Contextual Associations

The contrabass flute in C is an edge aerophone developed in late 20^th century Japan for use anywhere in the world where Western classical music is taught, performed, and consumed. As far as we can tell from rather scant available sources, the contrabass flute in C was first designed and manufactured by the Japanese flute company Kotato & Fukushima in the late 1980s. This firm, which specializes in low-register models of flutes, is the maker of the instrument pictured here (see detail #6, which shows the maker’s mark on the instrument). It is found today primarily in university-based flute ensembles that perform arrangements of existing works and newly-composed works for this type of ensemble. Some professional flautists also double on this instrument and very occasionally record solo works for it that in many instances they have themselves commissioned. The contrabass flute is a very expensive item and its cost alone keeps it out of the hands of most amateur performers. Flautists in genres of music other than the Western classical tradition have not yet adopted it to their traditions not only because of the instrument’s prohibitive price but also its sonic characteristics—there are other bass-register (and often amplified) instrument options that are well established in these genres against which the relatively low volume level of the contrabass flute cannot compete.

Description

Although the contrabass flute at first sight looks like a vertical flute, it is in reality a greatly-lengthened side-blown concert flute (the contrabass, with a length of c. 107 inches, is four times longer than the c. 26-inch-long concert flute). The instrument’s blowhole and lip plate are still situated on the side-wall of a cylindrical tube. It is with the P-shaped design of the instrument’s head joint that the orientation of the bulk of the instrument is changed from the horizontal to the vertical (gallery #1). This feature in turn makes it easier for the performer to operate the instrument’s keywork while at the same time making it possible for the performer to transfer their knowledge of fingering from the concert flute to this much larger instrument. The body of this contrabass flute is made from silver-plated brass; the lip plate is made of silver. The three-section head joint (detail #1, from the performer’s perspective) includes two acute angle bends; interestingly and in contradistinction to the orientation of the concert flute, the instrument’s air column extends to the left of the perform on this flute rather than to their right. The rest of the instrument’s air column is a straight cylindrical tube the top end of which is connected to the open end of the head joint with a tenon-and-socket joint. All of the instrument’s thirteen vent holes and its keywork are found along this straight length of tubing (itself comprised of two connected joints: the body and the foot). An adjustable post-rod the terminal end of which rests in a cup that is part of the tripod-stand on which the instrument rests is welded to the side of the foot joint just above the bottom opening of the tubing.

Player - Instrument Interface and Sound Production

The instrument rests nearly vertically on a stand, and this in combination with the P-shaped head joint places the blowhole/lip plate at a comfortable height for a standing performer. The great length of the instrument makes it physically impossible for the performer to directly cover the vent holes along its length with their fingertips, so modified versions of the keywork found on the Boehm-system concert flute have been developed for the contrabass flute. There are two clusters of keys found on this instrument, one for each of the performer’s hands. The upper cluster, for the left hand, has one key for each finger (detail #2) and two keys for the thumb (detail #3). The right-hand cluster (detail #4) has one key each for the first three fingers and a group of four keys operated by the small finger (detail #5 is a close-up of this group of keys). The righthand thumb does not operate any keys. A fully-chromatic range from C2 to C5 (two octaves below the range of the concert flute) can be produced on this instrument. For an example of the contra bass flute being performed in an ensemble setting (two alto flutes and one contrabass flute) click here.

Origins/History/Evolution

According to the official website of the flute company Kotato & Fukushima, they produced the first contrabass flute in C in 1988. They themselves designed another, larger-bore model of this instrument in 2011, but by that time at least a few other instrument manufactures had designed and were selling contra bass flutes (e.g., Pearl Flutes and Eva Kingma). A market for such a huge and expensive instrument came into existence in the 1960s with the establishment of flute choirs at many universities and in some larger metropolitan areas. These ensembles typically included only piccolos, concert flutes, alto flutes, and bass flutes until enterprising manufacturers started developing lower-register flutes such as the contrabass models in F and C. This trend has continued into the current century with some companies now producing subcontrabass flutes in C and even hyper bass flutes in C (one and two octave below the contrabass in C, respectively).

Bibliographic Citations

Brown, Harold Mayer, et al. 2014. “Flute, §II: The Western transverse flute.” NGDMI v. 2: 327-339.

Green, Grant D. 2006. “Big Flutes” page on the website Contrabass Mania, accessed October 26, 2022: http://www.contrabass.com/pages/flutes.html

Kotato & Fukushima. n.d. Official company website, accessed October 26, 2022: https://www.kotatoandfukushima.com/home

Long, Paige Dashner. “Contraflute” website  accessed October 26, 2022: https://www.contraflute.com/