I play a flute with the Bennet scale, but other flutes have the Cooper scale. I don't understand what the difference is between the two,, if i play an A it comes out an A, the same as on a flute with the Cooper scale.
Could anybody be as kind enough to be able to say what the difference is between the scales or to point me in a direction of where i might be able to read about it??

Thanks..

Oh... Happy new year to everyone here,, happy fluting for 2010.

Try here. Scroll down to "intonation of the modern flute."

http://www.larrykrantz.com/wyept2.htm

That should answer most questions. If you need clarification on anything you find there, just ask

Joe B

Many thanks for that Jo.
That makes things clear now, i guess the only question would be, if according to the author that the Bennet scale was as close to perfect as possible, then why don't the other flute makers use it,, but then i guess that was answered too by the author.
Its made me look at the spacing of the holes on my flute, something i never really looked at before,,, interesting,, learned something new.

Thanks.

OOPS, sorry, i meant Joe.

Joe, as usual, will always give you good advice...but before you get too involved in different types of flute scales, remember that it is the flute player that plays in tune, not the flute..

Hi Patrick.

Oh yes, i can understand that it is a lot to do with the player,, but i never knew what the difference was between the two.
Altus flutes are marketed as having the Bennet scale, while other makes with the cooper scale,, i just never knew what the difference was between the two, but i do now though.

I guess with your Haynes you must be on a different scale altogether??

No offense to My Wye or to the discussion but it disturbs me when such a 'dissertation' is fraught with assumptions and innuendo while at the same time almost completely lacking in references. It is however, a well written story.

Hi Bilbo,

Which assumptions and innuendo do you mean?


Joe B

Maybe the following is "innuendo" -- at least according to Bilbo?

"...Altus of Japan, however are far ahead of the field in my opinion. They offer a flute to Bennett's latest scale which to my ears is as near perfect as it is likely to be. I have my Lot tuned to this scale. Altus also make Jupiter flutes for sstudents to this scale. Some of the private US makers, Almeida, Jack Moors and Arista also make flutes to good scales. The majority of the Japanese don't. Their scales aren't bad, they could simply be much better...."

Hi Joe,

I don't have time or desire to pick at it but one example where I've seen is that Mr. Wye makes assumptions about what other flutist performers or flute makers have studied (or not studied). In the case of examining how makers' design flutes and reverse engineering their processes while assuming why they have done certain things isn't necessarily accurate research. Some of these things are common anecdotes that have been passed down from teachers to students and may or may not be grounded in actual fact. Some of them may have been pulled out of...well...mysterious places.

Actually he throws in a disclaimer...."(This is a summary of a talk given by Trevor Wye at International Summer School, Ramsgate in 1979 and revised in 1997, though it should be pointed out that this article is for the general reader who wishes to know why and how the flutes of the middle part of this century were not very well tuned)."


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As a general pointer though, many players today feel that buying a good flute with an 'accurate' scale is going to solver their tuning problems. If this is the case, they may not find it not to be as necessary to work on their tone quality nor their intonation properly. If this happens, no flute scale will save their listeners from their bad pitches.

I love physics! Robert Aitken also loves physics and acoustics, he always spent 30 minutes in his masterclass each year talking and teaching us about flute physics and acousics, we learned so much from him, although I don't fully agree with him but he facinated me towards the physics of flute like you guys are talking about scales now.

to make it even confusing, Landell are working with Albert Cooper to design an ultimate New Cooper Scale:
http://www.landellflutes.com/-Products/NCS.htm
I think the graphes make sense, people are trying to make the lower and upper notes line up to the center as much as possible. Right?

Yes, the flute needs the flutists to adjust the pitches all the time. But didn't you(I mean Bilbo) read Sir Galway once wrote that he had so much trouble trying so painfully to adjust the pitch with lips on his old Haynes? (-it's still on GFC) If we have a better, near reasonable scale flute, we can eliminate that much pain, right? Just wondering.

I also don't understand why is Cooper so great about his scale?
I read a book published by Burkart and wife, they gave the measurements of Cooper scales, which is nearly as same as acoustics' calculated tone hole measurements, only different by 0.01mm I think. Why the flute makers don't just follow acoustics' calculated measurements? Why do we have to say Cooper this Cooper that? Just wondering

All so very interesting! I try not to focus too much on which flute maker uses what scale, but I do seem to know the one that works best for me. (Or at least which brands.)

