"The McKenna Influence"

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Re: "The McKenna Influence"

Post by paddler »

I don't think we should read too much into the blackness of the wood in the photographs of McKenna's flute, or my Peloubet flutes.
My Peloubet flutes look very different under different light conditions. In bright sunny conditions you can see some lovely red
hues and figure in the cocuswood, and they don't look very black at all. But indoors under artificial light they look almost black.
I think it all depends on the light and how the camera captures it. This may also be the case for McKenna's flute. Hammy does
mention that it was made of cocuswood. High quality, cocuswood with nice color and figure is quite a common feature on many
high class American antique flutes.

As for the ivory heads, they were much more common on American flutes than British flutes. I currently have at least a half dozen
ivory headed American flutes in various states of repair, one ivory headed French flute, a couple of ivory headed German flutes,
and two almost identical ivory headed flutes labelled "Clementi London" which I suspect to be American made flutes with fake stamps
(design features, style, etc date much later than the end of Clementi's business, and are quite different to other Clementi flutes I've
owned or seen) ... but that is a whole other story. The lower quality American flutes, typically with 1 - 4 keys, often used Ivory for rings,
so there must have been a ready supply of whatever kind of ivory they were using. It seems to me that around 50% of the antique
American flutes I've seen use ivory for some part or other. A quick scroll down the American flutes on the following link illustrates this.

http://jonathanwalpole.com/flute-collection
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Re: "The McKenna Influence"

Post by Terry McGee »

"Cites identification guide for ivory and ivory substitutes"

Hmmm, let's see. Types of ivories: Elephant and Mammoth, Walrus, Sperm Whale and Killer Whale, Narwhal, Hippopotamus, Wart Hog....

Wart Hog? Who's going to want a flute with an embouchure made of Wart Hog Dentine?
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Re: "The McKenna Influence"

Post by paddler »

This short article talks about the use of elephant ivory in America in the 1800s, and its link to
the slave trade (ivory came in on slave ships) and export of cotton (most of the world's cotton
came from America, and it was a very popular import in Africa). Later, with the opening of the
Suez canal, America's ivory came from India.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/elephant ... d-luxury-0

If you dig into the earlier links I sent about Peloubet, you will see that the 1850 census lists
him as spending $800 per year on raw materials (listed as wood, metal and ivory). In today's
terms that is well over $30,000 for his raw materials. And as far as I can tell, he was relatively
small-scale compared to other flute making centers in America, such as those in Fluteville (see
link below).

http://jonathanwalpole.com/wp-content/u ... r-2015.pdf
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Re: "The McKenna Influence"

Post by paddler »

Here is another interesting piece of information to go with the above. Hopefully, this hasn't strayed too far from the original post, but it is at least still tangentially related to McKenna's flute ... :oops:

So, the American History article above claims that the Connecticut River Valley was the center of the American elephant ivory trade, with huge
volumes entering America at that location. Interesting, Fluteville was located right there (Litchfield, Connecticut) at the same time, so it is not
surprising that they had easy access to a lot of elephant ivory.

Apparently, the many "...ville" place names in that location sprang up at the start of the Industrial Revolution in America, mostly named after their rich founders, but occasionally, as in
the case of Fluteville, they were named for the product they produced. These "factory villages" were basically Americas answers to Britain's "satanic mills", and were, in contrast, designed
to provide nice living conditions and good wages for their workers. The article below has a brief discussion of these Connecticut "factory villages" (although I have to add that I suspect the
"ville" suffix more likely came from the French word for "town", which is "ville", so it doesn't necessarily mean "village" as we use the term).

https://www.ctexplored.org/the-american ... nnecticut/

So, putting all this together, we had town in Connecticut established specifically to house the factory and its workers whose primary purpose was to make flutes using industrialized methods.
This was co-located with the center for importing elephant ivory into America, and this (ivory import) was a huge business, initially built on the trading and transportation infrastructure of
the slave trade. Initial production of musical instruments was stimulated initially by outright trade embargoes and later by very high tariffs on musical instrument imports to America, all of
which grew out of the 1812 war between America and Britain. So, all in all, it is not surprising that we find a lot of American flutes with ivory heads and rings, that appear to have been
mass-produced in a similar way and style to those we see from England ... but which are not imports from England.

The differences in pitch and tuning between British and American flutes also has an interesting background based in the way concert pitch evolved in the separate locations. It is
almost by chance that we enjoy American flutes with decent A=440 hz tuning. Apparently, while Britain was racing upwards through pitch standards peaking at British High Pitch,
Americans (being anti-British at the time) opted for the French diapason normal standard (A=435 hz). However, that French standard was initially specified at a temperature of 59 degrees F.
American flute makers found that, at more normal temperatures, their flutes played at a higher pitch. In fact A = 435 at 59 degrees ends up being very close to A=440 at 70 degrees.
Lucky us! :D
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Re: "The McKenna Influence"

Post by Jayhawk »

Fascinating stuff Paddler! As an owner of a Firth & Pond 8 key (circa 1860), which plays great, I love learning more about American flutes.

Eric
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Re: "The McKenna Influence"

Post by Terry McGee »

Oh God, Jayhawk, don't encourage him. The drool is already penetrating my keyboard and raising sparks!

(I'm still struggling with whether I want to add a large-holed US style flute to my range. At my age?)

Seriously, yes, I agree with Paddler, the US flute market benefited dramatically by avoiding a lot of the shenanigans that the English makers were forced to deal with. A mix of xenophobia, British Exceptionalism, competing enthusiasms, new problems being loaded on before previous problems had been dealt with. We're seeing it revisited in the form of Brexit. Oops, sorry Boris. Sorry Liz. Sorry Rishi. Ooh, I can't see this ending well....

The specification for Diapason Normal as 435Hz at 59ºF (15ºC) presumably relates to church organs in France. Who else is going to be playing music while their teeth chatter?
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Re: "The McKenna Influence"

Post by GreenWood »

The diapason law was passed in February, so maybe that would explain the 15°C... probably a compromise between living rooms at 20 °C and making piano tuners work twice as fast at 10°C

I found a copy of the ministerial report that explains some of the reasoning but it is in french

https://www.retronews.fr/journal/149/1538569/1

[That text is a report of those commissioned with recommending a standard frequency. They start off by saying that higher frequency is an invasion, not just in France but everywhere, and they blame the instrument makers for chasing the brighter tone of higher pitch.

They then write to various countries to seek opinion (and remembering that metric conversion and a European standard were a goal of the day even then), and found general agreement from various sources (some official, others not). In fact the commission proposes the whole world sets to a certain pitch as a good objective.

Basically, everyone agrees with them (from UK a piano maker, the US didn't reply but head of a french orchestra in new orleans did) and including instrument makers, and the only question is what pitch should be chosen. They say to keep current pitch is not to right a wrong, and so choose one lower where most seem to agree, and that is not too big a jump.

Then they say laws should be passed that amongst other oblige administrative verification of all instruments in schools, theatres and other musical establishments, as well as banning out of tune instruments from reward in competition, and also having all official instruments set to that tuning.

They sum up noting how ardently the Greeks protect their music from the dangers of an excessive love of sonority, and give thanks to the minister on behalf of the friends of music.]
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