Is there really a noticable difference between Rosewood and

[theweirdscotsman]

Is there really a noticable difference in sound quality between Rosewood and Blackwood, or is it just personally feel? Which do you all prefer?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: theweirdscotsman on 2002-07-02 16:29 ]</font>

[nickb]

I would say - no. I know many people would disagree, but I suspect that the 'differences' that people are hearing between blackwood flutes and flutes made from other materials are caused by slightly different embouchure hole shapes. The embouchure holes on most flutes are cut by hand, and even the finest craftsmen will never get all his holes identical in shape. Personally I would go for rosewood because it lookes nicer than grenadilla.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: nickb on 2002-07-09 08:08 ]</font>

[BrianW]

A year or so ago I asked Flute Maker Terry McGee the same question. He referred me to a very interesting scientific study. I tried to find my copy of the article without success. I'm sure Terry would be happy to give you his opinion and the reference to the article.

I have played flutes in Blackwood, Rosewood, and Mopane, without noting a significant difference. But then, I have only been playing for about 3 years.

[jim_mc]

Blackwood is a denser and more stable wood, so part of the reason for its use is long term durablility of the instrument. There are many serious makers who do not use rosewood at all. That being said, the trees that these two woods come from are in the same botanical family. Sound wise, I doubt if I could discern the difference between flutes (or fifes) that were otherwise identical. There are probably those who can, though.

I just thougt of something else: George Cloos made fifes, flutes and piccolos from both materials back in the 19th century. There are still a bunch of the blackwood ones in regular use - I have 2 of them myself (C and B flat fifes). I don't know of any rosewood ones that have survived, but I do know several collectors who are looking for one. This is just a little unscientific anectdotal support to the theory of blackwood being more durable over an extended period of time.

_________________
Don't you boys know any nice songs?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jim_mc on 2002-07-09 16:11 ]</font>

[rhodeirish]

Greetings,

Okay, I'll post the dissenting opinion here. This is solely based on my own personal experience rather than actual science and research, so take it as such.

I own two keyless flutes (blackwood and Cooktown ironwood) by the same maker, both were made within a year of the other, so there are no radical design differences. I play both with roughly the same frequency.

In my opinion, the blackwood flute has a darker, huskier tone, while the ironwood flute sounds much brighter. Both seem to be as loud as the other.

I _suspect_ that you'll also find that the rosewood flutes are also brighter and sharper in tone than the blackwood flutes.

Again, this is solely based on my personal experience. I'm no expert.

Take care,
John Harvey

[RudallRose]

The differences between the woods is not in the quality of the sound, but in the color of the tone.
That aside, each wood reacts differently to temperature, humidity, etc. Boxwood is naturally dry.....and Grenadilla (depending on the variant, such as Cuban or Jamaican) is already naturally oily.
And they all react differently to oiling, so choose the oil wisely.
That said....my favorite is Cocus, by and far away, followed by boxwood (European, if you can find it new......India when it's an antique).

[gcollins]

Dave may have a point, but the problem with this question is always that someone ALWAYS has an opinion either way.

There are a lot of characteristics of a flute that are more noticible to the player as opposed to the listener.

Dave just likes Cocus, because he is a nut for the antique R&R flutes. But truthfully I don't know anyone who is strongly in favor of rosewood over blackwood or cocus in tone or durability.

But you have to love the funky woods from Australia--cooktown ironwood, cocobolo, red lancewood...who knows? But note that these flutes with cool looking woods just look great! Blackwood goes black, cocus goes close to black.

[BrianW]

It is also important to realize that when someone says Blackwood is more dense or stable than Rosewood they are talking about very very slight differences. There is likely enough variance in trees of the same species that it is possible to occasionally end up with a piece of rosewood that is denser and more stable than a particular piece of blackwood. I suspect that much of the preference for wood within the flute community is based on tradition. And, the tradition was influenced by limited availability of suitable species of wood to early flute makers. Is it possible, had Rudall and Rose been an Australian firm, that todays preference would have been for Ironwood or Red Lancewood?

The one consistent element of this debate is that top flute players, such as David Migoya, say that they do hear a difference in the tone colors of the different woods.

(I am a woodworker of many years and a flute player of very few years.)

_________________

[RudallRose]

>>Is it possible, had Rudall and Rose been an Australian firm, that todays preference would have been for Ironwood or Red Lancewood? <<

No, I don't think so. That's because the woods that R&R (and the other great makers of the early days, such as Potter and Clementi, etc) were getting their wood imported from African, Indian and Jamaican sources. Remember, perhaps, that the woods were coming from what were at the time English colonies. But so, too, was Australia, although it was more a prison colony than an actual settlement.
Rosewoods were being used, and there are fine examples of this through the ages, most notably the cheaper German and French flutes/instruments. Rosewood is actually a blackwood, a euphamism for those within the same family of oily woods. Ergo, cocus, grenadilla, cocobolla, rosewood, etc, etc, are all cousins.
My dealing with, and preference for, cocus extends beyond the antique flutes. Rudall & Rose were the top-making flute firm in the world at the time, so obviously they had their choice of woods worldwide. While some were made of fine India boxwood (and the examples of the surviving ones are beautiful indeed), the bulk of their early work (before 1855 for certain) was cocus. Such was the case with the other top firms.
While the style and material of keys changed, rings went from ivory to bone to sterling to German silver, the basic sounding material remained the same: cocus.
Cocus today isn't difficult to get, but it is expensive, as it should be because of its rainforest connections and subsequent implications.
But cocus when cut/milled new is actually orange in color. Today's makers will darken it with nitric acid if needed (and gives off a clove smell, as a session colleague recently noted from my Rudall headpiece made by Pat Olwell). And good grenadilla is actually brownish with purple hues in the grain. Very neat.
They're all just variants from the darkest blackwood, ebony, which makes a pretty harsh flute as it's so hard and dense.
Still, was cocus preferred over boxwood even back then? Yes, as is evidenced by the number of boxwood flutes that were stained dark. Maybe it was a hangup with uniformity or otherwise, but it happened. Boxwood was certainly cheaper to acquire and easier to work with than any of the blackwoods.
Our affinity to find new types of woods for flutes (Cooktown ironwood is a long-standing material with renewed life....better known as Lignum Vitae, considered by some to be the ultimate in woodwind material) is running the gamut because of the depletion and expense of regrowing slow maturing exotic forest woods.
I've not found one of the newer woods to my liking in contrast to the long-standing favorites. However, maybe it's a matter of a generation or two to go by before they're finally accepted as the standard (rather than as the basmati-child replacement).
Bottom line: just because it's pretty doesn't make it a good flute. Case in point is a zebra wood fife I've got. Looks great on the wall. Plays like sh*t.

