I may be mistaken, but on the C & F opening page it looks to me like Santa is playing a notch flute and not a whistle. My theory is that Santa, having special powers of insight, has been listening to what many people really want for Christmas. And what he hears people asking for is an instrument that can be held upright like a whistle but one that also has the embouchure control of a flute. In my opinion, the notch flute fits that description.
I asked the question once before and got zero replies to the query, but let me try again. OK, I know that the notch flute is not a traditional Keltic instrument, but are there any iconoclasts out there who think that it is about time for the notch flute to join company with the transverse flute and the whistle? Santa obviously thinks so.
Santa is very busy this time of year, so I was on hold for almost 20 minutes. When I finally got through and mentioned the Giorgi flute design (patented in 1897) to him, he told me to think simple and stay with the notch flute idea. He thought that all it needed would be a new name to allow people to accept it. He said that it incorporates the same intonation advantages of the Giorgi flute, in that the flow of air enters the flute in line with the flute body as opposed to the transverse flute. Santa also said that his elves probably could construct a great Giorgi-type mouthpiece/embouchure from silver, but he thought that I would probably have difficulty with my hack saw, bastard files, and the water pipe. Santa told me not to bother him again until January sometime, when things settle down a bit. He mentioned in passing that he was about to embark on a long journey, but he didn’t give any details.
I always suspected Santa worked in the marketing department, wasn’t he at Coca Cola for a while?
As for a more portentous name than ‘notch’ we already have the transverse flute so how about the vertical flute or ‘Longditudinal flute’
Merry Christmas I’m off to the Burren for a week or so!
Rob
It’s a clarke