Hi headwizer,
I didn’t bring it to work today, so I can’t measure it. I’m sure Terry would have this available, (if not I’ll measure mine).
As to how easy it is to play the 3rd and fouth octaves, that depends on your embouchure and background. I find it very easy to sound all the notes up to the High C (actually I only discovered the high C the other day, and havn’t discovered how to go higher (yet)). What I find difficult is remembering the fingurings when “under pressure”, as I have 30+ years of boehm playing, which is completely different in the 3rd octave and I hesitate. I’m sure if I only played the McGee it would all come togther very nicely, but I actually need to play the boehm most of the time in the groups I play in.
here is he hole spacing of my mc gee praten perfected. The measurements are in cm, and are the distance of the center of each hole from the center of the first hole.
hole 1 0
hole 2 3.5 cm
hole 3 7.1 cm
hole 4 12.8 cm
hole 5 15.9 cm
hole 6 19.7 cm
I hope that is useful
MichaelS, very useful. Thanks. I have to try out the finger spread to see if my joints will like it.
BTW, how did you decide on McGee’s Pratten in the end? Did you look at any of his Rudalls? I don’t know the upper range of his Rudalls, but some of the originals that he used as models were post-1850 (after Boehm) like the Pratten Perfected.
Hi everyone,
I visited terry, while back in australia on holiday, and tried a number of his flutes. I just found that my embouchure techhnique seemed to adapt better to the pratten flutes than the rudall, in terms of fine control of tone color, and power.
regards
Michael
I thought the same thing until my flute lesson today. I play an Olwell bamboo which has huge holes and big sound. My instructor said the crossfingered G# and Fnat were very good and they sounded pretty good against his Noy. It’s pretty easy to half-hole a Bb on it too and for Cnat OXXOOO sounds nice and traditional while OXOXXX is nearly spot on “true” Cnat. Which just leaves Eb. So maybe it’s just a cylindrical thing or maybe it’s an Olwell thing but you can get good cross-fingered accidentals on a big-holed flute.
Cheers,
Aaron