I got started with Boehm Concert flutes, also known as C flutes, and then quite a few years later I took up the Boehm Alto flute, also known as a G flute and tuned a fourth lower than the C flute. Now, at a glance, the Alto flute simply looks like an oversized version of the Concert flute, but the reality is that the fingering of D on the Alto is where G is on the Concert flute, for instance, which basically means that a player must re-train their fingering habits, or else they wind up playing the wrong tone.
Well, I’ve just done about the same thing to myself, once again. This time, however, I got my first six-key C flute, which simply looks like an oversized six-key D flute, but, again, the reality is that the fingering is altogether different than the D flute, meaning that I must now re-train my fingering habits.
In other words, learning four different keying systems is almost like being a multi-instrumentalist.
Frankly, I think I’ve about hit the limit. Four is enough!
An alternative approach is to use the same fingerings and treat the “C flute” as a transposing instrument in B flat, i.e. when you finger a C on your “C flute” you’re actually playing a Bb. When you read the dots, you can transpose in the same way: for instance, a tune written in G major needs to be read in A major. It all boils down to how lazy you are: if you’re too lazy to learn new fingerings, learn to transpose. If you’re too lazy to transpose, learn new fingerings
This convention of naming flutes by the name of their fundamental in Irish music is a bit confusing because a D flute is actually a flute in C .
Throw a set of uilleann pipes plus D, Bb, F, and Eb flutes into the mix and see what happens.
FWIW, it does seem to become second-nature pretty fast, especially with tunes you know. I just moved an A tune that I’ve always played on a D flute onto an A whistle – where I’m now fingering it in D – and all in all, it wasn’t too bad. And it’s worth it; the tune works much better in terms of tone & character on the A whistle (at least to my ear; we’ll see what the guy who wrote it thinks!).
Enjoy that flute. David’s making nice ones these days! Maybe you should get the new Kevin Crawford duet CD to celebrate – lots of the stuff there is on C instruments.
Well, sight transposition is another way of getting the same job done, but ultimately, we’re talking about four unique fingering positions for the same tone.
Aanvil’s approach is orchestral, where non-concert pitch instruments are transposing. So fingering wise, a D is a D is a D, though the actual concert pitches are different.
Cork’s approach is non-transposing like recorders, where you learn each separate set of fingerings in concert pitch.
Non-transposing is very cool if you can do it. But practicality may be somewhere in between. You learn the concert pitches well enough to identify what transposed key to start in, then conceptually you play in that transposed key.
I.e., concert G on my G flute is xxx xxx. That’s really a D fingering. So I’m going to play this G tune in D. And so on. For reading dots, Denny’s sight transposing meshes with this approach.
Just to complicate matters, the Boehm “C” flute has the same fingering/pitch as a simple-system “D” flute. Both sound a “D” note for the xxx xxx fingering, which is the bottom note for the simple-system, but not for the Boehm, which has two (sometimes three) keys below that that are controlled with the pinky. But when a simple-system flute has those extra keys, it is still said to be in “D”.
I really had some fun this winter when I played for a weekend of madrigal performances. Soprano & tenor recorder, D flute, Eb flute, C whistle, low D whistle; meanwhile, our community orchestra was rehearsing the chamber version of Copland’s Appalachian Spring twice a week, our Irish band had a gig, and I’d set myself some bizarre deadline for achieving something or other on the uilleann pipes, too (can’t remember what that was about).
Things got a little wacky there for a bit. But overall, I was OK as long as I didn’t think too hard about what I was doing. The minute my brain would wander over into Comparison Land – i.e., “Hmmm, what’s the piping fingering for this note?” while playing the recorder – it was Wipeout City.
What kind of music do you play, traditional aurally-based music (like ITM) or classical-type music where written notation is commonly used? Depending on which it is, your approach should be different when dealing with flutes in different keys. If you’re playing aurally-based music, learn the tunes by ear rather than from sheet music. Fit each tune to whatever flute you think it sounds best and falls under your fingers best on, and don’t worry about fitting particular note names to fingerings. Although many traditional players do use the dots to some extent in learning tunes, the ear trumps what’s on the page every single time. Some traditional players (Mike Rafferty for one) do not even know the names of the notes they are playing, yet they have vast repertoires of tunes in many different keys.
OTOH if the music you play is more orchestral or classical in nature (i.e. if it’s normal to read from sheet music even in performance) then treat your flutes in different keys the same way an orchestral flute player would. Adopt a standard fingering system, i.e. note name = fingering, and then rewrite your charts so that you read the tunes in one key and they sound in another key. I never played orchestral flutes, so I don’t know what their standard fingering system is, but for clarinet which I did play there are several different ones which are named by the note actually sounded when the written note C is fingered. Bb clarinets and Eb clarinets are typically played in bands, and A clarinets are typically played in orchestras. But as a player of any clarinet, I look at the note on the page and finger it the same way no matter what clarinet I’m playing. These are called transposing instruments, BTW, while any instrument that sounds the same note that’s fingered is called a concert pitch instrument. I’m pretty sure the standard Boehm orchestral flute is a concert pitch instrument, while alto flutes and such are transposing istruments. If you don’t already have the right charts for whatever tune you want to play on some flute in a non-concert pitch, then sit down once and write them out. That will be much easier on your brain than having to transpose on the fly every time you play!
We had a thread here fairly recently where James, if I am not mistaken, explained why there is this seeming contradiction in the key designation between the concert Boehm flute and the simple system low D folk flute. Without going into the details that only a person schooled in music theory would understand, the reason for this seeming discrepancy is that the two flutes are described by different naming conventions. With the system used in concert instruments, a Boehm flute is considered a C flute although the fingering is very close to the same fingering on a low D simple system folk flute. So we have two flutes pitched the same that are described differently because of the naming convention. It causes some confusion, to me, at least.
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I was the wind section for my high school orchestra for my last two years…
