Rudall Carte & Co. 6-key Simple System Piccolo - assorted Welsh tunes .MP4

This clip is to showcase my Rudall Carte & Co. Ebonite 6-key simple system piccolo (made in 1922, #6974). It is in D ("in C" in orchestral terms) and plays at A=440 with a moderate extension of its tuning slide. I'm afraid there are one or two flubs in the performances!

The tunes on this clip are:
1) A jig plus a slip jig; Tafarn yr Ysgub/The Wheatsheaf Inn (trad) & Gwraig y Capten/The Captain's Wife (Robin Huw Bowen)
2) A waltz; Walts ar Drensiwr/Waltz on a Trencher (Stephen Rees)
3) Two hornpipes; Nyth y Gwcw/The Cuckoo's Nest & Pibdawns Dowlais/The Dowlais Hornpipe (both trad)
4) Three jigs; Melin Llynnon /Llynnon Mill (Huw Roberts) & Mabsant (trad) & Jigolo (Iolo Jones).

The tunes here are all Welsh, some traditional, some modern compositions by musicians active in the Welsh tradition (copyrights as credited). They are all from the repertory of Y Glerorfa, the Welsh Folk Orchestra (see http://www.clera.org/saesneg/clerorfa.php and on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Y-Glerorfa/127325105476), of which I am a member and which is the main context in which I actively use the piccolo in performance (it appears on the eponymous CD available from CLERA - see next link, or on iTunes etc.). The tunes can all be found in the CLERA publication of the Clerorfa's sets,"Hobed" (available from http://www.clera.org/saesneg/products.php).

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Welsh
• traditional
• folk
• music
• slip jig
• jig
• hornpipe
• waltz
• piccolo
• flute
• wooden
• Ebonite
• simple system
• Jem
• Jeremy
• Hammond
• jemtheflute
• Y Glerorfa
• Rudall Carte & Co.

[klezmerflute]

Excellent playing, Jem. You blow right down into the picc and that means the intonation is given its best shot. I know you would like a slightly higher C# and if I were sitting on it like at the end of the trill, I would simply lift it up to pitch - unless you trad players are so used to this :-) I'm not - - - yet....

I've corrected a few "A"s on my simple system flutes by covering that hole slightly - and I think you were the one recommending to do that! U restored this, right? GREAT JOB!!

[Jemtheflute]

@klezmerflute: Thanks for commenting, Adrianne. The picc didn't need any restoration when I bought it, just a repad and tidy up.

[holmesway]

You can really play those things Jem, It reminds me of my many hours of sitting next to John Doonan in the feis and ceilis

H

[Jemtheflute]

@holmesway : Thanks, Norman.

[Lisnageeragh]

Fine playing and sound...knew a guy who played trad on one of these ..back in the 50's.

[MexicanPiper]

Beatiful Piccolo!

[Jemtheflute]

cont. .... pulling a Bohm head that far out. It isn't a high pitch instrument per se, although it has a good pitch-range either side of 440. Ones built for old English High Pitch are shorter.

[Jemtheflute]

@rustydog1236: My Korg analogue tuner only calibrates up to A=445.- slide fully closed, the picc's A is sharper than that by about 30-40 cents/6-8Hz. But the scale intonation goes off a bit. I have it open about half the tuning slide's range to play at 440, depending on ambient conditions (heat/humidity). These flutes were not built/tuned based on their fully (or very nearly so) closed position, unlike modern Bohm system. I'm not flattening it beyond its design as one would be .... cont.

[rustydog1236]

Very nice! What's the pitch if you don't pull out the head?

[Jemtheflute]

@jprush They are nice - a more open sound than Bohm piccs, I think, and of course, I can get my R hand fingers on without them wedging together/crowding each other off holes/keys, which I can't really on a Bohm. (Is why simple system piccs persisted among orchestral players way after Bohm flutes took over! Many men's hands won't fit on a Bohm picc!)