It appears in the world of Irish Flutes there exists in public opinion a form of a dicotomy... Flutes are separated into two distict groups Prattens or Rudalls.
We all know that there is full spectrum flutes. But we still classify them based upon a majority of their virtues falling into one of the two patterns.
What we need is more data! (I'm an Engineer and we love data.) How about if flute makers would list their design specifications for their various flutes: Bore, Taper, Hole Sizes and Spacing etc. Or could someone catalog design specifications for currently produced Irish Flutes. Then we would have a better understanding and an educated guess as to how the flutes would sound and play.
As it is, we have a very limited exposure to different Irish Flutes. The internet seems to be our greatest resource and Buying Flutes off the internet is like a blind man buying oil paintings at a gallery! You really have no idea what you are getting and have to rely on others to make your decision.
This soap box speach was copied from another thread.
The current thread is just further proof.
I agree completely. Data are needed. Terry's website is full of data; the big problem, though, is figuring out how to translate the data you mention (all of which is interesting) into how an instrument feels to play. Or, how it sounds.
I think the cut of the embouchure is probably the most important, with various vagaries of bore and holes playing close second. I can't wait to start messing around with a flute I picked up in Britain last week: it's basically acoustically a Böhm flute (cylindrical, thin-walled, parabolic head) with simple-system fingering. Fully keyed. And I mean fully. A local collector/player's got it right now adjusting the mechanism and spiffying up the pads. I've played the upper hand (the keys for the right hand weren't sealing all that well) and it was nice.
This is an interesting discussion, though I note some concern about the distinction between the two types specified and thus whether the discussion is valid. It may help to remember that the two types came from different eras in flutemaking, even though there was considerable overlap in time. So the discussion has definite validity.
You may remember that young Charles Nicholson came to London somewhere around 1816 with an Astor flute that his father (also Charles) had enlarged the holes of. This style was then made by Prowse and marketed by Clementi under the name C. Nicholson's Improved. A few years later (1821) Rudall got out of the Devon Militia (Napoleon having been safely rounded up), teamed up with Rose from Edinburgh and soon Rudall & Rose became the pre-eminent makers of the Nicholson style flute. So when we bandy around the descriptor "Rudall-style" we should really use the period name Nicholson or Improved flute.
In 1831 Boehm visited London and was dismayed to hear how loud Nicholson could play, and realised he would have to come up with improvements for his flute too. A year later he had the 1832 Ring-key Conical, which was widely disregarded. It got a Mr Siccama thinking though and he came up with his 10 key flute - bigger bore, bigger holes and better hole locations. Powerful, smooth and accurate. One of the converts was a Mr Pratten.
In 1847, Boehm returned with the new-fangled metal cylinder flute, but many players didn't want to have to relearn the fingering, and didn't like the cylindrical sound anyway. So a rash of different designs came out. One of these was Pratten's Perfected. Pratten took Siccama's bore and pretty much Siccama's holes, reverted it back to an 8-key, shortened the scale somewhat (we were now entering the high pitch period) and marketed it as Pratten's Perfected.
So the changes we can see between the Nicholson (Rudall) Improved flutes and the Prattens Perfected flute are:
- bigger bore (around 13.7mm at end of right hand tenon compared to 12.5)
- bigger holes (not much though!)
- shorter scale (McGee C#-Eb Indicator 245mm compared to 255)
- single-piece body, permitting better G# location but preventing counter rotation between hands
- shorter foot, giving less flat-foot syndrome
- heavier construction
Now those comparisons relate to the period flutes, and you won't necessarily see all the differences between modern flutes, as I imagine most makers rescale their Rudall's in particular to make playing at 440Hz easier. I certainly don't stick to the bulky construction of the Prattens.
Probably the give-away is the bore diameter at the right hand tenon.
So summarising - yes, there should be significant differences between Prattens (Perfected era) and Rudall (Nicholson or Improved era) flutes. Prattens should be rounder and fuller in tone, with the thinner bored Rudalls being reedier. Not ethough that Rudalls used more than one bore, and more than one set of hole sizes, so you get degrees of reediness and darkness. Prattens, with very few exceptions, seem standardised.
