Irish flute : England musical instrument

The term Irish flute refers to a conical-bore, simple-system wooden flute of the kind that is favored by classical flautists of the early parts of the 19^th century, or to a flute of modern producers derived from this design. The vast majority of traditional players of the musical instrument use a wooden simple-system flute.

source: pipesland.com

Despite the implication of the generally used name, the musical instrument is not an instrument that originates from Ireland. It is in fact an English version of a transverse wooden flute long-known as the German flute, modified by the English men and radically altered by the English inventor and player known as Charles Nicholson Jr.

Simple system flutes were not manufactured with the traditional folk music players in mind, but were adapted by the Scottish and Irish flautists as the simple wooden instrument were dropped by the concert musicians during the advent of the modern Boehm system, western concert flute in the mid-19^th century. These flutes were later picked up by traditional musicians.

From the later part of the 19^th century, there were two primary patterns of large-holed flutes produced by two distinguished London based companies; Rudall and Rose and later Boosey and Co. that manufactured the pratten flute devised by Robert Sidney Pratten, a popular flautist of the 1840s and the 1850s. George Rudall was an amateur player of the musical instrument of some essence who studied for a time under the junior Nicholson prior teaching on his own. He was introduced to John Mitchell Rose in the year 1829 and their long association started. Pratten was a popular player who filled in as principal flautist in some orchestras as Nicholson. He performed a Siccama flute for a time and then associated himself with flute maker known as John Hudson, who had been producing the siccama flutes, and they devised the pratten perfected flute that was manufactured under Hudson’s name starting in 1852. The two of them would later bring the model of the flute and the design to Boosey and Co. following John Boosey’s offer to Hudson to foreman his industry.

Unlike the flute of Theobald Boehm, the musical instrument is a simple-system instrument that depends on the keys for accidental notes of the scale, and whose six main tone holes are bored directly into the wood and covered by the fingers of the player while performing the instrument. The flute is said to be pitched in D as the lowest natural note appears when all the six holes of the instrument are covered; three by the left hand and the other three by the right hand. The scale the flute manufactures when a single finger at a time is lifted from the beneath upward is the D-major scale. The contemporary Boehm flute gives out the same scale, except for the third F, is an F-natural. Therefore, why the modern day versions of the flutes are said to be pitched in C, and precisely pitched in the same sound, the Irish flute manufactures an F-sharp when it is fingered naturally.

The pratten has a wider bore dimension and gives out a bigger sound, the result of the Hudson’s work on the flute that carried the same concepts. The Rudall and Rose flutes had a reputation for having a darker and oure tone and little bit thinner than the pratten version of the flute, but the firm produced flutes of many patterns, mainly in cocus wood and boxwood. Most of these original flutes had a foot joint that permitted the playing of C# and C with the use of the keys, typically pewter plugs that fit into the silver plates. Some present day producers of the musical instrument forgo the addition of the keys, but maintain the longer foot joint with two holes where the keys should be, as it is thought to better emulate the pitching and tone of 19^th century versions of the musical instrument. The present day producers of the flute emulate the designs of ancient, focusing usually on a particular model or serial number and maintaining tuning to today’s modern pitch standard of A = 440 at the same temperament.

The Irish flute is a simple system, transverse instrument that plays a diatonic Major scale as the tone holes are successively opened. Many versions of the instrument from the classical era, and some modern products include metal keys and additional tone holes to get partial or complete chromatic tonality. Because of the wooden construction, characteristic embouchure and direct fingering, the musical instrument has a distinctly different tone quality from the western concert version of the flute. Many players of the Irish flute tend to strive for a dark and reedy tone in comparison to classical flautists. Though most commonly pitched in the D key, the Irish flutes are available pitched in some other keys and are normally heard in the Irish music pitched in E flat, B flat and C. although the instrument is called D flute, this is a non-transposing musical instrument, so if the player fingers C, a concert-pitched C is sounded. The name D-flute is from the fact that the simplest ^-holes wooden musical flute had D as its lowest notes and performs the scale of D without any cross-fingering.

The musical instrument has six primary finger-holes. For a D flute, with X symbolizing a covered finger-holes and O symbolizing an open finger-hole, all holes covered can be represented as XXX-XXX = D. as the scale continue progressively, it is tuned XXX-XXO = E, XXX-XOO = F#, XXX-OOO = G, XXO-OOO = A, XOO-OOO = B, OOO-OOO = C#, with XXX-XXX or OXX-XXX being the highest octave D for the full D major scale.

Wooden flutes have cylindrical bore in its head and a conical bore in its body. This bore is the largest at the head extreme, tapering down to a thinner bore at the foot. This has the effect of shortening the flute for a specific pitch. Today, transverse simple system Irish flutes are being produced for the playing of a variety of traditional musical patterns. In the Irish tradition, the material used is most commonly wood, but also Delrin, PVC and even bamboo are used for the production of the musical instrument, even though wood is still the best material for the musical flute. These modern day versions of the flute can differ in the number of metal keys added to them, or have no key at all. Most of them are tuned with the use of the modern styles and are typically better in tune with modern musical instruments. All have the primary six holes design as in a tin whistle. The modern playing pattern within the Irish traditional music has much common with the tin whistle method.