Clementi Nicholson's Improved Flute on Ebay

[Sillydill]

Not mine, though I wish!

http://cgi.ebay.com/CLEMENTI-NICHOLSONS ... 0209293827

This is the first time I've seen a picture of the relieved area for inserting the shark-skin for the RH thumb.


Here's a picture of the topside.


All the Best!

[jim stone]

That's amazing.First time I've seen a picture of one of these.
I suppose these were very hard to play in tune.
What is the circular lining made of in the embouchure hole?

[Terry McGee]

Mmmm, scrummy.

Note also the indent for the left knuckle and the flattened zone around the right hand fingerholes, both well-known Nicholsonian trademarks. And of course the chair-leg combing that (was it Rockstro that made this harsh observation?) "so disfigured the head and barrel". I don't find it unattractive.

Note also the lack of a long F, and also the line-up pins at each joint, to help you set the flute up the same every time. It would be interesting to know if, when set up according to the line-up pins, this flute's RH holes are about 45 degrees advanced on the LH holes, as some I've measured are. Ooops, silly me, I've just looked at the Ebay page and see the seller has already commented on this.

Interestingly, these line-up pins appear to be on the back of the flute, while the ones I've seen have been more prominent on the top side. Even your best friends need not know that you use line-up pins.

The ivory lined embouchure hole is another of Nicholson's preferences - he was clearly aware that cocuswood is surprisingly soft for such a dense timber, and that wear to the edge would change the playing characteristics of the flute in a relatively short time. Also the silver lip plate to protect the player from cocus allergy.

There is one aspect of Nicholson's flutes that I don't think I've seen mentioned anywhere, which is odd as it has quite a profound effect on the flute. Take a close look at the head and it's obvious that it is thinner around the embouchure area than at the ends of the head, near the rings. To put some numbers on it, I've measured them as around 26mm diameter at the embouchure.

Setting that in context, flutes around the start of the 19th century had lumping fat heads, around 29mm. This, allied with a head bore of 19mm, gave a hearty 5mm chimney depth, the kind of depth you'd find on a Boehm flute today. Consequently, the tone was full, but the big outside diameter stuck in your face limited your access to the hole. I find such flutes a bit slow to respond, but, like all embouchuratic things, this has to be a personal matter.

When Nicholson came out with his Improved, that 29mm collapsed to 26mm, a staggering reduction. This equates to a chimney depth of only 3.5mm. Many would find that lacking in tone, especially on the lowest notes, but it wouldn't be lacking in speed. Nicholson was never at a loss for tone, so he was probably very happy with the tradeoff.

Subsequently, all sorts of riff-raff started making Improved flutes, including Rudall & Rose. Generally these subsequent makers settled on a head OD of 27mm (equivalent to a 4mm chimney), presumably feeling this to be a better compromise than Nicholson's extreme 3.5mm.

I was interested to read an account by the late 20th century Boehm flute maker Albert Cooper, well known for his improved scale, of some experiments he did on chimney depth. His normal embouchure holes had a chimney of around 5.2mm, so he made a pair with depths of 4mm and 6mm and passed them off to some well-known players for comment. They preferred his 5.2mm hole, but didn't mind the 6mm. They found the 4mm too thin and fizzy.

Now, we have to remember that the Boehm flute has what we'd call in wooden flute language a "thinned head". The embouchure lip plate is not concentric to the bore, so you can deepen the chimney depth with only a marginal effect on perceived outside diameter. So Albert's deeper embouchure hole didn't have to pay the difficulty-of-access price a solid wooden cylindrical head would. This might partially explain why he could get away with a 6mm hole. That would equate to a 31mm head on an Irish flute, about what you get on a Bb.

I'd be interested to hear from players of original Nicholson flutes to see whether they feel the thinner head is a plus or a minus, not noticeable or just a different flute experience to treasure.

For those lacking calipers to check their head diameters, try this trick. Run a narrow strip of paper around the head and mark where it overlaps with a pencil. Now flatten out the strip and measure the distance between the marks. Divide by PI (3.14 or 22/7) and you have the diameter. As a guide:

Diameter (chimney depth) = circumference
26 (3.5) = 81.7
27 (4) = 84.8
28 (4.5) = 88
29 (5) = 91.1
30 (5.5)= 94.2
31 (6) = 97.4

(Anyone with a McGee Flute "Eccentric Bore" head is reminded that this relationship cannot be used as the chimney depth is artificially increased by having the bore lower in the head than centre! Same with thinned heads.)

Terry

[mahanpots]

How come the case in the picture on Ebay only has space for three pieces of the flute instead of four? Just curious, as I always take apart my flute completely, except for the tuning slide.

Michael

[jemtheflute]

How come the case in the picture on Ebay only has space for three pieces of the flute instead of four? Just curious, as I always take apart my flute completely, except for the tuning slide.

Michael

Michael, the vast majority of cases for C19th flutes are similar - they are designed to hold the flute safely in a compact fashion. It was not normal to separate the lower body and foot in the case. I keep my R&R thus (not in its own case - long lost, alas - but in another period one) and in 25-odd years have experienced no ill effects from doing so. I do usually swab it out before putting away, but I don't separate the joints to do so. No problem. One might even argue that the tenons are safer from damage joined up and that the less often you separate joints the longer your lappings will last......

