Just got this from Germany. It’s a piccolo with a flageolet head. Or maybe a flageolet with a piccolo head. The bore of the body is slightly conical. The bell tone is solid, with overall volume moderate, not weak.
My guess it’s in ebony which would account for some cracks, but it could be African blackwood (grenadilla) after all. The short mouthpiece seems from genuine elephant corpse
Ferrules, keys are in nickel-silver, same for the post-mounted keys.
Those keys are the four usual: Eb(D#), F, G#(Ab), Bb(A#).
The shape and location of the latter make it more comfortable to play when the instrument is held as a piccolo, awkward for the left thumb as a whistle.
I couldn’t spot a single maker’s mark.
It plays well as is (taping a couple cracks) though the bell-tone is very sharp if I want the rest all right. I wonder what tuning fork it was tuned to…
Can anyone help identify the maker, or place/date of birth?
Oh, yes–it IS in soprano D.
ANd I DO rely on Walden to tell the story of this kind of instruments.
It’s a flagelot. I have one exactly the same but mine has 5 keys. It can seperate to three sections. Mine would appear to be older than yours. Mine also has a bad crack which I have taped Black insulating tape around the barrel. The mouthpiece is an Ivory Beek on mine. I’m sure mine is also in key of D.
They are two different species, both more or less black:
Ebony, german “Ebenholz”, diospyros melanoxylon. My Moeck recorder catalogue says it comes from Africa, other sites mention India as origin. I’m not sure they are talking about the same ebony. Ebony is pitch black and very hard.
African blackwood, german “Grenadill”, dalbergia melanoxylon. The dalbergia family also contains rosewood, btw. As the name says, it comes from Africa Find out more about the trees at http://www.blackwoodconservation.org/. Blackwood can have lighter brown or grey streaks and darkens to pitch black with age. It is a very oily wood, and more popular for woodwinds than ebony, as this makes it less prone to crack (or so I was told). And it is as hard as ebony.
For differences in sound, you’ll have to wait for people with comparable instruments in both woods to offer their opinions (or send their instruments to me for review, of course).
I would also be interested to know the common names for both woods in other languages, as I seem to remember that some French expression with “ebene” in it actually means blackwood, but I can’t remember where I read that.
French instrument makers usually refer to dalbergia melanoxylon as “ébène du Mozambique”. The term “grenadille” is understood by craftsmen but seldom used.
The Ebenholz/ebony is known here as simply “ébène” or “ébène du Gabon” to be more precise.
Some other woods have a misleading name in French. For instance, too many are refered to as “bois de rose”. Or, the “Bois de violette (du Brésil)” has nothing to do with _purple_heart, since Americans call it kingwood (Koenigsholz, I reckon?) – all for dalbergia cearensis. This wood is Yvon Le Coant’s favorite, beside grenadilla. Its slightly pink-purplish overtones are distinctive. Sounds good, too
I’ll point out that blackwood has a very high intrinsic oil content, while ebony is relatively dry. This is one reason that blackwood is more widely used for woodwinds – it has a high resistance to absorbing the moisture in your breath. Ebony requires a lot of care, frequent oiling of the bore, etc.
Lovely instrument, BTW. I’ve bid on a couple of those. Hopefully the demand for them will go down as the demand for whistles has recently, and the prices will drop.
Find out more about the trees at