I’m feeling fumble-fingered with my forked C naturals. My Burns sounds best with this: OXX XOX but I’m having a hard time with it in some sequences, for instance in the beginning of Tommy Peoples’ reel. To go from G to B and then G to C natural and back so quickly is making me feel very clumsy. I know, slow down and play the speed I can play. But are the folks on my recordings playing forked? Or do they all have keys? How the heck do they do it?
Some of the older style recordings I’ve heard seem to use between-notes. Not quite C#, not quite Cnat. Are they just using some more expedient but not quite in-tune fingering?
And those of you who have a C natural key: do you ever NOT use it? Do you ever go back to the forked fingering, or half holing?
Jennie
(still keyless and likely to remain so until the car’s paid off at least)
I will never give up my cross-fingered Cn. Or the forked one. Really, I like to have as many Cs at my disposal as possible. Sometimes I want my Cn to be a little sharp, so I use oxxooo, and sometimes I don’t so I would use the fork or the key (depending on which is more convenient).
Why would you WANT to be sharp? I can see accepting it, to a certain degree, if I just couldn’t get it to be in tune, either because of my current skill level or because of the limitations of an instrument. But choosing to be out of tune?
Or is in-tuneness just some extra baggage I’m carrying from my classical music training?
If you read Doug Tipple’s latest post at page 1 of his Deepak Ram topic
you may appreciate issues relating to just VERSUS equal temperament and this may have a bearing on appreciating the not so perfect Cnat. Also Peter Laban (with whom I share the privilege of being a mutual irritant) made a very good point some time ago about musicality of the perfect Cnat in ITM (ie not needed). Unfortunately for my schtick I agree with him and I hope I haven’t misrepresented him with my clumsy reference here.
Some time ago Terry McGee put a perfect Cnat thumbhole for me in my Seery blackwood bodied flute. I wanted this because I play some Indian raagas with C keynote to accompany sitar and dilruba (an Indian fiddle). This is the only time I use the thumbhole other than for the minor third with A Dorian pieces. I do not use the thumbhole for the Cnat needed for G major scale pieces or for the D Mixolydian pieces preferring the cross fingered Cnat. To my ear the C nat is too precise and also too loud for these intervals in those scales when the perfect thumbhole is used
Its a question of taste rather than the dictates of an electronic tuner.
I hope this is helpful for your search. I really think the option of both is beautiful and a thumbhole is an easy way of allowing both.
Perhaps Peter Laban may make his own comment. He plays the type of traditional music that is probably more relevant to you.
I do think that if you are playing at speed
the oxxooo will serve. Also maybe oxoxxx.
Probably most folks who have keys use
cross fingering too. For one thing there are
passages where cross fingering is more agile.
I guess people are shading tones, one
of the things pre-Boehm flutes did.
Cross fingerings gave subtle shades to
notes, which became part of the music.
So Grey Larsen writes that the Boehm flute
is in a sense a new instrument, because
it largely did away with that.
Jennie, you have the Mike Rafferty book, right? Take a look at what Lesl wrote about Cnats.
I am not crazy about the very-sharp Cnat that some inexpensive whistles sound, nor about the very flat C# some flutes sound. I think my flutes pretty much have in-tune Cnats with OXX OOO. I use this on my keyed flutes too for the most part.
My problem is the second octave. Some flutes want OXO XXX, some want OXO OOO, some want OXO XXO.
that’s a nice lovely tune! in this particular passage: G2BG CGBG
i used: oxx ooo
then when i got it down pretty good, i switched to
xxx ooo (and open cnat key briskly to ‘pop’ the note)
it’s even lazier fingering, but works well for me in that particular phrase.
in general playing, i use the c-nat key sometimes, sometimes not, and finger c-nat a few different ways depending largely on the passage of notes and type of veiled effect desired.
Think of pitch, particularly on c and f, as means of artistic expression and not as an either/or sort of thing. Many players will push a note sharp or keep it flat on purpose. There are lots of threads about this.
I think you may have misunderstood if you think the player need not have control over the pitch.
I think also. I think you are speculating about what I understand and do not understand. Again.
I also agree with you about your first point here, “Think of pitch, particularly on c and f, as means of artistic expression and not as an either/or sort of thing. Many players will push a note sharp or keep it flat on purpose.” I suppose that proves my level of misunderstanding?
