Irish Flute Workshops

Irish fute workshops with tradschool: www.tradschool.org

Blackwood used in Musical Instruments

If you have ever heard the mellow tones of a jazz or classical clarinet solo, you have been listening to the natural sound of an instrument made of mpingo. In the last century, cocuswood from the Caribbean region was the wood of choice for woodwinds, but the species was driven into economic extinction by that demand. African blackwood is now the wood used exclusively for fine quality woodwind instruments. Their manufacture demands a perfect piece of wood free of all defects to allow the intricate machining necessary to create such a complex instrument. To quote flutemaker Casey Burns, "African blackwood, which makes an excellent flute, is now the standard by which all other flute tonewoods are judged."

Since blackwood is a tree that grows twisted and full of flaws, extracting high quality timber is extremely difficult.Graders at the mill reject up to 90% of the wood to the scrap pile. Additionally, instrument makers are finding that they lose up to 20% of their workpieces during the machining process at the factory. It is thought that this may be due to the exposure of mpingo to fires in excess of what would occur naturally during its growth. This may create hairline cracks and invisible defects in the wood that cause it to explode apart on the lathe during manufacture. Such large amounts of wastage put an added demand on the remaining stands of timber.

African blackwood's exceptional stability under extremes of humidity and temperature is a necessary characteristic for instruments played by blowing air into them. Its density and fine grain structure allow it to be machined much as if it were metal. Its tight grain and oily nature allows it to be polished to a beautiful sheen. Not only does blackwood have no peers for this purpose, no suitable natural replacement is known. Composite materials made of blackwood dust and resins, as well as various plastic compounds have been used for the manufacture of woodwind instruments, but their acceptance among professional players is poor.

The clarinet is perhaps the best known of the woodwind instruments and serves as an illustration of the indispensable place blackwood holds in the world of music. The clarinet consists of a cylindrical tube with a bell-shaped opening at one end and a mouthpiece at the other. The mouthpiece has a flat cane reed attached which vibrates when blown upon. This vibration produces a full, rich tone. The tube contains open holes and holes covered by keys. The fingers open and close the holes and operate the keys to produce notes within a range of over three octaves. The complex machining required to produce this configuration produces an excellent result when the wood is mpingo.

Blackwood clarinets are known for their warm and beguiling musical tone. Most professional musicians feel there is no substitute for an instrument made of blackwood. Acker Bilk, well-known clarinetist for such pieces as "Stranger on the Shore", had this to say about mpingo clarinets in the PBS video, "The Tree of Music": "It's got that warmth about it, that live sort of feel about it–wood–you can't beat it!"

Mpingo also figures prominently in the making of bagpipes. A bagpipe is a wind instrument which produces sound through reeds. Except in a few special cases it is made of at least two sounding pipes tied into an airtight bag with a further pipe to allow it to be filled with air. Pressure is applied to the bag using the arm, and this causes the reeds to vibrate and sound. Mpingo is an excellent material for the sounding pipes of this instrument.

Most of the mpingo harvested in eastern Africa goes to the music trade, its primary economic use. Some rough estimates, such as cited in the "Tree of Music" video, say that there are about 3 million mpingos in Tanzania. Of these, only about 600,000 are suitable for the music trade. Since there are between 20,000-30,000 trees harvested per year, one can calculate that there only remains a 20-30 year supply of harvestable mpingo. Of course, other trees growing may mature into suitable candidates for harvesting, but the natural regeneration of mpingo has been negatively impacted by the increasing pressure of human activity. Set-fires, for agricultural purposes, have a considerable impact on the mpingo population, since its natural resistance to fire is not strong enough to resist the human-set fires which are more intense and occur more often than natural fires.

Fauna and Flora International, a conservation organization in England, has been instrumental in gathering information about the status of mpingo in recent years. It has created a project called SoundWood to address conservation issues concerning the woods used in musical instruments. SoundWood conducted a conference in Maputo, Mozambique in the winter of 1995 to discuss the mpingo tree--its status and implications for its future conservation.

 

Choosing a Flute for Irish Music

http://www.firescribble.net/flute/choosing.html

The first thing to decide is whether you want a simple-system or Boehm-system flute. The vast majority of traditional Irish flute players use a wooden, simple-system flute, like the three flutes shown here, made by Chris Wilkes.

Some people prefer to play Boehm-system flutes, which is the key system on the modern silver flute. The flute shown below is a wooden Boehm-system model made by Chris Abell of Asheville, North Carolina.

