STILL FOR SALE - assorted band Flutes & Piccolos

Irish Flute
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FOR SALE - ASSORTED BAND FLUTES & PICCOLOS - see posts down thread.

Original 4 D Flutes now ALL SOLD (Wooden & Seery keyless & German 1-key and 8-key)

NEW PHOTOS & CLIPS ADDED German 8-key 4:10:07. German 1-key 30:10:07. Seery Delrin Pratten 11:12:07.

I currently have the following second hand flutes available for sale. They are all in ready to play, excellent condition. I have not had time recently to do full detailed written descriptions and photo sets or sound samples for them as I have done previously. I’m working on it, but I need to try to shift them! In the meantime, if anyone is interested in one (or more) of them, I’ll try to answer any general or technical questions here, but please p.m. me for any other details, e.g. requests for specific pics/sounds or regarding terms and conditions of sale etc.
Personal Messages ONLY if you want to buy. (Board policy!) Thanks.

1.SOLD (Swapped) @ 22:4:2008 A Seery keyless Pratten style model in Delrin polymer, with original wooden, baize lined case. Pristine condition, little used. Grand player.

Asking price £305 GBP.

N.B. NEW SOUND CLIPS ADDEDBELOW @ 11:12:07



2.SOLD @ 5:10:2007 An anonymous modern keyless Pratten style flute in unknown dark hardwood (with interesting pale, swirly veining in the head), with leatherette, plush lined case.

Asking price £170 GBP.

Excellent condition. No cracks or dings. Fully lined head. Embouchure tweaked by me (was very large anyway, but lacked focus). Intonation is good, though slightly less so than the Seery, but if anything this one beats the Seery for power and tone. Bottom D was slightly sharp, but a little beeswax in the tone-hole cured that.

N.B. NEW PICS & CLIPS BELOW



3.SOLD @ 22:11:2007 An anonymous, probably late C19th, probably German, 1 key, medium holed flute in reddish-brown hardwood, possibly cocuswood. No case, but I can supply one at extra cost.

Asking price £170 GBP.

EDIT: New sound clip added @ 30:10:07 Paddy’s Trip to Scotland/Dinky Dorian’s/The Shetland Fiddler

Came to me from Canada. No marks save for “H.P.” stamped on the barrel and foot, but this is NOT a High Pitch flute. It plays well at A = 440Hz with the slide open about 10-15mm. The intonation is reasonable for a C19th flute (not too flat a low D but a tendency to sharpness around G and A in the second octave) and the tone is free and strong. This flute can rival the Seery for volume. Most of the baroque cross fingerings work quite well for accidentals, even in the bottom octave. Beautiful red hardwood, presumably cocus, with lovely grain. All metal parts are German Silver (cupro-nickel) or Brass. Fully lined head. The head and barrel were both split and have been stripped out, repaired and the lining tubes refitted after the bore was widened to admit them without stress. The head crack was not through the embouchure and is now scarcely discernible. I have judiciously modified the embouchure, which was rather scruffy. The cork stopper, pad and joint lapping (thread) are new. Fully cleaned and oiled. Typical German spun metal end cap, but cork adjusting mechanism missing. All repairs by myself. A very attractive little flute with a big sound - a real bargain in playability terms.


4.SOLD - Sale Confirmed @ 14:11:07 An anonymous, late C19th or early C20th, 8 key, small/medium holed flute in Cocuswood (I think, but could be Grenadilla/Blackwood), probably German. No case, but I can supply one at extra cost.

Asking price £320 GBP.

In superb condition - no cracks at all, one scratch near L1/C# tone hole, otherwise cosmetically excellent. No maker’s marks at all. Plays well at A=440 Hz with the slide open about 12mm. (“Sounding length” with slide closed 582mm.) Good intonation if proper vented simple system fingerings used. Plays full 3 octaves from low C readily with even sound. Strong, rich low register when you find the sweet spot, especially good low D. All metal parts are German Silver (cupro-nickel). Fully lined head, cork stopper with adjuster. Two part body (“Rudall style”) and separate foot. Pillar mounted keys, all fully functioning and well adjusted. Typical German spun metal end caps. Fully overhauled by me - cleaned, oiled, repadded, new cork lapping and buffers. Embouchure tweaked by me.
The ideal flute to introduce yourself to keys - the full kit on a stonking wooden flute for the same price as a keyless Seery! This is not a quiet flute - it holds its own fine in a session. It takes a little getting used to to find what it has to offer, but I’d compare it favourably with an Ormiston, for example, and at a quarter of the price for a fully keyed flute, and no wait!

