The history of Irish flute making

[AaronFW]

Or did older players use it?

Yes. Older players commonly used it, well before Paul Davies.

This might seem like a pedantic question, but I mean it in sincerity: Do you happen to know why they called it a concert flute?

The reason I ask is because I would expect people to simply call it a "flute" unless there was a good reason to distinguish it as a "concert flute". Was it to distinguish it from the German Flute (or whatever other name the Boehm flute might go by) or to distinguish it from something else?


(As a side note... since I had it easily available and it seemed relevant, I did a word search through Hammy Hamilton's 1996 dissertation on "The Role of Commercial Recordings in the Development and Survival of Irish Traditional Music 1899 - 1993"; he only ever refers to the flute as a "flute" except for one instance where he makes a distinction to say that a particular tune collection had been arranged "for violin, German flute, and pianoforte". ... I also haven't bought his The Irish Flute Player's Handbook but in his extract of the 2nd chapter "The Flute in Ireland", he only ever refers to it as a flute, though he does have a brief aside to define it as "the cone bore simple system flute".

This is all interesting to me since Hammy is an Ethnomusicologist, but he never seems to find it important to refer to the flute as anything other than "a flute". )

[Thalatta]

Thanks for starting this Terry, and for your general enthusiasm! One thing for us all to remember when we talk about "traditional wooden flutes" is that we're presuming that these are generally of European origin (Irish, Breton, Scots, and so on, but also Canadian which has European origins, etc)… But there are traditional wooden flutes all over the world for musics of all kinds in African countries, in India, China… etc. So, the term "Irish" is actually a more humble term than anything like "traditional wooden flute", since the former is closer to what it is talking about (a music with shared origins stemming from roughly 19th and 20th century Europe) while the latter, "trad wooden flute", pretends to be inclusive while actually ignoring anything like the Indian flute or the Chinese flute, etc.… My thoughts.

It might be interesting to ask musicians who play different kinds of traditional music (but music with European origins, players like Chris Norman for example) what they would call it...

It would also very interesting to know if there are any musicans who play Japanese, or Chinese, or African countries' music on these flutes.

Whatever the case, I see no problem with calling it the Irish flute since that seems to be the music that really saved those English-made simple system flutes from oblivion... Am I wrong? I may be - over to you guys!

[Conical bore]

Does anyone know if Solen is our only female "Irish or similar" flute maker? (I'm going to be really embarrassed if we have heaps!) It's an interesting question to wonder why.

The male/female ratio in makers of wooden simple system flutes seems similar to other niche instrument areas. Gail Hester is the only prominent female mandolin luthier I'm aware of. In the world of high-end acoustic guitars there is Linda Manzer, and again I can't think of another name, but I've been out of that scene for a while.

Woodworking as a hobby that evolves into a career has always been culturally associated with males, for the usual reasons and traditions that divide up our pursuits. Women do ceramics, guys cut wood. It takes some real dedication to craft to break out of the stereotypes. My hat is off to the female instrument makers out there, wherever they are.

Back to the whadd'ya call this thing questions.... I never call it anything but a flute when talking to other trad musicians. I do call it an Irish flute when talking to civilians, with further explanation, just so they don't think I'm aspiring to be Ian Anderson or James Galway. Or worse, a crystal worshiping, pseudo-Native American flute player using it for meditation. I live in a town where there's a lot of that kind of New Age woo-woo floating around. So calling it an Irish flute just eliminates a whole range of other associations when talking to a civilian. Even if it's not completely accurate, and I'm playing as much Scottish as Irish music on it these days.

[busterbill]

I think everybody's right. Irish traditional musicians played simple system flutes waaayyyy before 1970, but there was a surge in making flutes specifically for accentuating the "style" of Irish traditional music that was getting more codified as more "super groups" were recording and were being copied world wide. Most of us don't email a flute maker with the request, "Could you make me a flute that will help me sound like John McKenna or or Peter Horan?" Something shifted in the 70s. That shift could be simply the Matt Molloy effect, or something else entirely, but the majority of people who were playing Trad, either in recordings or a local sessions after the 70s were looking for a burlier weightier sound, and flute makers began to follow that trend. New instruments were being introduced into the mix, the bouzouki, the guitar and the bass-ier bohran began to define the sound for many. Flutes makers began to study the historical instruments and tweak the designs with these sounds in mind.

That being said a lot of simple system flutes that were made to play in bands or symphonies found their way into the hands of musicians who played traditional Irish music. But it seems that the period in the 70s when the music became a world wide phenomena provided an opportunity for instrument makers to focus on what that new market was demanding.

A continuing history will be appreciated. And healthy debate about details is to be expected. I look forward to listening to every one's opinions.

[fatmac]

I think the term concert flute describes the predecessor of the orchestral flute - both of which would normally have had keys - whereas the simple system flute was originally a key less instrument.

