Flute or Player: You Decide...

[scheky]

Well, I can't tell diddly from that, but then again I've never had a good ear for that sort of thing.

Honestly though, I can give the "it's the player" camp perfect proof. I'm a crappy player. I sound like crap on EVERY flute. Pretty much just as crappy. Some day though....

Of course, I have booked about 6 months total on the flute (and only 2 weeks ago restarted after a year) so I SHOULD sound crappy. Thank god for my whistles...otherwise I'd be disheartened.

[Loren]

I disagree with Gary when he tries to marginalize practical questions, because as he himself points out, people buy instruments based on this qualitative "chud". I agree that people should not be misled into buying a particular instrument on the assumption that they, too, will be able to reproduce the buttery, sweet, delicate-yet-rough, honking-yet-subtle tone as described by someone else. But, at the same time, someone looking to buy an instrument needs some way to discriminate between them. Qualitative adjectives, certainly not; but what do we do in their place?

Simply buy any good quality flute from a reputable maker (the names are plastered all over many posts in this forum), preferrably one that is geographically close to where you live, or buy a good quality flute from someone you know and trust. Then simply concentrate on learning to play, rather than waste time chasing the "Right flute".

I'll quote one S.C. "Hammy" Hamilton, who most of you know well enough by way of his highly regarded flutes. This, from his book - The Irish Flute Player's Handbook:

"There is one common misconception that I would at this point like to dispel. There is not such thing as the perfect flute. I am always meeting people who spend a lot of time and money trying to find the "right flute". In general the defect is in themselves, and not in the long series of instruments they acquire and reject."




Loren

[Flutered]

Oh, I take your point Gary and largely agree with you within my limited experience. But I still reckon that people in the 'its the flute' camp as you put it, would be more inclined to get involved in they could hear the whole tune played separately by one flute or the other. You'd want to hear a fuller range of notes, wouldn't you to make any reasonable judgement.
When I read the sort of comments you ascribe to people, I always assume that there is a large degree of artistic licence and flowery language involved - otherwise how do you engage the reader? All I know is that (a) I find some flutes easier to play than others and (b) I note a general difference in tone between a flute with a sheet of metal in the head and one with a natural wooden head.

[cocusflute]

Recordings of flutes tend to mute their differences to the point that generally you can't tell one flute from another.
Even with the world's best flute in my hands I would still only be me. And with even a mediocre flute in his hands Matt Molloy would still sound like Matt Molloy.
Simply put, the best flutes are more like each other than they are different or than they are like Ganleys or Bucks. The more accomplished players on this board, though they have their favorite flutes, agree on this. Whether you bought a Grinter, Olwell, Wilkes, Hammy, Murray... your fluting accomplishment would still be 99% you and only 1% the flute.
If you think switching from a Murray to a Grinter will markedly improve your playing you're making a big mistake. Of if you think that it is critical to buy, say, a Grinter rather than a Murray- that too would be kind of silly. If either would do for Crawford or Bradley it would probably do for you.
Catherine McEvoy and Christy Barry play old Rudalls. Ronan Brown plays a Martin Doyle. June Ni Chormaic and Matt Molloy play Olwells. J-M Veillon plays a Wilkes. McGrattan plays a Hammy. Crawford a Grinter. Harry Bradley and John Wynne play Murray flutes. Cotter a Cotter. Hernon a Hernon. If any one of them thought he/she would sound noticeably better on a different flute they'd switch (maybe not Cotter or Hernon). And I'll bet that we couldn't tell the difference.
Can anybody really tell the difference between Molloy on his old Pratten (not the Eb) and Molloy on his Olwell? Would he be less of a player had he a Wilkes Rudall or a Hammy Pratten?

[Jens_Hoppe]

Are you certain the Yew flute wasn't in a different key that Desi's main flute?

Sorry, I thought you were jesting at the time.

No, I am not certain but on the other hand I have no reason to believe it was in a different key. I don't remember it sounding particularly high- or low-pitched and the flute was about the size you'd expect for a D flute.

Don't know whether the liner notes on Shady Woods (where I believe it was used) throw any light on the matter. I will have a look when I get home.

[Loren]

Are you certain the Yew flute wasn't in a different key that Desi's main flute?