(Edit @ 4:10:07) DEMO CLIP ADDED (incl. Scales, Reel: The Gooseberry Bush)


I’m willing to sell and despatch to most places worldwide - all costs thereof to be borne by the purchaser in addition to the quoted (or negotiated) price of the instrument(s) - again, p.m. me for details.

I also have some piccolos and Bb and F band flutes (“fifes”) ready to go, if anyone is interested. Just ask.

Interested parties, please p.m. me. Include your direct e-address and I’ll get back to you asap. Thanks.

Happy tootling………

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bump

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Bump - just to let people know the German 8-key is provisionally sold and going out on trial - I’ll remove it if/when sale is confirmed if the prospective buyer is happy with it. I do have some more 8-keyers awaiting refurbishment - to be posted in due course.

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Just a question: The anonimous Pratten style keyless with home tweaked embouchure, would it work as well played lefty?

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Hi. I’ve just got it out to check - of course I can’t play leftie, but I can test the embouchure. It sounds just as meaty and responsive to me either way round. The main thing I did to it was to undercut it - as it came to me it was simply vertical/parallel sided and not a very even shape either. It played, but no real oomph or response. It is much better now! I undercut it pretty symmetrically. Will try do some sound samples both ways round…

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Jem, will you please say what undercutting accomplishes
and why? Inquiring minds, etc…

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SOLD
OK, here are some clips of the Anonymous Pratten style keyless. First are some simple notes and arpeggios to demonstrate the sound, R handed first, then L handed - hence the inaccuracies of fingering!!! Then there are two short clips of me playing it for real - R handed, of course. Disclaimer - I apologise for any deficiencies in the playing - these were recorded hastily on an unfamiliar instrument with no proper warm up. I hope they don’t do an injustice to the sound of the flute. Reels and slip jig.


I have also taken some close up pics of the embouchure, straight on and oblique, from both L and R handed players’ perspectives. Again, done hastily, so focus is best I could do on my phonecam in a rush, but I think they’ll serve.

You can also see rather nicely in these the interesting grain/coloration of the timber. The barrel is similar, but the rest of the flute more uniformly near-black. Anyone have any ideas about the wood?

I hope these help.

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Jim, I’m afraid you’ve found a hole in my knowledge. (One of the many!) We need a proper explication by Terry or Hammy or Jon C or Casey et al - or all of them - that would be great. Someone want to start a “how to cut a good embouchure” thread?

I know undercut improves the tone production, chiefly by reducing drag and turbulence in the split airstream, in a similar way to the cut of the labium of a fipple-flute. I think it can also have some effect on tuning/intonation, as can basic embouchure size in relation to length and diameter of bore. Since most of the sound comes out at the embouchure, its size and conformation must also affect that. I have not read up on it scientifically and I don’t pretend to take a scientific, measured (literally) approach to making or tweaking embouchures.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that some years ago I had a fairly extensive period of experimenting with poly-tube flutes. If I say so myself, cutting and adjusting embouchures proved to be my main success with them - working empirically from some basic knowledge and from looking at examples, then just doing it by eye, then seeing how they blew and tweaking again etc….. I made some very good sounding ones. I gave up in the end due to the intractable tuning problems of an all cylindrical bore. (More recently I’ve read about the Tipple-Fajardo wedge and keep meaning to have a proper go with that, but, oh but!!! for the time!) I was quite friendly with Chris Wilkes at that time and showed him my efforts. He was kind enough to say he was quite impressed with my embouchures (though not with the rest of the things)!
So, I have some successful experience with embouchure cutting………

