Hello,
On a 6 keyed flute, what are the advantages or disadvantages of having a d foot or a c foot? I tried both and this is not obvious to me. Of course, I don’t have a lot of experience.
Which are you talking about?
- short foot vs. long foot?
a) Difference in balance, depending on weight of head.
b) Extra length and holes for venting to assist strong, even tone.
c) Short foot can utilize a smaller section of wood.
- 6-key vs. 8-key?
a) Expense & difficulty of manufacture of 2 additional, complicated keys.
b) Maintenance of those keys. They’re normally in the open position, and affect venting.
c) Added keys let you play the lower notes.
d) Weight and balance.
I’m having a proper job pointing back to my older thread:
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/end-flare-d-vs-c-foot/76783/1
Good to see that it was a useful question 
So with relation to your question: a C foot allows a maker to stick closer to a successful, classic design with little end-flare related complications. A D foot forces the maker to redesign the foot, with the larger flare, and all the complications that arise from that. (I have not yet made my new foot, so I don’t yet know those complications.)
From a player’s perspective it’s more or less the same: the C foot allows us to rely on the successful old designs, while with D flutes we have to rely more on the individual maker’s ability to come with a proper new design.
Oh, and I should add that it allows a maker to have one design for all his instruments (no matter how many keys are added). And sometimes the buyer gets an option to add foot keys later on (when the maker has acquired the skills, or the buyer the money).
Just a little nit to pick: There are plenty of antique 4- and 6-key flutes without long feet; the flutemaker doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to make a short foot.
I’ve heard makers say that the long foot makes a stronger bell tone; I’ve heard other makers say the opposite. So there’s no hard-and-fast rule about it. The long foot definitely helps balance the weight.
Phil Bleazey’s considered opinion at the very bottom of the linked page.
I haven’t done any experiments, but having played a good number of flutes with keyed and unkeyed long feet and with short D feet, I can honestly say I don’t see any point in the “dummy” long foot. Properly designed short foot flutes have as strong low Ds and perform as well throughout 3 octaves as do long foot ones. I can only give two positive reasons for having an incomplete (lacking the low C/C# keys) long foot - balance (not a strong factor, IMO) and the option to add the keys later if it is made to allow for that. Having the low notes available on a fully keyed long foot is of course a separate issue.
As a buyer, I wouldn’t worry about it at all. If the maker likes dummy long feet, fine, if like Phil Bleazey he doesn’t, also fine. A buyer’s criteria should solely be how the instrument plays for them and the potential it offers them to develop. Having and using an Eb key is, IMO, a far more significant matter!
I have a keyless instrument with a long foot. These are my three reasons for choosing it:
- The maker made both. I trust the maker, so I believe that either would do the job beautifully.
- The potential for adding keys later (this is VERY minor as I doubt I will want/need to do this)
- I like the look better. ie aesthetics. (Given the statement in #1 above, this became the deciding factor)
…john
So, it seems that there is no influence on acoustics in a c foot without keys. Am i right? I see a difference between a long foot without keys and one with the c and c# keys : the presence of the keys partly covers the holes where the holes are totally open without keys. I guess there will be an influence on the tuning or the sound of the flute. Did you experiment that? Geert Lejeune once showed me that an 8 keyed flute with a very low D sounded a lot better when the C key was removed. The flute used for that experiment is one made by a contemporary top maker (I will not tell his name!!!).
I haven’t given it much thought to be honest.
I do trust and believe Sam Murray to deliver the best, and my flute certainly is in good tune with a lovely tone.
(Has C and C# holes, unkeyed)
Sounded BETTER, tonewise? or just raised the pitch slightly, requiring less skill for a player unable to blow to pitch?
It has been said here by several people over the years (some of whom can play well and have a good
deal of experience) that the low keys on an eight keyed flute
make the low D somewhat less strong. That hardly makes it true, of course. I won’t name names,
even if you boil me in oil. My own experience is too meager to have an opinion.
Hamilton states on his website that he believes the pewter plugs weaken the low D.
