Atwill flute (c. 1832)

[jim stone]

The Atwill flute (circa1832) Dave Migoya sent me
is here. The mailroom at Brown denied it was here,
which led to multiple phone calls around the city trying to find it,
however when I called the mailroom back and appealed to them to look
again, there it was. They did this with the last package I received
here too.

It seems a beautiful looking and sweet playing flute.
I have to 'play it in tune', rolling it in and out, tightening
my embouchure,
but I seem to be succeeding so far. (It's good luck
that I've been playing a Byrne for nearly a year,
not that Bryan's flute needs this rolling and lipping,
but it's a Rudall-style and I certainly had to work
hard to learn to play the bottom.) Also Atwills keys work well..
My chief impression, after having it for two hours, anyhow,
is of a well made, simply designed,
professional level flute.

It's 8 key and so I have a question for any wise ones
out there familiar with old flutes. I've usually played
keyless, or rolled the bottom section away. I really
must put my pinky down on something--other options
I've tried have led to injury. Well, plainly this was
an orchestral flute and players obviously had to have
access to the bottom keys. So how did they hold
the flute? I suppose, yes? that they put their rt pinky
in the Eflat key. If so, I'll learn to do it.

Thanks to Dave M for finding these flutes and
sprucing them up. Cocus, by the way, seems like
really nice stuff. Any advice or suggestion from those
who play vintage instruments is welcome.

[Blackbeer]

Cool Jim, sounds like a nice flute. I also need a place for my RH pinky so I rotate the bottom section enough that I can put my pinky just below the Eb key and still be able to reach the touch. As far as old cocus flutes go, I play an old Barnett single key in cocus which is a great playing flute but must be warmed up well before playing. I walk around for about 15 minutes holding the head and first section in both hands until I can`t feel any difference in the temp. The one time I didn`t do this and just started to play softly to warm it up I heard the sound we all dred. It took me two days with a magnifying glass to find the tiny crack and it was tiny but the noise it made when it happened made me think the flute would fall apart if I put it down. Anyway I warm it up good before I play it. Maybe that is why cocus is so resonent, it seems brittle, like a too tightly stretched drum head. I don`t know, but I love it. Good luck with that flute.

Take care

Tom

[jim stone]

Thanks. The difficulty with applying your strategy here
is that Ineed to reach not only the Eb key but the Csharp
and Cnatural keys too. But maybe there's a way to
do it your way.

Anybody know what orchestral flautists did in 1830 or so?

[Denny]

It may not have changed much...

Pinky on the Eb. Check tuning for E, and maybe F, with it down.

I find the right pinky up/down the biggest issue with playing Boehm...

[Doug_Tipple]

I find the right pinky up/down the biggest issue with playing Boehm...

I found the right pinky up/down position on the silver flute a little tricky at first, but, like anyting else, once you get used to doing this, it feels natural. My problem is that I have short pinky fingers. In order for me to reach the C# and C rollers, my other right hand fingers extend way over keys, making it more difficult to cover the open-holed keys. This is OK on the the simple system keyless flute, but it is considered incorrect on the Boehm flute. To compensate for this, I put plugs in the right hand open holed keys, and I use piper's grip, just like I would with a simple system flute.

Now I am getting into uncharted territory for me. Jim mentions that he needs to roll and lip in notes on his Atwell flute in order to play them in tune. In my way of thinking that means that the flute is not tuned properly. Who wants to have to compensate for an error in tuning by having to roll and lip-in notes? On old historic instruments I can understand the need for doing this. But for new instruments I do not understand why conical bore flutes cannot be constructed so that they play in tune without needing to play in the notes. Even my cheapo Chineses silver flute will play in tune throughout two octaves. I have read that you need to lip-in or roll the notes on certain expensive modern conical bore flutes. I was of the opinion that the maker should voice each finger hole so that the note was in tune with an electronic tuner. Can someone clarify this for me?

[GaryKelly]

Doug, the 'tuning issue' was and is the whole raison d'etre of the Boehm flute.

Folkers and Powell produce a very interesting tome entitled "The Flute", $25, http://www.flutehistory.com/ highly recommended though somewhat 'dry'. The accompanying CD is fascinating too.

[pandscarr]

...I also need a place for my RH pinky so I rotate the bottom section enough that I can put my pinky just below the Eb key...

I know lots of people do this, but I've found, with my old flutes, that the alighnment of the low c# / c holes has an enormous impact on the quality of the sound, and I would definitely put the flute together with all the holes alighned in as straight a line as possible.

With practice, the most comfortable thing to do is balance the pinky on the eflat key, lifting it off when you want more rh mobility and venting the key when you need it, particularly in the upper octave.

[Jayhawk]

Jim - depending on your grip, you may be able to rest your pinky on the block part of the Eb key (where the block's slot for the key is).

Eric

[Matt_Paris]

Jim - depending on your grip, you may be able to rest your pinky on the block part of the Eb key (where the block's slot for the key is).

Eric

I remember I could do that on my Pratten Aebi with piper's grip on the right hand... It was very handy. But it's completely impossible for me on my RR. The block is too far.

