I could be wrong on this, but I don't believe they make quality closed hole flutes. By quality I'm referring to precision parts and materials. The pro models are all open-hole.
One thing I like is the ability to bend notes on an open hole, by opening the holes and keeping the key depressed. It creates some really cool sounds.

~Jon

 

there are plateau flutes from haynes, muramatsu and others. they tend to be popular more with doublers than with flautists.

 

There are only two real advantages of open holes. First is if you're going to actually use them to make partial tones or some unusual alternate note fingerings. Second is resale - they are more desirable and fetch better prices. There is no real difference in tone or intonation between open hold / closed hole flutes of equivalent quality.

Open hole requires more precise hand positioning and finger articulation. This is most evident (at least to me) at the bottom of the flute range when you're sliding your pinky around to use the low B/C/C# keys, which tends to shift your ring finger, uncovering the D key or bumping the trill key which opens up the tube and the sound disappears.

In short, closed hole flutes sound just as good and are easier to play - especially fast because they're more forgiving of hand position. That said, my (normal) flutes are all open holed - not because I prefer it, but because that's what 95% of the good flutes happend to be. Open vs. closed holes is pretty far down on my priority list of things to look for in a good flute. Far more important are the headjoint, tone, intonation, build quality, etc.

 

I could be wrong on this, but I don't believe they make quality closed hole flutes. By quality I'm referring to precision parts and materials. The pro models are all open-hole.~Jon

I'd say you're wrong! Close, however. The majority of top of the line flutes are made with open holes. It's easy to find a great used open hole flute; not at all easy to find a great used close hole flute. Consider that not only are very few made compared to open holes, but also that the players who went to the trouble of actually purchasing one are probably going to hold onto them for a long time!

A third, often overlooked advantage of open-hole flutes is the feeling of the sound in your fingers. I enjoy feeling the response of the instrument so intimately, as it reminds me of playing clarinet or cello, where every note is as much felt as it is heard by any given player.

 

Open vs. closed holes is pretty far down on my priority list of things to look for in a good flute. Far more important are the headjoint, tone, intonation, build quality, etc.

I wholeheartedly agree. In fact for me, open vs. closed holes would not be considered at all. The "feel" of an open hole could easily be dismissed by me, for a more desirable sound quality. I play an open hole only because it was the best choice of flute, at the time I was looking, for the important reasons in mrc01's quote.

 

There is also a bit of a German/French thing about this issue. Watch the German and Austrian orchestras, all closed hole, c foot. France, US, and most others? Open hole and usually b foot.

 

Open Holes with plugs

is it really bad to use plugs while i get used to open hole, does it make the tone really bad or something?

 

The short answer: no. Leave the plugs in forever if that's what works for you.

The long answer: there *may* be very slight differences in tone hole positioning for proper intonation between open and closed hole flutes. If so your intonation may be slightly off if you plug the open holes. But the differences would be so small - if they exist at all - that I doubt most flute makers would consider it, and most players certainly wouldn't notice. How you blow would make a far bigger difference.

 

Razzy, I think you may be correct in USA, but not in other countries. I see closed hole flutes in top models listed and pictured in catalogues of top models, providing those catalogues were not printed/sourced in USA.

The reason why open holes in non-student models are so rare in USA is because USA is currently embracing a "fashion" for open holes, so importers and marketers play along with it, resulting in many outlets not even knowing they exist outside USA.

ALL manufacturers who make open hole flutes also make non-perforated key cups, for the other keys without holes through them. Therefore I very much doubt that any manufacturer would turn down an order for a closed hole flute. It is largely a matter of which bin those 5 key cups are chosen from. There is an issue of the tone holes being theoretically in slightly different locations for open and closed hole flutes, but that would seem to be probably insignificant, because the tuning issue is seldom mentioned when players put plugs in their perforated holes.

 

A Perspective

Many reasons are touted for having open holes but for perhaps 95% of players they serve no purpose and have significant detractors. Some issues are:

• Intonation: A flute goes quite sharp when it is played loudly. This can be compensated for (for SOME notes) by partly closing a tone hole. This is possible only with open holes. Alternatively, the pitch can be humoured with special fingerings when playing very softly. However an accomplished player has sufficient versatility in embouchure and air pressure to correct the intonation by other means. Certain alternative fingerings are available to humour pitch with close-hole too.

• Intonation: Theoretically, the notes which involve open holes are slightly better vented and are theoretically slightly sharper, so the flute maker allows for this in tone hole position or size. However many players on open-hole flutes plug the holes, theoretically putting the flute out of tune. In reality, the venting of holes on a flute is so good anyway, that this intonation effect is probably so small as to be negligible or non-existent.

