You’re definitely helping ME, thanks for the links.
Now, just watching the action of RH4 on the C and C# touches in your video, I see how that roller key can be a great thing.
I’ve just been working a bit onthe Rockstro grip and it seems surprisingly easier now than before. LH section turned out a bit compered to what I’ve been used to, flat RH fingers and I was able to get a nice tone and do some runs with my LH thumb and RH pinkie off the flute. Not LH rolls yet though.
I’ll be curious to see how exactly it can help operate the foot keys. My guess is: 1) it gives RH4 more freedom, not being the pusher any more, 2) it might enable the whole hand to move a bit around the “axis point” where the RH thumb touches the side of the flute. This might come handy when going from Eb key to one of the others. I know it all sounds very theoretical, tell me if it’s nonsense, please.
I’m wondering, does Rockstro (or any of the other historical resources) go into details about how to learn to operate the foot keys. Is his work available?
Jem, you see your videos at least stated me off. I’d like to see another one though, about all three keys at work and how you go from one to the other. An end-wise and a bird’s …, well, spider’s-eye view would be nice. There’s no rush, I’ve got lots to learn on the flute. You have already earned your pints anyway, should we bump into each other one day.
Will keep it in mind - have quite a bit of videoing to do what with some reviews to fix up and a finished repair job to demo… so may be able to kill two birds…
Meanwhile, I’ve just been watching some of the Peter Horan clips various folk are flagging up in his memory on FB and his hold is worth a good look. It seems to be almost classic Rockstro, save that he used his (quite long) R4 on the G# block as an extra stabiliser (doesn’t look like he needed to, mind) and of course he wasn’t much of a key-user and had his foot keys rolled out of the way and his R4 on the tube/block too. But his R hand posture with lightly curved fingers and thumb well back
was exemplary for this type of hold, as indeed was his L hand with the thumb relaxed and well up so that his wrist was nice and straight.
I just watched a few videos of Matt Molloy playing and I notice how little his fingers seem to move up and down: when I play, my fingers jump up and down like a bunch of kids on trampolines; his fingers hardly move even in the fastest of reels. Actually, the same is tru of the great pianists; their fingers make only the most necessary of movements. Ergo: the flute is a piano.
The same is true of good Classical fluters - cf one JG, or have a look at the excellent YT vids featuring French traverso player Alexis Kossenko (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnkPDSZIHTg). He lifts his fingers a little farther, about the same I think as I tend to lift mine, but even in complex chromatic cross-fingering sequences on Baroque flute, his fingers never stray very far from the tube. This is all part of the “relaxed control without tension” I bang on about, as well as economy of motion which obviously facilitates speed.
Nice Bach video, Jem. I’ve played the piano and the guitar and the low whistle for years, each of which encourages big finger movements. I took to the flute about 5 years ago and am still working on getting my fingers to think in terms of opening the holes rather than hitting them - I play well, but it’s no easy thing to do what I see Matt Molloy doing not just today, but already in the 1980s. I’m working on it though.
Sorry, I see I’ve derailed this conversation from talk about keys: so, the conversation is off-key… Shane
The German flute in the video below is tolerably playable, (though you might not know it from my playing), but it’s a heavy beast. It has eleven keys going down to low B. In fact, that particular key mechanism is about 7 inches long with slowly meandering curves allowing it to bypass obstacles in its path. I can’t sound the B, and don’t ever expect to need or want to. It occurs to me it might make a great crowbar.
I’m not a flute mechanic. How hard would it be to remove that part of the assembly, (in a reversible way, of course)?
Easy enough to take the “grasshopper” end pad-cup section of the low B key off, but that would leave the long lever unsecured at its low end and more vulnerable to damage or even to getting caught, bending out and jabbing someone. And would you remove the mounting pillars or just leave them sticking out to catch in passing cloth etc? As for the long touch-lever, the normal construction of these is that they share a pivot with the long F - that is, one pair of posts and axle-pin, each key shank having an axle-tube that occupies only half of the pin’s length. If you remove the low B lever (again, easily done) the long F tube will probably wander a little on the pin, not having the tube of the low B to prevent that - which might leave it susceptible to jamming, getting bent, not closing properly… It might be fine, but why risk it? You could perhaps put in a shim tube to occupy the space on the pin if you had something handy… It probably would not make a very significant difference to weight, either - most of the weight is in the extra length of wood. My personal preference would be to get it working properly, even if I was unlikely to make much use of it. And of course, there are tunes that (can) use that low B - e.g. King of the Fairies.
So far as I recall (haven’t dug out my copy to check), not in the sense I take you to mean. Of course, Rockstro’s book is not a tutor, though it includes much technical advice and material one might find in a simple tutor, besides a very great deal else.
In tutor books both then and now for Bohm flute, the taught approach to key-use tends to be from a beginner’s perspective, cumulative, gradually extending range on the instrument and introducing key-signatures to the player, which of course introduces all such considerations step by step, piecemeal. The expectation was and is (often mistakenly!) that the teacher would deal with any issues of posture and physical technique, so those things don’t tend to be much written about, let alone systematically and comprehensively in a block in the way we are here considering them. The student is simply shown and then instructed to use a particular key or fingering in the context of a musical example that demands its use and will with practice anchor that use. Then on to the next… But a discussion or didactic instructions on “how to use all the foot keys in assorted contexts and combinations”, no.
As for Rockstro, there is no edition of his work currently in print, but one can occasionally pick up a copy (as I did) on the internet. It won’t be cheap, but is well worth a read.
