many flute makers, for mysterious reasons, seem to reject the idea to make a flute that is perfectly in tune (sorry for my poor English, I hope it’s understandable). So we often find those flat bottom D, or/and flat F sharp, or/and sharp A and B.
Does somebody knows a flute maker that is capable (or disposed ) to make e flute that is well in tune?
I’m currently trying out various prototypes of flute by a maker who hasn’t started to produce them commercially yet, and apart from the ever so problematic C-nat, it seems very well in tune for me, and I’m a newbie to the flute. I guess I’ll have to check it with the Flutini, but it seems quite all right with me, better than some of the very expensive flutes by top makers, tuning-wise.
I would respectfully disagree. Have a go at making one yourself and see what you come up with.
Feadoggie
Flute making is not my profession.
Good for you. I’ve played many flutes over my lifetime and most were well in tune. I do not think that makers, modern or not, reject the idea of making a well tuned flute.
Inexperienced players sometimes find that flutes which they suspect are poorly tuned become suddenly better tuned after they have learned to play.
Feadoggie
Yes, I think Terry McGee does this… But the term “perfectly in tune”, is kind of a misnomer, a lot depends on the player. Some makers like myself, like to have the foot kind of flat, so it can be blown into tune.
Inexperienced players sometimes find that flutes which they suspect are poorly tuned become suddenly better tuned after they have learned to play.
Feadoggie[/quote]
Actually, I have played the flute for 35 years only.
They all do. But what you have to understand is that the tuning depends on how they are blown. Let’s consider a couple of well known good flute makers both of whom frequent this board. When Hammy plays one of his own flutes the tuning is excellent. And the same for Terry; when he plays one of his own flutes the tuning is excellent. But if Terry plays one of Hammy’s flutes the tuning is not good. Terry and I have verified this with RTTA.
Find a flute by a maker who blows the same way you do and the tuning will be good. But don’t go assuming that there’s something wrong with a flute just because you can’t play it in tune.
Cheers
Graeme
gian-marco: Feadoggie is trying to tell you that your premise may be fundamentally incorrect. The number of years you have personally played the flute has nothing to do with it.
Yes i know. ( Indeed i can’t understand in wich way is determined the pitch of the old original baroque flutes, i think that the pitch of such a flute without tuning slide depends by the player..)
Gian Marco “Pantera” Pietrasanta, a musical friend of mine, is the fluteplayer in the celtic group Myrddin in Genova, Italy. He is the composer of the well-know tune, “The Cat in the Fiddle Case”.
http://www.myrddin.it/
Hello Doug, nice to hear from you! A few days ago I was just thinking to order one of your D flutes.
FWIW it also depends on a particular player’s perception of what is in tune. Standardized pitch is a relatively recent development; not everybody is going to perceive that as being in tune or out of tune. In the case of flutes from what I have heard and read making a flute that is perfectly in tune with equal temperament is very difficult or impossible to do, this isn’t my area of expertise so I could be wrong. From what I understand even on the best flutes there will be compromises that have to be made, in the case of C-natural using the OXXOOO fingering on most flutes is slightly sharp but if a maker were to try to flatten that note it would throw the C# off as well as the OXXXXX high d fingering. That is why flutes have some compromise in this aspect a slightly flat C# and slightly sharp OXXOOO C-natural fingering. The old flutes were meant to have the C key vented when playing the C#; I find on my J. Gallagher flute that the high C# benefits from this but the mid C# (it is an 8 key so I have low C# too) doesn’t really need it.
Personally I think it is up to the player to play in tune as a flute in tune for one person may not be in tune for another which is what I think groxburgh is getting at; ‘perfect’ tuning is up to the player. A maker can only get a flute so close to whatever ‘perfect’ tuning may be in their opinion.
Also worth noting is that in the natural scale/just temperament the fifth is sharper than in equal temperament and the major third is slightly flatter than equal temperament. This could explain the sharp As and flat F#s on the older flutes.
It would be interesting to know what is meant by “perfectly in tune”. Are you referring to the overall pitch level of the flute vs. the relative tuning between notes? Are you referring to how the flute sounds to your ear, or how it looks to a tuner? To which kind of tuner (as not all are created equally)?
One thing that many players don’t realize is that minor tuning issues are adjustable on any simple system flute.The safest (and reversible) approach is to flatten notes - thus if one note plays flat relative to everything else, flatten everything else. This is simply done by filling in the holes some with a little bit of beeswax or resin. Uilleann pipers do this all the time, though usually the preferred substance for them is black electrical tape. If the bottom D is flat relative to the rest of the scale, you can fill in all the holes to some extent. If any note plays sharp, however, you can flatten it to your preference by filling it in.
