – to best exploit the qualities and sound the maker wanted to try to build into it.

Ohh, time for an aspirin. Between that and the “settings/versions” stuff on another thread, my head hurts.

6

I don’t know which flutes are big bore/large hole (Pratten) vs smaller bore/smaller or larger hole. If one did know this, then in principle the same kind of test I did would work fine to sort out whether the pattern (Pratten?) matters to a given listener. At least some makers sell more than one pattern (Olwell, Wilkes), so knowing the maker isn’t sufficient.

Nevertheless, I think one can take some guesses. Byrne and historical Rudalls will be small bore, and at least some Grinters will be too, judgining from his web site. Hamilton is large bore. Wouldn’t surprise me if most Olwell’s being played professionally are large bore. I don’t know about Murray.

If one accepts my guesses as being reasonable, then taking into account the very small sample sizes, one could say with some confidence that since I liked 3 players on Hamiltons, and 3 on Grinters, plus at least some playing historical Rudalls, then for my taste, I can like either large or small bore flutes, depending on how they are played.

As I haven’t played any of these, there is of course the possiblity that my playing preferences will be completely different. Given my age (increasing) and my breath support (decreasing), I am assuming that a small bore, small hole flute will be more economical of breath, and therefore suit me better to play. But the point remains I think, that for my (uneducated) ear, it’s not the flute, but the fluter.

But as another thread today points out, there can be a big difference between recorded sound quality, and live quality. I expect that these differences in recordings are swamping changes that may well be real, either between makers or patterns of instruments. I’d hate to spoil any partisan’s fun by making more of my post than it deserves. Thanks to all those who refrained from pointing out that if my ability to discriminate is feeble, then I could be missing real differences because of my lack of acuity.

Hugh

7

What strikes me as most interesting is that each of the flutes earned at least one “1” score, meaning it’s possible to get a focused tone out of any of those flutes. This suggests that it’s important for each player to find a flute that suits them, and then play it till they get the tone they want from it.

Of course, some players are after a breathy tone–they don’t want it reedy or focused, at least not all the time. This too may have biased the experiment.

Reminds me of what Martin Hayes once said about playing different fiddles–it just takes longer on some to get the tone you want. Once you understand the instrument and are at home on it, you can shape the tone to suit you.

8

A listener with different preferences ( a breathy tone for example) would give different scores that would reflect their preference. As there is no right or wrong preference, the result would be different than mine, but I wouldn’t call this a bias. I’d expect that a player could get most tone colours on most flutes if they worked at it. I completely agree that the results do suggest that the best course is to work at getting the result one wants rather than continually searching for the “right flute”.

The catches are that one might have to work harder on some flutes than others to get a given tone colour, and this will vary by person; that perceived loudness does seem to depend on size of the finger holes, and that reedy tones seem harder to get on modern rectangular embouchures, and easier to get on elliptical embouchures. There clearly are differences between flutes, even though they can be made to produce similar sounds.

Hugh

9

I think that the most important differences in different makers and model flutes has very little to do with the sound you want, as I’m a follower of the theory that the player is the single most important factor in making the sound. I think what scooter said is very important. The bigest difference can probably not be heard, it’s in how the flute feels, what responce it will give you to different approaches, playability and so on. I think those factors decide which flute suits you rather than how they sound, because ultimately you will make any flute sound the way you want it to.