I’ve always thought the keyless Irish flute and (one-keyed) Baroque traverso offer an elegant simplicity unmatched by multi-keyed instruments. But of course, the large-holed Irish flute needs keys for most accidentals (and certainly to play outside the ‘home’ keys), and the traverso’s tone and tuning aren’t well-suited to Irish trad.
But what if an experimentally-minded maker could hybridize the two, creating a one-keyed chromatic flute optimized for trad: the TRADverso?
I’m wondering this after reading about Jean-François Beaudin’s modernized traverso. Basically, he’s managed to increase the limited volume of the Baroque flute and improve the intonation by making a cylindrical body with a tapered headjoint–like a Boehm flute.
Of course, Beaudin is still making a traverso, so the tone and aesthetics are Baroque. But couldn’t the basic principle be followed to make a flute for Irish music?
Would anyone else been keen on this kind of instrument? And what maker might give this a go?
I’m very interested in this. A few years ago I started experimenting with making a one-piece flute for Irish trad that had a cylindrical body with a tapered head. In fact, I sent an early prototype on tour among some C&F members, along with one of my first Prattens (some of you might remember the tour, even though the one-piece flute was not especially memorable).
I only stumbled into trying it because I had been working on making wooden head joints for silver flutes. Because of that I already had manufactured a reamer with the parabolic taper that Boehm recommended, and that led to the idea to try it on a one-piece flute for ITM (shooting for a high quality entry-level instrument). I wasn’t totally happy with the limitations of the simple, cylindrical bore flutes that I was making (speaking of one piece flutes) and I wasn’t too crazy about using a Fajardo wedge at the time. So I decided to make a one piece flute that tapered at the head joint.
That first prototype was not very exciting, but I spent a lot of time messing around with variations on this idea, even going so far as to make a larger reamer to allow me to do a low Bflat or A tuning. Mind you, none of these flutes had an Eflat key, and they had no reference to Baroque flutes or music, me being pretty ignorant of both back then. I’m sorry I wasn’t familiar with Beaudin at the time because reading about his research recently I saw a number of ways in which my experiments were off-track and if I were to take a leaf out of his book I might get them back on track.
This definitely inspires me to have another crack at it! I’m actually just starting out making some Baroque flutes, doing a version of the Stanesby Jr., and that would involve doing my first key work. If I go that far, there is nothing to prevent me from taking a stab at a TradVerso flute since I already have the reamer. Even if there is not much of a market for them, if I succeed it would sooth all of the frustration stirred up by making about twenty-odd prototype flutes, none of which I was satisfied with Worth it just for that!
The problem with the cylindrical body tapered head approach is that its impossible to get the fingerholes close together.
But what you are looking for is something that has been done long before - and is still widely available in antique instruments. Look for an 18th or early 19th century English or American flute. These are considerably more opened up than a tight embouchured Baroque flute, created for the popular music of the time as well as classical performances, etc. Yet they retain the basic capabilities of cross fingering the F, G#, Bb and C and the one key gives the Eb. Here is a reasonably priced example for sale on eBay right now for instance:
Yes, that was a drawback to the ones I made, and this became really apparent when I tried a Bflat. I had played a friends LeHart Bflat (conical bore) and it was fairly comfortable. A stretch, of course, but fine. The tapered head version I made was really spread out. The only way to play it was using a piper’s grip like a bansuri player.
Casey, I presume that flute on ebay is still a conical bore instrument? Looks like it from the photos. I’d be curious to know how it compares to something like Beaudin’s flute in terms of volume, since that seems to have been his motivation in working on the cylindrical bore version. I’d also be curious to know what the finger hole spread is like on his flute when held up against the conical versions. On the D flutes that I made that way, the stretch wasn’t a deal breaker, but it was noticeable.
On this forum Dave said it, “was made for a customer who wanted it to play like a modern “Irish” flute, but look more like a flute of the early classical period.” An F natural would be difficult on this flute, but it takes a good bit of work to get the pitch down on an F natural when playing an actual Baroque replica.
Forum member Clinton wanted a simple solution for chromatic playing and had Terry McGee build him a GLP with an Eflat key and a short F key. He documents his impressions here:
But Dave’s is literally just a standard flute in disguise and doesn’t do anything (like fingerings) remotely ‘baroque’.