I wonder how many of the old flutes with the flat bottom D problem were at some point “adjusted” for more volume by making the fingerholes larger (or adjusted for a higher pitch as things went from A435 to A440). I’ve actually had one client attempt to get more volume out of his low flute by making the fingerholes larger. He ruined a number of pieces of wood!
As to modern makers such as myself - I have a standard that is based more on how the flute plays to my ear, to my embouchure, with using a Korg tuner as guidance only. For most players this works but occasionally minor tuning issues arise and then I am usually happy to adjust these.
Casey
Chris Norman once said to me something to the effect, Don’t blame the flutemaker for your inability to play it in tune. That was an Olwell, and I was going to respond to the OP that Olwell’s flutes are perfectly in tune. What a difference a few years, a lot of work, and sticking with one flute make.
I take it that the closed hole cylindrical silver flute is more internally in tune than our conical flutes,
which involve various compromises so that human fingers can reach the open holes.
A flute that you have to learn to blow in tune to play in tune isn’t (quite) in tune.
There are anomalies in the tuning that you have to lip up or roll the flute in or out
to correct.
Also, as somebody mentioned above, some makers like a flat
low D, perhaps because it has more power when blown in tune.
I’ve never met a woodwind that was perfectly in tune.
Boehm flutes do seem to be the closest of the lot.
But even there, some experts aren’t happy, and some makers are not really trying…
http://www.trevorwye.com/cooper1.html
Terry
And even when (if it’s conceptually possible!) you arrive at the acoustically ideal instrument, in tune throughout the tessitura to 12TET (or any specified tuning system/temperament) blown neutrally with an average embouchure, you will still have to learn to play it properly “in tune” in any given musical context, even playing solo, let alone in an ensemble, as (as we’ve discussed before) no-one, even in the heights of the classical professional field, really plays absolutely in 12TET - human ears just aren’t wired to find that “perfect”. Some degree of as-you-play pitch modification always remains necessary, no matter how “well”/neutrally tuned your toot may be. Not that that argument excuses sloppy workmanship…
I agree with others above who are effectively asking what the OP means by “perfectly in tune” and the implication that, if he got it (such a flute, whatever that might be…), he might not like it! And of course, quite a lot of makers (especially in the baroque field) are deliberately making as-accurate-as-possible copies of their original models - with the expectation that the player will learn how to use what the instrument offers. That applies too even to somewhat-modified modern-made Simple System keyed flutes - if they have keys, they probably need the appropriate key-vented fingerings to play in tune. Certainly it is no use whinging that originals are “out of tune” unless you first explore the proper fingerings. But I would expect a modern keyless derived from 8-key retro-design to be corrected as far as the physical limitations and compromises permit. (e.g. if you have F keys which, vented, correct the F#, you don’t have a flat F#, but if there’s no F key, that F# ought to be made to be in tune as it stands.) And (another hobby-horse of mine) the (IMO misguided, on both flutes and whistles) obsession with achieving a usable C natural cross-fingering of oxx ooo doesn’t help the design compromises around the C# tone-hole!
Oh, and another anecdote… at the 2010 Berkenhage Flute Workshop in Belgium, I had a go on Harry Bradley’s Murray (it was passed around for a late-night slow air sesh). Harry plays it effortlessly in tune. I (and others), on first blow, found its tuning to be very different from what we were used to in our own (varied) flutes and struggled quickly to come to terms with it. I like to think I’m fairly flexible in such matters and felt I was starting to “find” it tolerably before the end of my “go”, and observed the same with several other participants, but one or two who attempted it simply couldn’t accommodate themselves to it quickly and sounded awful throughout their tune… where lay any “fault” in that scenario?
My italics. 
???
The whole point (or a very major one) of Bohm’s design is that all (or nearly all) the keys stand open, thus providing as near as possible perfect venting… The only “closed holes” on a Bohm flute are the Eb, G# (not as Bohm preferred) and the two high trill keys.
Unless, that is, you are referring to the difference between all solid platter keys and the “French” style with the 5 pierced platters for L2 & 3 and R 1-3 sometimes unhelpfully referred to as “closed” and “open” keys. Any flute should be set up to be properly in tune with whichever type of key it has. Having the pierced type is not deleterious to the tuning per se or in any way inferior to all-solid (both styles have advantages and disadvantages), though if you swapped key type on an instrument without adjusting the key-rise etc. appropriately, that would cause subtle intonation problems.