Hi all,
I’ve been playing classical music on the Boehm flute for many years. I’m now looking into buying a keyless simple system wooden flute and doing what I’ve wanted to do for quite some time: play traditional irish music. I’m wondering if there are any “bad” habits common to players making this transition that I should try to work on.
Apologies if this topic has been covered before. A search didn’t turn up anything recent.
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/recovering-classical-player-embouchure-and-ornamentation/89979/1
I made the same transition 10 years ago. So here are three classical conventions that need to go for you to develop a ‘traditional accent’:
Drop the diaphragm vibrato completely (and learn to do finger vibrato on slow tunes).
Stop tonguing. (This can be a contentious topic, and there are trad players who tongue, but tonguing is so in-grained for classical flute players, it’s best to drop it completely–at least for a few years–and learn to use glottal stops.)
Stop sneaking the breaths in. Learn to drop eighth notes to create breathing spots. At the beginning (which lasted a while for me!) I found this very counter-intuitive, but it’s key to creating the proper pulse and phrasing.
One other thing–you’re learning new language, which means lots of listening is essential. It’s at least as important to listen as it is to play/practice.
Conal O’Grada’s book is an excellent guide to developing a traditional style–I’d highly recommend it. And have fun!