This may have been answered before, but I can’t find the answer: anyone recognise the different parts of Matt Molloy’s Boosey Pratten in this video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RPRVI0pWFg
The head cap is not that of a Boosey Pratten ; did someone say the head was made by Chris Wilkes? If so, anyone know why he would have replaced the head ? I thought Boosey were supposed to be super duper in tuning etc…
well, firstly, Boosey’s tuning are certainly not “super duper.”
Their C# is woefully flat unless you vent the C key or learn to lip it well.
The 8key Pratten Perfected, among its few innovations, helped expand the clarity of the low E, which was “veiled,” according to several writings of the period.
There were several perfected flutes of multiple keys, starting of course with the 8key.
Though it’s a Pratten, at 0:51 we see the crown of this flute is squared. All Boosey crowns were rounded on top with the stem protruding through. But notice that the very Pratten trait of barrel with lower beaded ring and upper ring to be flush.(very clearly seen at 2:04/2:06)
But at 1:15 we see the foot and that is certainly a Pratten trait (won’t say Boosey since Hudson was doing this design pre-Boosey).
The embouchures of a Pratten were very large and oval. Heavily undercut, too.
The Rudalls are not quite as much and it’s possible Molloy had a head made with the Rudall cut he was accustomed to having from his earlier Rudall.
I don’t suspect it’s the Rudall head itself since they dont’ cross-fit very well together.
At 2:08 however, we see the upper headpiece well and notice that the upper ring below the crown is not a Boosey-Pratten ring, but more Rudall-like.
The same appears to be the case with the lower ring of the embouchure part.
It’s even clearer at 2:55
I think it’s possible he had an upper head made, it seems.
As you were meant and expected to do - on all C19th 8-key flutes. So, since that was the expected/intended fingering, if they play an in-tune C# with it, the flute’s proper C# isn’t “woefully flat” - the unvented fingering is just wrong.
Excuse the off-topic rant - it’s just that we see this kind of thing said so often with reference to C#, F# and E on 8-key flutes (played without the appropriate key-venting), as though there was something wrong with the flutes or with their maker’s pitch-perception and/or design ability. Both those things may be true by modern standards and these flutes certainly can have intonation issues, but mostly not with those particular notes if the correct fingerings are used! To play them unvented and complain about them being flat is just silly and misrepresents the antiques and their makers. However, this fact is why many players now prefer modern made flutes which have (as far as possible, which it isn’t entirely) had the 6-hole diatonic tuning adapted/optimised for key-less playing.
then explain to me why the Rudalls fail to have this issue, eh Jem?
or the Hudson Pratten for that matter?
This was not a universal fingering of the 8key flute, sorry.
It would be stupidly foolish to suggest players to run the venting of a long C key on quick passages in order to bring the C# into tune. Unvented, the boosey pratten flutes play a C# almost a full half step flat.
It’s a flaw in the fingering. Woeful flaw.
If we disagree, so be it…but it was hardly a super duper tuning is my point.
Now…super duper tonality…different discussion.
but let’s not lose sight of Thalatta’s initial question about Matty’s flute here, eh?
Boosey’s “Scale of Fingering for R.S. Pratten’s Perfected Cone Flute” (they don’t make titles like that anymore!) is actually very interesting on this topic. It lists four fingerings for C#5, numbered as 1 to 4, presumably in order of preference. They are:
Confused? Fair enough, let me walk you through them…
So, this is an example of a fingering chart that anticipates opening a c key for c#, but it’s (preferably) not the c key we have. One of Pratten’s improvements was to add a thumb operated C key with its touch beside the regular Thumb Bb. Because of these two touches, there is no remaining real estate for supporting the flute with your L thumb, so you are pretty much forced to adopt the three-point-grip defended by Rockstro, and often wrongfully attributed to him. Once you adopt that grip, your left thumb can hang in the breeze or press either C or Bb touch at will.
Of this key, Pratten says:
“The new thumb C key cannot be too highly estimated, and I should recommend every Flautist to acquire its use; it will cost but a few days practice to become perfectly familiar with it. Indeed by playing slow music at first, and using no other fingering for C [natural], I doubt not but that one day’s careful study of it, will be sufficient to enable the player to use it with facility.”
[Note I had to put the word “natural” after C as I don’t seem to have a natural sign available. Where does one find that?]
Putting that altogether, Pratten would probably agree with both Jem and Dave. On his flute you ideally should open a C key for C#, but he recognises that’s sometimes hard using the regular R1 C (which is why he puts it at 3rd preference). If you have a spare L thumb, here’s a good use for it.
