What with all the to-do about the John McKenna book and CD release, Conal mentioned to me a recording that we had often talked about, by a player who is often mentioned in connection with John McKenna, and no wonder since the recording is called "A Tribute to John McKenna". I thought I had a copy of the original vinyl LP, but a search failed to turn it up, so Conal gave a me a CD copy of it that Sean Gilrane had given him.
Small world.
Anyway, I hadn't listened to it for years, and now I wonder why? It's an amazing album of wonderfully rhythmic and technically accomplished playing, and it's a damn shame that it's no longer available. A quick search on the net shows no copy available for sale anywhere currently.
I wonder what it would take to organise a re-release?
The full details of the recording if you want to try and track a copy down are:
MICK WOODS with guitar A Tribute to John McKenna, Inchecronin, England, INC 7420
Searching in the ITMA online catalogues shows up another few recordings where he played with others or on individual tracks. See those here. I don't think they have any sound files online, but of course you can here them all by visiting Merrion Square.
I started to make a few enquiries about the man himself, with the intent of writing a short biog, but on consulting the flute playing oracle Sean Gilrane, he referred me to a detailed account of the man that was published in the Leitrim Guardian, which you can find here.
Mick Woods is still alive, although not playing anymore, but is still in excellent health, and drinking a few pints!
On a different tack, I finally got around to dipping my toe into the social media world in the form of Twitter. It's more of a personal account but does have occasional musical/flute content
Follow me @CuilAodhaHammy
Saturday, 19 July 2014
Monday, 2 June 2014
Cruinniú on the Radio
God! What's come over me...three posts in one day!
There was a nice little mention for the Cruinniú on an RTÉ Radio program called Sunday Miscellany on Sunday past. You can listen to it on the Radio Player, it's about 40 mins into the program.
Just one point, Cruinniú na bhFliúit runs from the first, not the third, Thursday after Easter each year.
There was a nice little mention for the Cruinniú on an RTÉ Radio program called Sunday Miscellany on Sunday past. You can listen to it on the Radio Player, it's about 40 mins into the program.
Just one point, Cruinniú na bhFliúit runs from the first, not the third, Thursday after Easter each year.
The Ivory Ban
There's been quite a bit of caffuffle about this recently, but I've been trying to find out a few hard facts about it, since it affects me both as an instrument maker, and a musician who travels with instruments that might be affected.
Basically the US Government is on the point of introducing legislation which will control the movement of certain animal and plant products in and out of the country. ( and within the US, in some states, the right to trade in such materials )
These are basically materials derived from species that are listed under CITES...Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Of course the basic idea behind this legislation is sound and morally unimpeachable. We must protect all species that are endangered, especially those that are being exploited for monetary gain.
The problem arises, for musicians in the way this new legislation might be interpreted.
From the flute players point of view, the two materials which may give difficulty are ivory and rosewood, and it doesn't require that the whole instrument is made from rosewood or ivory... a small piece of either, even as inlay, incurs the ban...the ban being that unless you can prove that the material in question is antique ( over 100 years, verified imported through certain ports, and authenticated by a qualified appraiser), or that the material was legally acquired before a certain date ( for ivory it's Feb 26th 1976 ) then you cannot import or export the instrument to the US, and if you can't meet these criteria then there is a possibility of the instrument being confiscated and destroyed.
You can find the relevant information as put out by the authorities here, and if you google it, there are lots of discussions on music blogs, discussion boards and lists ongoing.
The solution to this is that one is supposed to be able to get a passport for individual instruments, which will allow a musician to travel with an instrument made from or containing the banned materials.
Forms for the passports are available here.
If you read the above links, there are lots of issues that remain unclear. It seems that you may need a separate passport for animal and plant material...they don't seem to have taken into account that they will occur together in many instruments. Verifying that it is antique or pre CITES would seem to be very difficult, many people would not have the relevant documentation, even if it existed, and who is a qualified appraiser? Also the forms seem to be set up for US citizens and no one else.
I E-mailed them at the contact provided seeking clarification a few weeks ago but got nothing back.
Finally, I think what frightens most musicians is that it will be the customs officials at the point of import who will decide if an instrument is legal or not.
Can you tell the difference between the twenty of so species of rosewood, only one of which is banned? I can't, and I'm working with such timbers for the last 35 years. Can you (or they) tell the difference between elephant ivory, which is illegal, and mammoth ivory which is legal.
Until a few days ago I couldn't do that either...now I can! Have a look here.
