

Prehistoric flute in Germany is oldest known - aswanson
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090624/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_prehistoric_flute

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staunch
Makes me wonder how it was invented. Directly, or maybe there were some
incremental steps? Would I have invented a flute?

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tokenadult
HN submission of link to New York Times article on same archeological find,
with perhaps some different details:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=672935>

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WilliamLP
Geez, they don't even tell us what kind of scale it's tuned to?

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msluyter
They played a couple of recreated samples on NPR. One sounded roughly
pentatonic to me; the other sounded... of indeterminate scale and/or out of
tune. It's hard to say exactly how it would have sounded, because the flute
allows a lot of room for bending the pitch based on things like embouchure and
whatnot (I'm a former flutist).

Check it out for yourself:

[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1058231...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105823127)

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aoeu
msluyter, do you know what flutes (and other wind instruments) are generally
tuned to these days? I noticed some of my sister's clarinet music books show
different fingerings for sharps and flats so presumably an extended meantone?
Ta :-)

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msluyter
Modern flutes are all in C. Not sure what you mean by "extended meantone."
Most wind instruments can have slightly different fingerings for the same note
(more prevalent in clarinet than flute, actually). These may have slightly
different intonation/sound. Perhaps that's what you're seeing?

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aoeu
> Perhaps that's what you're seeing?

Indeed yes, I'm talking about what temperament they use not what key they are
in. Check the articles I posted if you're interested.

EDIT: could be this..

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_musical_system>

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aswanson
Harmonie erst. (Our german mates will have to let me know if I am anywhere
near grammatical correctness).

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arrrg
That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Sorry.

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aswanson
Ah, well. It was an attempt at saying "Harmony first." Verdamung babelfish.

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eru
That would be: Harmonie zuerst.

But "Harmonie" does not have the same (con-) notation in German as "harmony"
has in English.

And "Verdamung babelfish." could be taken that you wish babelfish would turn
into a lady ("Dame"). ;o)

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aswanson
Oh, thanks. I better quit while I'm ahead. During Oktoberfest I'll just keep
my mouth shut (unless imbibing) :).

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eru
And remember to drink beer in Maßen not in Massen.

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aswanson
Alles klar, Herr Kommissar. Danke. :).

