I’ve been using a C-natural thumb hole for maybe nine months now.
I’ve come to like it very well. The thumb hole is very agile, it in no way
compromises holding the flute (a good hold keeps the flute secure in
the brief intervals when the thumb is off the hole), and the right hand
doesn’t shift position as it does somewhat to work the C natural key.
One can use the thumb hole more often, if one chooses, and also
it’s helpful in some ornamentation (e.g. you can slide on it).
Also it’s a lot cheaper than a key. It may take some getting used to,
but that’s the flute.
The only downside I can see is, of course, you can’t use piper’s grip
and also you can’t use a B-flat thumb key. The first problem is
insoluble, I reckon. As to the second there is the option of a
right hand B-flat key (which is rarely used, as B-flat is rarely played)
or (my solution) half-holing the B-flat, which I find easy and fast.
This enables me to shade the B-flat, too.
Another option is cross-fingering it.
Of course with a keyless flute there is no such issue.
I feel this is an inexpensive option for keyed flutes
and even for keyed flutes that actually has a lot
going for it. FWIW. Of course it works for whistles too.
Well, we’re all different. So what works for one may not work for another. It’s nice that it works for you , Jim.
I play the flute flat fingered so a C natural hole does not work for me. I’ve tried the extra hole on several whistles and I end up taping over them eventually. It just doesn’t seem to add anything great to my playing. Yes, it gives a more solid note as opposed to half-holing and that’s useful on the slower stuff but I still fall back to playing the dance tunes as I have for years. And I have one 5-key flute for times when I really want that note. I usually play keyless.
I also play a ten hole Healy fife. The only note that doesn’t have its own hole is the C natural. You still half hole or cross finger that one. Why do you suppose?
So I guess I would want to ask why the extra C hole has never caught on in a keyless design. I’d guess that fully keyed flutes solved the need a long time ago. In the historical development of the keyed flute, why wasn’t the C natural the earliest key developed instead of Eb then G#, F, Bb? I know the half-holed Eb is usually weak or non-existent on a lot of keyless flutes. The C natural is quite passable usually.
In order for me to properly execute A and B rolls my thumb needs to make subtle shifts up and down.
I would not want my thumb anchored in an immovable place.
I use the options of various crossfingerings oxxooo and oxoxxx in first octave
oxxxxo or oxoxxo in second or just half hole or key.
I suppose one could always tape it up.
They are subtle and necessary in my case particulary on larger holed flutes. In fact they were the key to my success in rolling a and b. I for years and I mean many years fudged them. these subtle movements were the key.
Also practicing certain things with exagerated movements helps when one needs to use them in the real context. At least it works for me. Particularly learning to use keys.
I didn’t mean to oversell the thumb hole. Obviously it’s useless for those who use piper’s grip on flute. So is (for such folks) the left
hand B flat key. Also, while I find the thumbhole helpful on the whistle, it’s partly so that I have consistent fingering on both
flute and whistle.
Sure not maintaining that everybody must do this, of course. If it works, why fix it?
I do think the thumb hole is an inexpensive alternative to a C-natural key, also that it’s more agile and can
be used easily on more notes, if one chooses. And it’s more handy for ornamentation.
I expect the chief reason it hasn’t caught on is that you have
to learn how to use it, and that takes some work, though it’s worth it, IMO.
The other difficulty is that you can’t use a left-hand Bb key.
But I do think it’s worth the trouble on a keyless flute, especially after it becomes second nature
to use it.
As things now stand, I would get a keyed flute with a thumb hole. I can just do so much more
with it than I can with the C-natural key. I’m still playing an old flute with one of those,
by the way.
One other advantage of the thumb-hole is that it makes it harder to buy more flutes and whistles,
cause they typically don’t have it and there is the extra step of having one put in. I’ve
had some put in by a good maker. I send along a heart joint that already has a well-placed
thumb hole to base the new one on.
This extra process does slow Flute/Whistle Acquisition Disorder.
Anyhow if you wish you had a C natural key on your keyless, the thumb hole is worth
thinking about. I’ve known people who had a keyless flute except for that one key,
in fact, and I think the thumb hole beats the key–if you learn to use it.
Why learn something one needs to give up if they move to a keyed flute?
I’m perfectly happy playing on keyless flutes and c nat is not a note I worry about?
I suppose one could make staccato back c’s like back d’s on the pipes but it would sound out of place
though possibly cool maybe.