Sorry, I thought you were jesting at the time.

No, I am not certain but on the other hand I have no reason to believe it was in a different key. I don't remember it sounding particularly high- or low-pitched and the flute was about the size you'd expect for a D flute.

Don't know whether the liner notes on Shady Woods (where I believe it was used) throw any light on the matter. I will have a look when I get home.

I was being serious: It's VERY easy to mistake an Eb flute for a D flute, even up close, and even when you play one, particularly if the slide is pulled out a bit.


Loren

[GaryKelly]

Oh, I take your point Gary and largely agree with you within my limited experience. But I still reckon that people in the 'its the flute' camp as you put it, would be more inclined to get involved in they could hear the whole tune played separately by one flute or the other. You'd want to hear a fuller range of notes, wouldn't you to make any reasonable judgement.

I see where you're coming from now. But if I'd posted a bunch of individual tracks, the natural assumption would be that each track was a different flute. If I attempted to 'cheat' by, say, copying a couple of the tracks, they'd be easily spotted (the tempo, the playing, the everything would be exactly the same). Rama, splendid fellow by the way, has already attempted to judge the number of flutes by listening to the foot-tapping and not the playing (the rascal... he's wrong, by the way). Others appear to have tried listening to changes in 'noises off' to guestimate the answers, and that would be even easier with multiple tracks.

My rationale for creating one composite track is simply that if there were any glaringly significant differences they should be simple to spot when they're right next to each other in a single tune, rather than in separate files (assuming that the number of flutes and types of flute and woods etc are greater than one ).

[GaryKelly]

I was being serious: It's VERY easy to mistake an Eb flute for a D flute, even up close, and even when you play one, particularly if the slide is pulled out a bit.

Indeed, even if you're a world-class maker and you made the thing! (no names, no pack-drill).

[dow]

Interesting... over a thousand views, 52 replies (53 counting this one) and only eight actual attempts to answer your questions.

I think this is a great test and an interesting thread. However, like most things, if it can be controversial, it will be controversial, and so this thread is now four pages long, with only eight direct attempts to answer. I will admit that some of the posts are a real hoot to read, though.

Come on, folks, lets hear what you think... one flute? 12 flutes? Blackwood, cocus, vacuum cleaner hose? What do you think?

Gary, I'm looking forward to the answer.

dow

Edited koz i caint spel kontrovursul.

[Loren]

Interesting... over a thousand views, 52 replies (53 counting this one) and only eight actual attempts to answer your questions.

I have a pretty good ear - several years back there was a thread in which someone posted recordings of a number of different whistles (5 or 6 I think) and I was the only person to identify them all correctly by sound alone.

That said, I won't even bother trying with flute recordings, because I know better - unlike whistles, the flute sounds like the player, and not the instrument. One can take guesses (with this particular recording), but at the end of the day, what you are hearing are, more than anything else, differences based on how each flute suits the player's existing embouchure,and breath support, rather than what the flute itself sounds like, which is exactly nothing, without the player.


Loren

[Markus]

I was being serious: It's VERY easy to mistake an Eb flute for a D flute, even up close, and even when you play one, particularly if the slide is pulled out a bit.


Loren

I can't really shed any light on the yew flute subject, but I do remember speaking with Desi about different flutes. Nowadays he seems to be balancing between the Murray and a flute by Martin Doyle for session and performance. At home he plays a "quieter, sweeter" flute as he put it himself, I think Monzani if I'm not totally mistaken.
So at least this tells us that Desi likes to play different flutes of the same key under different circumstances.
And after this whole rant, a glance at the WFOII home page gives us a statement that the Yew flute would also be in D.

[Wanderer]

I'm an absolute rank beginner at the flute. I don't really recall ever hearing big differences between different flutes in recordings or in person. There may be subtle differences, but I'm not experienced enough to hear them, if they are there.

I bought my Rose flute because that maker has a bit of respect in the forum, and because the price was right. If I had my druthers, I'd buy a McGee flute, not because I think it would sound better, but because the two I've played have been much easier for me to get a good tone out of than any other flute I've picked up and played on. I know there's a certain amount of laziness in that fantasy: the desire to buy a flute that shortcuts the learning process, which is probably why I haven't actually bothered saving the money up for one.