My policy when working on these flutes that I am fettling up to sell is that I don’t mess with embouchures that are in good shape, and I would not risk messing with an (undamaged) original embouchure on a high quality period flute or one by a good current maker, should I ever get my hands on such; but I’m not moving in that area financially at present. I have had a couple of flutes from modern makers, the present one being a case in point, the embouchures of which have been pretty crudely made and left rather unfinished. On some of the old German flutes I’ve handled, the embouchures have equally been poorly done originally, or may have sustained some damage. In any case, they are often very small. Whilst that may be how their makers intended them to be, it leaves them with a rather weak and strangled tone - not at all suitable for ITM. If by tweaking the embouchure I can make such flutes serviceable for our type of use, I have no compunction about “interfering” with them. They are not museum pieces in need of unsullied preservation - they are too common for that, even the better quality ones.

My aim is to give these flutes a useful lease of life and make decently playable flutes comparatively cheaply/affordably available to beginner/intermediate level flute players. I think that is a better treatment and use of them than preserving them unplayed and unlikely to be so. Two of the German ones I have done in particular have turned out to be real belters after my treatment, at least in my hands/opinion. They certainly speak a lot more easily and responsively, not to say richly and powerfully than they did before, without any detriment I can discern to their intonation. People will just have to try “my” flutes to see if I am doing a good job. Hopefully I’ll get some feedback in due course.

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Thank you. Helpful.

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Just a bump. In case anyone didn’t realise, I am open to sensible offers (by p.m.) against my “Asking Prices”. Talk to me!

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I also have some piccolos and Bb and F band flutes (“fifes”) ready to go, if anyone is interested. Just ask.

Will you say something about these? Are they very loud?
ARe they in tune?
Are the pitched for the third/fourth octave?
Especially Bb and F. price?

What’s a ‘band flute’? Thanks

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Sorry for slow/tardy responses folks, especially those who have p.m.ed me. I’ve had a very busy weekend with a gig (chasing fairies in a forest!!!) on Saturday and taxi work all the rest of the weekend, so I’ve had very little computer time and not much sleep. Catching up now and will respond properly ASAP.

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The anonymous keyless with the “swirly” head is now spoken for, pending receipt of payment. SALE FINALISED 5:10:2007

Jim, I will try to get around to answering your queries a couple of posts back… been up to my ears, not least in correspondence with enquirers about some of these flutes and with the guy trialling the 8-key. Man, you gotta work at this sales lark!

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EDIT: NOW SOLD - SALE CONFIRMED @ 14:11:07

NEW PICTURES ADDED BELOW

The first person who took it on trial has decided that it is not what he wants - he wanted to try a keyed flute but found that he did not get on well with the need to vent keys whilst playing, e.g Eb most of the time and an F key for F# and the upper C key for C# as per the standard fingering charts of the era for this kind of flute. Most period flutes do really need that discipline to achieve their best intonation, although many fine ITM players with old keyed flutes ignore the fact quite happily! Modern makers’ keyed flutes may have their intonation adjusted to avoid so much venting. In any case, in fast tunes on short notes it is not absolutely necessary. Obviously I am not trying to put anyone off here, just to be fair and to re-iterate the point that I made about fingering in my original description.
The previous prospective buyer has not said that he found the flute itself deficient, but he did not feel he had the commitment or time to practice to learn the necessary adaptations to his playing technique in order to get the best from it or to play it to his own satisfaction. I maintain that it is worth acquiring this technique - it does not detract from a traditional style of playing and, should you proceed later to a higher level antique flute, you will need it. Even many of the modern makers’ fully keyed flutes should preferably be played thus. If you are coming from a Boehm background, you will already have the Eb little finger technique, though some other things will be a little stranger than they are for folk coming from a key-less background. I continue to think that, if you want to try shifting to keyed flute, this instrument and others like it represent an economically accessible way to do so compared to prices of new-made or high-end antique keyed flutes. This flute plays a good deal better than my first keyed simple system flute did!

If anyone would like the information in advance, I can send you the fingering chart that I worked out for this specific flute so you can examine what is ideally needed to play it to its best effect. I can also send my Terms of Business document which includes details of the Trial Period I offer. P.M. me with an e-address and I’ll send the bumf over.

Here are some more detailed photos:-

Assembled

Disassembled

Embouchure detail from near side

Head

Upper body

Lower body

Foot

And finally, alongside my Rudall & Rose (top flute) just for comparative illustration.

