benhall.1 wrote:'Sfunny thing, but it reads to me like you're both saying the same thing ...
In some (important) respects, yes, we are, but it is the angle of coming at it that is bugging me and where (importantly) we are not (apparently) saying the same thing. Doug's and others' posts have tacitly implied (even if they didn't mean to) that the OP or any possessor of such a gadget has a choice of what temperament/tuning system to apply to their flutes -
which they have not. I won't repeat myself further.
However, my last was cross-posted with Mike's where he explained what he was trying to do. Certainly, one can play a flute as-is and use this app to try to establish what temperament its scaling most resembles, FWTW. I'm dubious as to whether that will reveal anything more useful than could be achieved by setting the tuner to 12TET and observing/recording the differing deviations from it for each flute (or by using Flutini or RTTA). (Yes, Mike, measure them all against one standard - but the historic unequal temperaments aren't relevant, for reasons really not worth setting about trying to explain.....)
I don't know what tuning system Stephane Morvan builds into his flutes, but I wouldn't mind betting it's close to 12TET, give or take the inevitable constructional compromises. Sam Murray by all accounts tends to copy his originals fairly accurately, so presumably a flute by him will have C19th scaling/intonation as measured from extant flutes (which however perfectly preserved are unlikely to retain their exact original dimensions and intonation). The Purday is what it is. Neither the Murray nor the Purday will have been built originally to intrinsically play any one particular tuning schema. Not 12TET, though they were probably aiming at being serviceable for something approaching that, not JI, and assuredly none of the unequal temperaments.
This is where I take issue with Hans comment about JI. So far as I have ever read or otherwise discovered, C19th simple system (and other) flutes were
not designed for JI. Moreover, whatever ideal of tuning their makers or buyers may have held to, they
could not usefully build instruments which specifically satisfied any such tuning scheme. This is because of the wide tuning range they had to try to provide in a single instrument because of the non-standardisation of playing pitch and the wide variance a player could expect to encounter. As a result, to give a concert D flute about 30mm of tuning slide (about a tone!) and yet have it still be playable kind-of acceptably in tune ("lippable") at the extremes of that range, they had to stretch the instrument's scaling, adding further complex compromises to those already inherent in getting a tolerably tuned (in any tuning schema) 3 8ve chromatic scale at any given single pitch standard. And that is without taking cognisance of how they set about tuning (no pitch-measuring gadgets!- just ears and beat-counting) and testing the tuning (embouchure vagaries etc. [which still applies to a modern maker]) and how accurately they may have been capable of achieving any particular tuning.
The result is an instrument the scaling of which will not necessarily perfectly conform (save by chance) to any specific tuning schema at any particular point within its tunable range. And as Terry has written (lots of stuff about related matters on his website...), we have enough difficulty trying to establish what, if any (within the range) pitch the maker of any one flute may have been aiming at or that it performs "best" at, let alone what temperament. And then there are all the vexatious issues like whether you utilise the key-vented fingerings when making your measurements/assessment of the given flute, etc. etc.
E.g. the Morvan Pratten is probably designed to try to be in tune without key-venting.... the Murray probably needs it and the Purday certainly will.
E.e.g. If the Murray/Purday F#s are in tune in 12TET vented but flat to it unvented, that is not evidence that the maker was aiming at JI!
Modern makers have a relatively level playing field - they can aim at one reference pitch and design to optimise intonation at that to whatever tuning schema. The old guys had to try to make a flute that was
as little out of tune as feasible at any point in a wide tuning range, resulting in a flute inevitably not truly in tune to any set intonation schema anywhere in its range.
The old flutes (and accurate copies of them) tend to have sharp As and Bs partly because of the design compromises, but also, we suspect, because of the specific kinds of bore distortion which occur in the upper body joint over time - cf Terry's tenon compression theories - and the effects those specifically have on tuning.
