Non-wooden Irish flutes-a good choice?

[Doug_Tipple]

As the world’s supply of traditional tonewoods dwindle, the question can be asked as to whether it makes good environmental sense to chose different materials for instruments, if the materials are available, and especially if the man-made materials perform well. In my latest string catalogue I see that the newest carbon-fiber violin bows are competing vary favorably with bows made from the traditional wood-of-choice pernambuco, a tropical endangered hardwood.

With regard to Irish flutes, it is my thesis, based on performance alone, that flutes made from non-wood materials can be made to sound indistinguishable from flutes made from the traditional woods, many of which are endangered worldwide. If I am not mistaken, I understand that that was the finding published in an article in Scientific American. Experiments with Irish flutes, about which I have heard reports, suggest that most listeners have difficulty distinguishing between flutes made from PVC or delrin (for example) and flutes made from traditional materials, such as blackwood or rosewood.

Michael Eskin, a session player and teacher in San Diego, CA and a member of C & F, sent me an audio clip (51 sec. mp3, 803 KB) of him playing a Tipple 3-piece PVC flute with an inserted Tipple-Fajardo wedge.

http://home.earthlink.net/~life2all/sit ... _cisco.mp3

Can you tell by listening to this audio clip, that the performing instrument is not a world-class, wooden Irish flute? Whether your answer is “yes” or “no” to this question, it still makes good sense, in my opinion, in a world with a growing population and dwindling resources, to consider choosing an instrument made from non-wood materials.

Best wishes and happy fluting

[glauber]

Hmmm.... you write as if you know the maker!

My opinion (the minority opinion) is that the flute's shape and primarily, the person playing it, are more important in the sound production than the material the flute is made of. And of course Mike does a first-rate job.

The cylindrical (sp?) flute has an advantage over the conical, in that the air flows more freely, with less resistance. It's more efficient, louder and a little brighter. I think we can hear this in that sound clip. So that's to say that it sounds different from a conical flute.

But it still sounds terrific! Congratulations! I'd have no problem recommending this flute to new players or people looking for a plastic flute to have for trips and as a backup.

g

[nopaul]

As with all economies, the price will dictate what the insturments are made of. When the price of the various woods gets too expensive for the purchasers, then most of the flutes will be made out of ersatz materials. How about promoting tree farms? Direction for this would need to come from the larger insturment manufacturers who make a lot of clarinets and oboes. How much does the raw material for a typical wooden flute cost anyway?

[Jon C.]

How much does the raw material for a typical wooden flute cost anyway?

When I started making flutes, I tryed the PVC pipe and bamboo. The tone quality is nice with PVC, of cource you can't get that upper octave intune with the cylindricle flute.
Then there is Delrin that is closer to the sound and feel of wood.
But then when I made one out of Blackwood, the tone quality is so much better and the harmonic vibrations in the flute, change the whole feel of the flute.
It is true that we are loosing the resoures of some hardwoods. As far as the cost of the turning blank, it varys on what type of wood, Blackwood would be about $50 for a flute, Snakewood $200, Cocuswood $250 etc...
As apposed to delrin that would be about $15 a flute.
Most of the cost of a flute is not the materials, but the hours spent making it.
Jon

[Julia C]

Re: the MP3 - it's a great sound, a spirited bit of playing and a high and lonesome place evoked. I have a Tipple PVC (don't sound like that yet, but, gimme a chance) which even in my hands evokes misty sundowns on a rocky Irish coastline and not an American hot water system (except when I hit a duff note) which is the provenance of said PVC toob. I can't quite believe it, and the price Doug asked makes it, to my mind, a generous gift from himself to skint flutophiles. BUT in the spirit of scientific enquiry, Doug, could your friend post an MP3 of himself playing the same tune on a wooden flute for comparison?

[Doug_Tipple]

The purpose of my posting this thread was to promote flutes made from non-traditional materials in general, and not necessarily my PVC flutes in particular. As most of you know, there are many great sounding flutes made from delrin, as well.

And, Jon, there is a way to make a cylindrical bore flute have the correct intonation throughout the two octave range. It involes using a wedge insert that rests against the stopper cork. It acts pretty much like a parabolic taper on the Boehm silver flute.

With reference to PVC and hot water plumbing pipe, forget about it. Cold water only please. CPVC for hot water. A friend of mine, who owns a music store in Tucson, left one of my PVC flutes on the dashboard of his truck. Needless to say, the flute deformed and was worthless.

Finally, to reply to the request for sound files to compare various wooden and non-wooden Irish flutes, Michael has a flute comparison webpage that includes sound files from a variety of different flutes and whistles. Just click on his heading to hear the audio files.

http://www.granitehillsdesign.com/micha ... rison.html

Again best wishes!

[eskin]

I've updated my flute comparison site with the new recording including the wedge...

[chas]

Doug Tipple wrote:

As the world’s supply of traditional tonewoods dwindle, the question can be asked as to whether it makes good environmental sense to chose different materials for instruments, if the materials are available, and especially if the man-made materials perform well.

