I totally agree with your suggestion - When I built my first bass flute in F, I intuitivly called it "baritone flute", as is has the same range as my voice.
So write! Especially the name Tenor to what is commonly termed Bass flute. I only have C flute but I played recorders (Baroque) and still have Soprano, Alto (Half octave low); and tenor (Full Octave low) than the C soprano recorder (I even had a Bass recorder). So I thought indeed why is the Bass Flute which is an octave lower than the C-flute, isn't called Tenor. You are right!
Anything below a bass flute is relatively rare. For that reason I think they should keep the name of the bass flute. Contrabass flutes etc. are anomalies in even a university setting.
There seems to be a big gap between the flute and piccolo though. Much flute music for band is written so high anyway that the lower notes of the instrument are seldom used. I'd like to see a sopranino flute in f. This key fits in with the recorder scheme, and the instrument has a core range similar to an alto recorder--which plays a lot of flute nicely. The range could be extended with a foot key down to the bottom e in the treble clef.
Go watch the videos on my channel "All About the E-flat Flute" and "All About the G Treble Flute" and you'll see the two most commonly seen members of the flute family in this category.
I mean, the low notes aren't used because they wouldn't be heard. To compete with reeds and brass you need to SCREAM, which overblows. If you want to hear the lower register of a C flute, get a bass flute and use its middle register.
I thought I was the only one to think that the flute family should be renamed alike sax family. However I don't think that the name should be the only thing to change. Alto saxophone is a 5th below soprano sax, and that's the same for clarinet alto, and English horn, why the alto flute isn't a 5th below the C flute? That makes no sense at all. This instrument was created to have more lows notes, so if it were a 5th below the C flute, it would have two more low notes than the current alto flutes in G. Alto flutes should be in F and the other flutes one and two octaves bellow them.
Although obscure, there was a bass flute in D with the curved head joint made in France in the 1700s. Boaz Berney makes a replica of it, shown on his website.
Problem is, in the Renaissance flutes were considered as a "4-feet" (4') family just like recorders are, which means the various sizes were referred to as with the same name the vocal register placed one octave below them were. Thus: - The modern piccolo actually was the soprano. - The very rare treble was the alto. - The modern "standard" instrument was the tenor. - The modern "alto" (in G or, rarely, F) was the bass. - The modern bass would have been referred to as a "sub-bass", a "great-bass" or simply a bass in C. That said, because modern orchestras and composers usually don't feel the necessity of sizes others than the piccolo, the "standard" flute, the alto and the bass, so that's the nomenclature they prefer to still employ (not to mention, being very "pure" in tone and as such poor in overtones flutes do have a quite feeble first octave, and instruments lower in pitch than the bass sound quite weak all throughout their range, thus making them unpractical both in band and in orchestra). Another option might be referring to the various sizes by their fundmental note (i.e.: "standard" --> Flute in C4/cc; piccolo --> Flute in C5/ccc; alto --> Flute in G3/g; bass --> Flute in C3/c, and so on).
Oh wow, I just realize why the flute between "modern standard" and piccolo is called treble flute. It has the size roughly the same as the treble recorder (alto recorder).
I like the old fashioned names best, despite their illogical nature. In my opinion, they best fit the character of the instruments. As far as logical naming goes, my preferred naming system for the flutes is slightly different from what you described, and exactly matches the saxophones. It is as follows: c-flute --> soprano alto --> alto bass --> tenor contra alto --> baritone contrabass --> bass subcontrabass --> contrabass double contrabass --> subcontrabass
the names you have suggested make total sense, but I was thinking about the eb and g flute(above the traditional c flute). Ive seen some naming the eb one as soprano and the g one as treble. though the treble name makes sense because the low c sounds a g4, just where the treble clef is notated, but what would be an appropiate name for the eb flute?? I cant think of any.
I hope because of the advancement of technology, The Irish flute makers will create the (Alto, Tenor (former bass), Baritone (Contralto), Bass (former contrabass), and Contrabass (former double contrabass) etc) flutes in a serpentine style with low G footjoints made out of 3D printing or Blackwood. They’ll use simple fingerings and ornaments. They’ll have swan neck horizontal embouchures and headjoints. They will be held vertically. Boehm-system versions of these instruments will also be available. The most common of these will be the tenor size (an octave below the standard D flute)!!!! It’ll be innovative!! They’ll be called serpent flutes!!!!
