Flutes are different from maker to maker. People are different too. Use whatever you need to make the music come out. If it works for you that’s all that matters.
Tots
These are some interesting thoughts on flutes. As a rank beginner I have depended entirely on the opinions expressed here to make my choice of a flute to purchase. My choice was to purchase a Copley. I started my flute lessons last Saturday. Guess who my teacher is?..Dave Copley!
Lots of good stuff on this thread, and possibly not a consensus because it really does vary from person to person, based upon personality and the goals of the person learning.
First off, there’s a difference between learning on one’s own, and with a teacher - on one’s own, an easier to play flute probably helps; with a teacher, it may not be such a big issue. Second, there are those who are learning for personal enrichment compared to those who wish to work at learning the instrument… does that make sense? Nothing negative about learning for oneself, but there’s certainly a difference in commitment level, and often the way one practices (things one enjoys playing versus studies, in the classical world). Finally, there’s the character of the student: some students want and need instant gratification and progress, whereas others want the shortest route from point A to B, even if it means tougher sledding.
I honestly believe that if one has the correct temperment, the shortest route from absolute beginner to expert on the flute is not taking the “easiest blowing” route, as this helps one learn good habits from the very beginning. It can be very difficult to teach someone on a very easy-blowing flute, as bad habits can be masked and covered over.
Now, that said, this certainly won’t work for everyone - and note that I said I thought this was the shortest route, not the best. For some, it’s the destination, for others the joy is the journey. Several people have said that they would have quit without getting the joy of playing music, and that’s quite true too. It depends on one’s character, goals, circumstance, and commitment.
Personally, if a complete beginner came to me with a sold gold Miyazawa flute with a winged Drelinger headjoint, I would not teach them on that flute - they could put it away for a couple of years and play an Armstrong or Gemeinhardt; they would never appreciate the Miyazawa, and it would mask many of their technique problems. That’s just me, of course 
, I’m sure some other folks feel differently.
Different strokes for different folks, I think. Decide based upon your character and goals, and then go out there and enjoy it (that’s what it’s all about, anyway, right?)
Richard
If I may put the question this way:
Must a good easy playing flute
ultimately be less expressive
than a good harder playing
flute? Why should a flute which
it’s easy to get a tone from
not get better and better
as the player improves,
having the potential
of a good flute that
initially it’s harder to
play? Doubtless there are
easy playing flutes that
aren’t this way; are there
easy playing flutes that are?
Is there any reason why
there couldn’t be? Best
It would be ideal if you could have a flute in which the intonation was perfect, the octaves balanced, the voice the same for every note of the range, with excellent projection, capable of a wide pallette of tone colors–and be very easy to play.
Often, though, there is a trade-off involved, and something which the maker values less is lost for something the maker values more.
I think one thing that makes each maker’s flutes unique is how they balance these kinds of trade-offs.
Just as each flute will have its strengths, I don’t believe there are any flutes which don’t have some weaknesses.
And I second the opinion given above, that a very high-end flute might not be the best choice to learn to play on. I’ve always felt that you should grow into such a flute.
Best,
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
We are all talking in non-specific terms, so this thread is becoming intangible.
A Boehm flute is generally easy to sound. By-and-large, it doesn’t take a lot of air to make a Boehm sound, and the embouchure can be/is looser. The sound produced is (usually) bell-like and light, although I did a fair Ian Anderson impersonation, myself.
Now, how does that help someone wanting to play Irish flute on a big hole Pratten? The answer is that it only helps somewhat. The player that can handle a Boehm will make a big holed “hard” wooden flute sound, but they will have to learn the new embouchure and this will be difficult at first. This same idea is true with the “easy” blower flutes.
Perhaps a beginner will be less discouraged and, since they will get a passable tone and sound from this flute, they may even choose to stay at this level. After all, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the sounds they are producing.
But the more persistent players that really want to play Irish music will at some point have to buckle down and work on the “harder” edge, and many of the easy blower flutes, like Boehms, don’t produce this sound easily, so what was once easy (getting a good tone and volume) becomes a detriment to playing with an edge. You’ve gone full circle and are trying to do something harder (make it sound Irish) than it will be on a good “hard” conical in the first place.