• Comfort: Many players plug the holes. One type of plug projects and is uncomfortable, another tends to push through the hole, and both are capable of leaking. Fortunately another very neat metal type is available, at unrealistic expense!

• Hand position: Open hole encourages an UN-ergonomic position for wrist in order to reliably cover the G key. Some players want to believe so much that the open-hole system is better, that they convince themselves that the distorted wrist position is indeed more natural, but this fails the common sense test. This argument loses weight if the flute, along with the player's head, is rotated 45 degrees anticlockwise (looking form above) as is common modern practice. The rationale for this rotation is to ease stress on the right shoulder, but often overlooked is that it increases the stress on the neck.

• Hand position: Some teachers claim that they cannot get pupils' fingers into 'good' positions without the aid of open holes. In answer to that I'd say that I have taught over 400 beginners on closed-hole flutes, and this has not been a problem. It is an issue of good teaching.

• Finger Position: This so-called 'good' finger position has the balls of the fingers (under the nails) centred on the key cups. If the fingers are not perfectly centred on the keys (much frowned upon!) what is the big deal, really? Bagpipers and recorder players have no problems with fingers projecting well over the holes. And there are few keys on a saxophone and piccolo where the fingers are central.

• Acoustics/Intonation: From "The Flute Book - A Complete Guide for Students and Performers" 2nd edition, By Nancy Toff (1996): "...Many acousticians - Dayton C. Miller and Arthur Benade are perhaps the most prominent of them - consider the plateau model acoustically superior. They brand the open holes a significant flaw, 'the one acoustical crime that has been perpetrated against the Boehm flute,' in Miller's words. Flute maker Albert Cooper (the legendary flute maker and creator of the now modern scale - the Cooper Scale) considers the French model's scale inherently less accurate because it overcompensates for the sharpening effect of the perforations.

• Acoustic theory: There should be as little interruption to the bore as possible... Open hole introduces a further step, up from the bore to the pad, and then up again to the finger.

• Acoustic theory: The bore should be of a hard material to effectively define the vibrating air column... The washers and screws of a closed-hole pad are far harder than the 'squishiness' of a chimney of air leading up to a soft

• Servicing: The standard way of adjusting the way a pad closes on a tone hole is by 'shimming', which is inserting paper spacing washers or partial washes behind the pads. For this process a pad may need to be taken out and put back many times. During pad removal a pad is far more likely to be distorted or damaged during if it is on an open-hole key, where there is a difficult-to-remove pad retaining grommet.

• The pad retainers for open-hole flutes are far from being an ideal method of retaining pads. They are prone to leaks. Splits are not uncommon.

• Perhaps most important of all - Leaks! My finger skin is hard, but not very hard. Air leaks badly along my finger print grooves on open-holed keys. Try this test: Cork the lower end of the body of an open-hole flute. Close the keys with the fingers and 'squirt' a mouthful of air gently into the other end. An open-hole flute will leak unless the fingers are pressed quite hard - harder than a player should need to press. If the fingers are wetted before the test, then air can be heard bubbling out of the fingerprint grooves in the skin. This is not an issue of not covering the holes properly. It is a result of low finger pressure on a large area of skin. Skin simply is not flat, and therefore does not seal well. This phenomenon is worse when the key cup surface is smooth, without ridges around the open hole.

What on earth is the use of adjusting a flute to be leak-proof for good response, and then introducing finger leaks by having open holes! The response of a flute is extremely sensitive to even the tiniest leaks.

• Finger Contortions. For people with a short right pinkie relative to the D finger, contortions are needed to play low C or low B without introducing a leak under at lest one of the three right hand open-holes. Again the flute is not ergonomic.

• Tone: It is claimed that the extra venting offered by open-holes improves the tone. Pause to think about this. Of the twelve notes in an octave, there are only five where open holes contribute to venting. Have you ever heard of a player saying how their Bb, A, F#, F, & E have a better tone than the other notes? An emphatic NO! Therefore the notion of better tone is bunkum! But sincerely believing such things is part of the human condition!

• With open-holes, a wider range of unusual effects are available, such as warbling notes, 1/4 tones, slides from one note to another, two notes sounding at once, etc. Perhaps only 2% of players ever use these, especially after the experimental novelty wears off. There are plenty novelty effects available on a closed-hole flute for the one-time experimenters to play with.

