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Mastering Tradition and Technology

by Mikell Montagne

Music is more than musicians and composers; it is also the instruments they use. Ian Moss knows that. He has made an unofficial career of repairing, restoring, and making wooden flutes and recorders. As far as he knows, he is the only person in Canada who combines all of these skills.

Ian Moss is a mechanical engineer who decided, as a student, to learn to make the flute music he loved to listen to. (Unfortunately, his first flute, purchased at a pawn shop, required extensive repairs before he could play it. Finances demanded that he do the work himself. He has spent the intervening 35 years actively learning the mechanics of flutes, recorders, and whistles, the relative merits of various materials from which they are made, and the tools required to make them.

Working from a basement workshop in his Sherwood Park home, Moss is best-known among Alberta musicians for his wooden headjoints (the mouth-piece section of the flute). Classical flute-players Harlan Green and Grant Cahoon each have one; Jason Johnson, with the alternative group Feeding Like Butterflies, has his name on a waiting list. Although some argue there is no measurable difference between the sound made by wooden and metal flutes, many musicians prefer wood, perhaps because it links them to the time before metal was used extensively in the modern, technically reliable flute.

Moss's main teacher lived 150 years ago. Theobald Bohm, considered the father of the modern flute, literally "wrote the book" on the subject. His experiments from 1832 to 1847 resulted in the keyed, cylindrical-bodied design that has become, with a few minor improvements, the standard modern flute. For most North American musicians, metal flutes have also become the standard. "Böhm's theory was that the best sound was made by a wooden flute, but only with the thinnest walls," reports Moss. "I was able to make the walls of my flutes thinner because I inserted wooden chimneys used as seats for the keys, rather than using a rotating tool to cut them [out of a thicker flute cylinder]."

Moss made recorders when he belonged to the Edmonton Recorder Society. The wooden flutes, wooden headjoints, and even a metal headjoint complement his experiences as a self-taught flute player. Two Cuban oysterwood cylinders bored down the centre are waiting to be turned into penny whistles because both he and his daughter want to play them.

Recorders, penny whistles, and traditional (rather than modern) wooden flutes are based on tapered designs and require a specifically designed tapered reamer. "I've made a tool" is a recurring phrase as Moss talks about the instruments he has made. His workshop includes high-tech machining tools that allow him to fabricate reamers that are in turn needed to make pieces of musical instruments-meeting precise specifications.

Besides studying Böhm's book. Moss has "studied and measured every flute I could get my hands on." He "learned a few things" while touring a flute-making facility in Boston, has read anything put out by companies that sell flutes, and has talked to hand-builders of flutes in the United States.

Moss has repaired many more instruments than he has made. Some he bought at pawn shops or auctions, some musicians brought to him. "If shops get something really weird, a wooden flute particularly, they'll often refer the client to me." He tells of one such repair. "The Cubans have a style of music all their own, and they tend to use simple French flutes. Bonnie Lawrence, a professional flute player out of Calgary, bought one from a group that had come through here. She brought it to me because it needed repair."

To match the wood, Moss turned to his own stock-pile of hardwoods—the granadilla (African blackwood) required for Lawrence's flute, Honduras rosewood, East Indian rosewoods, Gonçalo Alves, cocobolo, and English boxwood. The latter is "not a very pretty wood, but it is a very traditional wood—all the old flutes used to be made of English boxwood or grenadilla, and recorders as well." Some hardwoods are rare, some are protected (it is illegal to export Brazilian rosewood), and some, like cocus, are extinct.

Moss's workshop maintains a fairly steady year-round temperature, providing a good environment for his extensive collection of instruments, old and new, casually stored in their boxes on the shelving, amongst tools, books, wood, and papers. Each seems to have a story behind it. He relates the tale of his oldest flute. "In the early days, when I was yearning after a flute of my own, I was talking to a fellow where I was working, one of the chemical plants out on the Baseline, and he said, 'Well, when we were kids out on Parry Sound, we used to use one for a baseball bat. I'm going down there this summer, and I'll see if I can find it.' He came back with this and said, 'Yeah, my old blind uncle had it on the back shelf of his closet, and this is the one that we had.'" At this point Moss opens the case. "So he showed it to me—brassbound, a rosewood box; it's a very well-made, historical instrument. I was very envious and asked him what he would sell it to me for. He said, 'Well, it's not for sale—but I'll give it to you.' It's from about 1823, and it's a typical traditional flute with a tapered bore, made of English boxwood. Obviously they didn't use it for baseball!"

Most of the instruments haven't come to him this easily. However, pawn shops, government sales, and auctions have yielded some excellent finds. Some he has kept; others he traded. He bought a Loree oboe for $35.00 at a government sale of military instruments. Since the Loree name is to oboes what Stradivarius is to violins, he was able to quickly trade for the English cocus wood flute in his collection. "It was in pieces, and the case was in matchsticks. ...I wrote the company, which still exists under a different name; they still have records and say it was built in 1905." Needless to say, the case has been restored, and the flute is beautifully playable today.

Moss makes, repairs, and restores wooden instruments for fun; because he likes helping people, because he enjoys creating tools to duplicate traditional workmanship of master craftsmen. With market development he could turn his avocation into a full-time occupation. Today the internet reaches a potentially huge market, and he is considering creating a website for his instruments.

Meanwhile, Moss is collaborating with Calgary Celtic musician Cal Johnson to make wooden D-whistles, larger than standard penny whistles, because "I'd like to have one myself." As well Moss obtained a plan via the internet for the quintessential traditional Irish flute. His eyes light up as he explains how his machines will make it possible for him to duplicate a delightful early 19th century instrument and, at the same time, make it technically more reliable for the musician to play. "I'll make them. Whether I sell them or give them away remains to be seen."

Mikell Montague is a retired teacher. She is currently a freelance writer and editor in Edmonton.

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