I was answering Michael’s previous question "I’d be curious for those of you with Eb keys, do you find that it strengthens the low E, F, and F# if opened.’ My answer was - Venting Eb on mine doesn’t make any difference. Sorry thought that was obvious, obviously not. “Given the Irish flute players, it is possible that Wilkes has optimized the tuning of his flute for the first two octaves.” “Given the Irish flute players.”.. given them what? I’m not aware of any buzz in my playing.
I don’t mean to be argumentative. Just to acknowledge what we have been saying:
Irish musicians frequently play with a strong, reedy, buzzy tone. See Matt Malloy. Someone like Chris Norman plays with a sweeter, not-very-buzzy tone.
Most (AFAIK) Irish musicians do not play above 2nd register B, so they don’t need the Eb venting that allows you to play the notes in the third register.
Thus, turning out the foot is pretty common with Irish musicians.
Yes, but what’s interesting is that on my original Rudall & Rose and original Pratten the scales were in tune without opening the Eb key.
Before the relatively recent advent of purpose-built “Irish flutes” generations of Irish fluteplayers played the 19th century originals without using that key, or any of the keys, often removing all the keys and plugging the holes, or wrapping the flute in electrical tape.
But to address the original question, I don’t know why somebody would pay extra for keys they don’t use. Maybe having all the keys makes the flute look like a “real flute” in some people’s eyes.
I think this is just further evidence that a good player does what is necessary to play a flute in tune. The difference in tuning and voicing with or without using the key is small enough that you can easily adapt you embouchure to play in tune. And when you are used to that underlying tuning in a flute, the adaptation feels so natural that it becomes unnoticeable. But you do notice when you play a flute that has been tuned differently. When flutes are tuned straight to 12TET using a tuner, they are strange to play and require some adaptation to play, even in ET.
For this reason, I think a lot of the tuning tradeoffs from antiques find their way into modern flutes too. Few makers want to make a flute that requires radically different inputs to those that players are used to.
I also play antiques and modern keyed flutes without depressing the Eb key, and I can play in tune comfortably and naturally.
I’ve owned an embarrassingly large number of modern flutes and a more respectable number of antiques (mainly antique American flutes and an English Wylde) and the only flute I had to vent the Eb key on was a really rather poor antique nach Meyer flute I restored on my own.
Eric
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For me it was a matter of deciding that although there are keys I don’t use, there aren’t any I won’t use if I find a tune I like. Except that if I don’t have them, I can’t use them. So I paid for 6 of them against the days I want them.
That said, I now want to learn a tune that requires the foot keys, and am sad that I don’t have those…
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Flotineer, Danu’s Poor man fortune starts with a strong low FDEC#D. You’ll find another low C# at the beginning of Taxi Mauve’s version of Cutting a slide ( Anna Mac Culeen set ) . Check them out, and the entire album if you don’t know it.
And as I’ve mentioned in the past I know a quite good Boehm flutist (pop music, not ITM) who, when I mentioned the use of the Eb key, admitted that she never touches it except to play that note. So much for Boehm’s open fingering theories! (In truth if you play the so-called “French model” with perforated keys it has little effect.)