I’ve been looking at various books on flutes and flute making, and have come up with a difference between old and modern open hole flutes that none of my sources seems to address.
On all the photos of renaissance flutes I’ve seen, the mouthhole is located about 10% of the total tube length down from the sealed end of the flute, while all the references I have on flute making (here’s an easy one) suggest that the mouthhole should be at about 2/3 of the tubes internal diameter down from the top for “best” sound. At a length to id ratio of about 30 (typical for renaissance flutes) that’d put it at about 2.5% of total tube length from the top.
That’s quite a difference. Were the top ends of renaissance flutes solid for the first inch or two of their length, or did musicians of the time prefer the sound produced by such having such a low mouthhole?