This Old Flute - nach Meyer

[BigDavy]

Hi Graeme

This seems like a whole lot of work, for no guarantee of return. Taking a playable instrument, with nice tone and messing around with it seems like madness to me. Would it not be more sensible to get a Pakistani flute and do the messing around on that instead?

Daqvid

[Aanvil]

Nach Meyers are like sand on the beach.

I tend to look at it like this.

If you can get it into modern tuning then there is a greater chance it will have a longer life.

Its not a museum piece.

It might bring fun to many others if its fixed.

Sounds like a fun experiment.

[Carey]

I don't feel it's too big a risk actually. It still should play as well as it does now, only in a different version of it's own tuning. And the up-side is a lot bigger than the down-side to me anyway.

And I'll learn a whole lot in the process. I'm not real good at learning things just by sitting here. I prefer to have a tangible problem that I need to solve. Then I'm all about digging into the history or theory or whatever it takes.

Oh, and maybe I'll uncover an excuse.. er, reason .. to buy another tool or two

[Denny]

yep, learning and more tools!!!

[Carey]

I'll mull over the options for a bit, and watch this space for other thoughts too. But generally I like what you propose Graeme.

1) Shortening up the embouchure to L1 distance by 5 mm:

The brass lining of the head projects nearly all the way thru the barrel, so it carries the stress, not the silver collar on the barrel. By trimming the top silver collar 5mm and taking 5 mm off the bottom of the head (putting the silver ring back on of course) would yield the desired 5 mm without much drama at all. That still leaves 1 cm of silver collar, so this could be done more than 5 mm and have a bit of tuning available.

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/parkscarey/ ... 2962"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/parkscarey/SIj-neG ... 240003.JPG" /></a>

2) Tuning:

It's pretty much all ET at sessions around here, and that's the whole point of this exercise, and gigs as well, which are also ET. So ET it will be. I do like Just Intonation for solo playing however, but this flute is already a solo instument. (The only pipers I've run into here play Highland pipes, and a flute in the presence of even one Highland piper is pretty pointless.)

3) Enlarging the finger holes:

I'm quite happy enlarging the RH holes as you suggest as that is much easier than messing with the body length. I wouldn't mind enlarging any the LH holes a bit if it is helpful in the final tuning.

4) Enlarging the bore at the foot:

Any thoughts how much might be needed? There's a couple mm before I'm removing siver from the ring.

I'm going to go play the flute now while I chew on the above ideas. I look forward to hearing what other ideas y'all might come up with.

Cheers,

Carey

[groxburgh]

Hi Graeme

This seems like a whole lot of work, for no guarantee of return. Taking a playable instrument, with nice tone and messing around with it seems like madness to me. Would it not be more sensible to get a Pakistani flute and do the messing around on that instead?

Daqvid

Actually it's not a whole lot of work. It probably took as long for me to write it down as it would for me to do it. Carey will take a bit longer.

As to guarantee of return, I've done all these things and more to a number of flutes in the past and in every case I've ended up with a flute that is very playable; with adequate volume for a session (but not usually a real honker) decent tone, and excellent tuning. AFAIK most of these German flutes are better than most of the Pakistani flutes in that they have better well seasoned wood, and better key work, so I personally think a German flute is a better starting point than a Pakistani one.

Anyway Carey is keen to have a go so I'm only offering him what help I can. I am not suggesting he should do this, just saying that I think it's doable and that I'd do it myself if I owned it.

Cheers
Graeme

[Terry McGee]

I won't claim I'm following this as closely as it deserves (lot of stuff going on over here I have to concentrate on), but I'm not convinced that you need to cut anything off the head.

This "slide completely closed" scan shows that A4 is almost up to pitch:

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/parkscarey/ ... 4514"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/parkscarey/SJEE_XS ... closed.jpg" /></a>

By the time you open up hole 5 and perhaps do some snipping further down, I think you'll find A4 and notes around it will be plenty sharp enough.

Interested to see the offsetting of hole 3 in each hand. I don't remember seeing period flutes with offsetting before.

Terry

[groxburgh]

I won't claim I'm following this as closely as it deserves (lot of stuff going on over here I have to concentrate on), but I'm not convinced that you need to cut anything off the head.