Oh, I don't know. Guo bass flutes are called tenor flutes and the result is it makes things more confusing. If you google them in English you'll see a lot of people just using the normal name and some people even calling them something like "Guo Tenor (Bass) Flutes", so you see by trying to mess with the names you can confuse the matter further. Also, of course, the tenor flute is not missing. The C flute is the tenor flute and vocal repertoire has historically been transposed up an octave when played on flutes. When you assume the octave all of the names make sense except the alto flute which seems to have been renamed in relation to its actual pitch and might have better just been bumped up to the baritone when the bass flute was added. Traditions are hard to break and it seems none of these changes will actually happen, although, idk, it looks like Geoffrey Guo is on board with you.
I've never heard of any instance where the normal C Flute has been referred to as a "tenor." From my experience, it neither functions as one nor resembles in nature that pitch classification. I know I'm not the first person to suggest a name change for the lower flutes.
The concert flute at the size we play today is actually in D. It reads in C (which is nice for us flute players,) but it has the same fingering as the Baroque flute in D, which is the most common size of simple flute. (except Boehm flipped the F and F# and various other little things.) If you read music on simple flute, even modern "Irish" flute or even a penny whistle and it's in D you'll find very quickly your fingers are used to moving to those positions on those notes on the staff though the accidentals will trip you up for a while. This, most common size and pitch of baroque traverso, is referred as the tenor flute. That size of traverso has been called the tenor at least since the transverse flute first because a Western concert instrument sometime in the Renaissance because it played the melody in choral textures which was the tenor line (generally assumed up an octave because it's a flute,) although because of the wide range the same size of flute could also function as alto and soprano; the tenor line was most important. The bass flute, which was lower, in G, the pitch of the modern alto flute (which makes the British calling it a bass flute make more sense) took the bass line. Sometimes the higher lines were played on higher flutes which would be referred to as descants. All of this was assumed to sound up the octave except in some instances where it sounded up a fourth or fifth depending the clefs. Before that, transverse flutes came from something like a military fife and drum corp, the "Swiss Pair" and did not have voice part names. They were just called Swiss Flute or some other names and it's difficult to tell whether people were writing about them or recorders in that period because some of the same names were used. Nancy Hadden's thesis is available for free in many places online and you can read all about it.
Directing to a thesis is a good way to win bonus points on a comment on my channel. It's kind of like the bassoon though. Its fundamental scale is the F scale, but it's never thought of as an F instrument. Instead, it functions as a C instrument just like the flute. Except for Irish flutes and tin whistles (and of course the Bassoon, because it likes to be weird), all woodwinds are named for their 7 finger note, which puts the standard flute firmly as a C instrument. It seems that only folk instrument players have held on to the 6-finger nomenclature for some reason (possibly because many folk instrument do not possess 7 finger holes). I feel that when naming instruments, function and use should many times take precidence over historical quirks (especially those of the 15th Century).
Well the Irish flute is in C too if you consider how people read on it when they do use written music. You don't make transposed parts for it. It's just that size of flute is "in D" because of where the bottom note is (not counting the foot if it has one,) where the register break is, and when you do take the keys off all the keys what key plays in, etc... I'm not suggesting we start calling the concert flute "flute in D" (although some simple system flute aficionados would rather we do that) nor am I trying to say the modern naming system isn't confusing. I was just trying to give it some more context esp since you didn't mention about the concert flute being the historical tenor size in your video and it really is nice if you play historical flutes not to have to transpose because the main instrument really has stayed in that same size and key for that span.
I understand the context well, but one must realize that the main purpose of my channel is looking at orchestrating for wind band, so I won't go into as much detail on the videos as I would in my book.
Agree with you on the flute nomenclature. But you have missed something - the Recorder nomenclature is EVEN WORSE!! In fact - its at LEAST an Octave out (possibly more) For the lower recorders we get into a ridiculous number of prefixes - like sub sub sub contrabass etc or great sub contrabass etc for instruments that only go down to what we would call Bass. The Bass recorder is only a tone lower than the Violin - and the Great Bass is equivalent to a Viola - shoundnt we call it a Tenor recorder? A Real Mess.