Are there other ornaments? I can roll c sort of and bend it up with my fingerings and cut above with the c key
particularly in some scottich tunes where it sounds good?
Any idea why this could be better?
My McGee has a thumb C hole, and I can’t use it. Have it taped up. I don’t like the position I have to put my thumb in, and I don’t know how to use it at speed or get a tone I like from it. Perhaps if I practiced for months, I’d get used to it–very unlikely that will happen.
I have a C-nat thumbhole on my Copley delrin. It takes a little getting used to, but I like it a lot - especially when a C-nat is held for more that an 8th note. I still use the cross fingering as well, but the thumbhole has a definite place in my “arsenal”. On my keyed flute, I never use the long-F, but am trying to use that as well. It’s all in the practice. Remember, that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger!
Critical that the hole be placed to suit one’s own hand position. As mentioned I send a heart joint with a hole in the
right place for me to the maker who is about to put in a hole on a new flute. Or I get the flute (or just the heartjoint)
and send it back
with a mark on the ideal place for the thumb hole.
As mentioned, I would get a new keyed flute with a C natural thumb hole. Works better
and it’s cheaper. I don’t need a Bb key (I can half-hole it very easily)
and if I had to have one I’d get a rt hand touch.
Sorry, I sound like I’m pushing this thing. Whatever works for you is OK, of course.
Just that the thumb hole works better than a key, all other things being equal, IMO,
and it’s a lot cheaper.
Fifes for awhile have had the same thing and I believe one or two whistle makers do to.
Here is my uneducated guess on the ninth hole.
It is kind of reinventing the wheel. The progression was from the Baroque flute that had cross fingerings for many notes and an Eb key to adding one key after another to the end up with the modern flute that fell out of favor when the Boehm flutes were deemed purdier. When the old wooden flutes started to run out in the junk shops, people copied the bodies without the keys. Keyless sticks play well in D and the next easiest is G making the Cnat one of the more common accidentals in ITM. The thing is that the flute that the modern keyless was designed off of was designed to use a C nat key, not cross fingering. So one can go back to keys or drill a hole or make due with cross fingering. And this has nothing to do with the fife and whistle makers, for all I know they got the idea from recorders, quenas or shakuhachis.
If you can halfhole a Bb why not C nat? Anyway if it was any advantage to players of Irish music it would be done and be common practice. It’s not so isn’t. It’s done for people who are not satisfied with other c natural fingerings. The veiled qualities of certain notes are part of the deal. You could put a thumbhole for f nat too. It maybe more fun.
There are times when the long c works bettercoming from certain other notes than the cross finger when you meet these times in a tunes you’ll wish you had the c key. And Plunk will find the times when a long f is needed or works better.
Hey, to all those who are used to doing it differently and don’t want to change - fine…
I am a great fan of the thumb hole and have both keyless and 5 key flutes with it. The 5 key flute is my GLP with thumb hole and RH Bflat key. It works great. Good work from Mr McGee.
I guess the answer why this didn’t get invented by the old makers is that at some point they just stopped changing the 8 key conical wooden flute. Boehm flutes do have a thumb hole, (or its’ equivalent, normally pressed key). In fact, Boehm flutes have a very clever CNatural and Bflat combined double key for the the left hand thumb.
Anyone coming from Boehm flute should definitely consider the thumb hole option. (And RH BFlat!)
And once you do move to this setup then it is definitely a good idea to keep consistent fingerings for whistles and all your flutes. It does seriously impede FAD and also makes it a bit more difficult trying out other peoples flutes, but to be honest one can learn to use the Cnatural key as well for those rare occasions.
Even with the thumb hole one still needs to learn the cross fingerings anyway, since some tunes only really work as intended with particular fingerings, e.g. bcd triplets with x00 xxx → 0x0 xxx → 0xx xxx.
(The ten hole chromatic fife cross fingers cnatural because it has already used all the available fingers for the other notes. (ten holes → eleven notes including all covered and all open - but there are twelve notes in a chromatic octave…))
Should have known that. Never played one nor seen a fingering chart to one, and I don’t believe there is one consistent hole scheme for them. Must be like Skip Healy’s 10 hole flute with the L thumb used for A#.
Yes, that’s true enough from a players perspective on the finished flute and is a thought not lost on me. But I was talking about instrument design and development. If there’s going to be one note without a dedicated hole then why the C natural and not another note? I’m thinking that makers might have felt that the other notes benefited more by having a dedicated hole and that perhaps the C natural was good enough cross-fingered or half-holed in comparison to the others.