• Open-hole flutes usually cost slightly more. So it is my guess that when buying a flute, the typical player, encouraged by a teacher, assumes that because the flute costs more it must be better. The buyer can stretch his/her budget that little extra, so open hole is what he buys. Or it could be simply that the cheapest student flutes are not offered in open-hole versions, so it is assumed that open-hole makes a superior flute.

So, in spite of having played an open-hole professional flute for a decade, I changed back to the more desirable closed-hole (professional) flute to avoid all these problems. Choosing open holes seems to be largely a 'fashion', or prestige-driven thing, nurtured by teachers and marketers who have not really thought much about it, and supported by manufacturers who oblige the market.

The inclination towards open holes is much stronger in some countries than others; America seems to have rather unquestioningly adopted the idea from the French. There are many superb players in the world who do indeed play on closed-hole flutes.
There is a common notion that manufacturers do not offer closed holes in their top models. This is far from the truth. The truth is that many market outlets have never offered the closed-hole options that the manufacturers offer. Perhaps it is simply so they can carry a smaller range of models in stock.

In the final analysis, it is difficult to change, even with sound reason, what a person has come to believe is better. A player plays on what makes him happy. If he likes the FEEL of open holes, because he is used to it, and happens to associate open holes with professionalism, he is unlikely to change.

 

wow

thats the most complete response i have ever seen

after all that...another question

offset vs. inline...only a comfort issue or a tone issue there also?

 

Offset is more ergonomic, even if you have large hands or long fingers. I'm not aware of any benefit whatsoever - acoustical or otherwise - to inline G. There is no difference in tone or response. The reason inline G exists is to make flutes more cheaply.

 

thats the most complete response i have ever seen

after all that...another question

offset vs. inline...only a comfort issue or a tone issue there also?

TazJMT, it makes the forum very messy if you have the same discussion simultaneously in two different threads.

For my answer to this question, see in your other thread, http://www.saxontheweb.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=393008#post393008

 

Offset = more comfort, less Bb binding.
Inline = easier to resell
High end closed hole flutes are quite difficult to resell in the US. I still like closed holes for myself but everything I sell new is open. OF about 75 flutes I have built, only one was closed hole. When someone wants closed holes, I sell them a used flute as they are about half the money of an open hole.
Example of what I have now. - Haynes $1,700, All silver Emeritus $600, Bettoney Columbia model $500, etc.
There are a lot of people who really like the old heavy wall Haynes closed hole. It was THE standard symphony flute for the first half of the 20th Century.

 

[*]Servicing: The standard way of adjusting the way a pad closes on a tone hole is by 'shimming', which is inserting paper spacing washers or partial washes behind the pads. For this process a pad may need to be taken out and put back many times. During pad removal a pad is far more likely to be distorted or damaged during if it is on an open-hole key, where there is a difficult-to-remove pad retaining grommet.[/LIST]

• The pad retainers for open-hole flutes are far from being an ideal method of retaining pads. They are prone to leaks. Splits are not uncommon.

• Perhaps most important of all - Leaks! My finger skin is hard, but not very hard. Air leaks badly along my finger print grooves on open-holed keys. Try this test: Cork the lower end of the body of an open-hole flute. Close the keys with the fingers and 'squirt' a mouthful of air gently into the other end. An open-hole flute will leak unless the fingers are pressed quite hard - harder than a player should need to press. If the fingers are wetted before the test, then air can be heard bubbling out of the fingerprint grooves in the skin. This is not an issue of not covering the holes properly. It is a result of low finger pressure on a large area of skin. Skin simply is not flat, and therefore does not seal well. This phenomenon is worse when the key cup surface is smooth, without ridges around the open hole.

[/FONT][/SIZE]

Excellent explanations, Gordon. Jim Schmidt http://www.jsengineering.net/ makes delrin bushing kits that allow the shimming process on open holes to be much easier on the pad. The delrin fits tighter for a better seal and stability, but can be pried off with one's fingernails so the pad takes far less abuse. I have seen these as original equipment on Brannens and others and highly recommend them. His Yamaha kits come with a metal sleeve that glues in to give the bushing a parallel surface to grip against.
The fingertip leakage you mention is quite valid. I use a Magnehelic to test each pad. There is a marked difference between the reading I get with a dry finger on an open hole and a finger that has been dipped in water. Regardless of shimming perfection, a French model will never seal as positively as a plateau.
Jim Schmidt's magnetic retainers further contribute to a smooth, consistent bore by eliminating the pad screws. I overhauled a plateau Haynes a while ago and installed the magnet retainers on each pad. This further enhanced the positive elements found in plateau flutes.
I do find it interesting that most high school and many middle school players have a burning desire to have open holes and a B foot. When asked for an explanation of why these options are important and what use they might serve they are generally at a loss for any coherent explanation!

