Cubitt wrote:I won't argue that point, if it is true. May I ask your basis for that assertion, Jem? Kincaid was born in the 19th Century - I don't have to tell you about Boehm. What traditional source refers to the D# key on any flute design as Eb?
I don't deny that for some reason professional, organological writers tend to call it "D#". Rockstro does too (I just checked), save when referring also to Quantz's enharmonic Eb key. However, he, like just about everyone else, calls the Bb that, not "A#" and the C natural likewise, not "B#", which logical consistency would suggest. Mind you, those writers are all post-Bohm and likely to have been influenced by his choice of terminology. I've lent my copy of Quantz to Ben and can't check what his usage was for a single-keyed flute prior to his own enharmonic addition.
I have already at least by implication, if not explicitly, cited my basis for my opinion. It is admittedly subjective and is not about citing printed authorities.
In
My
Experience - 30+ years of interacting with all kinds of fluters and talking about our instruments, from a starting point of a few mainstream classical lessons on Bohm flute, I have rarely encountered anyone who refers to it as "the D#" key or who is surprised by references to "the Eb key" in casual conversation. Notwithstanding my own organological reading, that's what I've always known it as. I'm not coming at this from a documented academic angle but a common-place, everyday one where the habitual popular usage may well not be considered "correct" by the academic specialists. Of course, I have no statistical back-up to my subjective recollections/perceptions of my experience.
However, I have also checked in the one beginners' tutor book I have to hand - Arthur Hart's
Introduction to the Flute (OUP 1967). Like most tutor books and scale charts, the key is not named as such in the fingering diagrams save as "R4" (some authors prefer to number or letter label the keys independently rather than with finger associations). Hart's only "named" keys on his diagrams are the low C# and C, the G# and the B/Bb pair. Being a Bohm flute book, of course the venting of the R4 key for all fingerings save those requiring it shut is shown in all diagrams from the very beginning, but the first textual mention of it is quite late in the book where the note Eb is introduced and the key is referred to as "the Eb key". [Interestingly (but unsurprisingly!), when introducing Bb Hart also refers to the Bohm R1 alternative fingering as a Bb fingering, not "A#".]
It would be interesting to have a quick survey of other flute Primer books such as
A Tune a Day etc. Anyone with any such care to peruse and report????? After all, it's that early exposure as we learn our way around our instrument that is the most influential factor - what our teachers/tutor books used - hence my point about a "traditional" usage.
Maybe this is another transatlantic dichotomy? Perhaps it is a rare instance where the Board Poll facility might usefully be used? How about setting up a poll asking which term people habitually use/have been conditioned to by their teachers and peers/most commonly hear? Make it clear that what the responder might think to be desirable or "correct" (or why) is not the poll choice, but what s/he
actually uses as an un-intellectualised default term. Whether it would be worth trying to design into the poll a means for voters to indicate whether they are N. American, British or "Other" might be interesting too, but I'm no poll designer!
As I've already said, I don't think there is a right or wrong here (nor a "row" about it), nor ultimately that it "matters" (save for facility of communication), but it is interesting to see what folk
do use and (maybe
) why. There's an apparent consensus usage in the world of academic writers, but is that reflected in the everyday world of players? Thus far, at least in Britain, I'd say not.
