I have a Hawkes and Son flute which has been giving me some trouble lately with respect to tuning. I do play it at sessions, but I find that to bee in tune with ‘fixed pitch’ instruments, I have to have the hj pulled out about 5/8ths of an inch. The slide sleeve itself (extending from the barrel) is 3/4 inches long. So, here’s my question. I recently played around with the cork/stopper, trying to reset it to get the flute to play the octaves in tunes. Now someone had once mentioned to me that if the hj was extended out quite a bit that the cork should be pushed in a little to compensate for the tuning. I don’t have the specifics, but I tried this and the tone absolutely sucked, and the playability suffered as well. What is the correct location of the stopper for an instrument such as this? Any suggestions
are very welcomed. Oh, you can hear a clip of this flute at the link below.
Thanks, Arbo.
Sounds nice! Who cares what the accordion player says!
I would set the slide where you can get a 440 G, then set the cork at 19mm, then with a tuner, check the A and B in both octaves, if the second octave A is sharp, push the cork out to about 21mm max. This is the best setting for my Pratten, so it might be the same on the Hawkes. and if the second octave is flat, push the cork in a little.
Hope this helps.
Thanks John.
I’ll get to that in the next few days and get back to you. What are your thoughts regarding pulling out the hj 5/8+ inches? Does this seem normal for a flute of this period/maker?