Of course, had the player started with the “harder” flute in the first place, and were diligent, persistent and practiced harder, they’d have skipped the middle stage – assuming, of course, that that was the goal. It isn’t for everyone and here lies the fuzziness of this topic. Many will point to Joanie Madden as someone who accomplished Irish playing on a Boehm, and most would have to agree. But those that want to play like Conal,or Harry, or – well, the rest, don’t really hear the sound we’re after in her playing. And it’s not just the flute - it’s the embouchure, the attack, the air – the player and the flute, working in conjunction. This is not a knock on Joanie, BTW – she’s great at what she does.
I started on a Boehm, played fairly well, switched to an old German flute, BUT, it took me quite a while to get the sound I was hearing coming from good Irish players when I finally went for a big-holed conical flute. My early Irish playing sounded a bit like a Boehm, though. The Hamilton was never hard to play – but it took time and patience to get it to sound the way I wanted it to, and I’m finally getting this consistently.
Back on that German, it sounds like an Irish flute. The flute didn’t change. I did, after a few years on a Hamilton.
I’m not criticizing any particular maker’s flutes, nor saying that they are detrimental to your (ultimate) playing, but that as a general rule of musical learning, if you want to get a specific sound, you must tackle the intrument head on, not look for shortcut paths. Everyone’s style will change and develop – I may end up on an “easier” blower down the road, but I learned my embouchure on a flute that could really teach me how to get one in the first place.
Sorry for the novel… too much caffeine…
I’m primarily a Boehm flute player, but I’ve heard from a few sources that beginner flute headjoints really are cut to optimize for easy tone production, and of course low cost; while “professional” headjoints are cut to optimize for tonal flexibility and tone color, and of course high cost.
I can agree with this generalization based on my experience moving from a low end Pearl flute to a much nicer Yamaha. (Yamaha calls it a pro flute, but I doubt many pros do).
Not sure I can say this analogy definitely transfers to wooden flutes, but some aspects of it probably do. I'm going to guess that flute makers don't specifically try to optimize for one thing over another, but they do try to make a flute sound best to them, or that satisfies the largest segment of their customers asking "can you make it just a little more _____".
My wooden flute is a Casey Burns. Not one of the big names, but he seems to sell enough to stay in the business. For the last few months, I've been really concentrating on the Boehm flute, but pulled out the Burns to play just last weekend. It really sounded better than I ever remember! I know my embouchure has made really good progress in the last six months, and it seems to translate well to the Burns.
Just to clarify, I was talking earlier about Boehm flutes as an example, not that I would recommend a student on one if they wanted to play a traditional 6 hole flute… didn’t intend to muddy the waters. Just an example instrument… substitute your favourite instrument in its place.
Richard
Hello Folks
‘easy to play’ from my experience with beginners means that they can get a flute-like sound from the instrument in both octaves fairly consistently without much practice
‘easy to play’ for experienced players generally means that when they first pick it up it is in tune, has a good rich tone, is responsive, doesn’t choke when you rev it, has a good hard bottom D, isn’t impossible to fill etc. etc. etc.
Standing at different vantage points gives a different perspective!!
In my experience most good flutes are not too difficult for beginners to play. They may not get the optimum performance from them but they will not be discouraged either (providing they are getting the appropriate feedback). Having gone through the early learning process myself I would much rather have begun on a decent instrument rather than the 2b2 that I started out on. The problem with learning on an easy to play (beginners definition from above) but ultimately limited instrument (as referenced against the experienced players definition above) is that it does not reward good practice. In my book this is probably as discouraging as one could get.
Beir Bua
Conal
…the virtual music school
htttp://www.scoiltrad.com
On 2003-01-06 10:34, peeplj wrote:
It would be ideal if you could have a flute in which the intonation was perfect, the octaves balanced, the voice the same for every note of the range, with excellent projection, capable of a wide pallette of tone colors–and be very easy to play.
