Loren wrote:Excellent post (with regards to all that I haven't quoted) bepoq.
Super... I also agree with most that bepoq wrote. How about
bepoq wrote:A listener, will hear a driving, percussive, fairly raw sounding march coming off either flute (though at those extremes of size the Hamilton should be a good bit louder).
Louder?
bepoq wrote:but I am damn sure that Desi knows as he plays them and that he hears and, more importantly, feels the difference as he does.
Difference?
bepoq wrote:Likewise, there is no doubt that the flute makes a significant difference to a player's playing even if not always to the way you hear it.
Significant difference to a player's playing?
Jesting aside, I think the most important point of bepoq's post is that of looking from the
player's point of view. Because, naturally, people will be describing the flutes they play based on their own impression, not that of the Joe next to them who might not hear any difference. So a player might describe his new flute sound as "wooden": To other people it might not sound terribly different from his other flutes, but it might be a perfectly valid description in the player's own mind. And if there is some objective quality in the flute which causes player A to hear a wooden sound when he plays it, perhaps player B will also think "wooden" when
he plays the same flute.
Agreeing that this is to a large degree a discussion about subjective terms, it also makes flute (s)hopping perfectly valid. No, you will definitely not become a better player or necessarily sound markedly different by changing flutes, but your flute playing might well sound and feel different
to you. Important or not?
That being said, I do feel a bit sorry for Gary (with so few people taking his test), so here's my take on the recording:
At 6-7 secs or so the sound becomes a bit louder and I think the pitch rises a bit. Again there's a slight change in loudness at 10 secs. I can hear no changes in the sound after that (ie. the whole B part sounds the same to me). The first few notes of the tune sound a bit muffled compared to the rest, where the sound is more "hard" or "sharp" (there's adjectives for you!
).
No, I don't know whether these perceived changes mean that different flutes are being played. For all I know they do, but the player changing his embouchure a gazillionth of an inch, moving a bit in the chair etc., could of course cause the same changes. In the same way, since the player accounts for most of the resulting sound, different flutes may well be played even when I can't hear any difference. The first few muffled notes of the tune sounds like it's probably just the player "finding" his embouchure.
No clues as to the actual flute(s) being played, of course. Looking forward to the answer.