Chiff and Fipple Forums

paddler wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 12:16 pm My understanding is that Renaissance flutes had a narrow cylindrical bore and small finger holes. The narrow bore and small finger holes being a critical design choice that enabled notes in the upper part of the second octave, and those in the third octave, to be played in tune, through the use of forked fingerings. The move to a conical bore in Baroque flutes allowed those upper second octave notes to be played with the same fingerings as in the lower octave.

Thanks for the information!

I didn't know about the small holes and forked fingerings in the 2nd octave, very interesting.

Great thread. Ardal Powell’s excellent The Flute puts each of the types of flute being discussed here in its historical context and is well worth a read. http://www.flutehistory.com/TheBook/index.php3
A key (no pun intended) takeaway from the book is that no design is inherently superior to any other—each type of flute was optimized for its social and musical context and merits being understood in that particular context. (Too often, the flute’s evolution is cast as developing from the primitivism of the Renaissance or Baroque flute to the technical perfection of the Boehm system, which is hooey, bunkum, and plain wrong! I recommend not reading Nancy Toff’s The Flute Book for this reason.) Seen in their historical contexts, all sorts of flutes have a musical offering to make and offer various benefits or drawbacks depending on the intended musical use.