I was going to post earlier in the thread, but didn’t get around to it, so here I am now! I play an original Rudall & Rose, and I find that it covers pretty much all of the bases mentioned by James. It is perfectly in tune with itself (when I get the cork right!) and with other instruments; it plays in concert pitch, but, when warmed up and with the slide all the way in, will also play in Eb; it has a tonal range from clear and bell-like to Pratten harshness (I don’t mean this in a negative way, btw), depending on how much effort I (want to) put in; and can play (in tune with itself at all times) at a range of volume from whisper-quiet through to loud enough to cut through a session. Which is a pretty good combination. And it is a very easy flute to fill. If anything is lost, it is purely that extra layer of volume that a Pratten gives, that means that the flute can be heard through an accordion session, rather than the fiddle-dominated sessions (the R&R).
However, having said all that, it took me a good year and a half to get completely used to the flute - to the stage where I knew where the tuning slide should be instinctively before playing, and where I knew that I could get the tone I wanted at any given time, consistently. And if I hadn’t played a Hamilton flute for six years before I got the R&R, I don’t think that I would have been able to get as much out of the R&R. Although the embouchures for both are completely different, the Pratten attack can be translated to the R&R, and really makes that extra difference.
There. Re-statement of others’ opinions over!
Deirdre
OK, My turn to give an opinion As a beginner who’s just starting out, I think that a lot of this easy vs harder stuff is subjective. It’s like the “who’s the best maker” stuff sort of. I’m pretty happy if I can make a recognizable tune at this point. However if I were on my own with no lessions or people to ask about stuff, I would probably get discouraged if I couldn’t make a nice sound in the first week with a flute. Many people do and never pick it up again. Isn’t this why everyone says don’t buy the flutes on ebay or the Moore flutes that are floating around? Because they are bad for beginners and most of the time don’t even sound good for experts? So how could starting with a hard instrument, even if by a good maker, be a good thing for any but the most dedicated masochists (we know who you are)? I mean I can see the point if the person is dedicated enough to keep with it even though he sounds terrible for months but most of us would probably decide long before then that it was a bad choice and go get a cheap keyboard or something to make music with instead.
Obviously there are tradeoffs in a flute that is easier to fill or can handle a looser embouchure or has narrrower fingering or whatever, so what. As long as you know the basics well, I think translation to a different flute is still comparitivly easy and it may well be that the easier flute is all you will ever want or need.
Look at it this way, You don’t get your 17 year old a Porche for his first car, you get him a civic or something. The Civic is a perfectly acceptable mode of transportation and in many ways is better than the Porche (costs less, cheaper insurance, easier repairs, more available parts, etc) After a few years on the road, he may decide to get a Porche, or maybe stick with the Civic or maybe get a new Model Civic or something else. None of which are bad options. Not everyone wants the same thing in a car or a flute. That’s why there are many makers and models available. Carrying it one step further, if I was driving the porche and a professional racer was driving the Civic, I would get beaten in a race. Just as Matt Malloy playing a piece of garden hose would kill me even if I were playing an Olwell or a Hamilton 
So, to try and get my rambling to make sense, let’s recap:
1- Different people like differernt flutes
2- Easy is a subjective term
3- Nothing is bad about an easy playing flute so long as you enjoy playing it.
4- Nothing is bad about a harder playing flute so long as you enjoy playing it.
5- I will lose in a flute contest with all professional and almost all amateur players even if I have the easiest, hardest, loudest, softest, most expensive or least expensive flute on the market
To steal a line from Lee (the sincerest form of flattery),
It doesn’t matter if a flute is easier or harder as long as you …
ENJOY YOUR MUSIC
Well,
I thought I might chime in and share my small amount of experience.
I thought Eldarion’s point was correct and though there is some disagreement I don’t feel anyone here is wrong. Harry and others made some good points about how some makers cut embouchures to be easier to play and in doing so may sacrifice other aspects of playability.
I’m with Eldarion about - taking the harder road or the road less travelled in hopes it pays off more than the easy road in the end. As stated earlier if I wanted to play something easy I would play the whistle. The flute has been fun for me because of the challenge.
