What is the Lopatin Scale and how is it different from the scales other flute companies use?
As a long-time professional flutist, I have had considerable experience playing and testing flutes with many different scales. The difficulties that most performers encountered on the “traditional” or “long” scale flutes when I was growing up were a sharp high register and a flat low register. The reason for this seemed to be that the flute makers of the day had responded to a rising pitch standard simply by shortening the head joint or the upper end of the center joint. Doing so raised the pitch of the flute unevenly, raising the high register more than the low register. In the early 1970’s, I became aware of the work of Albert Cooper. Cooper had come to the correct conclusion that it was necessary to re-work the spacing of all the tone holes, as well as shortening the overall length in order to raise the three registers equally. I found that the scales on flutes which followed Cooper’s example were a great improvement. However, it seemed that many of the third octave notes were still