I don't think your implied worries about harming the flute by leaving any parts assembled for any length of time worried them back then - nor IMO is there any strong evidence to say they were wrong. I suspect most of us who have such cases in serviceable condition still use them, and I haven't noticed much crying over ill effects of doing so going on!

Bottom line answer to your Q. - it's normal.

[jim stone]

The dots would be a good addition to contemporary
flutes, IMO, so as to standardize alignment per player.

Anybody have an idea what the internal tuning
was like on these? I seem to recall
the idea that only Nicholson could blow
these flutes in tune.

[dlambert]

Terry, I don't notice a lack of tone in mine. Once it gets warmed up and playing the tone is fine. Even has a pretty good bottom D.

Jim, as far as playing in tune. Mine has an extra footjoint made by John Gallagher. This works to improve the tone and tuning. I can play mine in tune. Also, Dave Migoya has one that he brings to the session. It has a footjoint made by our own Mr. McGee. He plays in tune just fine. A new footjoint can make a big difference with these.

Any comments Terry?

[rforbes]

Would anyone who has played such an instrument care to speculate on the tonal effect of the bushing in the embouchure hole? One would think it would have some effect--or if it didn't, that would be interesting too!

[eilam]

Terry thanks !!!
great post.
e.

[LorenzoFlute]

don't know if i should have opened a new topic, but if it's needed anyone who read this post can open it... there's a rudall & rose on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/RUDALL-ROSE-8-KEY-F ... dZViewItem

[Terry McGee]

Jim, as far as playing in tune. Mine has an extra footjoint made by John Gallagher. This works to improve the tone and tuning. I can play mine in tune. Also, Dave Migoya has one that he brings to the session. It has a footjoint made by our own Mr. McGee. He plays in tune just fine. A new footjoint can make a big difference with these.

Any comments Terry?

Indeed, sometimes the flat foot syndrome can be so extreme as to render the flute quite laughable. I have one such example here. It's too lovely to consider modifying it.

I have a theory about how this all came about, but warning, at this stage it's just a theory. We know that Nicholson's dad took an Astor flute of the time and increased the hole sizes, particularly of the middle hole of both body sections. This dramatically improved the tuning and performance of the body notes, and would have sharpened the notes from F# upwards. Easily fixed, just extend the slide a bit more. But it would not have sharpened the notes below there, and so pulling the slide out would have considerably flattened them.

(It's easy to test this when making a new flute if anyone wants to. Just drill the holes too small at first (about 6.5mm) measure the tuning and then open them up to what they should be.)

So, you would think that old Charley Nicholson would have continued his voyage of discovery by cutting down the foot length to pull the foot notes up, but there's no evidence he did. I suspect the mongrel tuning that resulted was the reason for the comment (denied by Nicholson Jr) that only he was capable of playing them in tune.

It took about 30 more years before the flat foot syndrome finally was eradicated. Perhaps players became so adept at living with it that they would have missed it. That would seem consistent with the fact that it was not eradicated in one fell swoop, but slowly. You can trace the slow eradication by graphing how foot lengths slowly fell:



This graph is taken from the Conclusions of my Rudall, Rose or Carte study, but remains relevant as they were making Improved era flutes. The period covered is from about 1825 to nearly 1900:

http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/conclusions.html

More on flat foot syndrome ( and eradicating it) can be found at:

http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/flatfeet.html

It's worth eradicating!

Terry

[daiv]

Would anyone who has played such an instrument care to speculate on the tonal effect of the bushing in the embouchure hole? One would think it would have some effect--or if it didn't, that would be interesting too!

the technical term for it is a riser, and i have no idea what it would do. on silver flute headjoints, i think the ones with gold risers play better than the ones with silver. gold is softer than silver, so i dont know what the means about ivory being denser than the wood. i would assume it would give it a louder tone and less of a fuzzy sound.

[Denny]

Would anyone who has played such an instrument care to speculate on the tonal effect of the bushing in the embouchure hole? One would think it would have some effect--or if it didn't, that would be interesting too!

the technical term for it is a riser, and i have no idea what it would do. on silver flute headjoints, i think the ones with gold risers play better than the ones with silver. gold is softer than silver, so i dont know what the means about ivory being denser than the wood. i would assume it would give it a louder tone and less of a fuzzy sound.

daiv, is it really a riser on a head joint that has thick enough walls to provide the chimney height?
I can understand it being a "riser" on a thin metal tube where it is used to move the lip plate far enough from the tube to provide a suitable chimney.

[jemtheflute]

I think Denny is right that, in technical jargon, a "riser" is the actual metal tube (on a metal Boehm head) soldered laterally onto the main tube to provide the "chimney" of the embouchure and the support for the lip-plate. Any special lining of the riser or insert of a different material in the working edge of the embouchure would not actually be the "riser" as such, but a bushing of it. Certainly the whole riser could be of gold, but to be mechanically suitable it would have to be a relatively hard/low carat gold, whereas a lining bush (or edge insert) could be softer/purer. A wooden flute doesn't have/need a riser, even on a thinned head, as all is turned out of the original block of timber.

So, I'd think flute tech jargon would make the arrangement on the Clementi under discussion and "ivory-bushed embouchure", since the ivory insert clearly forms the whole of the embouchure hole.

None of which clarification (I hope) of terms helps with the wondering about the actual playing effect/properties.......

[Denny]

jem dear....you left out the one where a little bit of foreign matter is embedded across the hole for the blowing edge....