Just wondering

[NicoMoreno]

Using flutes in different keys is extremely recent

That just isn't true, unless your definition of extremely recent is 50-100 years. Since the use of flutes in irish music is only around 200 years old, I don't really consider that recent. Also, nevermind that an absence of evidence of the use of Bb flutes in the 1800s isn't evidence of the absence of said use.

But the use of 3/4 flutes (F flutes), fifes / piccolos, and flute band flutes (often Eb) around Ireland, and of course the lack of A440 standardization until fairly recently, combined with Matt Molloy's (and others) use of alternate flutes on recordings from the 70s / 80s would say to me there's no way you can say that the use of non-A440 D flutes is "extremely recent".

[dunnp]

I believe Molloy,s Bflat on the older albums is a sicamma style band (they have low ones and high ones) flute and may be a bit high pitch not a Rudall flute d amore.
There may not be historical examples of C flutes or B but C sharp flutes including a Coyne are reported though these are low pitch D flutes,i would assume.
I did see an Firth style flute in G though.
Band flutes in F and Eflat may have been easier to obtain than d flutes for many years. Just like bourtry flutes. If youre the only one playing who cares about pitch.
Alas in this thread we dont want information , Nico

Nico,s perspective is shaped by being a piper and listening closely to flat pipers i would assume.
By the way Nico who made your B flute. My boxwood low flutes are by Casey Burns.
One head, c, b, bflat, a bodies. They work.

I give up on Cubitt, its clear he took the huff after my first post and didn't bother to read my posts. By the way. I never said he couldn't hear the difference between a D and bflat flute he did.

[NicoMoreno]

I don't know about the Sicamma style, I thought I saw a photo of it, and I thought it was just an 8-keyed Bb band flute, high pitch as you say. It's very high pitch though, as it's nearly in B.

I also have a Bb band flute that's got fully covered keys, but is still "simple system". I'm not sure that there are flutes intended to be C# or B, but there are definitely low-pitch D flutes, and I'm pretty sure I've seen C flutes as well. Old Baroque flutes had the Corps D'Echange, so there was a wide variety of pitch there, too.

The real question is, did these flutes ever make it into Irish Music circles? We know that Eb and F flutes did, as there are recordings, including some from the early 1900s. There're some great recordings of Packie Duignan and a couple others that were online for some time, probably recorded in the 60s or 70s. There are anecdotes about 3/4 flutes (usually F, but Seamus Tansey called his Eb flute a 3/4, too). I'm less sure about the flat flutes, as they are rarer anyway, but it seems plausible, and at least is possible. The presence of fife and drum and/or flute bands around Ireland in the late 1800s would make it seem likely.

(My B flute is from John Gallagher - 8 keys, I also have a one-key F flute, probably originally a band flute.)

[Peter Duggan]

Slight tangent, but is this '3/4 flute' a well-established term and can anyone point me towards some examples of it in use (because Google's not being much help)?

Thanks
P

[NicoMoreno]

Yes and no - I've heard it from older irish musicians (like Seamus Tansey and Peter Horan, and the introducer to the Packie Duignan flute clips) and in written sources from other irish musicians, possibly deceased.

Google is unlikely to be of much help, and I doubt it was a long or widely used term. It may only have been Sligo musicians, but I think I read a reference to it from Kerry flute players, too. This is at least 2nd hand information

[Nanohedron]

Slight tangent, but is this '3/4 flute' a well-established term and can anyone point me towards some examples of it in use (because Google's not being much help)?

Thanks
P

I've encountered the term only from Irish sources, now that I think about it, so the parlance may be strictly their habit.

http://www.folkworld.de/20/e/seamus.html

3rd paragraph, 3rd sentence.

I believe that in Fintan Vallely's flute tutor Timber, the term is used in passing as well but this is only memory such as it is, for I've lost the context, and moreover I've lost my copy.

