G b key

[andrewK]

I have an old English cocus flute of perhaps 1830 (- a fine player ) with a Gb key alongside the shaft of the long F key. Has anyone any experience of such keys ? What is it for ?

[Terry McGee]

I have an old English cocus flute of perhaps 1830 (- a fine player ) with a Gb key alongside the shaft of the long F key. Has anyone any experience of such keys ? What is it for ?

Intriguing, Andrew. I should like to see an image of that!

Terry

[Loren]

I have an old English cocus flute of perhaps 1830 (- a fine player ) with a Gb key alongside the shaft of the long F key. What is it for ?

Playing Gb, I imagine.

Loren

[andrewK]

A good point at last, Loren.
Any further bright ideas on the subject ?
I haven't seen others. Are there many about ?

[sturob]

That is strange; how far from the tuning of F# is the Gb?

I assume you hold down the Fnat and the Gb keys at the same time to get Gb?

How's the temperament of the scale?


Stuart

[peeplj]

I have seen a Boehm-system flute--I don't recall what make--that had such a key, it was an F-sharp key whose touch lay alongside the G-sharp's touch, and was used to get a pure third-octave F-sharp, since this can be a problematic note to hit on the Boehm flute.

I haven't seen a simple system flute similarly equipped, though; this is interesting. Do you know who the maker was?

--James

[Terry McGee]

Andrew sent me an image - very interesting. Easy to visulise - see how you have an F natural key and block between fingers R2 and R3, imagine you have another between R1 and R2.

The flute itself has small holes, so you can imagine the F# is on the flat side normally. Opening the extra key would at least bring xxx xoo up to F# and even beyond it to Gb (different notes in the days before equal temperament).

A key with its pad in this position, but with the shaft running down the flute to be pressed by R3 was a feature of Tulou's 12 key Systeme Perfectione'. That flute had even smaller holes.

Terry

[andrewK]

I say I haven't seen others. Shows how dozy I am ! I have a lovely French flute made rather later ( which is on the "what cocus wood looks like" page ) which has an almost similarly placed key which goes over the short F .
It is a little lower however - not in the middle of the two holes,so I suspect it will be more of an adjustment than a true stand alone note.
What do I know !!
This flute was presented to a Cornish Mason in the 1870's by his Lodge. I hope that the current Lodge in the relevant town ( Helston )will fill in the details if I can contact them. They seem to like their Masonic history!
Anybody a Freemason? We don't have so many here since the Police cleaned themselves up a bit, some say !

[jim stone]

A: Mozart was a freemason.

B. But Mozart's been dead for years

A. Wolfgang.....Gone?