What's environmentally friendly depends largely on how you value what.

I believe in the last decade or two, there have been great strides made in managing blackwood resources. A lot of that did come from pressure from the instrument makers and end users. I know cocus is really in trouble, and some of the lesser-used woods are endangered. Boxwood is becoming much more expensive, but that's not because boxwood is becoming rare, it's just that it grows so slowly that the 100-year-old trees/bushes that yield timber that's large enough for a flute are becoming rare.

Now, what about things like Delrin? Well, it won't disappear, at least not until our oil reserves do. It's also non-biodegradeable. Its manufacture also takes a lot of energy and has some nasty byproducts.

I'm not arguing one side or the other (I realize Doug isn't either), as they both have merits. Just pointing out that there are two sides to the discussion, and one isn't clearly more environmentally friendly, at least not to me.

[jim stone]

also there is mopane, and woods like maple can make lovely sounding
flutes.

[oleorezinator]

www.matitflutes.com

[Jon C.]

...and woods like maple can make lovely sounding
flutes.

I tryed a "Sweetheart" all wood flute made of maple, at "Lark in the Morning" in SF yesterday, it had a really nice sound, strong low D, but very vibrant.
Jon

[Doug_Tipple]

Wow! Carbon fiber flutes. What we have here is an uncomfortable dynamic between convention and innovation. This may be absolutely irrelevant, but let me ask a question. How many wooden parts do you think are used on the space shuttle? Give up? The answer is one: a pencil.

There is obviously a nostalgia for things of the past, like wooden flutes, for example. But I am looking forward to the great sounding flutes of the future. Just as my modern electronic keyboard is so vastly superior to the heavy and limited keyboard dinosaurs of the past, namely the piano, I can see that there are going to be new materials and new ideas which will take flute playing to new heights that we can hardly imagine. Being an iconoclast, I look forward to that with great anticipation. I want a remote where I can control my flute volume, timbre, pitch, and tone qualites that we haven't even thought about yet. As you can imagine, they kicked me out of the traditional group because I had unacceptable ideas, so forgive me for being different.

Best wishes and happy fluting!

[Cyfiawnder]

There is also a little known whistle maker that is perfecting carbon fiber whistles... I'm not sure of his name... it will come to me... Oh yea it's me Now I know I don't have much valuable expertise in flute material, wood versus plastic, versus delrin (ptfe) versus carbon fiber. As far as I know... working in the PTFE industry delrin is produced with flourine and carbon... I do not believe it is a traditional "plastic" material that are products of the Crude Oil industry. PVC makes great sounding instruments that are cheap to manufacture, and stand up to the elements. You can't exactly drop your Boxwood flute in the dish pan and give it a good soak to clean off all the dried ale and haggis chunkies, but you can do it with Delrin, PVC and Carbon fiber. Some people worry about a delrin instrument melting if left in the car in direct sunlight... It "might" soften up a little bit but it won't melt like ABS plastic would. By soften up I mean it might have a little more flex than usual but I have seen Delrin Oven caps (used in ptfe extrusions) stand up to 700+ degrees F for weeks on end without melting... although at around 850 they will start to char. Carbon fiber makes great sounding instruments that are feather light. It is a bit brittle though so if something pointy was pushed against it it could possible get crushed... But it will take a fall down the stairs with little complaint...

[JessieK]

Just as my modern electronic keyboard is so vastly superior to the heavy and limited keyboard dinosaurs of the past, namely the piano,...

Oh. My. God. A piano is SO VASTLY SUPERIOR to a modern electronic keyboard. I think you may be alone in your thinking here.

Yes, I can absolutely tell that the recording was not done on a top quality wooden (or other conical bore) flute.

As the only person in the world to own a delrin Olwell flute, I think I can add something to this conversation. While a listener might be fooled about the material of a flute, the player knows and can feel the difference. The delrin Olwell has the same dimensions as any other Nicholson style Olwell flute (when the lined headjoint is paired with a wooden Olwell Nicholson body, it sounds great), but something about the plastic bore is just a little bit less sonorous, a bit less sensual. There is, most certainly, something special about wood. It feels and smells different, more alive, more animate (as opposed to inanimate).

I think there is good reason for a growing market for flutes made of synthetic materials, but it is my hope and belief that wood will not be abandoned.

[Hiro Ringo]

While a listener might be fooled about the material of a flute, the player knows and can feel the difference.

I agree with this point as very important one. The difference is apparent from the players' side and it contributes to the players' spirit and thus to their performance. And in this context, any instruments cant be consistent in tonal quality(neither can Sindt whistles).

But if someone insists that the difference from listeners' side can be very subtle,I can agree with him/her.

I once recorded two Sindt whistles(original one and tweaked one) for a test and while I was playing each Sindt, there had already been a certain difference between two. But I didnt label each recording so at first I could hardly tell which recording belongs to which whistle(but as I did these tests continuously,I could gradually start to tell the difference from the recordings themselves). :roll: