Hi. You guys don't know me, but I know you. (And I'm not a stalker.) Whenever I have a flute question I refer here to the archive because you all seem very knowledgeable about flutes. But now, I have a specific question. I have been in love with wood Boehm system flutes since I play-tested one at The Texas Flute Society's festival. Today when surfing eBay I came across this:
Now, since I don't have thousands of dollars, my ears pricked up at this. But, why would the price be so low? Please get back to me with your thoughts. I don't want to fall for a scam (Por-Quality flute, anyone?) Thanks.
Well, the starting price is $250 but that doesn't mean anything because he has a reserve on it, which could be much, much higher by the looks of that flute. Sometimes if you ask really really nicely, the seller will tell you or give you an estimate of the reserve price if you are truly interested.
Micron or anybody: would it really be pitched at a=440 or was it altered at some point? I thought that's how the whole scale out of tune thing first came about, was flutes that were still a=435 were trying to play in tune with the "newer" pictch of 440 by pushing in the headjoint as far as it would go, which resulted in the lower register flat and the upper register too sharp, etc.
I have no idea which older flutes were made at what pitch, or how far they had to be polled out to achieve that pitch.
The whole issue seems rather arbitrary to me. For example:
I have heard it said that A444 actually plays more in tune at A444 than a flute designed for A440, this being because the air in the upper part of a flute is always warmer than the air in the lower part, which has an effect on the scaling. Is this allowed for when the manufacturer states a pitch? who knows.
Furthermore, I have never heard a manufacturer state what temperature, embouchure, embouchure hole covering, airstream angle, volume etc his specification is for. These all affect pitch enormously. Hence a specific "A=***" specification is pretty meaningless.
I agree with Micron about these things.
A=440 means less without describing certain parameters as he outlined.
I think that the problemgoes back to the time of Boehm. If I remember he made a "Schema" that was designed for the lower pitch and then as the pitch rose they basically modified the head joint without moving the schema design to compensate. (a pipe cutter to the head-if you will) Only until recently, (Three decades or so) has it been reviewed. This mention of the register may need clarification for some in that the differences in pitch issues can often come from the different fingerings. I've never thought of the registers on the flute like those of a calrinet. So, as you go up and down these fingerings, (Like a C or D scale) you shorten or lengthen the acoustic pipe -so to speak and when you combine the fingering modifications that we have for the different octaves we end up with a lot of acoustic compromises for tone and tuning. So too if the head is moved in or out, It modifies the relationships of all of these fingering and compromises. So does the cork location but this cork location also modifies the overtone series above the fundimental and therefore the tone quality as in you can then be out of tune with yourself.
So I think that with a decent playing flute, it ends up being a lot of compromises that have to be based upon the ear of the player. Last evening I had a student who played a C#3 a full 1/2 of a semitone sharp. Partly the old mal-adjusted beginner flute, partly the player's ear at fault for not even listening. I had to display that I could play a C# in tune with the rest of the notes with my tuner but that I could also play the C pretty well in tune with the C# fingering by adjusting things. Since it is that easy to play that out of tune, we have to adjust. The thing is,you don't want a flute that you have to do a crazy amount of adjusting to get everything in tune. One could end up in a neck brace. Where you can run into real issues is when you actually try to make some real dynamic changes. Say one of those real low notes with focus and pp.
I think that us flute players are eventually going to have to realize that they need to have a concept of tuning that is trained in us more like that of a singer. ~More ears, less mechanics.
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