I suppose you could put me in the "in a good flute, the tone audible to the audience comes mostly from the player, at least from my limited experience" camp. I'm also of the opinion that different flute makes may have characteristics other than tone that could affect a player's desire to own them.

[Wormdiet]

1) The thing is, GK, that different flutes often DO sound different. Not on a home recording, perhaps, but definitely in person, which we can't replicate here (and is very difficult on a studio recording too). This is borne out in my personal experience and the personal experience of just abut any other flute player I've discussed it with (in person, not in trolls' online playgrounds). Why is this so hard to accept?

So do the test, J, and post your answers. And please don't talk about trolls, or the Mods will come wading in here double-quick.

I did do the test - as I said, I can't tell the difference. Can't even begin to. (See J. McCain's post.) How is that relevant to what you quoted?

My points still stand. Do you deny that fundamental, audible differences exist between flutes?

Good point on the troll reference.

2) Why do you care that people use figurative language to describe these differences? I'm being serious here. You have some sort of obsessive crusade against it that I find baffling.

I think I addressed this above, I was typing while you were posting. See my comment about the oft-repeated lie, and the endless repetition of meaningless drivel. If I told you my tone was 'rich, creamy, subtle yet full-bodied, sweet in the second octave' would you have the slightest clue what I was going on about? Would you care? Would you base a purchasing decision on it? Believe it or not, some people do buy flutes based on chud like that, and then think they've been sold a McChud because it doesn't sound anything like the glass of Bull's Blood they were led to believe it would do.

If I had never heard or played a flute before, I would agree that the language is pretty meaningless.

BUT - for those of us who have played different flutes, these terms can convey a few things because they point to a common referent.

Moreover, the colorful language can and does convey the subjective impression of a flute from the player's perspective. I think this is valuable in it's own right. A looong time ago I think Dave Migoya said something about his Bb -"it makes mastodons rise from the dead." Having heard several Bb flutes (a common referent) I thought that description was both evocative and useful.

Most importantly, I like knowing what other players think about their own flutes in their own terms. Isn't that enough justification? You obviously don't care for that sort of thing, which is fine, but don't assume you can control the only appropriate form of communication for the forum.

However - it does help when those subjective descriptions come with something a little more concrete. "It seems louder." "There's more fundamental." "It cuts through better in a session." "There's more chiff." Also helpful and useful.

Anybody who spends more than a few hunded bucks on a flute based *merely* on the hearsay of others is very trusting - we're in agreement there.

3) If the whole point of this drill is that "flutes sound like flutes" what are the practical conclusions one can draw? That it doesn't matter which flute one buys? Should we pick one maker's model and get Fender to mass produce them?

That's not "the whole point of this drill", and I don't subscribe to your practical conclusions, for many reasons which've been discussed in other threads.

Good. I hope we all agree that having a lot of flutes to choose from is a good thing.

4) Are you trying to make the point that it's the player for 99% of what we hear? The entire forum has signed onto this multiple times.

Not true. The entire forum has signed on to no such thing, as even a cursory glance through the threads on the front page of this forum will show.

Even Jim Stone has said words to this effect. This entire debate is a magnification of, really, mild disagreements in the grand scheme of things. We're splitting the smallest of hairs.

Why are you being so aggressive? Do you feel I've somehow threatened you by posting a simple experiment?

response via PM.

[Martin Milner]

Could I suggest a second test, with the player simply playing scales and arpeggios up and down on each flute?

Part of my problem with this particular test is that I expect the high end of a flute to sound different from the low end, so they could be the same or different flutes, and I'd have no way of telling.

When testing fiddles (and goodness me aren't there a dozen different variables there), I prefer to play a simple scale, listeing for overall tone and possible rogue notes, then, maybe, a tune. The tune can interfere with one's listening.

[Cathy Wilde]

if you want to know if there are different sonding flutes... don't record yourself playing them, play them in front of other people.

many times people prefer the flute you think is the worst!

That's happened to me. A friend still mourns the long-ago departure of my cracked Pakistani flute; he still claims that was his favorite.

Perception. Reality. Huh.