Since the OP seems to have expressed a curiosity (as I'm sensing) as to any strictly utilitarian motives we might think justify the use of differently-pitched flutes, if I'm playing for dancers and playing solo, of my two flute bodies I go Eb every time. That instrument cuts through the battering noticeably better than the D pitch body does. Surprising how much difference a simple half step can make.

[I.D.10-t]

Your Noy?

[Nanohedron]

Your Noy?

Right.

[Peter Duggan]

Thanks, Nico & Nano... had thought of searching for 'three-quarter' instead of '3/4', but that's a good start!

[jemtheflute]

Re: "3/4" flutes - try googling "third flute", "fourth flute" (depends where you're counting from, see! ) and "tierce flute".

FWIW, the Bohm alto flute is, in our trad terminology and acoustically, really a low A flute - 6-finger note is A, 8ve "break" is between open G# and A. It is "in G" as a Bohm flute is "in C". As a non-Bohm player/predominantly Simple System player picking one up, we'd automatically think of it as "in A" just as we'd perceive a Bohm flute to be"in D" just like our SS concert flutes.

So far as I'm aware there have never historically (pre-Bohm and the terminology change) been any flutes which their makers/owners would have termed "in C" (i.e. a tone lower than a D concert flute) - those are wholly a modern invention. Even with corps de rechange equipped Baroque and early classical flutes, contemporaneously they would have thought of them all as just giving different pitched Ds, save maybe for a "d'amour" extra-long joint making the flute into what we'd term a "low B". Historic "d'amour" flutes were either in B or Bb (6-finger note/diatonic scale, at whatever pitch standard), though the reference literature waters are muddied by use of the modern classical terminology calling them "A" or "Ab".

[dunnp]

John Gallagher 8 key b, if I was clever enough. I,d put in a picture of Homer simpson salivating here.
...........
The one Gallagher B flat I played was lovely in every way.

I have a Noy d flute. if I could convince a piper to get an A Hunter ( lawrence
) chanter and play full time with me. I i would sell them all for a Noy A fully keyed.

I sold the f and g sweethearts from my signature clips out of need but I really miss them.
They worked well.

[Nanohedron]

Thanks, Nico & Nano... had thought of searching for 'three-quarter' instead of '3/4', but that's a good start!

Out of that same nomenclature custom, there are also the "half" and the "band" flute, but what those terms mark on the way up to "fife" and then "piccolo"...I've heard a dozen repeated explanations; I just can't remember them. IIRC the keys of F, G, and/or A are involved in some way or another.

[Peter Duggan]

Re: "3/4" flutes - try googling "third flute", "fourth flute" (depends where you're counting from, see! ) and "tierce flute".

Aye, Jem, I'm familiar with this historical usage for sizes of recorders etc. as you'll see from one of my earlier replies above, but this Irish flute usage seems quite different in referring loosely to physical size (= smaller) rather than more precise pitch differences.

[benhall.1]

Using flutes in different keys is extremely recent

What evidence do you have for this? Flutes have been available in different keys for many hundreds of years ("many" in this case meaning a number more than 2 ) so why wouldn't they have been used when appropriate? It's not as if D is the only or natural key for Irish trad. That's the thing that has happened more recently. In the 19c and before, pipes were probably often in keys other than D, and other instruments, like fiddle and harp, have no issue at all in playing in whatever key you like. Hence, maybe, all those nice G minor tunes which go so well on fiddle. And all those nice flat sessions that have become a bit more fashionable again.

So, since flutes have always, for practical purposes, been available in several keys, I can think of no reason why they wouldn't have been used. But your statement is direct and certain, Cubitt, so obviously you must have evidence. What is that evidence? Please cite it.

[jemtheflute]

this Irish flute usage seems quite different in referring loosely to physical size (= smaller) rather than more precise pitch differences.

Nah. It's just an Irish agglomeration of "third" and "fourth" - not sure which/what it means, so go for both in one....