Jennie - I do think your classical training is an issue. Listen to lots of ITM and you’ll notice that Cnat often comes in many varieties and flavors. The Wooden Flute Obsession CDs are great for just listening to flute, and it might help you adjust to Cnat in ITM. I love the note and use different fingers for Cnat on different tunes. Some flutes even allow half holing of the first tone hole for Cnat, but I’m not partial to that myself.
In answer to your question about keyed flute players ever going back to cross-fingering - back when I had an 8 key flute I never used the key except to see what it sounded like once or twice. I do like keys, though, but see them more as tools than a necessity and still sometimes cross finger or half hole Fnat, G# and Bb despite having those keys on my flute. IMO you really do need that Eb key for a decent sound, though, and the fact that my keyless flute doesn’t have it drives me nuts sometimes.
I can’t recall which professionals use keyless flutes - Mike McGoldrick maybe? Brian Finnegan? I’m sure there are some others.
Depending on what comes before and after, I often use the Cnat key and crossed fingerings (usually oxxooo or oxoxxx) at different places in the same tune - I don’t think about it, I just instinctively use the best fingering. If I want to ornament the cnat, I’d probably use the oxoxxx fingering - for a clearer sounding and easy to attack cnat I’d use the key and in a fast tune for a quick cut on the B, I’d use c# and you’d never hear the difference, just a bubble. It just depends on the tune…
My problem is the second octave. Some flutes want OXO XXX, some want OXO OOO, some want OXO XXO
On the “second octave” (really the third octave) - I’d always use the cnat key and vent with the eflat key.
In Brendan Breathnach’s introduction to Ceol Rince na hÉireann I, there is a section about the C. Terry McGee provided the posting of Breathnach’s own translation of the full intro and Nigel Gatherer is hosting is online here: http://www.nigelgatherer.com/books/CRE/cre1.html
Here’s a bit of the relevant section:
"The two notes C and F are also exceptional in another way: they are somewhat sharper than the corresponding notes on the piano. It’s said that directly halfway between B and D on that instrument lies the C natural of traditional music, i.e., pipers and fiddlers would play C a quarter note higher than on the piano. " [Breathnach]
Its great, read the whole thing.
I have spent a lot of time doing c exercises in the main 2 fingerings I use, (one finger down and 2 fingers down) in an attempt to get them up to the same level as other intervals - excruciatingly slow as mud playing the c bits of the Gravel Walks and things like bcbcbcbcbc… cbcbcbcbcb..
In Tommy People’s reel I use the one finger C from watching Mike, but spent ages at the speed of the clock - 2 beats to a tick, G2BG cGBG G2BG cGBG G2BG cGBG …
Lesl, thanks for posting this info and the link. I’d been wanting learn more about this question of pitch after reading that paragraph in your (terrific) book. I’d found myself doing something similar with the C/C# on fiddle, without knowing why it sounded right to me.
One of the attributes of Casey’s flutes that I have seldom seen mentioned, but greatly appreciate.
OXO XXX works in both octaves.
The attribute that I don’t believe I have ever seen, on this board is that there are good fingerings for Bb in both octaves. XOX XXX in the bottom and XOX OXO above.
If you can learn to half hole and F nat you have four keys that are doable.
In Irish music there are really three Cs: C natural, C# and C supernatural, which hovers somewhere between C natural and C#. Of course the C supernatural is not possible on fixed-pitch instruments like accordions and concertinas, but it’s a favorite note of fiddlers and pipers - especially the old ones. And there are tunes where C natural and C# are pretty much interchangeable, depending on who’s playing it. The same thing goes for F natural and F#.
This is why the concept of a perfectly-in-equal-temperament-tuned C natural, which is essential for classical music, is really irrelevant in ITM. Your C natural needs to sound “right”, and what’s “right” may not necessarily be a perfectly in tune C natural from the classical perspective. As you play and listen more to ITM, you learn what’s right by the way it sounds, and you do what you need to on the flute to make it sound that way. This is partly why a lot of players with keyed flutes rarely use their C natural keys, but instead opt for forked fingerings like oxx ooo. The C natural produced by the key may actually be more in tune than the other fingerings, but still sound less right in most tunes. I know on my flute I only use the C natural key for the high octave C and practically never for the low octave. The forked fingering sounds right enough, and I’m used to it from my keyless days, so rather than have to re-learn my fingering patterns I just go with it. On airs or slower tunes, maybe I’ll opt to use the key there.
cbcbcbcbcb.. 