This "slide completely closed" scan shows that A4 is almost up to pitch:


By the time you open up hole 5 and perhaps do some snipping further down, I think you'll find A4 and notes around it will be plenty sharp enough.

Interested to see the offsetting of hole 3 in each hand. I don't remember seeing period flutes with offsetting before.

Terry

I'm not entirely convinced that the Flutini plot is a very accurate picture of the flutes tuning. I've got a new file from Carey of him playing for a lot longer and the Polygraph figures for 440 with tuning slide fully in are
D -39
E -35
F# -62
G -33
A -15
B -19
C# -31
d -22
e -23
f# -55
g -16
a -10
b -29
These are probably a lot more accurate than the approximate first figures I listed.

Yes we could start by enlarging the holes and might not need to take any off the head end. But my bet is still on wanting to remove 5mm from the head after we finish with the holes just to give a bit of tuning ability for when it's cold. Personally I think I would start on hole 5 for F# then hole 4 for G just to see how it went. But I wouldn't go too far with them before making a decision on whether or not to take some off the head before returning to the holes. Actually this raises the important point that we don't actually need to know exactly everything we're going to do before starting out - you can approach it incrementally, but with the knowledge of what the options are and what effect they'll have.

Note the new (more accurate) figures above show that low D is quite a bit flatter than 2nd octave D, something that will be fixed (to some extent) by enlarging the bore in the foot. How exactly to do the foot end will depend on the tuning of low C C# and Eb if we want to use those keys.

I haven't seen offset holes on an old flute before either, but I have seen hole 6 cut on an angle like this one.

Cheers
Graeme

[Carey]

So is this "grain of sand on the beach" (nice simile Anavil) a unique grain of sand? Note the precise shape of the rings. It looks quite sharp compared to other examples I see in photos. Library of congress for example. but those are truely Meyer's, not the "nach" variety. Do you think this flute is late in the run? That's my guess, but not for any good reason.

I do like playing it, and I would like to be able to play it out. I told my fiddler he should tune his old school fiddle to the flute and he could grab it and we'd at least have a duet.

Regarding the A4, with the slide closed I tune checked with the session last Sunday on A4 (sneaky eh) and all nodded and off we went. But one-by one people (with good ears) stopped playing because they just couldn't abide the result when playing elsewhere on the flute.

It's about as cold now as it gets here. Well, actually it's hot outside, which means the A/C is cranked up in the pubs and I have to wear jeans to avoid freezing. In the winter, the doors and windows are all open and it's not so cold. (and the bodhrans have trouble getting tight enough in the sea air.)

It seems I should try to bring the worst notes in line with the others, keeping the whole flute flat, and then decide if the final move in the game should be to enlarge the holes more or remove material from the head.

Then there's the option of enlarging the embouchure hole to raise all notes some. I'd be up for starting there, cutting away the back and sides of the hole maybe? I don't know how big is too big tho.

I should also try to get RTTA running again so we're all working with the same view.

[Carey]

Just a quick note to let you all know that I have not dropped the project that Graeme spent so much of his time on. (Thanks for that.) I've got to fix the tool first. The steady rest on my lathe won't accept something the size of the flute, so I have been spending the time for the flute working on modifying the lathe. Which is turning out to be the most complicated part of this job.

I think it would be good to take some length out of the head so I can set the flute up so it will be A=440 with three or four mm of slide exposed, and I'd like to do this on the lathe of course. I might do some finger hole modifications first, just because I can. Whatever my actual approach, I'll take photographs, make plots and post my progress - for better or for worse.

Cheers,

Carey

[Terry McGee]

Just a quick note to let you all know that I have not dropped the project that Graeme spent so much of his time on. (Thanks for that.) I've got to fix the tool first. The steady rest on my lathe won't accept something the size of the flute, so I have been spending the time for the flute working on modifying the lathe. Which is turning out to be the most complicated part of this job.

Haha, welcome to the makers' world, Carey.

One of the many value judgements the maker has to make is whether to carry out any particualr job "the hard way" or invest some time setting up better to be able to do the job the easy way.

Clearly, if it's a job you are going to do regularly, the decision makes itself - you'd be nuts to battle on day after day doing things the hard way. And if it's likely to be a one-off, the decision makes itself - you'd be equally nuts setting up to simplify a job you'll never do again.

