MusicyTechGeek

I’ve decided that because I’m going to be talking about the advances in the flute being made, I would give a break down of the parts on the flute so that they can easily be understood anddiscussed. Because this flute does not have every option available I’m doing to list them below, and when they come up in the future, I will expand on it more.

Pictured: Foot Joint – B foot

Common Flute Options: Bb Foot (uncommon),C Foot, D Foot (not a standard choice for most flute players).

Pictured: Gizmo Key

Common Flute Options:The gizmo key is used on flutes to close the last key/hole on the flute when playing the high C (4thoctave). This note or higher, often becomes muffled because of the extra length of the foot joint when compared to a C Foot joint.

Pictured: Open Holes

Common Flute Options: Plateau key (no hole in the middle of the A, G, F, E, D Keys), Open Hole. If requested, I will do a diagram of the key names as well, but I don’t know if we need to cover that right now.

Pictured: Offset G

Common Flute Options: Inline G, or half-offset G. This refers to the placement of the key on the body. Inline means they are all in a single line, without any of the main keys being ‘offset’ from the other. Offset G is often found on student model flutes, but recently it has started to become more ‘acceptable’ on the professional flute for ergonomic reasons.

Pictured: Mechanism

Common Flute Options: There are several options that would change the mechanism of the flute, some of them are: C# Trill, Split E, G Donut. Also, there arepin-lessmechanism that have no adjusting screws. Adjustment screws are normally found on student and intermediate flute. It is believed that flutes without them tend to stay in adjustment and don’t have as many mechanical problems.

Pictured: French pointed arms and Y-Arms.

Common Flute Options: The arm type has to do with the connection of the key to the mechanism. This flute is considered “French Pointed Arms” because it has pointed key connections on the keys that are closed via the mechanism. The only reason there is a Y-Arm on this flute (on the C key) is because of the fact that the first finger of the left hand is on that key. It if had a ‘pointed key arm’ it would be uncomfortable to play. French pointed arms is a feature that is common on professional and intermediate flutes, and it isaestheticallymore beautiful to most flute players.

Pictured: Barrell

Common Flute Options: The barrel is notnecessarilyan option for flute players. However, that is where the maker places the company branding and often the serial number of the instrument. There are different bodythicknessoptions, but this will come into play later.

Pictured: Lip Plate

Common Flute Options: Flutes can have winged lip plates, or lip plates that are made from a different metal from that of the body. Engraving is also popular to help reduce sliding of the lip from the head-joint while playing.

Pictured: Riser

Common Flute Options: The riser can often dramatically change the sound of the flute, and can be made from the same material as the rest of the flute or another metal. Flute players will often upgrade this before the lip plate because it seems to change the flute sound a lot more.

Pictured: Crown

Common Flute Options: Most flutes come with a crown (the piece that connects to the internal cork to make sure that the tubelengthof the flute is correct) of the same material the flute is made of. You can order special crows/corks with suspected differentacoustical traits, but this is not proven to be true or false. It is a choice of the player, and what best suits the personality.

Unlabeled:

Body Tubing – The tubing that the flute is constructed from. The head joint, body, and foot joint are all constructed on the body tubing. You can have the head joint with a different tubing from the body, and often it is seen when students step up to a hand made head joint. Ex: A silver flute with a gold head joint.

Pads – This is the part of the flute that closes between the key and the tone holes. I will discuss them further as I talk about the different pad options available to flute players.

Tone Holes – You can have ‘drawn’ tone tones, or ‘soldered’ tone holes. Drawn tone holes are extruded from the body tubing. This is often found on machine produced instruments. Soldered tone holes are soldered by hand onto the body, and it often on hand made instruments. This is also an option on hand made instruments, to have it one way or the other. Some people speculate differences between the two, but there is no scientific proof that one is better than the other.

Head joint – The part of the flute that connects to the barrel of the body.

Body – Has the mechanism on it that holds the inline or offset G, and it is where everything but the pinky finger on the right hand plays.

Foot joint – The foot joint is the last piece of the flute and all of the keys are controlled by the pinky of the right hand. This is also where the gizmo key can be located.