I’ve got two flutes for sale a Hawkes and Son F, and a Boosey and Hawkes B, both with 5 keys. The F flute has a tuning slide added by Jon Cornia which puts it in tune at 440, the B plays with no modifications in 440. Both are really nice playing flutes, but I am looking for a more edgy sound which means I probably will bite the bullet and just get a new keyed F from Hammy or Dave Copley, hence i’d like to sell these. I would say that this F flute is much more like a Rudall than the Pratten’s I am used too, keep that in mind. I am looking to get $450 for the F, and $125 for the B. I think the price for the F is fair given that a new keyed one would cost upwards of 2k. The photo below makes them looked cracked, they are not, it’s just a reflection of the camera tripod.
If you have an questions send me a pm, or better yet and email as I check that more often.
“B”? I take it it is actually a High Pitch Bb that plays near enough in B at modern pitch?
If that tuning slide and barrel are additions, Jon did a nice job - you can’t tell from that photo - look like they’re original! Surely though a Boosey like that would have had a barrel and tuning slide originally? Did Jon re-tune the tone-holes as well, or was that not necessary?
Cheers.
The B flute plays at 440 without any modifications, and has not been altered in an way. The Hawkes flute had the slide put in of course, but I am not sure if Jon had to do any fine tuning, I can say though that it plays in tune.
Hi Denny,
Thanks for the reply. I get that F is the one, and on up the scale, just as D is the one on a D flute.
But my question regards the keys. There’s so much discussion here at C&F about whether keys are even necessary for ITM with a D flute.
I’m just semi-bewildered about where keys on an odd-key flute like F or B would take you, and how you would apply them. Is there a particular genre of music for which they would be more inclined?
I think you play these sorts of flutes primarily for themselves and for your own pleasure in their different voice, not so much to play tunes in odd keys. They supply a different timbre and sonority and a different experience of playing. You can also use them for accompanying songs and transposing tunes as one would with a whistle, but I don’t really think that is were the pleasure of having one really lies. They also lend themselves well to the Northern repertoire, particularly marches, many of them having been made for military or flute band use. Listen to Harry Bradley recordings or Conal O’Grada. I’ve a track on my CD using two of them, an old Hawkes and an old Potter, both in F-ish - you can listen to it on my myspace page listed in my signature below if you’d like to hear a sample, the track is called the 47th Highlanders Farewell (the other flute player is Dan Lowery). Mainly, they are just a great deal of fun to play.
The keys are there if you want to play any of the tunes that are more readily played with keys - for example what would be G minor tunes or D minor tunes on your D flute - many Fahey tunes, East Galway tunes in general - you get the idea.
transposing music to a different key signature does not change its “genre”.
The interval relationships of scales or modes do not change on account of transposition, only the pitch.
What exactly is odd about an F flute? Is D minor odd? Is it odder than E min. or B min? Oh Dear!
Picking a book at random - oh here is one - Walton’s “Ireland the Songs, Book 2” has several songs notated in F key signature.
To my mind, a chromatic concert F flute would make a lovely addition to my swag. But I cannot afford it esp. as Mrs T. is watching me over my shoulder …
I think it is fairly clear what Roj means by odd - in a key that one does not commonly find in the context of traditional Irish dance music, or to put it another way, the reason we do not attempt, by and large, to play F flutes in sessions. As to genre, a cultural construct if ever there was one, I reckon you could argue fairly convincingly that the Northern marching tradition for which many of these flutes were made is of a different (though closely related) genre to the dance music, and that these flutes’ different keys lead you there - in other words, it is more than just transposition that you get out of these flutes, I think, and marches are really fun to play on them - not that you can’t also play them on D flutes. I agree with you Talasiga (note the careful use of no nickname, I bow) though that Roj is trying to figure out about these flutes from a perspective that is probably not helping his understanding of them.
I was speaking from a broader flute perspective and not specifically Irish dance session music.
The pieces I referred to in Waltons book 2
are notated in F key signature.
They are all from the Irish tradition and there are many more in the other books.
They aren’t “session” music but they are still traditional.
And my initial comments went towards the point for those who may want to enjoy ITM dance music
with a lighter flute for private interpretative pleasure or in a non group session situation.
The point is the “genre” does not change simply on account of transposition.
When Matt Molloy plays something with his Eb flute that is normally played on a D flute,
the “genre” isn’t changed merely on account of the transposition.
However when Tally Wally plays Foggy Dew and he plays it as a piece ensconced in interpretations
of a raaga-ic exploration of E min on his Irish D flute he is not playing in the ITM genre,
notwithstaning he is playing a trad ITM song in a key that it is normally played in.
