[WAAAY OT] Help - name needed

[Judy Perry]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 10:22 PM, Kay C Lan <lan.kc.macmail at gmail.com> wrote:

> Exactly, concert flutes are normally made of silver or silver alloy. A gold
> flute will be either gold plated silver or a silver-gold alloy. Student
> flutes are normally nickle-silver alloy or for the really cheap ones, silver
> plated brass.

--Or, I hear, nickle or silver-plated *pot metal* that no repair place
will even touch :-/

> I notice though, that in all these test they were with metal flutes, no
> comparison with a wood flute. I also note that in Sir Jame's test, he used
> 16 flutes which he owned, so I imagine no cheap silver plated ones, but all
> high quality flutes with a similar content of silver, only the very small
> amount of gold may have varied.

--True enough, though I could swear that such blind tests have been
done.  As for him playing student-level flutes, though, he's done it
at flute seminars/etc. and it's been noted that usually the listeners
all thought he sounded fantabulous on cheap participant/attendee
flutes.  And fwiw I have two pyrex flutes (made by Hall) that really
don't sound a whole lot if any different near as I can tell than my
intermediate flute w/a solid silver headjoint.
>
> Lastly, it is completely pointless trying to detect the 'subtle' difference
> in sound of various flutes when the sound has probably been recorded using
> the cheap inbuilt mic of a consumer quality camcorder, then compressed for
> YouTube to be finally heard over computer speakers! It's a bit like those
> ads for HD TV. How is anyone going to see the difference on their Standard
> format TV?????

--LOL!  Sometimes I wonder if YouTube automatically crapifies things
or if people who are supposed to know a thing or two about acoustics
choose for some bizarre reason to use *the worst* possible recording
devices (and then the rest of us do likewise with playback)  ;-)

>
> Still if Sir Jame's says it's hard to tell you have to believe him, but I
> got to ask myself, if there is no difference in the sound of all those
> flutes, why does Sir Jame's own so many?

--I think that the science and professional opinions on the subject
may be changing/advancing.  Also, there are the other issues such as
drawn & rolled versus soldered tone holes (I doubt he owns any of the
altter), pointed Y-arms versus the other stuff, open -hole or not,
inline G or not, split-E or not, and maybe mechanical response in the
different  hand-made models, etc. etc.

If you're interested, I'll try to find the article on the concrete
flute.  I have to admit to having started out on the other side of the
argument just because it seemed intuitive (e.g., you can clearly tell
the difference between a modern POC quarter being dropped and an older
one which has a non-minimal silver content) but I must say that some
fo the modern studies/articles strike me as increasingly convincing
that headjoint cut comes out way ahead of materials and that the
latter, if it matters at all, matters really only at the first point
of contact between the airstream and the headjoint (and *maybe* in the
riser).

BUT, having asid all that, I also must tell you that I recently bought
a used intermediate flute with said solid silver headjoiny (AND open
holes, which provide almost nothing except in certain circumstances
AND a low b-foot which is almost never used) -- because, well,
dammit!, I always wanted one, and that's the kind that the big kids
always had ;-)

Judy



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