For the moment, I'd advise anyone who has any instrument which might possibly incur the ban to leave it at home, until this gets sorted out, and I greatly fear that it is going to take the loss of a very valuable and possibly historically important instrument, to get to that point.
Of course, as traditional flute players playing mainly modern instruments it's not as relevant to us as it is to pipers...they're in big trouble.
Basically the US Government is on the point of introducing legislation which will control the movement of certain animal and plant products in and out of the country. ( and within the US, in some states, the right to trade in such materials )
These are basically materials derived from species that are listed under CITES...Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Of course the basic idea behind this legislation is sound and morally unimpeachable. We must protect all species that are endangered, especially those that are being exploited for monetary gain.
The problem arises, for musicians in the way this new legislation might be interpreted.
From the flute players point of view, the two materials which may give difficulty are ivory and rosewood, and it doesn't require that the whole instrument is made from rosewood or ivory... a small piece of either, even as inlay, incurs the ban...the ban being that unless you can prove that the material in question is antique ( over 100 years, verified imported through certain ports, and authenticated by a qualified appraiser), or that the material was legally acquired before a certain date ( for ivory it's Feb 26th 1976 ) then you cannot import or export the instrument to the US, and if you can't meet these criteria then there is a possibility of the instrument being confiscated and destroyed.
You can find the relevant information as put out by the authorities here, and if you google it, there are lots of discussions on music blogs, discussion boards and lists ongoing.
The solution to this is that one is supposed to be able to get a passport for individual instruments, which will allow a musician to travel with an instrument made from or containing the banned materials.
Forms for the passports are available here.
If you read the above links, there are lots of issues that remain unclear. It seems that you may need a separate passport for animal and plant material...they don't seem to have taken into account that they will occur together in many instruments. Verifying that it is antique or pre CITES would seem to be very difficult, many people would not have the relevant documentation, even if it existed, and who is a qualified appraiser? Also the forms seem to be set up for US citizens and no one else.
I E-mailed them at the contact provided seeking clarification a few weeks ago but got nothing back.
Finally, I think what frightens most musicians is that it will be the customs officials at the point of import who will decide if an instrument is legal or not.
Can you tell the difference between the twenty of so species of rosewood, only one of which is banned? I can't, and I'm working with such timbers for the last 35 years. Can you (or they) tell the difference between elephant ivory, which is illegal, and mammoth ivory which is legal.
Until a few days ago I couldn't do that either...now I can! Have a look here.
For the moment, I'd advise anyone who has any instrument which might possibly incur the ban to leave it at home, until this gets sorted out, and I greatly fear that it is going to take the loss of a very valuable and possibly historically important instrument, to get to that point.
Of course, as traditional flute players playing mainly modern instruments it's not as relevant to us as it is to pipers...they're in big trouble.
More RTTAtuner
A bit more about the RTTATuner which might be of use to readers. Dan mailed me the other day after seeing the last blog with a few tips about using the tuner for flutes which in thought I'd pass on as hopefully being of use to all flute players.
"...................... an updated version of the RTTATuner app is now available, with an added “export” function. It exports an expanded view of the tuning display, showing all the octaves that you normally might have to scroll to get to. Text is also included in the export, in case you need to cut and paste the results into another program. Another things it improves on is that it stops the iPhone from going to sleep while recording. I’m about to announce it on some of the newsgroups.
I also wanted to give you a “heads up” about something. In your blog, the screenshot shows four octaves, starting with octave number three. I’m assuming the flute is a standard “D” flute and not for example a cannon going down to low A… The convention I use for octaves (there are a couple of different ways of numbering them) is that D4 is low D on a flute. So here’s what I’m seeing in your screenshot: an octave, from low D (D4) to middle D (D5), was played on the flute. The tuning is excellent and consistent. There are also some notes apparently registering in the 3rd octave. They must have been something else - I find that the male voice kind of spans a lot of the third octave, or maybe some outside noise of some kind. You can see from the thickness of the bars that there is a lot more variation in the pitch than was picked up in the flute itself; the noises were less “musical".
Why did this happen, and what can you do about it?
Firstly, the “min clarity” setting should be on 0.90 or 0.95. The higher it is, the more “musical” the tone needs to be before it is registered. I think I had 0.9 as the default. If you go much lower than that, then the program starts picking up random hums and noises, and registers a lot of notes that weren’t played, especially in the lower octaves. 0.95 should work OK with the flute, and I think might then filter out any talking, etc.