[sturob]

I know this is an older thread, and I too have a cocus flute that I like . . . in addition to a nice one out of red lancewood, and another from blackwood. But take a look at this link.

J.&R. Glen catalog page, 1920

J.&R. Glen was a pipemaking firm in Edinburgh with (under various iterations) a history dating from the first quarter of the eighteenth century. This discussion is interesting because Glen's 1920 brochure puts forth the idea that, at least for the pipes, African blackwood (understood to be Dalbergia melanoxylon) superseded cocus and ebony. Now, of course, (a) this is for highland pipes, and (b) they're talking durability rather than tone quality. Certainly we'd all agree that good blackwood is more durable than good cocus, but either can make a nice instrument.

I think another issue with the apparent differences between timbers is their ability to take a fine finish. Blackwood can get very smooth, as can cocus; boxwood bores tend (at least from what I've seen) to be a little rougher. Same's true for pink ivory, which is one of my favorite non-black timbers. So I wonder how much the bore polish, if you will, has to do with the tone.

Interestingly, having been involved in these discussions with regard to "cold-wind" or bellows-blown pipes . . . over in that camp, there's a much stronger following for ebony. Of the blackwood/cocus/ebony triptych, I *think* ebony is the most dry. So it's probably the least suitable for mouthblown winds, at least as far as resistance to cracking goes. One expert in the field of uilleann pipes, Geoff Wooff, arguably the Guarnieri if not the Stradivarius of late-20th/early-21st century pipemaking, works almost exclusively in ebony.

Just thought the history buffs might find the catalog page interesting. I've looked at the other 1920 catalog available on the above-linked website, that of Henderson, and there's not a discussion of timber. However, looking through their price lists, you find that they make a distinction between bleached and unbleached ivory. And, of course, imitation ivory was already quite common.

Stuart

[jim_mc]

I'm glad this topic has been resurrected. I ran into a guy who handles some antique instruments (and who's opinion I value) who showed me two old Cloos fifes - one made from Rosewood and one from Ebony. The fife he swore was Rosewood was so dark that I would have assumed it was Blackwood and not given it a second thought. So my earlier comments about woods for fifes should be taken with a grain of salt.

Questions for Dave M.:
1. Have you come across any fifes made of Cocus?
2. If you have, what did you think of them?
3. If you haven't, what do you think about the possibility of Cocus fifes? Maybe I need to get Skip or Hammy to make one up for me. My wife will understand that the expense is for the sake of art/science/musicology, right?

[drummerboy]

Jim your just as sick as I am. Walk towards the light Jim ,walk towards the light!

[jim_mc]

Josh:

I have admitted that I am powerless over my fife/whistle obsession, and that my life has become unmanageable. That is the first step.

I have come to believe that a power greater than myself an restore me to sanity. That is the second step.

I have come to believe that either Colin Goldie or Hammy Hamilton is that power. That is not the third step, but hey, I'm working on it!

It was good to see you last week.

Jim

[Mal]

I was somewhat suprised when I read Dave Migoya's comment Cooktown Ironwood was otherwise known as Lignum Vitae. I always thought that Cooktown Ironwood was one of Australia's many gum (eucalyptus)tree species.

The Lignum Vitae that I am familiar with has the scientific name of Guaiacum officionale, and is a tropical American tree. and is an exceedingly heavy, oily wood that is usually olive green in color, but which is sometimes dark brown. Playing flute made of this wood would feel like playing a steel pipe of equivalent mass.

In fact it is so heavy that it was sold not by the board foot but by the pound!. And it is so hard and tough that it has to be worked with metal working equipment, and so oily, and so stable and impervious to splitting, wear and moisture that is is used as a bearing material for marine propeller shafts.
A piece of lignum vitae which I acquired over 50 years ago when it was freshly cut is just as green today and it was when I got it. On the other hand, On the other hand, the SAR chapter to which I belong has a gavel whose head is made from the lignum vitae used as a propeller shaft bearing on the turn-of-the century battleship U.S.S. Oregon, and it is dark brown.

Some years ago there were a number of Philippine hardwoods known by the inaccurate catch-all description of "Philippine Ebony", some of which might have possibilities and wood for woodwinds. They are no more related to true Ebony than Philippine mahogany is related to true mahogany, and I know of none that have been exported to the U.S. in any commercial quantity.

There is another group of several tropical American tree species,marketed under the generic name of "Greenheart", whose wood is greenish in color, is quite hard and was used by San Francisco area boat builders for making the keels of the local commercial fishing vessels. The grain was not prominent, as I recall, and it was also used for turnery. I suspect it might be a fine material for making flutes, and anybody interested should check with Higgins Hardwoods, which is probably the SF area's largest hardwood dealer.


Mal