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Time for a bump - trying to out-shameless Mr Stone!

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Not so much shameless as persistent.
Here’s a repeat of an earlier post of mine in this thread.

You wrote:
I also have some piccolos and Bb and F band flutes (“fifes”) ready to go, if anyone is interested. Just ask.
…

I asked:
Will you say something about these? Are they very loud?
ARe they in tune?
Are the pitched for the third/fourth octave?
Especially Bb and F. price?

What’s a ‘band flute’? Thanks

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Sorry Jim, I did promise an answer didn’t I? Been trying to do too many things (including making a low D whistle head after writing Guido’s review and tweaking his one… - not bad, but need another go!!!) and this wasn’t up the priorities. Coming up!

Edit: here you go:-

BAND FLUTES & PICCOLOS FOR SALE

Basically, “band flutes” were/are designed for use in the context of brass/military/wind bands where the predominant tonality of the other instruments (brass, saxes, clarinets) is Bb/Eb. They are also the mainstay of the all-flute marching band, especially as found in the Ulster Loyalist tradition. Some regiments of the British Army also have or had flute bands. They are often called “fifes” (not unreasonably in that they replaced earlier forms of fife in military/pseudo military use), which leads to confusion as, unlike the standard American style fife, they have the form of the simple system post-Baroque flute with a cylindrical head and tapering conoid body with 6 open tone-holes and fitted with from 1-6 keyed holes. The most commonly found type are the high Bb, a third below the orchestral D piccolo, and the treble F a minor third above the concert D flute. Eb piccolos are not uncommon, and there are various lower pitched members of the family. It can be hard to decide whether some almost “concert” size flutes are High Pitch Ds or real Ebs…… The former are probably more common/likely to be found.

The Eb piccolos and Eb flutes were probably more for use in brass or wind bands than in all-flute contexts. It is (I understand) quite common for brass/mixed wind band music to require a “C#” flute and piccolo, (modern classical terminology - read a tone higher for our purposes!) or at least to have sheet music parts for both those and normal “C” (=D) instruments available. The one time I sat in with such a band (didn’t repeat the experience - my sight reading was never good enough!) they offered me the choice! You can still (if you search hard enough) buy modern Boehm Ebs (usually called Dbs or C#s) for such use.

The majority of such instruments that appear in junk shops, antique shops, car-boot sales or on eBay are at old British High Pitch - or one of its versions. As most of them don’t have tuning slides, they aren’t very tune-able either. Their intonation too is often dodgy. Many are rather cheap-and nasty in terms of original build quality, but there are some very good ones to be found and also some at A=440.

Here’s an extract from Bate quoted by Terry McGee (in a discussion on nomenclature) on Woodenflute a couple of years ago….

“As with some medieval instruments too, band-flutes are built in various pitches so as to form a homogeneous choir of voices. All are transposing instruments, the ‘six-finger’ note being invariably written as D. Traditionally however they are named after the actual sound of this D, and not the adjacent C as in orchestral practice. This custom sometimes causes confusion and many musicians and theoretical writers have called for its abolition. So far, however, the flute bandsman has remained adamant.”

(Bate goes on to give the sizes - Eb pic, Bb flute, F flute, Eb flute, Bb bass, F bass, Eb bass.)

Another quote from Terry… “Military band flutes normally didn’t have the foot extension to C (or whatever the equivalent note would have been, depending on key). When they did, they were concert flutes.”

-commented on by Craig Herrity thus: “It is certainly true most late 19th / early 20th C. band flutes were like that. But a significant proportion of the mid 19th century band flutes are 8 keys. My F flute is such and we used to see a lot of Eb 8 key flutes. I have even seen a high Bb flute with 8 keys. We are probably looking at the fault line between multi pitch flutes for standard military bands and thus for stand alone flute bands.”

Here is a picture of a complete set of probably late C19th Band Flutes - I believe they are Hawkes & Son Crown AZs, and they range from Bb bass (alto) to high F piccolo (for baby fingers only!). Note the rather French style keywork. What a gorgeous set! I believe they belong to David Quinn, Imperial Corps of Drums, Liverpool - I hope he/they won’t mind me posting the pic!