Secondly, for flutes, you can set the “Min Displayed Octave” setting to 4 and “Max Displayed Octave” to 6 - in which case all that extra noise won’t be picked up anyhow because octave 3 won’t show up.
Thirdly, you can set the “Min Readings” setting to 10, or even 20, or more - this will require that a note needs to register a fair few times before it shows up on the display. It stops little “blips” from showing up e.g. if you do an ornament or something.
Fourthly, you’re obviously better off avoiding noisy environments.
Finally, you’re better off it you don’t leave the thing running: press record, play something, and then press stop.
I just wanted to clarify this, as I don’t want any flute makers to be given the wrong idea! I’ve tested the app using an iPhone 4, iPhone 5S and iPad - all work pretty consistently, no problems and I’m happy with the results. If you find that you can’t get it to work well, I’d start worrying about the mic on your phone, I guess… But from what I see, the app does pick up the flute nicely, it’s just picking up other stuff as well, in that particular screenshot.
"...................... an updated version of the RTTATuner app is now available, with an added “export” function. It exports an expanded view of the tuning display, showing all the octaves that you normally might have to scroll to get to. Text is also included in the export, in case you need to cut and paste the results into another program. Another things it improves on is that it stops the iPhone from going to sleep while recording. I’m about to announce it on some of the newsgroups.
I also wanted to give you a “heads up” about something. In your blog, the screenshot shows four octaves, starting with octave number three. I’m assuming the flute is a standard “D” flute and not for example a cannon going down to low A… The convention I use for octaves (there are a couple of different ways of numbering them) is that D4 is low D on a flute. So here’s what I’m seeing in your screenshot: an octave, from low D (D4) to middle D (D5), was played on the flute. The tuning is excellent and consistent. There are also some notes apparently registering in the 3rd octave. They must have been something else - I find that the male voice kind of spans a lot of the third octave, or maybe some outside noise of some kind. You can see from the thickness of the bars that there is a lot more variation in the pitch than was picked up in the flute itself; the noises were less “musical".
Why did this happen, and what can you do about it?
Firstly, the “min clarity” setting should be on 0.90 or 0.95. The higher it is, the more “musical” the tone needs to be before it is registered. I think I had 0.9 as the default. If you go much lower than that, then the program starts picking up random hums and noises, and registers a lot of notes that weren’t played, especially in the lower octaves. 0.95 should work OK with the flute, and I think might then filter out any talking, etc.
Secondly, for flutes, you can set the “Min Displayed Octave” setting to 4 and “Max Displayed Octave” to 6 - in which case all that extra noise won’t be picked up anyhow because octave 3 won’t show up.
Thirdly, you can set the “Min Readings” setting to 10, or even 20, or more - this will require that a note needs to register a fair few times before it shows up on the display. It stops little “blips” from showing up e.g. if you do an ornament or something.
Fourthly, you’re obviously better off avoiding noisy environments.
Finally, you’re better off it you don’t leave the thing running: press record, play something, and then press stop.
I just wanted to clarify this, as I don’t want any flute makers to be given the wrong idea! I’ve tested the app using an iPhone 4, iPhone 5S and iPad - all work pretty consistently, no problems and I’m happy with the results. If you find that you can’t get it to work well, I’d start worrying about the mic on your phone, I guess… But from what I see, the app does pick up the flute nicely, it’s just picking up other stuff as well, in that particular screenshot.
I'm wondering about what Dan said about the third octave notes being "something else". I think there my be a possibility that they may be overtones or other harmonic components? I'll find out and report back.
Thursday, 15 May 2014
RTTATuner
What! Two posts only days apart! But I just had to let people know about the new tuning app which Dan Gordon has designed for iPhone, and which I've been playing with for the last few days.
There are already many good tuner apps, such as Cleartune, which I use, or used pretty much all the time, but they only allow you to measure the pitch of one note at a time.
The danger with this is something that I've harped on about in workshops for years. With the flute, pitch is such a volatile thing, so easily changed by temperature, humidity, blowing pressure, and embouchure, that to simply blow a note into a tuner and declare yourself in tune is not really an option.
Commonly, in traditional music circles anyway, the player asks for an A, ( not the best option as a pitch centre for Irish music at the best of times), tunes to it, and then discover that when they begin to play that they are still not in tune. This process can be repeated several times with no better result, because the basic error is that the player is blowing the note differently ( commonly with a different blowing pressure) when tuning than when playing.
