How long until a new, traditional flautist can realistically think about keys? 2 years? Five?
And…how much weight do keys add to a flute?
I gotta tell ya, they are beautiful.
two years. Yes, they add significant weight, especially
if you go for six or eight. Yes, they’re sexy but
no, you don’t need them for ITM.
I am not sure about your definition of a “new traditional flautist” (ITM flute players don’t call themselves flautists, usually, the term “flautist” is used by classical trained players mostly).
But you could think about keys any time. No wait needed 
They will add to your possibilities enormously, even for ITM. It is a myth that you do not need keys for ITM. For most of Irish traditional tunes you do not need keys, but there are lots of beautiful tunes for which you would need some keys, especially airs. So if you thinking about purchasing a keyed flute and can afford it, go for it!
And don’t worry too much about the weight. Yes it adds a bit. so does a lined head and along foot joint. See Weighing in the babies for flute weights.
I don’t know what people mean when they say you don’t need keys for ITM. For that matter, you don’t need ITM, nor do you even need a flute. Nor do you need a particular kind of wood, nor a fancy case. Nor do you need a Pratten rather than a Rudall, or the other way round.
It isn’t about need, is it?
I would say get a flute with keys right from the start and right from the start think about playing tunes in A (fiddlers will love you). Use the Eb and the G# keys for gracing a tune as fancy strikes you. I use both the short and the long F though I prefer to use the short F. Both Paddy O’Brien and Paddy Fahey tunes are much more accessible if you have both F keys on your flute. D minor and G minor tunes are lovely, as are tunes in C major.
The C key is great for popping the third octave easily (Moving Cloud, Richie Dwyer’s). Of course you don’t need to play these tunes. But that brings us back to the original question, doesn’t it.
Sweeping pronouncements about flutes and fluting should be taken with a grain of salt.
I mean that you can play ITM quite happily for the rest of
your life on an unkeyed flute, without missing them.
Including performing. Just saw Mike Rafferty do precisely
that on an unkeyed Olwell. Have talked to excellent
flautists who say the same thing. Ergo you don’t need
keys to play ITM.
I play both keyed and
unkeyed. . There may be
a few tunes where they’re helpful, but with a bit
of practice you can half-hole or cross finger adequately.
Key of A is about as easy unkeyed as keyed, certainly
doable. Even Eb is doable and hardly needed.
The weight can make a real difference for some people, as can the sense
of useless clutter.
Don’t get me wrong. I think keys are nice to have, can be
helpful, and they’re lovely looking. The C natural key
is swell. Sure they create options and give you
more control. But I reckon newbies have their hands full
with those six holes, and there’s something to be
said for waiting before adding doodads and meanwhile
coming to terms with the elemental beastie. Quite
hard enough.
The single most useful flute I have, after four and a half years
of playing, is an unkeyed Olwell. If I had to keep just one flute
that would be it.
Of course if people want keys, by all means!
No big deal either way.
By the way, the difference tween a flutist and a flautist
is 50 bucks an hour. I don’t like the word ‘flautist’ personally,
but, oh well, that’s the word people increasingly use.
Keys are not
doodads
Nor are they what you call
useless clutter
Rafferty also has a six-keyed Olwell.
Rafferty does not play in A or Gm on his keyless flute.
I admire Rafferty, but there are many more flute-players, more accomplished than Rafferty, who play six-key flutes and who use the six keys.
Most accomplished players agree that it is difficult to obtain a solid Eb on a large holed flute designed to play ITM. Likewise for the F#. G# is easier to come by but much clearer using the G# key on a large-hole flute than half-holing. Cross-fingering a large-holed flute is as hard for a beginner as using keys.
If you have keys on your flute you will use them. If you use the keys then your flute will have a wider range of expression. A beginning flute-player would do well to think of the instrument as having more capabilities than the keyless flute. If you think ITM is simple music for which keys are superfluous then you are missing a great deal of what the music is all about.
I would not expect that a player with your depth of experience on the flute (what- three years now?) would use the term “flautist.” As my Findhorn friend Hans says above in this thread, “ITM flute players don’t call themselves flautists; usually, the term “flautist” is used by classically trained players…”
If all you are saying is that keys are nice to have and helpful, but that one don’t absolutely need them to have a good time with one’s flute, then we have no argument. Certainly your opinion is nice to have on this forum. But I wish you would not assert so casually things which are moot.
Keywork weight will depend on the maker, the materials used, if block or pillar mounted etc.
Comparing my eight key Allan D flute with a keyless Allan D flute:
320 gms keyless, 412 gms 8-key = 92 gms for the keywork.
