Kade1301 wrote:
Couldn't flutes be made from the wood of fruit trees? Cherry and plum have a rather good reputation for recorders, pear is a question of taste (as a player I love it, but I've seen a recorder maker sneer - he considered it not worth his time...) And don't they grow olives somewhere in the U.S.? Even if the trees can live pretty much forever - somebody somewhere must cut one every now and then because there's recorders made from them (they are exceptionally pretty with a good sound if well made).
The basic answer to your first question is yes! Baroque flute makers frequently used pear and plum, and depending
on the specific specimen chosen, and how it is treated, you can make a nice flute from it. We talk a lot about different
species of wood, but the environment in which a tree grows also makes a big difference to the suitability of the wood
for flute making. Terry makes a good point about this above. Trees that grow in desert areas and at high altitude where
there is a short growing season and a scarcity of water, often have finer grained, denser wood than the same species
grown in a warm, moist, lowland area.
There are several species of tree that grow in North America that can make really nice flutes. I've been experimenting
with this a little, harvesting, milling and seasoning my own wood, and making flutes from it. I've had some surprisingly
good results recently with English hawthorn wood, which is considered a weed tree here. The right specimen can produce
a flute that has very similar characteristics (playing and visual) to boxwood. My friend Geoffrey Ellis has also been
experimenting with using resin infusion techniques to improve the properties of various domestic woods, and has had
some impressive results.
I have a nice selection of mountain mahogany wood that I am excited about too. I collected this in remote river canyons in eastern
Oregon and Idaho almost a decade ago. It came from trees that had been dead for an unknown amount of time before that, so
the moisture content was already extremely low. These trees grow at altitudes between 4500 and 5500 feet in desert mountain
areas on sun-baked rocky hillsides where virtually nothing else will grown. The wood is denser than water and the grain
size is so fine that it turns and polishes to a glass-like finish. Its not a wood that will ever become commercially viable, though,
because its really difficult to season, but for that one-off special instrument, I have a feeling that it will be perfect.