The great thing about the RTTATuner is that it samples the notes as you actually play a tune, many times per second, and then gives you a read-out which shows how the pitch of each note (octaves are distinguished) averages out over the time played.
Here's a sample using a keyless flute I was working on yesterday:
There are already many good tuner apps, such as Cleartune, which I use, or used pretty much all the time, but they only allow you to measure the pitch of one note at a time.
The danger with this is something that I've harped on about in workshops for years. With the flute, pitch is such a volatile thing, so easily changed by temperature, humidity, blowing pressure, and embouchure, that to simply blow a note into a tuner and declare yourself in tune is not really an option.
Commonly, in traditional music circles anyway, the player asks for an A, ( not the best option as a pitch centre for Irish music at the best of times), tunes to it, and then discover that when they begin to play that they are still not in tune. This process can be repeated several times with no better result, because the basic error is that the player is blowing the note differently ( commonly with a different blowing pressure) when tuning than when playing.
The great thing about the RTTATuner is that it samples the notes as you actually play a tune, many times per second, and then gives you a read-out which shows how the pitch of each note (octaves are distinguished) averages out over the time played.
Here's a sample using a keyless flute I was working on yesterday:
This is a screenshot from the phone, which at the moment is the only way you can export the data visually. You do this by pushing the home button and the on/off button at the same time, which saves the screen in photos, and you can then mail this to yourself.
You can see from the above that this flute is fairly much bang on in tune, bar the A and B in the lower octave, which require a little work. Promised updates will make export of data much easier.
There has been a lot of discussion about this app both on Chiff and Fipple and the Earlyflute discussion list, but I think the best thing to do is simply to get it and play with it, and learn more than you ever thought possible about:
How your tuning when you play can vary from day to day, and even tune to tune. With a simple system flute you'll see that internal tuning varies according to what key you're playing in.
with old flutes, just how horrific the internal tuning actually is!
How much slide movement affects the pitch of different notes differently
How by varying your embouchure you can improve the internal tuning ( and overall pitch) of certain flutes
the realtime effect of cork position on octave tuning and pitch.
in short, endless hours of fun....
And of course wearing my makers hat, this is a dream come true.
I should add that the Flutini program did just about the same thing, but written as it was for PC, the Mac version was a source of endless frustration, which didn't have all the features, and was constantly quitting.....so thanks, Dan Gordon, the flute world is beholden to you.
Tuesday, 13 May 2014
McKenna's Flute
Progress on both fronts, restoration, and provenance of the McKenna flute.
When it first arrived, and in fact even before that from the photos that I had of it, one idea I had was that this might well be a composite instrument, with ivory head a later edition.
Closer examination soon disabused me of that idea. The mounts on the head matched those on the rest of the flute. The diameter of the head was unlike that of the "German" flutes that I had thought might be it's source. The embouchure, although now distorted by the crack also appeared different to those of the German flutes.
In response to my appeal on this blog, several people got in contact with useful leads, most notably American maker Jon Cornia, and Italian afficionado Francesco Collissimo.
Jon had alerted Francesco, via Facebook, to the work of the American maker Asa Hopkins, and his apprentice and successor Camp, and produced these photos of their work.
The similarities between the instrument to the left and the McKenna flute are remarkable.
The mounts, the silver sheathing of the head cap, the pewter plug on the Eb key, and the general lines and style of the keys and block work all point in the direction of a flute from this workshop.
Also this image of a flute by Hopkins, confirms the general impression.
This flute again points to the Hopkins/Camp workshop with the shape of the key touches on the short F and low C and C# identical to the McKenna flute.
Again note the similarity of the squarish blockwork.
Although of course it is impossible to state definitively that the McKenna flute is a flute from this workshop, at the moment it's certainly the best guess, and I have a gut feeling that it's correct.
I'd like to see one of the original Camp/Hopkins flutes in my hands though before I'd be absolutely sure.
The New Langwill index gives the following entry:
Hopkins, Asa ( b Northfield / CT 2 February 1779; d New Haven / CT 27October 1838)
WWI fl Litchfield / CT 1829-1837.
From c1810 a successful clock-maker, developing water-powered machines for mass production methods, using interchangeable parts; 1829 established WWI workshop at a locality neat Litchfield, building a dam and factory on the Naugatuck river, which 1830-75 became known as 'Fluteville', where large quantities of flute, clarinet, later fife, flageolet were produced; 1832 in partnership with J.M Camp; 1837 retirement of Hopkins; 1837-39 Camp proprietor, now as Camp and Hopkins; 1839-67 Firth & Hall proprietors; bought by J.A. Hall. 1955 Fluteville village was raised by flood and subsequent Government requisition of the area for a flood control project.
