There comes a time in most musicians lives when a realisation strikes them - that tone is THE most important facet of their playing.
I have recently become obsessed with the tone of my playing (I choose my words carefully - the tone of my playing rather than the tone of my flute) and it is proving to be a bit of a double-edged sword.
Concentrating on tone WILL improve your playing, but focussing in on tone can really make you lose heart when you’re not quite hitting it, even though your playing might not be too bad.
There was a thread some time ago asking if there was a downside to an easy-playing flute. I didn’t really have a firm opinion but I probably would have taken the side of the easy-player. Recently, however, I progressed from a difficult 19thC English flute (hard to play, never mind get a decent tone out of), through a Dixon 3 piece (really easy to play but not overly rewarding in terms of tone) to a Prowse (Clementi & Co, C Nicholson’s Improved). The Prowse is difficult to play, no doubt about that, but every so often, when everything goes well and all the planets are aligned!, I get a glimpse of what it will offer when I eventually prove to be a match for it.
Someone recently told me that if you have a great flute, it will always be there waiting to give you more when you improve.
The other good thing when you finally wake up to tone, is that you will revisit your entire flute CD collection and it is like listenening with fresh ears - give it a try.
Has anyone else embarked on the epic “quest for tone”.
it’s funny that you would bring up this topic just now, because I’m deep in the midst of a “quest for tone”. I started on a Hall Crystal flute, moved on to my home made bamboo and PVC flutes, and bought a Dixon 3 piece just about 2-3 months ago. The quality of tone has increased drammatically as I moved up in flutes.
However, my tone on my Dixon recently went in the dumps over this weekend. I sounded flat out terrible for 3 days in a row. So, I pulled out the cork (skanky looking thing), found a new cork (while taking solace in the contents of the wine bottle), superglued a dime to this cork, and put it in the old Dixon. Instantly, my tone was about a 1000 times better.
That said, I’m giving myself until September (when birthday money is usually forthcoming), and I may upgrage to a Seery or M&E R&R if my tone doesn’t continue to improve. For me, my tone right now is usually related to my current ability not the Dixons, and I have times with the Dixon when the tone is lovely.
I think tone is the key to truly musical playing. No matter how technically proficient you are on rolls, cuts, etc…, if a basic note doesn’t sing out you’re missing something.
Having played various Boehm system flutes, bamboo flutes, PVC flutes, and strange musical apparatus from many cultures I can say with some certainty that tone has A LOT more to do with the player than the instrument in nearly every case.
Obviously, an instrument in need of repair will not sound as good as one in perfect playing order… It is amazing, though to hear a professional flutist play through a piece on their $5000 flute with all it’s gold and silver, and sometimes platinum, then turn around and play the same tune on a student level instrument WITHOUT a great deal of difference in tone!
To anyone interested in hearing more glowing praise of Michael Cronnolly’s work, I HIGHLY recommend the new Rudall and Rose model of his. The tone can be altered to a great degree, and very quickly within passages even. I found it to be more versatile in this fashion than my Boehm, and only slightly more difficult to play in certain keys.
As I mentioned earlier somewhere, the tone is HUGE, and it sounds like it makes its own reverb… but then again, more to do with the player than the flute. This instrument is just very capable, I think.