Re: Intervals enharmony question

[Vaughan McAlley]

On 1 May 2018 at 06:27, Hans Åberg <address@hidden> wrote:

Flutes have a very definite pitch, making it hard to play in unison, unlike strings then. It is mentioned in Blatter's book on orchestration.

Flutes can adjust their pitch enough to tune well. I'm mainly a singer, but when I play flute (my first instrument) I approach pitching like a singer, and I rarely have tuning issues. But flute-wise, this is a pretty advanced technique. And flute players have to spend a lot of time practicing the semiquavers that composers so love to give them :-)

First & second flute in a professional orchestra should be able to play a unison passage just fine. I have sung in the Bach St John Passion a number of times, and rarely hear problems with Ich folge dir gleichfalls, and that's using baroque flutes…

One of the major features of Boehm's (ie the modern) flute is that tuning (in equal temperament) is more consistent. So maybe less thought is put into tuning by players.

(Good recorder players have all sorts of tuning tricks, I believe)

Vaughan