That said I want to add that even with an instructor for a while I could not get the embouchure on the Olwell Bamboo I started with. I then picked up the Dixon 3-piece and I started to improve. I wanted to get a woodenflute and I chose a Copley. The Copley being know to be easy to play was not a selling point for me but for all the other reason’s especially it’s range of expression. I have heard that the
Dixon 3 piece requires a tight embouchure but I find I use an even tighter embouchure on the Copley. I have also found that my tone has continued to improve with the Copley and I have yet to find any limitations. I like the playing styles of John Wynne, and Colm O’Donnell and I find it very expressive and it fits my needs for the sound I’m going after.
Now that I have been playing the Copley for a while I went and dug up my Olwell Bamboo and was surprised I could play it so well and clear especially for a flute I’m playing backwards (embouchure cut for left handed player but I’m playing it right handed). So my point is that even though a Copley is known to be an easy player It’s helped me train my embouchure to a point that playing a previously unplayable flute (by me) has now become possible and even easy. My embouchure continues to develope and my tone continues to improve. So in this case anyway I have yet to find this so called “easy playing flute” a hinderance to my progression and the forseeable future. But my advice to others who are committed to learning the flute would be not too seek a flute on how easy it is too play but be very aware that getting a good tone and decent embouchure requires a lot of patience and practice. That’s why for beginners I think it’s a waste of time to go and try out different flutes. I think meeting the makers and seeing the operation would be fine as well as to see the quality of the instrument but I put more value in seeking the opinions of experienced players when I first started. It seems like every flute takes some time, sometimes weeks, to get to where you can rightly judge whether or not it’s a keeper. It seems like each flute and player require a break in period and I can’t see walking into a music store and playing different flutes being as useful to a beginner as say trying different whistles would be.
All IMHO of course
[ This Message was edited by: CraigMc on 2003-01-06 12:59 ]
This is not intended to be a definitive response, just food for thought…
Consider other areas of life…
Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari vs. a Honda Accord. Or even stick shift. vs automatic.
Ski’s. Tennis raquets. etc. etc.
SLR cameras.
You get the idea.
Cheers,
jb
Ya know one thing this thread has done for me is to help me realise that I have fallen into a trap I once set for other people. Many years ago I used to build my own sea kayaks. Now I was kayaking out on the ocean long before it was the fad it is now. And there were very few good designs around. So I built my own. As the years passed my kayaks changed to reflect my needs and the conditions of mother nature. When it became popular I had people come up to me and ask if I could build one of my boats for them.
They loved the exotic wood, the shape, the litness all that sort of thing. When I factored in a modest labor cost (10 dollars an hour) the price worked out to about 3000 dollars. Well needless to say there were no takers. And now I find myself doing the same thing. I love and respect good craftmanship Im just to poor to afford it. I just cant bring myself to take a chance on buying and instrument for six or eight hundred dollars when I now nothing about what it takes to make a fine or even a good flute. I pretty much rely on what is said in this forum to help me make a decision. This thread is very enlightening.
Tom
On 2003-01-06 11:46, Conal O Grada wrote:
Having gone through the early learning process myself I would much rather have begun on a decent instrument rather than the 2b2 that I started out on.
Conal, I’m probably gonna regret asking this…but curiosity overcomes good sense some times…
What’s a “2b2”?
Best,
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
On 2003-01-06 13:20, brownja wrote:
This is not intended to be a definitive response, just food for thought…Consider other areas of life…
Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari vs. a Honda Accord. Or even stick shift. vs automatic.
Ski’s. Tennis raquets. etc. etc.
SLR cameras.
You get the idea.
Cheers,
jb
Jb, I ignored this analogy when it was first brought up, but, well – it just doesn’t apply.
Cars, for the most part, are utilitarian vehicles that most of us use to get around. If we must use this analogy, then think of musicians as race drivers. There’s a skill necessary to control the vehicle. No good race driver would discuss a standard automatic family car, any more than a good fluter wants to discuss an average flute. While race drivers may learn to drive,originally, on the family car, in order to truly learn to drive in a race, they need to develop the skill to hug the curve, use the clutch, etc.. An automatic, comfortable car will not make a great race car, or driver, though it might produce a smooth ride and a responsible driver.