MARK: A. HOPKINS / LITCHFIELD / CONN
ADDRESS: 1829-37; shop along Naugatuck river.
The mystery remains, if it is a flute from this source, why did it remain unstamped?
When it first arrived, and in fact even before that from the photos that I had of it, one idea I had was that this might well be a composite instrument, with ivory head a later edition.
Closer examination soon disabused me of that idea. The mounts on the head matched those on the rest of the flute. The diameter of the head was unlike that of the "German" flutes that I had thought might be it's source. The embouchure, although now distorted by the crack also appeared different to those of the German flutes.
In response to my appeal on this blog, several people got in contact with useful leads, most notably American maker Jon Cornia, and Italian afficionado Francesco Collissimo.
Jon had alerted Francesco, via Facebook, to the work of the American maker Asa Hopkins, and his apprentice and successor Camp, and produced these photos of their work.
The similarities between the instrument to the left and the McKenna flute are remarkable.
The mounts, the silver sheathing of the head cap, the pewter plug on the Eb key, and the general lines and style of the keys and block work all point in the direction of a flute from this workshop.
Also this image of a flute by Hopkins, confirms the general impression.
This flute again points to the Hopkins/Camp workshop with the shape of the key touches on the short F and low C and C# identical to the McKenna flute.
Again note the similarity of the squarish blockwork.
Although of course it is impossible to state definitively that the McKenna flute is a flute from this workshop, at the moment it's certainly the best guess, and I have a gut feeling that it's correct.
I'd like to see one of the original Camp/Hopkins flutes in my hands though before I'd be absolutely sure.
The New Langwill index gives the following entry:
Hopkins, Asa ( b Northfield / CT 2 February 1779; d New Haven / CT 27October 1838)
WWI fl Litchfield / CT 1829-1837.
From c1810 a successful clock-maker, developing water-powered machines for mass production methods, using interchangeable parts; 1829 established WWI workshop at a locality neat Litchfield, building a dam and factory on the Naugatuck river, which 1830-75 became known as 'Fluteville', where large quantities of flute, clarinet, later fife, flageolet were produced; 1832 in partnership with J.M Camp; 1837 retirement of Hopkins; 1837-39 Camp proprietor, now as Camp and Hopkins; 1839-67 Firth & Hall proprietors; bought by J.A. Hall. 1955 Fluteville village was raised by flood and subsequent Government requisition of the area for a flood control project.
MARK: A. HOPKINS / LITCHFIELD / CONN
ADDRESS: 1829-37; shop along Naugatuck river.
The mystery remains, if it is a flute from this source, why did it remain unstamped?
Tuesday, 1 April 2014
John McKenna's Flute
Some times it's not the flute itself, but who owned it that's important.
For all Irish traditional flute players the name John McKenna jumps out at them in the same way as Michael Coleman does for fiddle players. He is one of the great sources of traditional music, not just on the flute, and his many recordings, made in New York between 1925 and 1934 are still referenced by all the great players of today. You can find out more about the man himself here, and in fact it was when I was in contact with Sean Gilrane of the John McKenna Traditional Music Society, that the following story emerged.
In 1985 In paid a visit to the US, and one of the people I met, and who showed me great hospitality, was a Kerryman, long resident in upper NY State, called John McAuliffe, a man with a passionate interest and deep knowledge of traditional flute playing.
Fast forward to 2009, when I got an E-Mail from John telling me about a flute that had belonged to his uncle Joe, and which he had gotten from John McKenna.
Here's a photo of John's father and two uncles, flute players all.
We exchanged E-mails about this and some old recordings that he had, for sometime, but then in the way that things have a habit of doing, it got put on a longer and longer finger...until late last year when, wearing my Cruinniú na bhFliúit hat, I was talking to Sean Gilrane, who was telling me about the JMTMS project on John McKenna, and I happened to mention that I knew where McKenna's flute was. Cue extreme excitment, until I realised that I had lost all contact with John, and due to computer crashes, had no record of his E-Mail or the photos that he had sent me. However thanks to Mac and TimeMachine ( and Steve Jobs, to be fair) I eventually retrieved the mails and we were able to re-establish contact with John. Here's what he says about the flute in his own words:
" About that flute, well I will try to explain, The flute belonged to my uncle Joe Mc Auliffe, He was a close friend of Jack Mc Kenna, Mc Kenna spent many nights up at Joe's place in Kingsbridge road in the Bronx, playing music.