Yeah... so in thinking about this, while initially I agreed, it only works in the context of an orchestra, not in the wider world of flutes (Native American, non-transverse, non-chromatic, recorder/flutes etc)
I'll think about the hyperbass if it ever proves itself to be a useful instrument. As of right now, there's a single instrument in the world that really can't be played by humans.
We're capable of hearing those notes, but flute is a poor means of producing those sounds. The amount of air required is akin to a 32 foot pipe on an organ which usually needs a large motor to produce enough air. With a flute, only half of the air produced actually goes into the instrument. It's efficiency at its absolute worst. A reed instrument is far better to produce those tones.
Will doublecontrabass flutes become regular things though? They're so expensive and so rare... Bass flutes sound so awesome too. Outside of flautists, not many people have heard a bass flute either. Plus "bass flute" is also used by Native American flutes. Bass flute in F or whatever. These do correspond with the transverse flute sounds. There's no Double Contrabass Native American flute.... is there?
On the("double") Contrabass Flutes, probably not. Tenor (Bass) Flutes are well-known among most serious musicians. Native American flutes are a whole different kettle of fish.
A tenor flute would be one in between Bass and Alto. There's a tenor recorder for example. It's just not relevant given the Flute's chromatic ability. But traditional flutes - Native American flutes - still need to be made in various keys. It seems you're only regarding modern metal transverse flutes as the only flutes the descriptors apply to? Native American Bass flutes and the bass (basset) recorder (which is still called a flute in other languages), have similar ranges to the Transverse chromatic bass flute.
I think it's similar to fixing English orthography. It's a great idea, but it involves so much pain at one time, and so much existing material that would need to be revised, that it will never happen.
@@BretNewtonComposer Very interesting. I hadn't ever heard of the low G clarinet. I thought you were going to say "hiding under the name soprano clarinet" and we were just going to work are way up the clarinet family until we got to the end of what has been invented. Then you could start the "true piccolo clarinet project" to go along with your great bassoon project. You really cut that short.
@@DietterichLabs if you consider the C Clarinet as the true soprano, then the G makes sense as the alto. The Bb and A were added later and composers and players found them more pleasant to play and write for, but you can think of them as "mezzo-sopranos"
There are, by my count, five sizes that have been made between the C Flute and the C Piccolo in the Boehm system (D-flat Flute, E-flat Soprano Flute, F Soprano Flute, G Treble Flute, and A-flat Piccolo). Of those, only 2 (F and G) are currently manufactured, and of those two, only the G is ever seen. You can see some Gs and E-flats in the video.
The problem with applying it to the clarinet family is that it would involve renaming the Bass Clarinet which has 200 years of history ensconced in its name.
Well it should. The Bass Clarinet doesn't get much attention it deserves as it is a 'Bass' instrument so therefore plays 'Bass' parts in a band or Orchestra. The Bass Clarinet has a lot more potential then just being a 'Bass' instrument as it does have its own high range, a higher range than most woodwinds. Why isn't there a Tenor Clarinet? The Alto Clarinet is in the same key as an Alto Saxophone. The Bass Clarinet is in the same key as a Tenor Saxophone. What is the deal with that?
Eat My Shorts do not conflate saxophones and clarinets. The two instruments don't share like characteristics. Essentially, the so-called "alto" clarinet is really a Tenor Clarinet.
Again, you're conflating clarinets and saxophones. The two are not similar in ranges. The Tenor Saxophone shares its range with the Alto Clarinet while the Baritone Saxophone shares its range with the Bass Clarinet. Do not confuse key with voice.
Very useful and informative video. As a composer, I have just adopted your naming convention. I also see it being adopted by Bandestration at bandestration.com/tag/bass-flute/ Thank you so much!
Piccolo-Piccolo Flute
Treble Flute-Sopranino Flute
Flute-Soprano Flute
Alto Flute-Alto Flute
Bass Flute-Tenor Flute
Contra-alto Flute - Baritone Flute
Contrabass Flute-Bass Flute
Sub-Contrabass- Contrabass in G
Double Contrabass-Contrabass in C
As a sax guy, all I can say is DUH! This is so freaking obvious I cannot believe this isn't in the works.
As far as I'm concerned, it is in the works. My upcoming textbook on the subject will go into this in detail.