Boehm-System Flutes

Billy Clifford of Co. Kerry playing a wooden Boehm-system flute. Photo copyright Peter Laban, Miltown Malbay

Boehm-system flutes are available in metal or wood. They have a cylindrical bore and a complex key system. The renowned German flutemaker and player Theobald Boehm developed this instrument in the mid-1800s because he believed it would make the flute louder and improve its internal tuning, especially in the third octave. These qualities make the Boehm-system flute especially appropriate for classical music in orchestral settings; in fact, by the late 1800s conductors were requiring all orchestra flute players to play Boehm-system instruments.

The fingering of the Boehm system flute is more complex than that of the simple system, making it less popular for traditional Irish music. Plus, without the open holes it is hard to slide from one note to another, which may limit your expressiveness, especially when playing airs.

For more info on the development of the Boehm-system flute, check out the Standing Stones Irish flute site.

Simple-System Flutes

The simple system, conical-bore flute is what people played before Boehm introduced his cylindrical-bore design in the mid-1800s. Simple-system flutes are usually made of wood (cocus, grenadilla [also called African blackwood], rosewood, ebony, and boxwood are the most common), have six tone-holes and anywhere from zero to 13 metal keys. Many experienced Irish flute players prefer six- or eight-key instruments, although much of the traditional Irish repertoire may be played on a keyless flute. The six tone-holes on a simple-system flute correspond to the six holes on a tin whistle: if you already play whistle, you will not need to change your fingering to play the same music on a flute.

Most simple-system flutes used by Irish musicians play in concert pitch: as with a D pennywhistle, the "D" fingering on a flute (six fingers down) produces a D (an octave below that of a pennywhistle) on the A=440 tuning standard in wide use today. People generally refer to these instruments as "concert flutes" or "D flutes" although strictly speaking the latter term is incorrect since the flute may have keys that take it down to C-sharp and C.

As with the whistle, flutes are available in a range of keys. D is standard for Irish music, but you can also find flutes in A, G, F, Eb, C, B, and Bb. These are mostly regarded as novelty instruments, although they do come in handy for certain tunes or for creating a desired mood. By the way, the Bb flute is large, much longer than a standard D flute.You will often come across small "flutes" in the key of Bb, the same size as a Bb whistle; these are called fifes. A small, keyed flute in D, the same size as a D pennywhistle, is known as a piccolo.

The rest of this section of the site deals with factors you should consider in choosing a simple-system flute. Go on to the Next Page to learn about keys, wood, tone, and other considerations.

The Irish Flute

The Irish flute is a name for a wooden flute used in the playing of Irish traditional music. Sometimes the term is also used to distinguish diatonic, simple system flutes from 19th century flutes which played a diatonic scale by successively uncovering the toneholes but were made chromatic by the addition of metal keys. Some musicians consider the term "Irish flute" to be a misnomer, as the instrument is just a development of the older, simple system flutes, and is used in a wide variety of music, including Scottish music, Breton music, and others.

Irish flutes were originally old English simple system flutes that were discarded by concert musicians during the advent of the modern, Boehm system, Western concert flute in the late 1800s. These "obsolete" flutes were picked up at low cost by Irish traditional musicians. Today, Irish flutes are being made expressly for the playing of Irish traditional music by many makers. These modern Irish flutes often have few, if any keys, which is one difference between them and their predecessors, which had anywhere from 5-10 keys in addition to the standard six open holes. Some of the best known modern flute makers include Michael Grinter, Patrick Olwell, Sam Murray and Hammy Hamilton and Martin Doyle (flute maker). Terry McGee is also a well known maker of Irish flutes and his website (listed below) has a wealth of information.

Irish flutes are usually made out of wood, but are also occasionally made out of composite materials such as Delrin. Both materials have fairly similar musical characteristics, however, at least in comparison to metal flutes. Some makers also make more inexpensive practice flutes out of other materials, such as PVC or metal. Due to its wood headjoint, characteristic embouchure, the direct (keyless) fingering of notes in two major scales, and the characteristic manner of playing which is part of the Irish music tradition, the simple system flutes have a distinctly different sound than the Western concert flute. The tone of both instruments of course varies greatly with the player, but in general the simple system flutes have a bit of a darker, reedy tone and the direct fingering and style of playing gives the notes just a bit of portamento.

There are two main styles of Irish flute, the Pratten and the Rudall & Rose. The Pratten has wider bore dimensions and provides a louder sound, while the Rudall & Rose has a darker, pure tone and is slightly thinner than the Pratten style flute. Some flutes have an extra two holes on the end, which are meant to stabilize the tone and are not meant to be played.