Anyway, the pewter plugs do not work very well (C# ok / C very weak), and I never use them. So I use Blackbeer's pinky position.

[RudallRose]

doug
you may wish to spend some time reading historical articles regarding mean-tone temperament and equal temperament tunings.
Too, spending some time reading about pitch and how that was determined in various parts of Europe, will also help you.
In time you will see that no two Rudalls play the same and you will understand why. For that reason, they all need some type of "correction" while you play.
To most, it's become second-nature and the flutes sound perfectly fine. Just takes experience.

You have good questions, but you need to step away from today's methods and makers to better understand how we got here.

There is nothing wrong with it (to me....and many......but to some, they say not.....a matter of opinion, of course).
But best put: if the old flutes suck.....why is everyone copying them? You'd figure the last thing they'd want to do is use the names Rudall or Pratten? (which is funny....I'd say Rudall and Boosey or Rudall and Hudson....but a name is a name)

hope this helps somewhat and encourages you to reach into the historical texts -- many of them very dense reading.....such as Siccama's treatise on his flute, albeit one of the best explanations ever, if you can survive it.

dm

[Jon C.]

doug
you may wish to spend some time reading historical articles regarding mean-tone temperament and equal temperament tunings.
Too, spending some time reading about pitch and how that was determined in various parts of Europe, will also help you.
In time you will see that no two Rudalls play the same and you will understand why. For that reason, they all need some type of "correction" while you play.
To most, it's become second-nature and the flutes sound perfectly fine. Just takes experience.

You have good questions, but you need to step away from today's methods and makers to better understand how we got here.

There is nothing wrong with it (to me....and many......but to some, they say not.....a matter of opinion, of course).
But best put: if the old flutes suck.....why is everyone copying them? You'd figure the last thing they'd want to do is use the names Rudall or Pratten? (which is funny....I'd say Rudall and Boosey or Rudall and Hudson....but a name is a name)

hope this helps somewhat and encourages you to reach into the historical texts -- many of them very dense reading.....such as Siccama's treatise on his flute, albeit one of the best explanations ever, if you can survive it.

dm

A really good book to read about these old flutes and how they evolved into Boehm's boring tuning, can be read in Robert Bigio's new book "Reading in the History of the Flute" Also, there is a lot of material on Terry Mcgee's site, on tuning.

[tin tin]

...the 'tuning issue' was and is the whole raison d'etre of the Boehm flute.

More of a side benefit than a raison d'etre, actually. Boehm was inspired to completely redesign the instrument after hearing Charles Nicholson's monster tone and realizing he'd never achieve that sound on the flutes of the day. And Boehm flutes as a whole went through a period of being significantly out of tune during a good part of the 20th century: flutes were largely modeled on Louis Lot's fine 19th century French examples, which were pitched at A-435. When later makers (notably Haynes and Powell) copied them, they simply raised the pitch to A-440 by shortening the headjoint, rather than adjusting the scale of the instrument. It wasn't until the 60's, 70's (and even later, in some cases) that the issue was seriously addressed. Now, flutes with either a Bennett, Cooper, or other properly tuned scale are de rigueur.

[chas]

There are historical flutes that are simply out of tune, most notably the high-pitch English flutes, some German flutes, etc. These are not the flutes that modern makers are copying, though. They're copying "good" flutes, which a player can play in tune. Many, if not most modern makers, even those who take great pains to copy historical bores exactly, tweak the toneholes a bit to bring the flutes into tune with themselves at modern pitch and modern scales.

That said, there's another aspect to simple-system flutes that may largely overlap the tuning issue. That is, on a good historical flute, each note has its own character. The D booms, the E is veiled, the A is open, whatever. Some current makers also go to great lengths to make the flute uniform-sounding over the whole scale. I think that takes a little bit of character away from the flute. On historical flutes, I think that having to lip notes up or down adds to the unique color that each note has, and that they were designed that way deliberately.

Doug, I think you should get a Baroque flute. I have much more of an appreciation for the idiosyncrasies of flutes and their scales and the colors of different notes since taking it up. Take a well-made 19th c flute, and extrapolate 100 years backward from a nice Boehm flute to the Romantic flute, and you'll have the Baroque flute. Tiny little sound, very colorful scale. Modern F naturals bug me now.

[jim stone]

OK, I'm now well in tune through the first octave and
up to the second octave G. The flute has a strong and
in tune low D; the flute's tone is very nice and focused.
Woody too. The flute isn't loud but I'm gaining volume.
Cocus continues to be good stuff.

The top A and B are not yet in tune but sometimes they
are there and I figure if they're there sometimes I
can make it always. It's been two days. Chiefly I've
gained control of the notes I do control, not so much by
rolling now, but by controlling my embouchure.

I put the Bryan Byrne headjoint and barrel on the
Atwill body, a little big but it fits. This brings the
top notes more into tune but the flute has a more
interesting sound with the original headjoint.

I've rolled the bottom section out so my pinky is on wood.
I've got enough on my plate as is!

[jim stone]

OK, just went up to the third octave G, in tune all the way.
Also seem to have doubled the volume.
It's beginning to occur to me that this
thing rocks.