Finally another sax guy I can agree with
I totally agree with your suggestion - When I built my first bass flute in F, I intuitivly called it "baritone flute", as is has the same range as my voice.
I play tenor (bass) flute, and it's really fun.
So write! Especially the name Tenor to what is commonly termed Bass flute. I only have C flute but I played recorders (Baroque) and still have Soprano, Alto (Half octave low); and tenor (Full Octave low) than the C soprano recorder (I even had a Bass recorder). So I thought indeed why is the Bass Flute which is an octave lower than the C-flute, isn't called Tenor. You are right!
Well, I'm flutist and I'm totally agree with you :
Piccolo -> Soprano -> Alto -> Tenor -> etc
That makes sense.
Piccolo
Treble flute in G
Soprano flute in Eb
Flute in C
Tenor flute in Bb/A/Ab
Alto flute in G
Bass flute in C
etc.
Anything below a bass flute is relatively rare. For that reason I think they should keep the name of the bass flute. Contrabass flutes etc. are anomalies in even a university setting.
And to my ears, they pretty much sound like crap anyway.
@@michaelmclaughlin6376
Bass flute in F / aka F- baritone / and contraalto in G / G- baritone/ sounds well in my opinion;
There seems to be a big gap between the flute and piccolo though. Much flute music for band is written so high anyway that the lower notes of the instrument are seldom used. I'd like to see a sopranino flute in f. This key fits in with the recorder scheme, and the instrument has a core range similar to an alto recorder--which plays a lot of flute nicely. The range could be extended with a foot key down to the bottom e in the treble clef.
Go watch the videos on my channel "All About the E-flat Flute" and "All About the G Treble Flute" and you'll see the two most commonly seen members of the flute family in this category.
I mean, the low notes aren't used because they wouldn't be heard. To compete with reeds and brass you need to SCREAM, which overblows. If you want to hear the lower register of a C flute, get a bass flute and use its middle register.
I thought I was the only one to think that the flute family should be renamed alike sax family. However I don't think that the name should be the only thing to change. Alto saxophone is a 5th below soprano sax, and that's the same for clarinet alto, and English horn, why the alto flute isn't a 5th below the C flute? That makes no sense at all. This instrument was created to have more lows notes, so if it were a 5th below the C flute, it would have two more low notes than the current alto flutes in G. Alto flutes should be in F and the other flutes one and two octaves bellow them.
Although obscure, there was a bass flute in D with the curved head joint made in France in the 1700s. Boaz Berney makes a replica of it, shown on his website.
Problem is, in the Renaissance flutes were considered as a "4-feet" (4') family just like recorders are, which means the various sizes were referred to as with the same name the vocal register placed one octave below them were. Thus:
- The modern piccolo actually was the soprano.
- The very rare treble was the alto.
- The modern "standard" instrument was the tenor.
- The modern "alto" (in G or, rarely, F) was the bass.
- The modern bass would have been referred to as a "sub-bass", a "great-bass" or simply a bass in C.
That said, because modern orchestras and composers usually don't feel the necessity of sizes others than the piccolo, the "standard" flute, the alto and the bass, so that's the nomenclature they prefer to still employ (not to mention, being very "pure" in tone and as such poor in overtones flutes do have a quite feeble first octave, and instruments lower in pitch than the bass sound quite weak all throughout their range, thus making them unpractical both in band and in orchestra).
Another option might be referring to the various sizes by their fundmental note (i.e.: "standard" --> Flute in C4/cc; piccolo --> Flute in C5/ccc; alto --> Flute in G3/g; bass --> Flute in C3/c, and so on).
I agree to this one. There is no need to change something common and well known. Just leave the rare one to be itself.
Oh wow, I just realize why the flute between "modern standard" and piccolo is called treble flute. It has the size roughly the same as the treble recorder (alto recorder).
Very nice argument! I was, however, looking for the hyper-bass flute. It uses what look like garbage-can lids for keys.
I like the old fashioned names best, despite their illogical nature. In my opinion, they best fit the character of the instruments.