But then again, the original English flute, I think, was the recorder, or its predecessor. So names do change over time, but these days, I don't think any instrument should be named after a region or a country, it just confuses - personal opinion, of course.

[Casey Burns]

Whoa! I have been kind of going to ground the last few days and haven't read through this yet and am not likely to given the time of the year and what I am trying to accomplish. But I have a few comments on documenting the history of Irish Flute Making. Some are suggestions and some are red flag warnings.

Inherent bias and revisionist history - something I have noticed here occasionally when discussing flutes and ranking one versus the other is that in some cases they will disparage some maker's flutes despite having very little exposure to that instrument maker's output. I am guilty of this occasionally and have also been the victim.

Simple unawareness of certain makers - its no fun being excluded in the history if one was there and played a part in it, no matter how insignificant

Peer reviewage - any kind of history of this topic, especially anything that ends up in a scholarly journal - should have some degree of peer review. This would improve the quality of the final output. And the more reviews the better.

Perhaps a geographical approach. Terry could cover the history in Australia and surroundings since he is there. This would cover himself, Grinter, Hoza and makers that I am not aware of.

I could do the West Coast of North America. Many of us are so far away from the spine of British Orthodoxy and have forged our own path and it would be good to recognize that aspect. West Coast makers include Mark Minkler, Rod Cameron, Michael Hubbert Peter Noy who is a transplant from Toronto, Rob Gandara with his Carbon Fiber flutes and myself. There may be others but back in the 1980s only Mark and I were really active here making Irish Flutes out of wood. Who am I missing?

Someone else could do the East Coast, and then Great Britain, Ireland, France and elsewhere.

Oral History approach - one nice way would be to simply have all the makers pretty much submit their autobiographies.

Just some thoughts. I have to get back to my pile of tasks!

Casey

[Peter Duggan]

I think the term concert flute describes the predecessor of the orchestral flute - both of which would normally have had keys - whereas the simple system flute was originally a key less instrument.

No. Unless taking the logical standpoint that all flute systems (including Boehm etc.) are ultimately descended from keyless ancestors. The simple system was always keyed.

[Nanohedron]

The reason I ask is because I would expect people to simply call it a "flute" unless there was a good reason to distinguish it as a "concert flute". Was it to distinguish it from the German Flute (or whatever other name the Boehm flute might go by) or to distinguish it from something else?

...except for one instance where he makes a distinction to say that a particular tune collection had been arranged "for violin, German flute, and pianoforte".

This is as good a time as any to point out that early on, well before Boehm was even born, "German flute" was indeed a very common designation in English for the transverse simple system flute as we know it. This Irish example is from 1724:



As an aside, note the awkward and not altogether successful phonetic rendering of "Pléaráca Na Ruarcach" (O'Rourke's Feast, the only tune O'Carolan composed for someone else's poetry).

Scotland, 1782:



An American example from 1816 (still yet pre-Boehm):



I've seen many other examples and references, too. As I understand it (this is probably way oversimplified), the transverse flute as a force arrived first in Britain via a German route, or at least was thought to, so the name stuck for a time as a way to distinguish this innovation, previously culturally uncommon at best, from the recorders it eventually supplanted. So as to "German", during that period Boehm had nothing to do with it.

[AaronFW]

I've seen many other examples and references, too. As I understand it (this is probably way oversimplified), the transverse flute as a force arrived first in Britain via a German route, or at least was thought to, so the name stuck for a time as a way to distinguish this innovation, previously culturally uncommon at best, from the recorders it eventually supplanted. So as to "German", during that period Boehm had nothing to do with it.

Nice.
Though I am slightly disappointed that your first image seems defunct. (At least at the time of this writing.)

[Nanohedron]

Though I am slightly disappointed that your first image seems defunct. (At least at the time of this writing.)

Hmm. It's still working for me.

[Terry McGee]

Not working for me either. Geographical licensing?

[Nanohedron]

Not working for me either. Geographical licensing?

Like me, AaronFW's in the States, though, so I wonder if it might be something else. I'll see if I can find another source for the same pic and try that.

... Okay, found just one other example; how's that? If it doesn't work, we're probably sunk for that one.

[Peter Duggan]

It was working before if I copied the URL, but not displaying in C&F. Now it's displaying here too.

[Thalatta]

Really interesting stuff above. Ok, so it could be called the German flute, or the Irish flute. Hugo Hamilton, whose father was Irish and mother was German, published his (great) semi-fictional auto-biography entitled The Speckled People, "speckled" being the adjective he thought best described his mixed (Irish/German) origins. You can see where I'm going with this… The speckled flute.

[Peter Duggan]

Ok, so it could be called the German flute, or the Irish flute.

I'd say German flute really refers to baroque types, so predating any models influencing what you might or might not call Irish today.