Climate in India?

[flyingparchment]

Fiddles are nowhere near as fragile as flutes. I have both, several of each. Fiddles are pretty much indestructible and will only improve with age. Flutes, OTOH, deteriorate from the moment they're made. (I am completely confident in my statement about fiddles; less so in my statement about flutes.)

i've heard it proposed a few times that while fiddles improve with age for a long time, eventually this reaches some sort of plateau and the wood begins to degrade rather than improve. there's some concern that the oldest old itatlians might reach this point soon. unfortunately the number of old italian fiddles i own (i.e., zero) isn't enough to investigate if this is actually true...

fiddles aren't indestructible and they do crack; this is a common repair job for luthiers and (much like flutes) shouldn't affect the instrument when done well. i know a few people who have needed crack repairs done on their fiddles. but i do have the impression that cracking is much less common on fiddles, and they seem to be generally more tolerant of changes in climate than flutes do. maybe that's because flutes are solid and round, while fiddles are made of separate parts which are held together with a weak glue that often breaks before the wood? or, maybe it's something to do with fiddles being held under tension when they're strung, while flutes aren't...

Bamboo flutes are widely played. So I have doubts of the need or point of the Clinton flute. Perhaps the Brits wouldn't want to be caught playing a native flute.

that might be true, but maybe it's more that making a metal keyed flute was easier than trying to retrofit the simple system keywork onto a bamboo flute? (i don't really know anything about Indian flutes, but i'm assuming they are quite different to play than 8-key simple system flutes.)

[Nanohedron]

riving

Ah, Terry, you have won my heart.

[Conical bore]

Fiddles are nowhere near as fragile as flutes. I have both, several of each. Fiddles are pretty much indestructible and will only improve with age. Flutes, OTOH, deteriorate from the moment they're made. (I am completely confident in my statement about fiddles; less so in my statement about flutes.)

I think that's probably true, and also for flutes vs. all the other string instruments. Hey, maybe we're back to why flutes never made it into Appalachian OldTime music!

My fiddler S.O. still has the fiddle she learned on as a child, and it looks fine after almost 50 years. I have my grandfather's fiddle which is much older, and it was able to be repaired into playable shape (although it will never sound great, it's a cheap fiddle).

Fiddles and flutes can both develop cracks from environmental stress, but both types of cracks can be repaired, so that comes out about even. The profile of wear over time is different though. Flutes wear in places that are more difficult to repair, like strangled or otherwise warped tenons, or warping of the entire barrel (for boxwood?). Apparently if you play as hard and as often as Kevin Crawford, you can even wear out the shape of the embouchure hole! In contrast, most of the playing wear on a fiddle is either peg wear or divots in the fingerboard, which are relatively easy repairs.

One other factor may be the scarcity of repair techs who know how to address issues with a 19th Century wooden flute design, compared to the scads of stringed instrument repair people out there. This may be one reason why wooden flutes are seen as more fragile over time, if there are just so few people who know how to repair them and keep them going through the years.

[Terry McGee]

riving

Ah, Terry, you have won my heart.

Heh heh, Nano. Are you a person given to riving, or just an enthusiast for fine old words?

As you may remember, I also work with carillons, and our National Carillon is undergoing a major upgrade to bring it into the modern era. (There's been some great work on bells, clappers and carillon mechanisms over the last 50 years, some of which I've had the honour to be part of.) We're also adding a large bell, and that's brought me back into contact with a few great old words.

Bellmakers use a shaped "strickle" to create the smooth inner surface of the mould for the bell. When you use the back of a knife to level off a teaspoon of sugar in cooking, you're actually using it as a strickle.

And once something is cast or moulded, removing any remaining protruding ragged edges is called fettling. We still see the root used as in "Nano sure appeared in fine fettle today..."

It makes you wonder what flute-making archaisms we could revive to add solemnity and intrigue to our work-a-day endeavours?

[Terry McGee]

or, maybe it's something to do with fiddles being held under tension when they're strung, while flutes aren't...

Well, they're not under tension now, since the nice Indian gentleman convinced Jim to relax!

[Nanohedron]

riving

Ah, Terry, you have won my heart.

Heh heh, Nano. Are you a person given to riving, or just an enthusiast for fine old words?

Just an enthusiast and collector in this life; I think my days of molting the ol' exoskeleton are over. Well, not entirely true: I'd riven my trousers once, but the metamorphosis was more emotional than physical.

Bellmakers use a shaped "strickle" to create the smooth inner surface of the mould for the bell. When you use the back of a knife to level off a teaspoon of sugar in cooking, you're actually using it as a strickle.