 

I play an open-holed, in-line-G flute, B foot and neither have, nor had, any problems playing as a result of these configurations. However, when I buy a new flute it's going to be just the opposite, probably. I don't fight the configuration but common sense says that for a doubler the closed hole, off-setG is more comfortable and less prone to player error.

I've read comments such as above on this forum before, but never was totally convinced of the benefits of closed-hole, off-setG flutes until a few weeks ago. I play in a regional wind ensemble with a woman who is quite a good flutist. Additionally, she has supplemented the flute section in a concert band I conduct and I respect her highly. I was talking flute with her and was surprised to notice that she was playing closed-hole/offsetG, which I thought "real pros just wouldn't do. when I asked her about it, she just laughed and said, "Why not? Why bother?" Her endorsement is validation enough for me.

 

But why are you so keen on the in-line G? WHY!?

 

But why are you so keen on the in-line G? WHY!?

...because the cat kept walking on my keyboard and I was repeatedly distracted. :a-run: :cat:

Which means - I've got no problem with inline G but I'm not extra keen on them as I implied above. I wrote that wrong and I've corrected the text now. Thanks for the comment.

 

Actually inline G keys are more expensive to manufacture than offset G keys. True, there is more metal and extra posts involved in the latter, but the precision necessary to manufacture all the keys in one line more than makes up for that. This is especially true if you want a split-E mechanism. Some makers no longer offer that option on inline keys.

Toby

 

but the precision necessary to manufacture all the keys in one line more than makes up for that

For a hand crafted and finished flute, that seems plausible. But it's hard to imagine how it could be true for a factory assembly line flute. The parts either fit together or they don't, right? I'm not talking about some bearded 4th generation uber master craftsman named Demetrius Tzafopoulous who lovingly fabricates, fits and assembles each part by hand for a $20,000 flute. I'm talking about mass produced flutes built from parts fabricated by machine. I can imagine *some* degree of hand finishing on such a flute, but not much if the parts are machine fabricated to sufficient tolerances.

Since Lego can fabricate a bazillion plastic bricks an hour to 0.002 mm tolerance for less than a penny each, doesn't it seem absurd if Yamaha or Jupiter couldn't get good tolerances on metal parts for a factory flute that sells for a couple thousand dollars.

 

Gordon

something i thought about when you said open hole will make leaks because of a persons fingers...by that logic, doesnt every clarinet ever made leak?

 

It depends how hard you press your fingers. If you press as lightly on ring keys as many flute players like to press on their keys, then sure, you will have leaks.

It also depends a LOT on the shape of the surface you are pressing against.

On flutes the surface at the top of a perforated key tends to be a wide, flat, and rounded, so many fingerprint ridges contact the key, so it requires a lot of force to crush all those finger print ridges so that the valleys between them no longer exist.

By contrast, other instruments like clarinet usually have sharp ridges around the top face of the tone hole chimneys. At these edges, it takes a lot less force to locally crush a much smaller area of finger print ridge.

A similar situation occurs with rolled tone holes on saxophones. More finger pressure is required to crush that much larger area of contact with the pad sufficiently to remove the leaks from minute imperfections in the pad surface.

Likewise, when a rolled tone hole flute has those rolled edges filed to a much larger flat area, as Altus (Grrr!) is inclined to do, then the player must press the key with more force to effect a seal.

 

something i thought about when you said open hole will make leaks because of a persons fingers...by that logic, doesnt every clarinet ever made leak?

On flute you are also not pressing on the hole itself. You are pressing your finger to a key which in turn must also press on a tone hole to seal. On a clarinet you eliminate one of those two sealing points. Finger is directly to the hole.

And yes your fingers can leak on clarinets also....

Joe B

 

I'd like to mention an experience I have had with the leaky finger skin situation. Played closed-hole only for over 30 years, then finally got an open hole with b foot. Struggled for a couple of years, trying to remove all the plugs, and was down to the rt. middle finger only. Then I realized I had more leaks at times, and usually in winter. My skin gets really dry in winter ( A time when I have to avoid nice neckties), and my job provides me with dirtier hands at some times, and so they get dried due to the frequency of washing them. If a person has hands that tend to be dry at some times and not others, the leaking may be seasonal, or occaisional.

 

Quite right.

And sometimes I play-test a clarinet I know to be close to leak-proof, and it plays dreadfully. I discover it is because of the parted hard skin of a healing cut across a crucial place on my finger. So I close the cut with superglue, or wear a finger cut from a rubber glove.