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...benhall.1 wrote: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.)
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...
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.)jim stone wrote: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.