Excellent! A new word. "Get me a strickle." "A what?" "A strickle. I need to level off this cup of flour." "I'll level you if you don't start speaking English." "But I am speaking Engl..." *WHAM*

[Terry McGee]

One other factor may be the scarcity of repair techs who know how to address issues with a 19th Century wooden flute design, compared to the scads of stringed instrument repair people out there. This may be one reason why wooden flutes are seen as more fragile over time, if there are just so few people who know how to repair them and keep them going through the years.

And herein lies a paradox. We see lots of 19th century flutes continuing to come up on Ebay, pretty much all of which are in terrible condition, almost always quite unplayable. Maybe been unplayable for over 100 years. Yet nobody threw them out.

I'm guessing that nobody will throw out the flutes we're making now. I tell the family, when I finally go to the big Session in the Sky, I won't need a headstone. I have 1000 memorials out there already....

Now, for the most part, fixing up an old flute is no harder than maintaining a clarinet. Pads wear out, but pads are consumables, like fiddle-bow hair, or fiddle-strings. Tenon cork similarly. Any woodwind repairer can replace these, on a flute just as easily as on a clarinet.

Which invites us to look for those failings that the average woodwind repairer isn't in a position to fix, and it brings us right back to our starting place - the cracks around tuning slides. If we can beat those, immortality awaits....

[PB+J]

Fiddles are nowhere near as fragile as flutes. I have both, several of each. Fiddles are pretty much indestructible and will only improve with age. Flutes, OTOH, deteriorate from the moment they're made. (I am completely confident in my statement about fiddles; less so in my statement about flutes.)

I think that's probably true, and also for flutes vs. all the other string instruments. Hey, maybe we're back to why flutes never made it into Appalachian OldTime music!

Yep!

[Steampacket]

The Scottish "Irish" who emigrated and wound up in the Appalachian mountains didn't have a tradition of flute playing so it's not surprising that stringed instruments dominate in Appalachian music.

"Fiddles are pretty much indestructible and will only improve with age. Flutes, OTOH, deteriorate from the moment they're made. (I am completely confident in my statement about fiddles; less so in my statement about flutes.)" benhall 1.

Not true as regards flutes. I have three cocuswood Rudall flutes made in 1842/43, 1844/45 and 1892. There's nothing fragile about them apart from normal wear and tear, pads, cork replacement, a couple of new key springs, Two of the patent head joints have a crack, but this dosen't affect playability. They still have their original flute boxes, and no doubt have spent several decades just resting, they certainly haven't deteriorated and I play them regularly.

[Steampacket]

Has anyone ever come across a cocuswood simple system Rudall flute for sale in India? I've searched but haven't come across one so far. Prehaps the English who played when India was a colony took their flutes home when they retired and returned to England

[Terry McGee]

A sudden thought. The new makers of wooden Boehm style flutes - what are they doing about the tuning slide problem? Back in the day, Rudall Carte used to fully line the "parabolic" heads of their Boehm cylinder flutes, and use an integrated tuning-slide receiver and corked-tenon arrangement at the top of the cylindrical body. That all seems like overkill, and doesn't get around the problem of splitting. It does make it so much harder to repair if it does split!

Anyone got one of these new-fangled wooden Boehms? How do they handle the tuning slide aspect?

[Mr.Gumby]

Anecdotally speaking I can say that wiithin two years of moving into a semi derelict cottage in the West of Ireland I had one fiddle come asunder on me (the neck came off while the fiddle was stored in its case). Flutes have never given any problems.

[benhall.1]

Anecdotally speaking I can say that wiithin two years of moving into a semi derelict cottage in the West of Ireland I had one fiddle come asunder on me (the neck came off while the fiddle was stored in its case). Flutes have never given any problems.

Yes, but the point is that any half well made fiddle will not be affected by that at all. You can even run the things over, and they can still get fixed up by a reasonably competent luthier to be as good as they were before (which is better than new).

[Nanohedron]

Which invites us to look for those failings that the average woodwind repairer isn't in a position to fix, and it brings us right back to our starting place - the cracks around tuning slides. If we can beat those, immortality awaits....

Why hasn't binding caught on in the West?

[PB+J]

I like my M&E flute a lot and get a lot of joy out of playing badly. The M&E is great-it's extremely rugged, has a big hard sound, and there's nothing at all precious about it. I do feel like there's a better flute out there, and I'm always looking, but I balk at a wooden flute, because of the cracks and because of the relatively higher maintenance. I have an old no name grenadilla flute I got on ebay, and have been gradually restoring (it has a crack in the barrel), and it has a nice light feel. To bad it's not in tune with itself! Olwell is a couple hours away but I think "do I really want to spend that kind of dough on a flute that's going to crack?" One night a few years ago I woke up to a loud crack and the sound of ringing strings--my double bass had just cracked a rib. Expensive repair! This is what happens when you go from 90% humidity to forced air heating in a month.

Terry's slide seems pretty ingenious, I must admit. Presumably the cork would compress over time?