N.B. THESE ARE NOT MINE AND ARE NOT FOR SALE!

There were some more useful bits to extract somewhere in my archives that would have saved me some typing/thinking covering old ground but I can’t find them/may have lost them from the computer (is one reason why I’ve put this job off!). Damn.

Here is a picture of the bunch I have available: from the top, they are:-

Anon. English 1-key F
Anon. English 1-key Bb
B.S. “London improved” “B” - English 1-key
Anon. English 4-key D piccolo
David “Breveté” French 5-key Eb piccolo
Anon. English 6-key Eb piccolo

As for the questions about their volume etc, here goes:

They are not especially or distinctively loud as a class, no more so than any flute. Piercing or shrill, able to cut through and carry because higher pitched, yes. That is why the high Bb and the piccolo are the quintessential marching band members of the flute family. In their lower registers they can be quite mellow and are no more susceptible of very forceful playing than concert flutes, allowing for build quality and playing expertise.

In tune? Well, of the ones I have in saleable condition (pictured above), the cocuswood 1-key F is high pitch at around A=445 and has a significantly flat fundamental, but otherwise a reasonable scale. The cocuswood 1-key Bb is a little sharp of A=445 - can just about be brought down by pulling out the joint about 3mm- and is tolerably well in tune with itself. It has a strong, sweet tone. The boxwood early type 1-key is labeled as “B” and is either high pitch Bb or B-ish at modern pitch, but it is crudely made and the scale is dreadful - it couldn’t really be played in any ensemble, and wouldn’t sound too good played solo or just with drums - though it would quite look (and sound?) the part for, say, Napoleonic era reconstructionalists. The four-key English D piccolo plays at A=440 with the slide open about 5mm and has quite good intonation (allowing that I am no piccolo specialist and that piccolos are very embouchure sensitive and bendable!). The 5-key French piccolo seems to be in Eb at A=440 with the slide open about 5mm and also to have decent intonation if one vents the Eb and F keys… it is sweet and powerful. Both these blackwood piccolos are nice quality instruments as is the little cocuswood 6-key English piccolo which is also Eb at A=440, though it goes slightly flat on the lowest notes.

NOTE: when I say the scale is “fair” or “reasonable”, I mean by C19th simple system flute norms, not modern ones, though I wouldn’t say it of the ones that will play at A=440 if I didn’t think they were usable.

Pitched for the 3rd & 4th octaves??? Like any simple system flute, they mostly play well/readily through two octaves and about half way up the 3rd, to say G or A fingerings. Beyond that I would say they are reluctant, but I’m no expert at going there, so who knows what a piccolo specialist with a disciplined embouchure and developed technique would make of them? I wouldn’t have thought anyone plays piccolo into the (putative) 4th octave, not even charangistos, if they ever touch piccolos! Even in noisy outdoor marching band contexts, does anyone play Bb “fife” or piccolo to the top of the 3rd octave or beyond, and would anyone else want them to? (I realise you may be making reference to something I don’t know about here, Jim, with American marching bands/fife bands: if so, tell us about it.)

Prices - pitched to reflect what I paid for them plus what work I’ve done on them, allowing for them being ready to play, not fresh from the junk shop, but tempered by realism about their playability/desirability…

F - £60.00: Cocus Bb - £50.00: Boxwood “B”, £50.00: English D piccolo, £75.00: French Eb piccolo, £75.00: English Eb Piccolo £65.00.

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Thank you

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Just an afterthought, Jim; when you asked about 3rd and 4th octaves, did you actually mean that in terms of the instruments’ own compass, or in “concert flute” terms, counting from an actual pitch middle C - in other words, where the top, 3rd octave of a piccolo would equate to the 4th octave of a concert flute?

Also, a new and tasty pic added to my previous post!

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I know there are military fife’s, shaped like blimps,
that are designed to play in the second, third and fourth (?)
octaves. They’re weak in the first. This so that they
can be heard above the rockets red glare, the
bombs bursting in air, the shrieks of the dying,
and so on.

So I wondered if these were they. I see they are not.

Thanks again, Jim