If we have a better, near reasonable scale flute, we can eliminate that much pain, right? Just wondering.

Agreed! I have heard of many top pros playing on vintage flutes and I have a lot of respect for them because I don't think I would have the patience. I once had a piccolo in which the scale did not work for me at all and I was fighting it so much that it really took out the enjoyment of playing. There are so many things that have to be focused on when playing the flute, why add more to them?

In the case of examining how makers' design flutes and reverse engineering their processes while assuming why they have done certain things isn't necessarily accurate research. Some of these things are common anecdotes that have been passed down from teachers to students and may or may not be grounded in actual fact. Some of them may have been pulled out of...well...mysterious places.

Bilbo,

These are things were passed down from teacher to student and as such no assumptions were made. Flutemakers were not as much interested in "design", they copied existing designs that worked. This has nothing to do with teachers an students. It has to do with design and flutemakers. Mr. Wye is probably the closest we have to first hand information because he talked with many of these people. We had many conversations during the work on Susan's book about this. To allude that these were "pulled out of mysterious places" is a bit premature. IF you are making this claim then provide the evidence that his comments are incorrect.

Actually he throws in a disclaimer...."(This is a summary of a talk given by Trevor Wye at International Summer School, Ramsgate in 1979 and revised in 1997, though it should be pointed out that this article is for the general reader who wishes to know why and how the flutes of the middle part of this century were not very well tuned)."

This is hardly a disclaimer. It is reference to mention that this is an overview and he simply didn't go into all the details during his presentation.

Mr Wye's dissertation concurs with History and the testimony of those involved. I see no reason to cast doubt on the historical facts that are known. The particular flutes copied back then and their scale is known. The events of pitch creep and what flute makers did after that is known. Scales designed by designers and scales "messed" with are also known as they evolved over the last century.

Sorry Bilbo, I just don't understand which part of Mr. Wye's general dissertation is inaccurate. Is there a reason you don't want to point out which parts are as you say,
"pulled out of...well...mysterious places."

As a general pointer though, many players today feel that buying a good flute with an 'accurate' scale is going to solver their tuning problems. If this is the case, they may not find it not to be as necessary to work on their tone quality nor their intonation properly. If this happens, no flute scale will save their listeners from their bad pitches.

If this is your gripe it is not related to Mr Wye's dissertation. If people reference historical facts as an excuse for their intonation shortcomings it does not make the history inaccurate.

Joe B

I also don't understand why is Cooper so great about his scale?

Quite simply, after Boehm, the pitch standard went higher a small amount. This has to do with the eternal debate throughout history of standardizing pitch at A=whatever.

See Terry Mcgee's article Rise and fall of English Pitch or if you have a JSTOR account, check out the musician's union's 1914 pitch establishment and Dayton Miller's account of the confusion of pitch establishment at that time. It wasn't until 1927 that the Music industry council settled the matter of A=440 to stop the confusion.

To make a long story short, not all countries abided by this standard (same as today) A few designers actually set out to recalculate the scaling for the new pitch although that was many years later.

To make a long story short. The so called "cooper" scaling was the first attempt to reposition tone holes at this higher pitch standard.

It should be noted that any flute scaling is inherently imperfect and is an engineering compromise. Making a single tube to be variable in pitch perfectly across three octaves with a fixed bore to length ratio is not possible. But you can get it close.

The cooper scaling is notable even though it is not perfect, because when the pitch went up, it actually recalculated where the holes should be placed.

Up until that point, the pitch went up, but the scaling remained unchanged.
And so that Bilbo won't harangue me for references and pulling this out of somewhere...

Here's a couple references:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3383831
http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/eng_pitch.html

If you went to a guitar maker and asked him to move your bridge closer to the frets to play at higher pitch without changing the fret positions, he'd look at you like you were crazy and probably yell at you because the overall scale length is not in proportion with the scaling proportions (Fret placement). Flutemakers unfortunately, metaphorically, just moved the bridge.

Flutemakers up until Cooper did not change the octave length and left the tone hole scaling where it was and just shortened the headjoints to accomodate the new standard.

Joe B