As far as logical naming goes, my preferred naming system for the flutes is slightly different from what you described, and exactly matches the saxophones. It is as follows:
c-flute --> soprano
alto --> alto
bass --> tenor
contra alto --> baritone
contrabass --> bass
subcontrabass --> contrabass
double contrabass --> subcontrabass
the names you have suggested make total sense, but I was thinking about the eb and g flute(above the traditional c flute). Ive seen some naming the eb one as soprano and the g one as treble. though the treble name makes sense because the low c sounds a g4, just where the treble clef is notated, but what would be an appropiate name for the eb flute?? I cant think of any.
A full summary:
Piccolo
Treble flute (rare, not worth renaming to Contra-piccolo)
Soprano flute (rare)
C Flute
Flûte d'amour 🡆 Mezzo-soprano Flute
Alto flute
Bass flute 🡆 Tenor flute
Contralto flute in G / Bass flute in F 🡆 Baritone Flute
Contrabass flute / Octobass flute 🡆 Bass flute
Sub-contrabass flute 🡆 Sub-bass flute
Double Contrabass flute 🡆 Contrabass flute
Then I'd add:
Hyperbass flute 🡆 Double Contrabass flute (currently only one exists)
Would Great Bass be even better than sub-bass for the low flutes in G and F?
If I need the use of a "tenor Flute" I usually use a Bass Flute tuned in G.
great video, where we can hear all this types of flute?
isn't double contra just octocontra though?
i.e. that octocontralto clarinet that leblanc made
The "Double Contrabass" Flute and the LeBlanc Octo-Contras are an octave apart (the clarinets being roughly an octave lower than the flute).
lol youtube the octocontrabass clarinet and hyperbass would be more alike, octave wise
I hope because of the advancement of technology, The Irish flute makers will create the (Alto, Tenor (former bass), Baritone (Contralto), Bass (former contrabass), and Contrabass (former double contrabass) etc) flutes in a serpentine style with low G footjoints made out of 3D printing or Blackwood. They’ll use simple fingerings and ornaments. They’ll have swan neck horizontal embouchures and headjoints. They will be held vertically. Boehm-system versions of these instruments will also be available. The most common of these will be the tenor size (an octave below the standard D flute)!!!! It’ll be innovative!! They’ll be called serpent flutes!!!!
Oh, I don't know. Guo bass flutes are called tenor flutes and the result is it makes things more confusing. If you google them in English you'll see a lot of people just using the normal name and some people even calling them something like "Guo Tenor (Bass) Flutes", so you see by trying to mess with the names you can confuse the matter further. Also, of course, the tenor flute is not missing. The C flute is the tenor flute and vocal repertoire has historically been transposed up an octave when played on flutes. When you assume the octave all of the names make sense except the alto flute which seems to have been renamed in relation to its actual pitch and might have better just been bumped up to the baritone when the bass flute was added. Traditions are hard to break and it seems none of these changes will actually happen, although, idk, it looks like Geoffrey Guo is on board with you.
I've never heard of any instance where the normal C Flute has been referred to as a "tenor." From my experience, it neither functions as one nor resembles in nature that pitch classification. I know I'm not the first person to suggest a name change for the lower flutes.
The concert flute at the size we play today is actually in D. It reads in C (which is nice for us flute players,) but it has the same fingering as the Baroque flute in D, which is the most common size of simple flute. (except Boehm flipped the F and F# and various other little things.) If you read music on simple flute, even modern "Irish" flute or even a penny whistle and it's in D you'll find very quickly your fingers are used to moving to those positions on those notes on the staff though the accidentals will trip you up for a while. This, most common size and pitch of baroque traverso, is referred as the tenor flute. That size of traverso has been called the tenor at least since the transverse flute first because a Western concert instrument sometime in the Renaissance because it played the melody in choral textures which was the tenor line (generally assumed up an octave because it's a flute,) although because of the wide range the same size of flute could also function as alto and soprano; the tenor line was most important. The bass flute, which was lower, in G, the pitch of the modern alto flute (which makes the British calling it a bass flute make more sense) took the bass line. Sometimes the higher lines were played on higher flutes which would be referred to as descants. All of this was assumed to sound up the octave except in some instances where it sounded up a fourth or fifth depending the clefs. Before that, transverse flutes came from something like a military fife and drum corp, the "Swiss Pair" and did not have voice part names. They were just called Swiss Flute or some other names and it's difficult to tell whether people were writing about them or recorders in that period because some of the same names were used. Nancy Hadden's thesis is available for free in many places online and you can read all about it.
