Playing the Traverso

I have been messing about with the traverso recently, playing on my Stanesby Junior replica flauto traverso tuned in A415. Part of the reason why I have been messing about with it that much is the sheer accessibility of it relative to the other instruments---I have it assembled all the time, and left on the special dizi rack that I have attached to my sturdy Hercules music stand. Since the AF-3 is made of sturdy (and thick!) plastic, it tolerates the ravages of the environment a little better than the other metal instruments that I have.

Having it easily accessible means that I can just pick it up and noodle on it for a bit before putting it back down.

The fingering patterns for the traverso are interesting to say the least. The tone hols of the traverso are much smaller than that of the dizi, which means that the effects of cross-fingering are more pronounced. That it is tuned to A415 also means that the instrument D is closer in pitch to a modern A440 C♯ and with that, means that anything that is played on the traverso has a tendency to sound that much more mellow, even without into account the overall sweetness that the instrument generally sounds.

Prior to 2018 when I got my traverso, I had tried it on a few occasions, but always found it lacking in flavour. One big part of the reason was the misalignment of the embouchure hole with the tone holes, which led to some serious sound production/intonation issues. This was solved by making use of the ``AULOS'' text on each of the parts as markings for alignment---this ensured that the small and circular embouchure hole is correctly angled off the small and circular tone holes. Another part that made me dislike the traverso then was that it seemingly could not speak as well as the other flutes. This was also a mistake on my part---the traverso was not meant to be of a ``big flute'' sound. The play style of the traverso was more akin to that of the recorder than to a modern day concert flute (or even the dizi), but my playing more than five years ago was definitely much worse than my current skills.

Once those two situations were remedied, I started to fall in love with the sweet nonsense that was the traverso.

Being tuned to A415 has another interesting side effect---the tone holes were much farther apart as compared to one that was tuned to A440 due to the natural increase in the length of the air column to support the longer wave length of the fundamental. Comparing the Stanesby Junior with the Grenser (a similar traverso-like instrument but tuned to A440 and with larger tone holes) would show that the Stanesby Junior was a good 17mm longer. 17mm does not sound like much, but when it involves finger stretching, it can mean a lot to someone who has shorter fingers.

Fortunately, I do not have that problem. My fingers aren't exactly very long for my height, but I think they are long enough to not have to feel any strain when holding the A415 traverso using the orthodox method.

I had to relearn listening to the intervals though---I find that as I was playing the different scales using what I have learnt from the fingering patterns of the dizi (modified to use the actual traverso's actual fingering pattern), I can actually hear the difference in the intervals, which makes an interesting ear training exercise.

I've not really brought myself towards playing some hardcore baroque music with the traverso just yet---still trying to develop a good feel for the cross fingering and the tone shading possibilities for now. While the traverso runs counter to what I have been looking for in my instruments (consistency in tone across registers, standard equal temperament intervals that allow shading to fit the actual temperament needed for the music function, large dynamic range), it has its own place.

In a time of the COVID-19, with rehearsals still barred for the TGCC Chinese Orchestra, music making has been relegated to a solo affair. And in this particular circumstance, an instrument with such nuances becomes a much greater friend than the loud stuff that I have.

Till the next update.