Joe was a flute player, as was my father John and also Tim, (actually if you look in the search engine for Moyvane you will see an old picture of the three of them with flutes, taken in the Bronx in the late fifties) Anyway, when Joe's flute was stolen after a music night in a bar in Queens NY, he pestered Mc Kenna (who had a few flutes) to sell him that flute after he had it on loan from him for a few months. Mc Kenna wasn't inclined to sell as it was one of his better flutes and one that he had used on his recordings, but finally Joe got the flute. My father relayed all this to me when I asked him about that flute, he got the flute from Joe in 1970 when Joe was in poor health and not playing anymore, my father was living in the Bronx at that time, Joe and his wife moved back to Abbeyfeale in 1972, and he passed away in 1973. My father moved back to Moyvane also in 1972 and took that flute with him. He also had another flute that he got in London years before that. Anyway my father passed away, and I brought that flute back here to the US. a few years ago"
For all Irish traditional flute players the name John McKenna jumps out at them in the same way as Michael Coleman does for fiddle players. He is one of the great sources of traditional music, not just on the flute, and his many recordings, made in New York between 1925 and 1934 are still referenced by all the great players of today. You can find out more about the man himself here, and in fact it was when I was in contact with Sean Gilrane of the John McKenna Traditional Music Society, that the following story emerged.
In 1985 In paid a visit to the US, and one of the people I met, and who showed me great hospitality, was a Kerryman, long resident in upper NY State, called John McAuliffe, a man with a passionate interest and deep knowledge of traditional flute playing.
Fast forward to 2009, when I got an E-Mail from John telling me about a flute that had belonged to his uncle Joe, and which he had gotten from John McKenna.
Here's a photo of John's father and two uncles, flute players all.
We exchanged E-mails about this and some old recordings that he had, for sometime, but then in the way that things have a habit of doing, it got put on a longer and longer finger...until late last year when, wearing my Cruinniú na bhFliúit hat, I was talking to Sean Gilrane, who was telling me about the JMTMS project on John McKenna, and I happened to mention that I knew where McKenna's flute was. Cue extreme excitment, until I realised that I had lost all contact with John, and due to computer crashes, had no record of his E-Mail or the photos that he had sent me. However thanks to Mac and TimeMachine ( and Steve Jobs, to be fair) I eventually retrieved the mails and we were able to re-establish contact with John. Here's what he says about the flute in his own words:
" About that flute, well I will try to explain, The flute belonged to my uncle Joe Mc Auliffe, He was a close friend of Jack Mc Kenna, Mc Kenna spent many nights up at Joe's place in Kingsbridge road in the Bronx, playing music.
Joe was a flute player, as was my father John and also Tim, (actually if you look in the search engine for Moyvane you will see an old picture of the three of them with flutes, taken in the Bronx in the late fifties) Anyway, when Joe's flute was stolen after a music night in a bar in Queens NY, he pestered Mc Kenna (who had a few flutes) to sell him that flute after he had it on loan from him for a few months. Mc Kenna wasn't inclined to sell as it was one of his better flutes and one that he had used on his recordings, but finally Joe got the flute. My father relayed all this to me when I asked him about that flute, he got the flute from Joe in 1970 when Joe was in poor health and not playing anymore, my father was living in the Bronx at that time, Joe and his wife moved back to Abbeyfeale in 1972, and he passed away in 1973. My father moved back to Moyvane also in 1972 and took that flute with him. He also had another flute that he got in London years before that. Anyway my father passed away, and I brought that flute back here to the US. a few years ago"
To cut a long story short, the flute even though playing well when John got it originally, was beginning to suffer from a few problems mainly caused by a bad crack in the head, and the head liner coming unsoldered, so I proposed to restore it, so that it could be used in connection with the launch of the McKenna CD, and also Cruinniú na bhFliúit.
The flute arrived to me in March, and here it is....
So for the moment there are two things that interest me about the flute. Firstly, how to repair that nasty crack in the head, and secondly who made it. It's a very good quality flute, cocus wood, silver keywork, and excellent workmanship. But it has no maker's stamp.
I'll follow up with the progress on both fronts, and would welcome any input from anyone who might have any insights.
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