Well, no doubt we could go back and forth on how we define traditional, and whether we think that all Irish music is of a single genre, or where we think genre boundaries lie, which I suspect we have different opinions on.
However, I think that Roj in his second post was asking about the keys on the flutes, not of them - the metal bits rather than just the fundamentals I mean, why they might be needed and if the notes played using them are so far from normal Irish tune keys that they lend themselves to another genre - his thinking seems to be based around tune playing in its usual keys - usual meaning no more than how often they show up in performance (of any kind at all inc. session and by oneself) and how far away from these keys the small flutes were taking things. And yes, C# minor is no odder than D when discussed without context, but in the context of traditional Irish music it most certainly is unusual, and he seems to be speaking from within that context, so no need to patronise him for that then.
I don’t think that Roj was suggesting transposition must change genre at all, but he seemed to me to be struggling to understand a use for these flutes in light of their different keys and was not taking into account transposition or Northern flute band/fife tradition. (Different genre? Consult Gary Hastings in Blas)
I agreed with you that I think his question leads him in the wrong direction on the reasons to buy one of these flutes, but I don’t agree with your reasons why, or that one needs to make fun of a questioner who appears to ask in good faith - though perhaps you know something that I don’t or think that people learn best by being mocked - in which I acknowledge you may be right though I 'm still not into it myself. The fact that Walton’s, that bastion of fine music editing, arbitrarily assigns a particular key to a traditional song is neither here nor there.
I am glad you agree with me on that but I cannot agree that my rhetorical comments for to encourage thinking out of the box and my efforts to provide a reference demonstrating that several traditional Irish songs may be notated in F key sig. amount to mockery of the person.
I think the challenging of ideas and expressions is a good thing and it can be done without personal attacks. I don’t reckon I am making any personal attack just as I don’t think jemtheflute was making a personal attack when he challenged the topic starters nomination of the B flute by insinuating it was a Bb flute.
or when you challenged the topic starter’s description with
In my opinion, an example of mocking which DOES NOT go toward a healthy challenging of ideas or expression but goes toward PERSONAL ATTACK may be seen in this topic where I was classed as a “numpty” for pursuing my question about a low Bb whistle.
I was wondering whether, if you have the PC equipment, you would care to post and audio clip of the F flute. It would be interesting to hear it before you sold it.
Talasiga is quite right that I intended no mockery or criticism whatever. But I did not actually get an answer either. So far as I know they simply did not make band flutes in B major in the c19th. Hence my query. The present example may well play unmodified as if it were in B at modern pitch standards, but that does not negate its originally being a Bb flute! There is, I suppose, an outside chance that it was a very unusual item that was actually made “in B” at A=440…
It may also be of interest to the seller that many of the Marching Bands that still use these flutes indeed play at High Pitch precisely because a preponderance of the original instruments are HP - and there is therefore a specialist demand that might improve his chances of a good sale if he advertises the item accurately.
To respond to Roj’s original questions before the muck-slinging got under way, (and some of the responses do go some way towards doing that), these instruments are essentially treated as transposing instruments - you play the same tune with the same pattern of fingering as on a D Concert Flute, but it sounds a minor third higher on an F flute and a minor 6th higher on the Bb (major 6th if you go with it being effectively in B). So whether you would use the keys entirely depends on whether you are inclined to do so anyway, or upon the choice of tunes you make or the style of music you elect to play. You can take your favourite reel and play it on one of them just as on your D flute, but it will sound at the higher pitch and any accompanist would have to change key accordingly (hence antisocial in sessions). One would not be inclined to try to play the same tune on one of them in the normal key - e.g. to play an E minor tune on the F flute to match pitch with other instruments playing it as normal, you’d have to play it on the flute as if in five sharps (G#minor). That would get you using the Bb, G# and Eb keys! (Edited for correction of silly mistake!)
So, either you simply use them for their own sake, perhaps because they have a different sonority and lend a different character to a piece, and if accompanied you get your guitarist or whatever to “capo up”, or you find occasional niches for them accompanying particular songs, just as whistle players use their collection of different tonalities.
These flutes were chiefly made for Band use and there is a large repertory of music arranged in parts for them that would require use of the keys at least as accidentals in harmonic arrangements, even if they don’t tend to wander off into remote/difficult to finger keys. The music is actually written out as though the instruments were in D, i.e. you read the note D as the 6-finger note etc.
Too late. I bought the flute yesterday. If I was a better player, I’d post a clip, but I’m afraid I don’t do the flute justice at this point.
It’s a lovely thing, by the way, but harder to get the hang of than I thought. Makes my Sweetheart D seem much easier to play (that is, after struggling with the Hawkes and Son for a while, I found myself having an easier time with my Sweetheart than before).
