This it my first post in the flute forum so please forgive the ignorance.
I took a trip to my sister-in-laws this past weekend for a family members wedding. I gave my 2 nieces their birthday presents; a Freeman Blackbird Whistle for both of them (I let them borrow my Walton for a while and they learned some tunes and was having fun with it). (Don’t worry…this is getting on topic).
Anyhow, my sister hands me a case and goes, “here, you can have this”. I open it up and it is a flute that was bought for my one niece 3 years ago but was never played or even touched. It is your standard concert flute (probably your typical starter band flute). Now for my questions:
I play Irish whistle at the moment but if I were to attempt to try to learn flute, would I be able to learn on this flute?
Can concert flutes be used to play ITM?
If it can’t be used to play ITM, should I sell it or hold on to it?
As Denny is pointing out, Joanne Madden plays ITM on a silver flute, wonderfully.
So, yes, it can be done. I think, though, that you will find ITM easier
and more rewarding on a simple system flute made of wood,
rather the flute equivalent of your whistle. Open holes facilitate
ornamentation and slides and the sound of a wooden conical
flute is a lot more traditional. Joanie is brilliant and also playing
a very fine very expensive flute with a mechanism that
doesn’t clatter.
Imagine keys over all the holes on your whistles. Would that help?
You might want to determine what you have. Many student flutes are made
of nickel and are easy to play but not very satisfying once you are
up and running. Possibly this is something better but you might as well
find out. In any case you may not be able to get much for it unless it’s
pretty good. You can do a lot on these that you can’t easily do
on the simple system, as in classical and jazz.
So if it were me I would investigate a conical wooden simple system flute
(there are good ones available for not a terrible lot of money).
As the silver flute you have will be worth as much in a year
as it is now (which may not be much), I would hold onto
it for awhile. You may find it enjoyable to play.
But I would go for a simple system flute for ITM.
By the way I like your clips on your site. I think you would
enjoy playing flute too. Hope you take this opportunity
to start investigating it.
How cool for your nieces; how wonderful are those Blackbirds?!
(And how nifty is your sister-in-law?)
Sure it can be done. And can be done very well as Joanie Madden, Noel Rice, and several others demonstrate. I started out on my old college Boehm flute – my thinking was “hey, I’ve got this flute and it works, so what the heck?” Played a good year or two that way and saved up enough gig money to put some toward a wooden flute (unfortunately, a not-very-good one, but oh well; it’s all in the water under the bridge now). So my advice is to play what you’ve got, and if you find you’re sufficiently into it to keep going in a year or so, then you can sell the Boehm flute for its street value and put the money toward a nice wooden flute or, for less, a decent Delrin flute (or if you’re really generous, a school band program will be happy to accept the Boehm flute as a donation).
In the interim you can look for nice used wooden flutes, or if you want a new one you can research flute makers – but basically you can learn more about which kind of flute you might be after.
Since you already play tinwhistle, the Irish flute fingerings will “come back” just fine when you do; meanwhile, the Boehm flute is close enough (there’s the old F-natural/F-sharp thing and a bit of fun around C and Bb but not a big deal) that you shouldn’t have much trouble at all.
Have fun, and play the thing! It doesn’t get any better just sitting there.
‘So my advice is to play what you’ve got, and if you find you’re sufficiently into it to keep going in a year or so…’
Listening to this person’s clips on whistle, I do think s/he is plainly into it enough
(and proficient enough)
to start on a simple system flute now and stay with it. It isn’t as though this
is something you graduate to. It’s the closest to the whistle, the fingering is
virtually the same, it’s standard for ITM
and it’s the place where most every body begins and ends. FWIW.
In the worst case scenario, the simple system flute is at least as sellable
as the Boehm. If one is broke, sure, play what you’ve got.
But on the face things we would not advise somebody who
wanted to start Irish flute to get a Boehm.
That’s your “we,” not mine. And this is not that situation.
Sure I don’t know the circumstances, but if it was me and I wanted to see if I could blow on a flute I wouldn’t wait around until I had a wooden one to try to figure that out; I’d play what I had. And if it turned out to be easier to start on the Boehm and I was able to develop a solid embouchure and tone without wondering whether I was covering the fingerholes or whether I was hurting my hands, then all the better.
ya know, when ya find out years later that you’d made a career decision and hadn’t even noticed at the time?
actually it’s a lovely day here, I’m in a good mood, just spent most of an hour and a half muckin’ about in the woods with the excavator in a continuing attempt at fordin’ the stream…too early for the bugs! well it was…
Rob, for just figuring out if ya want to put the time into learning to get sounds out of a flute it should be fine. The ornamentation will be a bit different and might not be worth worrying about.
Here’s my two cents:
There’s nothing that says that you can’t play a whole bunch of different instruments or different types of music. Learn how to play this flute too. I’m just playing for fun and teaching myself but I have found that the different instruments (whistle, irish flute, silver flute, fife, ocarina, & harmonica) improve my playing on the other instruments (and my singing too)
Funny story:
I taught myself whistle and irish flute and then a nun gave me her silver flute. Not until I went to hold it the wrong way did I find that I had accidently taught myself whistle and irish flute left-handed. I can now play the irish flute left and right-handed (with different techniques) but I can still only play the whistle left-handed.