Directing to a thesis is a good way to win bonus points on a comment on my channel. It's kind of like the bassoon though. Its fundamental scale is the F scale, but it's never thought of as an F instrument. Instead, it functions as a C instrument just like the flute. Except for Irish flutes and tin whistles (and of course the Bassoon, because it likes to be weird), all woodwinds are named for their 7 finger note, which puts the standard flute firmly as a C instrument. It seems that only folk instrument players have held on to the 6-finger nomenclature for some reason (possibly because many folk instrument do not possess 7 finger holes). I feel that when naming instruments, function and use should many times take precidence over historical quirks (especially those of the 15th Century).
Well the Irish flute is in C too if you consider how people read on it when they do use written music. You don't make transposed parts for it. It's just that size of flute is "in D" because of where the bottom note is (not counting the foot if it has one,) where the register break is, and when you do take the keys off all the keys what key plays in, etc... I'm not suggesting we start calling the concert flute "flute in D" (although some simple system flute aficionados would rather we do that) nor am I trying to say the modern naming system isn't confusing. I was just trying to give it some more context esp since you didn't mention about the concert flute being the historical tenor size in your video and it really is nice if you play historical flutes not to have to transpose because the main instrument really has stayed in that same size and key for that span.
I understand the context well, but one must realize that the main purpose of my channel is looking at orchestrating for wind band, so I won't go into as much detail on the videos as I would in my book.
Similar to saxophones
Agree with you on the flute nomenclature. But you have missed something - the Recorder nomenclature is EVEN WORSE!! In fact - its at LEAST an Octave out (possibly more) For the lower recorders we get into a ridiculous number of prefixes - like sub sub sub contrabass etc or great sub contrabass etc for instruments that only go down to what we would call Bass. The Bass recorder is only a tone lower than the Violin - and the Great Bass is equivalent to a Viola - shoundnt we call it a Tenor recorder? A Real Mess.
Recorders aren't really a mess because they're at least logical. Recorders function more like a 4' stop on an organ.
There's already and alto and tenor recorder though. Then the basset, then the great bass.
The term Basset doesn't seem to be used in the US and is only favored in Europe.
What about the awkwardly named "treble flute" in G, a fifth above the concert flute?
Sopranino flute
I just call mine a treble g
Yeah... so in thinking about this, while initially I agreed, it only works in the context of an orchestra, not in the wider world of flutes (Native American, non-transverse, non-chromatic, recorder/flutes etc)
Don't you think that the Hyperbass flute should be renamed Subcontrabass flute? Or maybe Octocontrabass flute? I think so.
I'll think about the hyperbass if it ever proves itself to be a useful instrument. As of right now, there's a single instrument in the world that really can't be played by humans.
I just asked because (I think) it's an experimental instrument, and I found it interesting that someone actually tried to build one.
But even I don't think it's very useful, sounding so low that humans can't even hear the lowest notes of it. They might hear the overtones though.
We're capable of hearing those notes, but flute is a poor means of producing those sounds. The amount of air required is akin to a 32 foot pipe on an organ which usually needs a large motor to produce enough air. With a flute, only half of the air produced actually goes into the instrument. It's efficiency at its absolute worst. A reed instrument is far better to produce those tones.
Yeah, I think you're right.
Well, thanks for the conversation, have a good day.
Will doublecontrabass flutes become regular things though? They're so expensive and so rare... Bass flutes sound so awesome too. Outside of flautists, not many people have heard a bass flute either. Plus "bass flute" is also used by Native American flutes. Bass flute in F or whatever. These do correspond with the transverse flute sounds. There's no Double Contrabass Native American flute.... is there?
On the("double") Contrabass Flutes, probably not. Tenor (Bass) Flutes are well-known among most serious musicians. Native American flutes are a whole different kettle of fish.
Love your vids!!!
Just call them by their length in centimeters and key
Trust me its easier in music to name the flutes by their length in feet/inches. (Organist knowledge)
A tenor flute would be one in between Bass and Alto. There's a tenor recorder for example. It's just not relevant given the Flute's chromatic ability. But traditional flutes - Native American flutes - still need to be made in various keys. It seems you're only regarding modern metal transverse flutes as the only flutes the descriptors apply to?