I don’t want to push this point much farther, as you probably get the drift.
Great flute players have learned on awful flutes – the thread here isn’t that you must have the highest quality, most expensive flute, nor is there a sure make or type that you must have. Rather, the discussion is over whether ease of play is desireable if it is a hard embouchure and focused airstream that you are working towards.
A good flute is a playable flute, so the real discrepancy in what we are discussing is whether the flutes being labelled hard really are (I’d say they’re not), and whether flutes made to be more forgiving on beginners is actually a good thing. Playing flute is not, initially, easy. Those that give up learning because their flute is badly made have given up for the wrong reason. If they’ve given up because it’s too hard, well, there’s always the triangle.
[ This Message was edited by: Gordon on 2003-01-06 16:49 ]
Heres a thought…
If a “Harder to play” instrument can still be played well while drunk off your rocker, alchohol being a muscle relaxant, doesnt it say something about how precise the air needs to be in general?
I play Quena flutes as well, and I can move the flute a good 10 degrees and still hit any of the 3 octaves.
I have found it to be similar with irish flutes. I’ve sampled alot of them from various makes and various stages. Now I’m a rank newbie when it comes to Irish flute, but, barring the cheap Pakistani model that I have, I can play the first two octaves on any of the Irish flutes that I’ve tried without any difficulty. I’ve found there to be a tremendous amount of flexability in embouchre. These flutes cover a wide range of makers.. Casey Burnes, Steve Noi, Olwell, Benton and others. I do get quite a bit of tonal variance (at least a half step) when I experiment with different embouchres, but the flute in general seems to have a wider range than what is being discussed here.
It would be really cool to get a flute into one of those colored air wind tunnel aerodynamic labs and see exactly what happens with the air…
Anyway, just my thoughts.
(you can throw the vegetables now)
-Aaron
Hi Folks,
this has turned out to be an interesting thread, which in my case, (given my initial opinion that there was NO case against easy playing flutes, an opinion which I’ve had to rethink) has created more question’s than answers. How do you distinguish between a flute which require’s a beginner to focus on good tecnique and a flute which is too difficult for a beginner? Is it possible to learn on any well known make? and if so why are beginner’s who ask what flute to get not made aware of the shortcoming’s of getting an easy player?
Cheers, Mac
Mac, I don’t think that any flute (by a decent maker) is too hard for a beginner. It just may take a bit longer to get it to sound right, to develop your embouchure, but when you have it, it’s there. There are well-made flutes that you will sound faster, but the argument is that this short-cut does you no real favor, long-term. Then, of course, after all that, there are degrees between all flutes and most hand-made flutes take a bit of time to become “yours”, even for advanced players. Different flutes respond a tiny bit differently, so, while that first day you’ll know it’s a good flute, it may still take a few days, a month or a year before you and that flute lock into one another.
A beginner doesn’t have that scope of experience, so judging which flute is better for their style, etc., is jumping the gun. Best advice, then, would be thinking what sort of sound you’re after (large session sound, more refined, whatever) and get a well-endorsed flute and practice on it. Down the road, you might change direction a bit (Malloy went from Prattens to Rudalls, as his tastes refined, others go in reverse), but getting a good embouchure and all is a matter of practice and time, and there really are no shortcuts.
On 2003-01-06 17:26, Blayloch wrote:
but the flute in general seems to have a wider range than what is being discussed here.
I’m with Aaron on this one. My experience has shown that it has much more to do with the embouchure and the individual player than the cut of the flute. I’ve seen Boehm’s honk and Trad flutes sing. In fact, I’ve seen a Grinter sing.
Case in point regarding the different understandings of instruments. Craig mentioned his difficulty with his Olwell bamboo at the beginning. I would have placed it into the easy blow category. Easy to fill, easy to sound, easy to play. But boy can you get plenty of different sound characteristics out of it.
I don’t find classification of easy/hard blowing as a precurser to ultimate sound fulfillment. My experience just has not born this out.
So to address the main topic, I’d say that following is VERY false:
Easy player - limited playability.
Hard player - supreme flexibility and playability.
Erik