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Post by Zi on Mar 19, 2023 9:27:19 GMT
Another bizarre musing coming up I expect. I've been thinking, the early flutes were wood (very very very early ones were made of bone). And I've managed to find examples of people playing the baroque (wooden)flute I find it interesting that the flute went metal and the recorder didn't. I am wondering about the sound quality - for example, there appear to be the same kind of discussions over which metal for a flute that there are over which wood (or plastic) for a recorder. Just wondered if anyone else has some opinions.
I don't know much about the flute. I have had a go at getting a note from a metal, keyed flute but I found it awkward to hold and it was heavy so I don't know really what it's like to play. I like the sound it makes though!
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Post by pavane on Mar 19, 2023 13:10:57 GMT
There is something a bit Emperor's-New-Clothes-ish about the arguments over the materials instruments are made of. I've seen these arguments wrt to a variety of instruments and materials and they always seem to boil down to a point where someone says "I can't tell the difference because there isn't one" and someone else says "Yes there is, it's simply that you can't hear it". Oddly enough, the most recent version I saw of it was wrt flutes, with one protagonist claiming that all-silver flutes were a complete waste of money and another saying that having at least the head section made of solid silver made a huge difference to the sound quality.
Personally, I don't remember ever hearing a difference that couldn't be easily accounted for by some other property of the instrument that probably had a much greater effect on the sound than the material of manufacture did. Of course, it comes up all the time in the world of recorders, where (assuming all the instruments are well-made) all plastic recorders sound worse than "basic" woods like pear and maple which in turn sound worse than expensive hardwoods like box or ebony. There is a Sarah Jeffery video where she tests about a dozen recorders of various types of wood and duly concludes that the more expensive ones do sound better (she couches this a bit in terms of personal preference) but personally I can't tell any difference at all - which comes back to the New Clothes thing.
As far as recorders go, one side (roughly) says the sound is generated not by the vibrating wood but by the vibrating column of air inside it, and things like the smoothness of the walls, the exact cut and position of the toneholes, etc etc, affect the sound quality but the wood/plastic/metal/glass/whatever it is made of does not, and the ideal is a tube that is extremely stiff and does not vibrate at all. Just maybe a tube made of a wood that was naturally rougher in surface texture would have a slightly different tone to one made of a very smooth wood. The other side says (roughly) that the wood vibrates just as everything does and this adds a subtle additional quality to the sound.
Since I can't hear the difference, and because the vibrating column of air argument makes sense to me, and because the cynic in me can't help noticing that it always seems to be substantially more expensive materials that allegedly sound better, I incline to the argument that, in the case of woodwinds at least, what the instrument is made of doesn't make any difference.
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Post by Zi on Mar 19, 2023 17:01:06 GMT
It could be that our hearing is now very wonky because of our aged state (that's age-ed as in Dickens or Shakespeare) and thus we can't hear the difference. But I suspect that the person blowing down that tube has far more effect than the tube itself. However, I also think that how you feel about the instrument can have an effect - ie it's the clean cars drive better argument. I toyed with playing a wooden instrument for my G1 but my teacher was very reluctant to let me do that as the exam was very very close and I'd never played it at a lesson so she suggested I brought it to the class and she'd hear. When she heard she said I was to play the wooden one because for some reason it made me more confident and it sounded better because of that. She made up her mind in a few seconds - it was that different. However, I've recorder the same piece on some of my (many) descants and left the recordings for a while so that I'd forgotten which is which and really I don't necessarily pick out the 'better' recorder. Maybe that's because I'm not that great as a recorder player to start with or maybe it's because none of the recorders are superlatively expensive or maybe I can't hear the difference because my hearing is wonky... So wrt recorders, my advice would always be get whatever makes you happy because I suspect being happy will make you play better.
I read something somewhere that the difference between metal flutes was non-detectable. But again I wonder if it's the washed car effect and that some people play better if they think the instrument is better...
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Post by Misty on Mar 23, 2023 17:00:05 GMT
I'm not sure if upgrading my recorder to a "better" one helps my sound or not. It sounds wonderful in my teacher's hands, but I don't think I create quite the same effect! Where flutes are concerned, the answer has to be metal AND wood. My wooden flute sounds beautifully mellow - but it does take a deal more puff! My metal flute was upgraded some years ago, from a basic Trevor James to a Miyazowa, and the difference in sound was considerable
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Post by Zi on Mar 24, 2023 8:07:49 GMT
Misty - that's interesting that flutes need to be both wood and metal. With regard to the recorder, you'll 'grow' into it and to a certain extent it's nice to have a recorder that you develop along with. Just about everyone I've read on the recorder says that the wooden instruments change with use. I think it's nice that it becomes a synergy.
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Post by pavane on Mar 24, 2023 8:14:32 GMT
Hi Misty - glad to hear that your mojo has returned! It can be a bit grim feeling mojo-less.
A propos your metal flutes, are they made of different metals? Or is it more that the Miyazowa is better "engineered" - I presume it must have more accurately aligned keywork, finer manufacturing tollerances, better pads, etc.
It is probably quite hard to compare materials with many instruments because more expensive materials will be used mainly on better quality ones. Recorders are unusual in the way that you can often get exactly the same model in a quite wide range of different woods.
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