Sorry Jim, I did promise an answer didn't I? Been trying to do too many things (including making a low D whistle head after writing Guido's review and tweaking his one..... - not bad, but need another go!!!!) and this wasn't up the priorities. Coming up!
Edit: here you go:-
BAND FLUTES & PICCOLOS FOR SALE
Basically, "band flutes" were/are designed for use in the context of brass/military/wind bands where the predominant tonality of the other instruments (brass, saxes, clarinets) is Bb/Eb. They are also the mainstay of the all-flute marching band, especially as found in the Ulster Loyalist tradition. Some regiments of the British Army also have or had flute bands. They are often called “fifes” (not unreasonably in that they replaced earlier forms of fife in military/pseudo military use), which leads to confusion as, unlike the standard American style fife, they have the form of the simple system post-Baroque flute with a cylindrical head and tapering conoid body with 6 open tone-holes and fitted with from 1-6 keyed holes. The most commonly found type are the high Bb, a third below the orchestral D piccolo, and the treble F a minor third above the concert D flute. Eb piccolos are not uncommon, and there are various lower pitched members of the family. It can be hard to decide whether some almost “concert” size flutes are High Pitch Ds or real Ebs…… The former are probably more common/likely to be found.
The Eb piccolos and Eb flutes were probably more for use in brass or wind bands than in all-flute contexts. It is (I understand) quite common for brass/mixed wind band music to require a “C#” flute and piccolo, (modern classical terminology - read a tone higher for our purposes!) or at least to have sheet music parts for both those and normal “C” (=D) instruments available. The one time I sat in with such a band (didn’t repeat the experience - my sight reading was never good enough!) they offered me the choice! You can still (if you search hard enough) buy modern Boehm Ebs (usually called Dbs or C#s) for such use.
The majority of such instruments that appear in junk shops, antique shops, car-boot sales or on eBay are at old British High Pitch - or one of its versions. As most of them don’t have tuning slides, they aren’t very tune-able either. Their intonation too is often dodgy. Many are rather cheap-and nasty in terms of original build quality, but there
are some very good ones to be found and also some at A=440.
Here’s an extract from Bate quoted by Terry McGee (in a discussion on nomenclature) on Woodenflute a couple of years ago….
"As with some medieval instruments too, band-flutes are built in various pitches so as to form a homogeneous choir of voices. All are transposing instruments, the 'six-finger' note being invariably written as D. Traditionally however they are named after the actual sound of this D, and not the adjacent C as in orchestral practice. This custom sometimes causes confusion and many musicians and theoretical writers have called for its abolition. So far, however, the flute bandsman has remained adamant."
(Bate goes on to give the sizes - Eb pic, Bb flute, F flute, Eb flute, Bb bass, F bass, Eb bass.)
Another quote from Terry… “Military band flutes normally didn't have the foot extension to C (or whatever the equivalent note would have been, depending on key). When they did, they were concert flutes.”
-commented on by Craig Herrity thus: “It is certainly true most late 19th / early 20th C. band flutes were like that. But a significant proportion of the mid 19th century band flutes are 8 keys. My F flute is such and we used to see a lot of Eb 8 key flutes. I have even seen a high Bb flute with 8 keys. We are probably looking at the fault line between multi pitch flutes for standard military bands and thus for stand alone flute bands.”
Here is a picture of a complete set of probably late C19th Band Flutes - I believe they are Hawkes & Son Crown AZs, and they range from Bb bass (alto) to high F piccolo (for baby fingers only!). Note the rather French style keywork. What a gorgeous set! I believe they belong to David Quinn, Imperial Corps of Drums, Liverpool - I hope he/they won't mind me posting the pic!
N.B. THESE ARE NOT MINE AND ARE NOT FOR SALE!
There were some more useful bits to extract somewhere in my archives that would have saved me some typing/thinking covering old ground but I can’t find them/may have lost them from the computer (is one reason why I’ve put this job off!). Damn.
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Here is a picture of the bunch I have available: from the top, they are:-
Anon. English 1-key F
Anon. English 1-key Bb
B.S. “London improved” "B" - English 1-key
Anon. English 4-key D piccolo
David “Breveté” French 5-key Eb piccolo
Anon. English 6-key Eb piccolo
As for the questions about their volume etc, here goes:
They are not especially or distinctively loud as a class, no more so than any flute. Piercing or shrill, able to cut through and carry because higher pitched, yes. That is why the high Bb and the piccolo are the quintessential marching band members of the flute family. In their lower registers they can be quite mellow and are no more susceptible of very forceful playing than concert flutes, allowing for build quality and playing expertise.
In tune? Well, of the ones I have in saleable condition (pictured above), the cocuswood 1-key F is high pitch at around A=445 and has a significantly flat fundamental, but otherwise a reasonable scale. The cocuswood 1-key Bb is a little sharp of A=445 - can just about be brought down by pulling out the joint about 3mm- and is tolerably well in tune with itself. It has a strong, sweet tone. The boxwood early type 1-key is labeled as “B” and is either high pitch Bb or B-ish at modern pitch, but it is crudely made and the scale is dreadful - it couldn’t really be played in any ensemble, and wouldn’t sound too good played solo or just with drums - though it would quite look (and sound?) the part for, say, Napoleonic era reconstructionalists. The four-key English D piccolo plays at A=440 with the slide open about 5mm and has quite good intonation (allowing that I am no piccolo specialist and that piccolos are
very embouchure sensitive and bendable!). The 5-key French piccolo seems to be in Eb at A=440 with the slide open about 5mm and also to have decent intonation if one vents the Eb and F keys… it is sweet and powerful. Both these blackwood piccolos are nice quality instruments as is the little cocuswood 6-key English piccolo which is also Eb at A=440, though it goes slightly flat on the lowest notes.
NOTE: when I say the scale is “fair” or “reasonable”, I mean by C19th simple system flute norms, not modern ones, though I wouldn’t say it of the ones that will play at A=440 if I didn’t think they were usable.
Pitched for the 3rd & 4th octaves?????? Like any simple system flute, they mostly play well/readily through two octaves and about half way up the 3rd, to say G or A fingerings. Beyond that I would say they are reluctant, but I’m no expert at going there, so who knows what a piccolo specialist with a disciplined embouchure and developed technique would make of them? I wouldn’t have thought anyone plays piccolo into the (putative) 4th octave, not even charangistos, if they ever touch piccolos! Even in noisy outdoor marching band contexts, does anyone play Bb “fife” or piccolo to the top of the 3rd octave or beyond, and would anyone else want them to? (I realise you may be making reference to something I don’t know about here, Jim, with American marching bands/fife bands: if so, tell us about it.)
Prices - pitched to reflect what I paid for them plus what work I’ve done on them, allowing for them being ready to play, not fresh from the junk shop, but tempered by realism about their playability/desirability.....
F - £60.00: Cocus Bb - £50.00: Boxwood “B”, £50.00: English D piccolo, £75.00: French Eb piccolo, £75.00: English Eb Piccolo £65.00.