Mr Boehm of course had been advocating the same solution since 1832, excepting he went for the Release-to-Open option, rather than Pratten’s Press-to-Open.
The rest of Pratten’s fingering chart is available at:
http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/PratFing.htm
Terry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_(music)
The Unicode character MUSIC NATURAL SIGN ‘♮’ (U+266E) should display as a natural sign. Its HTML entity is ♮.
I usually just copy and paste symbols from a place I know I’ll easily find them.
Unfortunately, ♮ doesn’t have a convenient short hand like using the # symbol instead of ♯ or b instead of ♭.
Thanks! I’ve already knitted a scarf - I’ll wear it in your honour!
♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮♮
Terry
I should have mentioned though that Pratten didn’t recommend opening F♮ when playing F#, not even as an option. So he must have felt that huge hole 5 was enough, even though it still tends flat.
Terry
Really? Can’t speak for Hudson flutes, but my experience (far less than yours, of course) of actual Rudalls and what most here would describe as ‘Rudall type’ (including many modern-made and supposedly tuning-adapted) flutes is that their open C# is indeed significantly flat unless the long C key is vented for the 1st 8ve and the oxx xoo, fingering used for the 2nd. I’ve just checked my own R&R and unvented the 1st 8ve open C# is some 40 cents flat; vented it’s nearly bang on.
I’m in work as I write this and can’t go checking fingering charts, but as when Terry and I discussed F# venting recently, I believe a survey of period charts will show the majority advocating the vented C# fingering as standard. It was accepted (as in practice we do now) that in fast passages it wasn’t feasible to vent and that the poor intonation would not be noticeable in swift passing. I believe modern makers of keyless flutes find that, in order to provide a workable cross-fingered C natural, they cannot enlarge or place the C# hole so as to permit it to give a perfectly in-tune note - it has to be left somewhat flat. It is just one of those inevitable design compromises of the simple system flute which, as players, we have to accept and work with/around - or go play a Bohm. (Terry?)
Thanks, all, for your replies. I asked because he spoke so positively about the Pratten in the interview on the firescribble site, yet I was curious to see that the head - or at least and perhaps only the crown/head cap - is not that of an ordinary Pratten.
Here’s a photo of that same flute:
Doesn’t it seem as though the ring just above the tuning slide is wider than the ring below the tuning slide? In an ordinary Pratten, the those two rings would be the same size, and here they do not match (you can see the same in the video). So, it could well be a head from another flute… rather than a custom-made head for that flute. David, you suggest it’s probably not the Rudall head since they don’t cross over well with Booseys. I wonder what it is then? Could it be just a very special Boosey?
As far as I know that headjoint was made by Chris Wilkes, but I´m not completely sure.
And anyone know what R S Pratten is holding here? A Boosey? A Hudson?
The 99th caller gets a lifetime supply of flutes of her or his choice… oops, there I go again making promises necessarily I can’t keep.
A Rudall Flute 
Sorry, I am jokin
Chris Wilkes told me (1995 approx) that he’d just made a head for Molloy’s D Pratten. (For what it’s worth)
H
The Rub; Daniel’s Mazurka & Russ O’Conway’s Saddle Sore, circa 1988
http://www.box.net/shared/3ext4vp05u
Save your hot air for blowing down your flute
You can have a look to this video too and check the flute:
Lovely. Looks also like the metal is nickel silver, not sterling. Are the any Pratten’s Perfected Booseys out there with sterling silver keywork?
And the rings on the headjoint look more shiny and less yellow, or, sterling silver. I never knew the head wasn’t original…
You (we) may be reading too much into this. I think the pic and the video of “Cheiftains 6” both look like polished Nickel Silver. I can’t confirm that this is the head that Chris W told me of but I suspect so.
The Rub; Daniel’s Mazurka & Russ O’Conway’s Saddle Sore, circa 1988
http://www.box.net/shared/3ext4vp05u
Save your hot air for blowing down your flute
the pratten flutes with Hudson keys were in sterling. haven’t yet seen hudson keys in German Silver. perhaps the screws couldn’t be made of that? dunno.
I don’t know if there are silver keys in the style of the GS ones. The ones i’ve seen/played/owned in that style were all made of GS, including rings (except for the upper band on the barrel, also the crown stem, which were sterling).
I’ve just checked my own R&R and unvented the 1st 8ve open C# is some 40 cents flat; vented it’s nearly bang on.
wow…i’ve checked 6 rudalls here at home, of various years in age and make (some boxwood, others cocus)
all are spot in at C# unvented, 5-10c sharp of 440 when vented.
don’t know what to tell you there, Jem.