Today I went to Paul’s own workshop in the Hague, where after tea he showed me the instruments he makes, and even gave me a little demonstration of these beautiful musettes.

Paul Beekhuizen

Beekhuizen musettes

Afterwards we took my maple cylinder into the shop, attached it to the lathe, and used a long, very thin, gouge-like tool to bore length-wise right through the middle.  This gouging tool was hooked up to an electrical blower, which I correctly guessed sent air through this tiny gouge as it bored through the wood, sending sawdust out (I suppose the alternative is for the hole being bored to get clogged, or perhaps ruining your tool).  To be honest, the whole thing sounded and looked like strangely enlarged versions of instruments you might find at a dentist’s office….

cylinder on lathe

making the first bore with the tiny gouge

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And that was it.  Now my flute is a cylinder with a bore inside that is no bigger than 4 mm.

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January 17, 2009

I have several friends who have taken up building their own instruments – flutes, clarinets, oboes, cornetti…  They’ve been very passionate in their recommendations of a class they all followed, led by Paul Beekhuizen.  After 2 years of their enthusiastic reports, I’ve finally taken them up on the idea that maybe I might find this interesting as well.  I have no plans to be a flute maker, but I’d like to know more about how it works.  I learn by doing, and no matter how many flute builders have described the process to me, it just never sticks.

Today was my first day in an instrument-building class.  Everyone has a different project – we range from the descant Renaissance flute-maker (me) to a double-bass maker (a very dedicated person!)  I figure making a simple stick with holes is a pretty good way to start out, especially since I’ve never done anything involving a workshop with tools (other than sweeping up sawdust in my dad’s shop – does this count?)  I had a little tour of the instruments, with requisite basic instructions and safety warnings, and then we got right down to work.

Paul helped me pick out a nice piece of American maple from the stock to begin my flute.  This piece of wood was long and rectangular, and my first job was to find the middle of each endpoint, mark it with a tiny hole, and set it in the lathe.  We turned the lathe on, and as the wood spun around, I used a gouge to scrape away the edges until it was completely round.

Here’s the lathe I’m working on.  You can also see the variety of gouges hanging there in a nice, orderly Dutch line.

Clean-up involved a whole mess of sawdust and a noisy vacuum cleaner, but I didn’t think of using it on my clothes until I got home and sat on the couch, thus spreading of little bits of maple wood joy beyond the workshop…

That was the end of Day 1.  I made a rectangle into a cylinder, and I’m so proud.

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Renaissance flute (copy) - boxwood

Renaissance flute (copy) - maple

Tenor Renaissance flutes

Maker: Giovanni Tardino (Rome, Italy)

My flutes:  One boxwood, A=440; one maple, A=440

These tenor Renaissance flutes are Giovanni Tardino’s masterful copies of originals from the Accademia Filarmonica di Verona.  They are consort instruments, and I’ve played them in a varitey of flute-consort and mixed-consort ensembles.  I’ve also used them for solo repertoire, and pieces with lute accompaniment.  I’ve always thought that Renaissance flutes have a gorgeous, poingnant, somewhat breathy and wooden, earthy sound.  Their color range is huge – sometimes they sound like voices, sometimes like cornetti, sometimes like flutes.

The Renaissance flute consort is most typically a 4-part consort, but there are pieces for 2, 3, and 5 or more instruments as well -  almost any polyphonic chanson will do!  There is also a pretty good amount of music that perhaps wasn’t intended for any particular instrument or combination which works beautifully on these flutes as well.   In the traditional 4-part consort, you most often have a bass flute taking the bottom voice, while the top three voices are given to three tenor instruments.  Apparently a discant flute was sometimes used as well, but the range of the tenor flute is quite large and can accommodate most of the cantus parts written, and has the added benefit of not being too bright (screechy).

Though the tenor flute is obviously most easy to hear (and indeed really shines) in the the higher registers, it has a hauntingly beautiful lower register as well.  If the flute is played in a consort setting, the lower altus- and tenor- voice players need to employ a very direct sound to cut through.  The solo Renaissance flute can show off its range and colors best in diminutions by composers such as Ortiz, Rognoni, and Van Eyck.

I started playing the Renaissance flute during my third year of conservatory, partly because a lute-player friend had begged me to learn so we could play together.  I played mostly in a 3-part flute consort at the beginning, but have since played in all sorts of ensembles.  Renaissance music, particularly when played on these flutes, continues to catch me by surprise in its beauty and creativity.

For some reason, my boxwood flute is very flexible – and not only in sound!   The instrument is somehow very sensitive to humidity, and each day it is a slightly different shape.  Sometimes it is perfectly straight, and sometimes it bends a little, like it did for its photo.  My colleagues call it “the banana flute”.  I bought the maple flute this year because I found that I tend to play the boxwood flute at A=438, and I really needed one in 440 for ensemble work.  Two flutes are better than one!

Renaissance

IH Rottenburgh

A Grenser 415

A Grenser 430

H Grenser

Tassi

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