Native American Bass flutes and the bass (basset) recorder (which is still called a flute in other languages), have similar ranges to the Transverse chromatic bass flute.
thanks for the vid. This should happen but I doubt it every will.
I think it's similar to fixing English orthography. It's a great idea, but it involves so much pain at one time, and so much existing material that would need to be revised, that it will never happen.
Piccolo, Flute, Mezzo Soprano Flute, Alto Flute, Tenor Flute, Bass Flute, Contralto Flute, Sub-Bass Flute, Contrabass Flute, Subcontrabass Flute, Octobass Flute, Mezzo Subcontralto Bass Flute.
Where is the tenor clarinet?
Hiding under the name Alto Clarinet
@@BretNewtonComposer So then where is the true alto clarinet?
@@DietterichLabs ua-cam.com/video/4gxfufpzb5s/v-deo.html
@@BretNewtonComposer Very interesting. I hadn't ever heard of the low G clarinet. I thought you were going to say "hiding under the name soprano clarinet" and we were just going to work are way up the clarinet family until we got to the end of what has been invented. Then you could start the "true piccolo clarinet project" to go along with your great bassoon project. You really cut that short.
@@DietterichLabs if you consider the C Clarinet as the true soprano, then the G makes sense as the alto. The Bb and A were added later and composers and players found them more pleasant to play and write for, but you can think of them as "mezzo-sopranos"
how the hell do you even hold the contra it looks like randomly bent metal
It's played standing up. The instrument is essentially vertical.
But why no flute between standard C and piccolo?
There are, by my count, five sizes that have been made between the C Flute and the C Piccolo in the Boehm system (D-flat Flute, E-flat Soprano Flute, F Soprano Flute, G Treble Flute, and A-flat Piccolo). Of those, only 2 (F and G) are currently manufactured, and of those two, only the G is ever seen. You can see some Gs and E-flats in the video.
Your suggestions for improved nomenclature for the flute family can and should also be applied to the clarinet family.
The problem with applying it to the clarinet family is that it would involve renaming the Bass Clarinet which has 200 years of history ensconced in its name.
I play clarinet why am I here
Oh, 100. The current "bass flute" should be the tenor. That's what Guo calls it. Everything needs to be changed.
I feel like the lowest flute names are made to sound impressive and not for any logical reason.
Why not "bassett" and "great bass" instead of of bass and sub-bass?
Clarinets should be named like this. Bass clarinet should be a tenor clarinet and so on...
Why would that be any better? The Bass clarinet doesn't function as a tenor instrument.
Well it should. The Bass Clarinet doesn't get much attention it deserves as it is a 'Bass' instrument so therefore plays 'Bass' parts in a band or Orchestra. The Bass Clarinet has a lot more potential then just being a 'Bass' instrument as it does have its own high range, a higher range than most woodwinds.
Why isn't there a Tenor Clarinet? The Alto Clarinet is in the same key as an Alto Saxophone. The Bass Clarinet is in the same key as a Tenor Saxophone. What is the deal with that?
Eat My Shorts do not conflate saxophones and clarinets. The two instruments don't share like characteristics. Essentially, the so-called "alto" clarinet is really a Tenor Clarinet.
Again, you're conflating clarinets and saxophones. The two are not similar in ranges. The Tenor Saxophone shares its range with the Alto Clarinet while the Baritone Saxophone shares its range with the Bass Clarinet. Do not confuse key with voice.
Bandestration This is just my opinion. I didn't make it to be an argument, just a point
I like flutes. Is nice
ua-cam.com/video/Qmxnp_3KUt0/v-deo.html are you counting this one? I think this one is lower then the lowest one you mentioned
I am counting it. It's in the video.
i.ytimg.com/vi/ANE849xdB6Q/hqdefault.jpg
Yes... that's a true Contrabass Flute incorrectly named "Double Contrabass"
Neptune 😍
Very useful and informative video. As a composer, I have just adopted your naming convention.
I also see it being adopted by Bandestration at bandestration.com/tag/bass-flute/
Thank you so much!
And lately hyberbass flute
The "Hyper'bass is still an (unsuccessful) experiment. Why so much attention gets focused on it is beyond me.
Smart