‘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.’
I meant the cylindrical silver flute the holes of which are closed by keys when they are closed.
An ‘open hole’ flute, in the context I was writing, denotes a simple system flute six holes of
which are closed immediately (when they are closed) by human fingers.
Didn’t read like that, Jim, nor is it a “normal” usage, nor, despite your your (attempt at) clarification does what you wrote make sense as a physical description of the reality; hence misunderstanding. However, I’d totally agree with the bit in your latest where you say unkeyed holes closed directly by fingers are “open”! Otherwise, in fairly standard terms referring to keys, “open” keys stand held open by a spring (like most of Bohm’s) and “closed” ones stand held closed by a spring (like most of the ones on a Simple System flute). “Open” holes either have no key or are operated by an open-standing key, “closed” holes have closed-standing keys… Logical, see…
I think people generally understood what I meant, however I’ve spent my life counting angels on pinheads
and am in no position to complain. Anyhow I don’t play Bohm, but I nonetheless believe the standard Bohm
is more internally in tune than are our good conical flutes–though I will leave ‘perfectly’ to God. It is
a matter of degree. So somebody who prizes internal tuning might put a wooden headjoint on a
Bohm body. But of course part of the charm of our flutes is that they are odd and, to my ear,
sound more interesting for their quirks.
That’s kind of the thing, and why people buy baroque flutes, renaissance flutes, simple system flutes and that is just the European long flutes.
An aspect worth our discussion is the fact that flute, of necessity, requires an inconstant embouchure. Because there is no reed or fipple, the lips must adapt with the note and the octave in order to produce the sound. Much as a fiddler needs to find the finger position and the brass player must tighten or loosen the lips, the flute player is largely responsible for his or her own tone production from a tuning perspective. My experience has been that when a flute is made poorly, certain notes just so pop out as being in bad relative pitch that it is obvious the problem is not me. If the octaves don’t match, I would investigate the position of the head cork. I keep mine at 23mm from the center of the embouchure. Because it is further out than it is “supposed” to be, it throws the third octave out of tune, but I don’t use the third octave. The good news is that my lower octave is more powerful and the relative pitch plus the matching of the first and second octave is excellent on all three of my flutes.
What I have found curious is the amount different flute players rotate the embouchure towards or away from them. All this talk of the right embouchure, it seems odd that there seems to be a wide range of what works.
Rotation of the headjoint shouldn’t have any effect on embouchure; the relationship between the lips and the embouchure hole take care of that. How the hands and arms are positioned to hold the flute for the best embouchure can be adjusted by rotating the headjoint.
Sorry, Jem, I gotta stand up for Mr. Stone here. I was a silver Boehm player (Gemeinhardt 3G, IIRC) in my, ahem, younger days. Don’t know about there, but here closed/open hole was (and is) the standard terminology to distinguish the open French keys. Teachers and music educators use it. The makers themselves use it, e.g.:
http://www.gemeinhardt.com/catalogpage.asp?mode=PRODUCT&productid=49
Every fluter in our concert band aspired to afford an open hole flute. And when I sold flutes in the shop, I’d ask customers if they’d prefer open hole or closed hole. The terminology isn’t unhelpful at all, as long as the context (silver Boehm) is clear. The pedant may not like it ( 
), but it doesn’t merit a browbeating. 
In the context of Jim’s question, I suppose it makes sense to specify closed hole, since that eliminates the variable of intonation adjustment with the fingers.
Well, sometimes people say ‘as happy as a philosopher with a new distinction.’ It’s nice to have people about
who care about exactitude and are passionate about arcane differences (at least in the eyes of most people).
If everybody was that way life would be impossible, of course; still I hope there is room for some of us. The chief reason
I don’t follow Jem into the discussion about Bohm flutes is that I don’t know enough about them.
OK, OK, self-
No worries. Jem knows he’s our favorite, lovable pedant. 
Ya know, I blame you guys for what I have to put up with. 
“Lovable”? 
Oh dear. Now I know I’ve failed, am failing……fail…
One time I was told by a flute maker that some notes of the first two octave are slightly out of tune in order to have a better in tune third octave. Probably this makes sense, but I think that many folk flute players (as me) are not very interested in the third octave.
Do you still have your Aebi flute or did you sell it? I’ve heard those are right up there with the best.
Cheers,
Kirk
I still have that flute, I can’t decide to sell it.
I’d like to have a Morvan flute, or a Grinter, or (another) McGee, or maybe a Copley… but I can’t buy a new flute if i don’t sell the Aebi…But i don’t want sell it before I have the new one, and before having made a comparision…(I’m never sure if my “english” is uderstandable )
Perfectly understandable and much better than if I tried writing in Italian 
That’s a tough situation. It would be hard if you bought something new and didn’t like it as much as the Aebi.
Cheers,
Kirk
Perfectly understandable, gian-marco. 
Can you get a new flute without selling the Aebi, make the comparison and then sell the Aebi? If it’s finances, would a friend lend you the money for a short period? Alternatively, can you get hold of someone with a Grinter, or Morvan, or whatever to let you have a go on their flute?
[cross-post with Kirk B]
The acoustical properties of the conical flute are so extremely complex. Everything interacts with everything else. Building a flute to be in tune must be a painstakingly fine balancing act.
To me, a perfectly in-tune flute would be boring. And that is one of the reasons why I have a hard time playing my Boehm flute lately. It’s just so ordinary! I haven’t played a modern simple system flute that’s been redesigned for “perfect tuning”, though I gather that some makers do build them. I’d be very curious to find out whether I’d dislike it (which is my suspicion), or whether it might be interesting and useful yet.
And not to start this back up, but what is “in tune” anyway? Jim might agree with me that there’s no such thing. There are no right and wrong tunings, just more and less useful ones for the moment.
I have heard the Bohm flute described as ‘sterile.’
I remember that oranges with pits tasted better.