As for other "schools" of flute making, we can probably ignore the pre-Nicholson English flutes (eg R. or WH Potter, Astor, etc) as they are too-small holed and too-low pitch to really work in Irish music. Scrummy for classical music though. We used to ignore the French and French-influenced, but they've made a spirited re-entry (such as Han's flute mentioned above, and my Grey Larsen Preferred which appears to skim from both the French and English traditions). Mr Siccama is back too, particularly assisting people with small or damaged hands.
The wooden Boehm is back, but it remains to be seen whether any of the other multikey systems (Carte 1851, 1867, Clinton, Radcliff, etc) can stage a comeback. Hmmm, have I forgotten anybody?
You mean a Radcliffe system? Cylindrical bore, wooden body but fully keyed including the usual "fingerholes," and fingering much like the simple system - I'm not sure where it differed, I've never seen a fingering chart for one. In Irish music the Paddies Carty and Taylor, and Billy Clifford, have played or play Radcliffe system flutes. There were a good few other systems around in the mid 19th to mid 20th centuries, before the silver flute won out. I've been reading Ardal Powell's book The Flute, he has interesting things to say about recordings dominating playing style after a while - the English held on to their wooden flutes until the 1960s, even though players from other traditions thought their tone "dull."
I think the embochure plays a greater part than you might think - I've old American, English, German, and French flutes, and the oval English and American flutes seem to "work" differently than the rounder French and German jobs. Any of the above can play very easily, but the ease of each differs - and the bore and holes seem to bring this along even more. May be one of your big bore/hole flutes would behave very differently with a rounder blowing hole? Do any of you swap around the headjoints of your flutes to see what happens?
As for the Pratten/R&R wars, I like that anecdote one of you had about Conal O'Grada playing a baroque traverso at some fest, and he was louder than the students with their Prattening Roses!
Kevin L. Rietmann wrote:You mean a Radcliffe system?
If that's directed at what I said, then no, not Radcliff, but regular old, standard simple system, but the whole thing keyed. If you look at this page, scroll down to look at what's described as "d1, Rudall, Carte, & Co.'s Cylinder Flute, with Parabola Head Joint, Old System." Not the same as a Radcliff.
Hi
I have had more rudalls and prattens go through my hands over the years that i can't remember how many, the rudall without a doubt has the sweetest tone, unmatched by any other 8 keyed flute, it also has all the carrying power you want in a flute.
The pratten is also a fine flute, and can be as loud as you want it to be, but it lacks the sweet tone of the rudall, i find the tone of the pratten to be what i call dry,I know some people will say "'hey some of the best flute players play pratten flutes", i still say its a dry tone, and can not match the sweet tone that can be produced from a rudall flute,
ask any longtime rudall players why they will never change to a pratten.
glinjack wrote:ask any longtime rudall players why they will never change to a pratten.
Before you say things like this, you should ask Matt Molloy why he switched from Rudall to Pratten. I imagine it is personal preference.
Hi maybe you should ask Matt if he ever "Owned"' a rudall & rose flute,
Matt Molloy did recordings with the bothy band with a rudall flute he had on loan from a friend, and he has stated himself that he was sorry to have to give it back, I dont know how long he had that flute for,
Also i believe Matt enjoys playing his Boosey-pratten flute, i still say a good flute made by the rudall & rose shop can not be matched foe its sweetness of tone.
Hey, Terry, we were writing simultaneously there. I was curious - given that you were taken enough with Grey's Firth and Pond so much you decided to copy it, have you had any more experiences with old American flutes?
I cannot respond to the poll because I do not have any Pratten type wooden flute that I play.
I visted Terry McGee some weeks ago for some surgery on some of my flutes. I got a chance to play a range of flutes in his workshop and he diagnosed me as a Pratten type. Probably a transfer from my bansuri beginnings - bansuris being large bored and large tone holed.
My current Irish D flute is a Seery blackwood (with a replacement delrin head joint) with small tone holes. That would be a Ruddall type then?
I imagine it is personal preference.
