FS: Noy Unkeyed Boxwood Flute on Ebay

The Chiff & Fipple Irish Flute on-line community. Sideblown for your protection.
User avatar
chas
Posts: 7697
Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2001 6:00 pm
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 10
Location: East Coast US

Re: FS: Noy Unkeyed Boxwood Flute on Ebay

Post by chas »

Nanohedron wrote: It should be kept in mind that Noy's preference has been to reproduce, more or less, the period examples. No doubt he brings his own ideas to the table, but he's very much about working for those who want an informed, historically accurate sound for performance purposes. The trad market as we know it isn't highest on his radar, but he takes all comers and is very pleasant and easy to work with.
For his reproductions (and the Rudall and Pratten embouchure cuts more or less), you're absolutely correct. It's my understanding, though, that for his Irish flutes the designs are his own. That's why he offers a large-holed and small-holed rather than Rudall-style bore and Pratten-style bore, each with whichever embouchure cut you want.

I own one of his small-holed flutes. It's like nothing I've seen, either in person or in drawings. It most closely resembles a Bleazey, which is based on a very early (I think maybe in the 500's serial number) Rudall and Rose. The taper is very gentle; it fits on a 1/2" dowel in my flute rack. With an Eflat key it's fully chromatic with cross-fingerings and some lip on the F natural.
Charlie
Whorfin Woods
"Our work puts heavy metal where it belongs -- as a music genre and not a pollutant in drinking water." -- Prof Ali Miserez.
User avatar
Nanohedron
Moderatorer
Posts: 38212
Joined: Wed Dec 18, 2002 6:00 pm
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: Been a fluter, citternist, and uilleann piper; committed now to the way of the harp.

Oh, yeah: also a mod here, not a spammer. A matter of opinion, perhaps.
Location: Lefse country

Re: FS: Noy Unkeyed Boxwood Flute on Ebay

Post by Nanohedron »

chas wrote:It's my understanding, though, that for his Irish flutes the designs are his own. That's why he offers a large-holed and small-holed rather than Rudall-style bore and Pratten-style bore, each with whichever embouchure cut you want.
Okay, that makes sense, although my take is slightly different. I was aware that his trad flutes weren't rigorously faithful copies of certain types, and of course there were the various heads and embouchure cuts to choose from, but during discussions with him at the time, Peter said that he always referred to historical models for their well-established virtues, and those elements would come together in composite ways. For example, while the head on mine was a Rudall copy, the body, which I left to his discretion, was of a Nicholson design. In that regard, the result was all Noy. How much further his own revisions went into it he didn't say, but as I recall, at the time he wasn't interested in significantly reworking already-good original designs, much less creating new ones (aside from making hybrids, as with mine) because he thought the old designs had enduring value ever worth revisiting. I got the sense that this emphasis was something of a passion with him, although I must also admit that it seemed frankly rather eccentric to focus so strongly on the historic for trad flutes while his contemporaries were all about breaking new ground; but historic is his main gig, and he is sought by professionals of that sector, so I figured he knew what he was doing when it came to his own patch. And after all, we trad players celebrate the old English models, but as those become less and less available, my chances of finding The One out of that dwindling lot seemed next to nil, so I went with Noy as a logical substitute. I can only say the result certainly worked for me, and then some. But of course all that was well over 13 years ago, and I'm sure much has transpired since then. I don't recall a small-holed option being available to me when I commissioned mine, so if that memory's correct, I'm glad but not all that surprised to hear that Noy is advancing the options in his trad flute line. If he is now exploring designs wholly unique to him, I think it can only bode even better (although from my subjective angle it's hard for me to imagine how much better you can get - not to take anything away from other makers, but this is just to say that Noy's definitely among the top ones, IMO).
"If you take music out of this world, you will have nothing but a ball of fire." - Tribal musician
dunnp
Posts: 1391
Joined: Thu Mar 11, 2004 2:52 am
antispam: No
Location: Glasgow

Re: FS: Noy Unkeyed Boxwood Flute on Ebay

Post by dunnp »

This was my boxwood Noy. It had huge holes , a huge bore, and a modern cut w thinned head.
It was probably the most responsive flute I’ve ever owned with a huge sound.
I regret selling it sometimes, at the time I was concentrating on my Monzani flute.
It was also some of the best workmanship I’ve seen in any flute.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zvPWduWMPt0

I saw on Facebook Peter has another design he made at someone’s request with a massive 21 mm headjoint bore. That combined with an x cut would be a cannon.
Post Reply