It's the middle ground that's harder. But that becomes a life-and-death decision for the maker. I've known makers (not just of flutes) that seemed paralysed - unless everything was perfect they couldn't continue. One extreme case was half a million dollars in debt setting up exotic CNC machining for a big instrument for which there was only a dubious market around here. But I've also seen makers who struggle on with the crudest of tools and setups, never daring to take the time off to really equip themselves with the right facilities to do a decent and efficient job. Both approaches end in disaster and heartbreak.

I won't claim to always get the balance right. I sometimes finally get around to making a specific tool or jig and then say to myself - that took an hour to make, and how many years have I done without it?!

And then you get the ultimate let-down. You spend an hour making a new tool and then you use it for the first time. It does the job is about 20 seconds, and you are left, perhaps like a new bride, thinking "is that it?". Extending the metaphor, the reward only comes with continued use.

I think it would be good to take some length out of the head so I can set the flute up so it will be A=440 with three or four mm of slide exposed, and I'd like to do this on the lathe of course. I might do some finger hole modifications first, just because I can.

I'd normally suggest you bring that hole 5 up so that F# is no longer tragically flat and see what the effect is on the pitch in general. But I remember you have the head apart, and you won't want to put it back together to find out if that is enough to lift the pitch. Unless it will hold together and be playable without having to glue.

Whatever my actual approach, I'll take photographs, make plots and post my progress - for better or for worse.

Excellent, we can all sit around and criticise!

Terry

[Carey]

... the reward only comes with continued use.

Ha, made me laugh, that one. It's exactly right of course. Customers of my high CPVC whistles have been pestering me to make some lower ones, but not having a proper steady rest has been blocking that project as well. So, even if I don't ever do another nach Meyer "tweak" it will see continued use. But even on the steady rest itself, I have the relatively quick and dirty approach and the long hard approach. I'm trying the quicker way first. It wouldn't do for cutting steel, but small bites of plastic or wood should be OK.

Excellent, we can all sit around and criticise!

I hope so!

Carey

[Maihcol]

I suggest you keep any adjustments to the head till the end and then you can start by temporarily sticking that head slide back into place with, say beeswax - it just needs to be solidly enough in place that it can't move or twist at all which might leave a step sticking out into the embouchure hole. It can't leak either (suck test it carefully). That way you'll be able to test your modifications to the toneholes as you go...Though I suppose you could take say, 3mm off the head to take it closer to start with if you're sure it will need at least this much...Doing it this way you know at the end just how much you want to finally take off the head for sure...

I wouldn't look for tuning adjustments by modifying the embouchure hole which you asked about above - I'd leave any (hopefully slight) improvements to that till the last too - I think of adjustments to an embouchure hole as being aimed at the response and tone rather than the tuning.

All the setting up that you have to do to get the job done is a lot of work the first time - there's always a number of ways of doing it depending on your circumstances - or as Terry points out, your own perception of your circumstances.

If it doesn't work out to your satisfaction you can always plug the holes with a similar wood, turn the flute over and start again!

Garry

[Carey]

With the slide 100% closed the flute nearly played A=440, but the other notes were off. I have a gut feel that taking some material off the head would be a good thing for this flute. But I still might start elsewhere and get two or three data points first. A little data can out-weigh a lot of conjecture.

If it doesn't work out to your satisfaction you can always plug the holes with a similar wood, turn the flute over and start again!

Ha, yes Garry, I've been thinking along those lines. But actually went a step farther and figured I would bore 12mm holes that I could insert round plugs into and I could either swap out the holes to my heart's content, or if I made them flat I could drill the hole off-center and rotate the insert to find the best positions for all the holes. That way I could have ET and JI holes for the same flute! (Only 3/4 joking, I think there's a useful R&D flute in there somewhere.)

Cheers,

Carey

[Feadoggie]

I have to say that I am really enjoying this thread. I almost want to go find an "old dead german" so I can follow along with the action.

I've been thinking along those lines. But actually went a step farther and figured I would bore 12mm holes that I could insert round plugs into and I could either swap out the holes to my heart's content, or if I made them flat I could drill the hole off-center and rotate the insert to find the best positions for all the holes. That way I could have ET and JI holes for the same flute!

I love the rotating hole idea.

Feadoggie