As I see it, your biggest problem is hole size. Even the holes on a regular baroque flute are theoretically too big for what they do, and they’re tiny!
Impossible as a forked fingering!
but it takes a good bit of work to get the pitch down on an F natural when playing an actual Baroque replica.
So conventional wisdom says, but it’s not difficult at all on my new Bernolin resin traverso (Delusse A=415).
Several years ago I had Yola and Forbes make me an Eb footjoint for my Windward Pratten. I can (with a bit of practice) make the flute fully chromatic up to the third octave A. The added venting of the Eb really helps with some of the notes. I mostly use a combination of “standard” simple system fingering, along with various versions of traverso fingerings for the accidentals.
The main things:
It is a Pratten so it has an enormous F# hole that allows a pretty good half holed Fnat.
The cross fingered G#/Ab is a bit weensie, as it is with most traversii.
The rest of the notes are “in tune” (for values of ‘in tune’ that is). I find that the Windward is wonderfully optimized for playing easily in tune at modern pitch in its home keys. Using the traverso cross fingerings works well, but one must listen carefully to play the notes into tune, with “in tune” very much depending on which key one is in… This is in no way different from playing a traverso, where one must always pay very close attention to the tuning for pretty much every note.
Playing in lots of flats still sucks, but it is doable.
I used the Windward to play the flute part for a performance of Charpentier’s Messe de Minuet Christmas mass last year; it worked quite well. The sleek modern lines don’t necessarily look the part, but to the eyes of the audience, it still looked “old” enough. Having played both traverso and simple system keyed flutes, I definitely find that the traverso is more agile and easy to play complex parts, with the caveat that one is paying the price for intonation and variable voicing for each note. In the end, alas, there are no free lunches.
It has been awhile since I played that McGee GLP! I hope whoever has it now is enjoying it.
Interesting, Clinton. So do you played keyed flutes anymore? And when you say you prefer the traverso, are you including your one-keyed Windward in that category?
Interesting Topic
10 or more years ago Terry McGee and I discussed him making me one of his GLP model Flutes that would have the exterior profile of a Baroque Flute as well as the standard E Flat key.
At the time I was doing a lot of Colonial RevWar Events and such an Instrument would be really nice, given that it would have much greater volume than the Baroque or Classical Flutes typically used in that era.
As it turned out I never had the discretionary Cash to proceed with him making this Flute
I don’t believe Terry ever made a Flute like that given the almost non existent market demand
The Flute I had been using for the Events during that time period was one of Ralph Sweet’s so called one key Irish Flutes.
That Flute was not very expensive and it had decent enough volume
I wouldn’t say that Flute looked much like a Baroque Flute, but to be honest almost no one ever have noticed that at the Events I used it at.
Case in point, I played quite often at Williamsburg and none of the " Historical Police" employed by Colonial Willamsburg to insure historical accuracy ever noticed my Sweetheart Flute.
Side Bar… the first time I ever heard a Copeland Brass Whistle was at Williamsburg.
It was being played by one of the Tavern Musicians and boy did it sound nice… this was maybe 1990 or so… I ordered one the next day from Elderly Instruments, who at the time sold Copeland Whistles.
They sent me a C whistle by mistake, so I went ahead and kept it in addition to getting the D I should have received
But I digress
Some years ago I got a small-holed flute from Peter Noy. I was messing around with it one day and found that it cross-fingers wonderfully, so I had Peter make a foot joint with an Eflat key. It really is a full-sounding Irish flute with full traverso fingering.
Ralph Sweet’s “baroque” flutes are another alternative. They are also fully chromatic, but have a larger embouchure, so are more full-sounding than most traversi.
At present I have a one key Beaudin “Modern Traverso” in A=392, and the aforementioned one key Windward. No other keyed flutes at the moment, alas. The Beaudin was purchased with the intent of playing at “old Baroque” pitch, but, in Kamloops, the violinists won’t even deign to lower the pitch to 415, let alone all the way down to 392! As such, I mostly end up playing it in modern pitch and transposing up, or just playing the Windward to keep my brain from getting too scrambled with jumping back and forth between fingerings.
Worth it just for that!