We’re all going to be curious what kind of flute you got. The nun gave me a good student flute.
it definitely can be done. as you can see in my avatar, i play the silver flute (wooden headjoint). i got a silver flute in order to play irish music–my uncle plays the silver flute, and he can’t play a note of classical music. however, like i said… i grew up with it. i didnt know there was another type of flute until i was a teenager. joanie madden also kind of fell into it–i dont remember the story, but i believe she was playing it because that’s all there was to play.
so there are those of us who just kinda happened to do it cuz that’s all we had or we didnt know better. back when noel rice made the switch to the silver flute, all you could get in chicago was leaky, out of tune german flute.
so, i dont know where that leaves you. you can definitely do it on your flute, but it can be very difficult when you are all by yourself. i have come up with a sound i am pretty happy with, but i have spent close to 10 ears calling my uncle every other week, asking him questions about how he does this or that.
i do encourage you to give it a try, though. after all, i have two high quality wooden flutes, and it is the silver flute i reach for when i play irish music.
in case you’re wondering, here are some sound clips of my uncle:
whether or not you like his style (i do), you have to admit it is surely a very helpful thing to be able to call whenever you want someone who can play a silver flute like that!
p.s. since you’re a whistle player, you might have heard my uncle play already. when you go to the burke whistle home page, he’s the whistle player that automatically loads.
oh, and i think the clips are pretty good. they are very solid and in time–which i cant say about some of the clips i have posted in the past . let us know when you update them.
Sure, play what you’ve got. The end result may be that you end up playing both simple and Boehm system flutes. Which is not a bad place to be. Simple system is better for the ornamentation in ITM (as you propbably know) and other diddly music as long as one stays largely somewhere around the one, two or three sharps area. Boehm flute is great for everything else, including traditional music from a range of other cultures that don’t usually stick to G, D or A major key signatures. Or for those irritating tunes that the fiddle players like to play in G minor or whatever else. Or for singers who insist on a particular strange key because that is where they can best sing it… And the third octave usually speaks more easily on the Boehm flutes that I have tried, with the exception of my Windward Pratten which also does quite well up there.
And generally a beginner boehm flute from a reputable maker in good repair (I only know Yamaha intimately in this area and I’ve yet to meet a bad one!) will be fine. The critical factor is the state of repair - are all the keys and pads aligned to close the holes properly without using much force? There are a lot of good entry level Boehm flutes out there. And some crap too. A crap one will show itself by not staying properly adjusted for any length of time.
And you won’t stop playing whistle either. Lots of whistles might also provide the coverage of strange keys so that you, personally, don’t feel the need to have the flexibility provided by the Boehm flutes Chromaticity.
I don’t understand. The OP comes here and says he has a silver flute to play and what do we think about it. Most people are very encouraging. Then somebody comes along and says he really doesn’t have the right equipment for the job. If it were me I would investigate a conical wooden simple system flute. Would he think of saying this to somebody like Joanie? To Noel Rice? Would a teacher, somebody like Catherine McEvoy, imply something negative about their instrument to somebody who came into her class?
On other sites people come on with instruments that accomplished players don’t think much of. But nobody would say they should save up for the right instrument because it would be easier, or more appropriate, or whatever. You don’t find Anglo players hinting to English players that they haven’t got the right instrument for ITM.
I thought this was very condescending: You may find it enjoyable to play. But I would go for a simple system flute for ITM. The OP was very gracious and kindly accepted what most people had to say. Most people were very encouraging and supportive. I’ve been to sessions where people were playing silver flute. Nobody would dream of saying … you will find ITM easier and more rewarding on a simple system flute made of wood.
To the OP: play on! Someday I hope we can have a tune together and I bet you will sound great on whatever flute you are playing. It isn’t about the equipment. It is about the music.
I pulled out the flute last night and I could not find anything as far as make and model anywhere on it. The only text on the flute was what looked like a serial number.
I have a lot of learning to go through on flute though. I put it together but I have no idea how to hold it or where to put my fingers. I am going to try to do some searching on the internet later tonight to try and remedy that. I was able to make a sound out of the flute but not consistently.
If there is a music store in town that sells band instruments, and you take the flute in,
they probably will be able to tell you what you’ve got and what it’s worth. There are instruction
books with fingering charts, though maybe you can find this on the internet.
There is something to be said for getting a lesson or two at the beginning just
to learn how to hold the flute, blow it, etc. Flute, Boehm or simple system,
is a lot harder than whistle and so it’s good to get a solid basis.
Anyhow I think you are already addressing tunes as a flute player would and I hope
you will pursue flute. It’s hard at the beginning, so don’t blame yourself if it
doesn’t come right away,
but I think you will find it very expressive and satisfying. Good luck.
. let us know when you update them.