New Friend

Allow me to introduce you to my new friend and music making partner. She was crafted by Rudolph Tuts in Innsbruck, Austria and was copied after the Denner flute from around the 1750s. This is a Baroque wooden flute with no mechanism, a tapered inside (as opposed to the cylindrical one of modern flutes), and a beautiful sound.

To increase my experience with early music, I'm going to be taking Baroque flute lessons in addition to modern flute with my current teacher, Suzanne Stumpf. This is actually her baby!! She purchased it some odd years ago from Tuts himself in Austria, and is generous to lend it to me. We had our first lesson yesterday, and she instructed me how to take care of the flute. This involves oiling it with almond oil to keep the wood from cracking, and wrapping thread around the joints when the humidity is low and the joints are loose, or taking off thread when the wood is expanding. It's really, really interesting!
Not only are fingerings different, but you have to be so careful approaching each and every note on this kind of flute. The modern flute basically came about in an attempt to "fix" the uneven palette of this kind of flute because it was too quiet for the growing size of orchestras and concert halls. The forte f natural is seriously a whisper! and THAT's it!
I am so happy to be playing this flute for a while, I already have fallen captive to its haunting sound and the mystery of finding the perfect place for each note. It will also nicely stretch my tiny hands, because the fingering holes are v--e---r--y far apart.
-lab