No difference between a C and D foot? Not so fast, now.
Let’s hold aside the actual keyed-up C foot and just compare a long vs. a short foot on a keyless flute. The claim has been made here that there’s no audible difference. Sounds like another C&F unprovable hypothesis, but let me just put this out there for thought:
Anyone who has really gotten to know his or her flute knows that there are certain fingerings which require venting for best tone. Different flute designs require different fingerings for certain notes, but every flute has a note or two that can be affected, for better or worse, by venting. I’m thinking now of a couple of flutes I own, both in D, which exhibit this particular difference: on one, the second-octave B can be improved by also putting down the D or D and E fingers, while on the other flute doing so takes the B down nearly a quarter tone.
This is just one example, but it demonstrates that there are noticeable interactions between tone-/fingerholes in use and those “downstream”. I could have mentioned the various cross-fingerings for C natural as well, especially those in the oxo xxx / oxo oxx range; every flute has its own preferred version of that one, to be sure. Clearly, what’s happening in the lower ventings is affecting notes upstream.
Returning to the long foot, I have no trouble believing that the design of the foot, including length, size of (non-fingerable) holes, and bore, can have a strong effect on tone and tuning of the low D, as well as affecting how the flute behaves right the way up the scale. Anyone who wants to explore this topic further is invited 'round to my place, where we have both cold beer and a flute with interchangeable short and long footjoints for experimentation. Come on over!
Rob
bit difficult for the maker to optimize for a long and short foot?
the devil’s in the details again?
I suppose that explains the “B foot” gizmo key, eh?
Nice offer, Rob. Pity about the geography! I’m sure your summary of the physics side of things is quite correct and in my opinions above I wasn’t trying to deny that, just to say that I don’t think ultimately it matters (or should matter) to most players whether or not they have a dummy long foot or a short foot, provided always that the flute in question has been properly designed and made to the relevant specs.
Re: the comments above about the low C#/C keys affecting the low D’s pitch or strength on a fully keyed C foot - yes, of course they do: BUT, if the flute is properly built and correctly set up, those things are accounted for and taking the keys off and leaving bare holes should in fact be detrimental, at least to pitch (the D should become sharp). That is not to say that on some old flutes with flat foot syndrome there may not be some advantage in removing the foot keys if you don’t want to use them, but on a modern maker’s 8-keyer, unless it is meant to be a historically accurate copy, that should not be the case. If I found my foot keys were making my low D flatter/weaker, I’d look to adjusting their rise to make sure they vent adequately, not remove them! (Incidentally, that goes for all the keyed holes and applies just as much to the open-standing keys on a Bohm flute - the rise/pad clearance has to be correct.)
Just for fun…
Here is a picture of a Bulgarian kaval where you can see three of the four “Devil’s holes”.
http://bulgariana.com/product_info.php?products_id=4065&osCsid=c
This instrument never had keys yet it has a foot joint and sound holes. 
The art of flute-making is quite a mystery.
…john
Oh… and kavals make some pretty cool sounds too.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=geGdSOdCzsw
(and yes, he is circular breathing)
Thanks, guys, for your opinions. Instrument building is probably not (yet???) purely scientific. We are lucky that there is still a touch a “genie” in it. Otherwise, all flutes would be the same and what would we talk about then?
Careful now…leave the door that wide open and there’s no telling what the lads will start to talk about!
Rob
I’ve also seen this on a couple of whistles that could play high C# only when the bottom hole (R3) was covered.
If you want to try throwing math at it, in his PhD thesis, Antoine Lefebvre worked on an elegant mathematical model of flutes that might demonstrate a difference. But in practice … ya gotta play 'em to find out.
I believe in the Boehm world, most players opt to have a low-B foot (hmm…wonder how that would sound on a keyless simple flute?) partly because the hypothesis is that it darkens the tone throughout the whole instrument, makes it not so bright, adds a layer of tonal complexity. Could be that the low C foot on a simple flute might have a similar effect…