Which is less than a third to add to the keyless weight.
A Boehm flute is similar in weight to an eight key blackwood flute.
Depends how one would define “significant” here. I would say: a keyed flute is heavier, and there are keyless flutes in lighter woods which weigh in only half its weight, but overall the increase in weight is not too great for comfortable playing. It is more important how a flute is balanced, and a keyless flute with lined head can be top heavy and therefore a bit awkward in its balance.
I see no reason to avoid keys from the start. The sooner one starts learning to use them, the more proficient one can become at using them. Perhaps fifth-graders should remove the keys from their Boehm flutes for the first few years of study? 
And (even as a former player of classical music), I dislike the term flaustist. Flautist first showed up in Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun in 1860, while The Oxford English Dictionary lists usage of the term flutist as far back as 1603. And does anyone here play a flaut?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flautist
i am too used to half holing.
What a sweeping generalisation! I for one could not play happily ITM for the rest of my life on an unkeyed flute. In fact I missed keys right from a start, because I could not play certain tunes I found in tunebooks, I had to ignore a lot of tunes for a long time (more than 15 years) because I had no keyed flute. Now I can explore these, and it is a great discovery!
If you restrict your ITM playing to jigs and reels, and ignore the odd jig or reel not in D or G, if you don’t accompany singers, if you don’t play with fiddle players, then perhaps you can be happy in your flute imposed restriction of ITM.
But if you care for ITM, and even if you only cared for ITM and not care for any other tradition or early or classical music, then for your flute playing you should consider using keys, if you have the opportunity. It will make ITM the richer.
Living in the Wild West I rather like “Flute Wrangler”.
Trust me, the deepest darkest parts of downtown Los Angeles are indeed wild.
I also wear cowboy boots when I play my flute… or do most anything else for that matter.
Giddiyup there yah whup YAH!
“Honk tooot honk”
What term does everyone use? Flute player, Floooter, Flooterist,
Windstramentalist?
What if you play whistle too?
Honestly I never think of it much.
I play other instruments as well… or not well I should say 
People have asked me “Are you a musician?”
I’m interested in music as well as host of other arts.
A few of those I buy my bread with.
The best answer for me is “No, I’m only a student of music”
What I never tell them is that I think the class will forever be in session. 
I haven’t been around here too long but I’ll toss in my .02$ worth on keys.
IMHO there is no right answer here.
You can certainly get away with a lot of tunes without them it seems.
But not all.
I don’t yet have the massive tune database in my nogin that some of you more seasoned players do but I am certainly working on it. (having a good time too) I have already run into a few of tunes that would or could use keys if you had them.
I come from a silver flute background so the idea of using keys off line of the tone holes is hard wired for me though, as is the idea of being able to play chromatically. I also enjoy other music styles on occasion.
What do I play everyday?
A keyless.
Its because its a rocking flute and I like it better than the old keyed ones I have.
Now if Jon C. would get those keys going.
I’m rambling here but what I’m trying to say is that I fall in the “get the keys” camp.
If you have the funds to get them.
Consider them an investment in your future.
If you have them you will most likely learn to use them.
They also add to the value should you need to sell it and as others have stated they keep the flute from rolling of the table.
I’m serious.
I am a tooter 
Beans and franks, with sauerkraut. The more you eat, the more you flaut.
Did you just flaut an air-biscuit?
Who wants to be known as a “flautist”? It’s probably one of the reasons I never took up the flute in primary school. Only after ITM gave the flute respect, did I ever want to play one.
Here I think you would be wise to speak for yourself. The overall increase
in weight can make a difference to some people, myself these days,
for example.
The example of taking keys off a Boehm flute for the first few
years is a disanalogy, for reasons of which you are aware, of course.
As to reasons to postpone keys:
Some of you have approached Irish flute from a classical
background; you already know how to hold a flute. For those
of us who started on the much-harder-to-control Irish flute,
just learning to hold the thing is a considerable project.
One may often shift one’s grip.
Keys and blocks can be positively unhelpful. People new to the flute
have written to the board that they’re sorry they have
keys–they’re not using them and they’re getting in the way.
They may also stop you from experimenting to find the
grip that’s right for you. For instance suppose you’ve
paid 3000 for your keyed flute and you find you need
to use piper’s grip. Now you are colliding with the blocks.
Something to be said for postponing keys for a couple
of years while all this is sorted out.
Yes, ‘flautist’ sounds pompous. But I don’t care for wrangles
about words. I’m a flute flauting flautist floosie, and proud of it!
No, not a sweeping generalization. I don’t mean that everybody
will be happy indefinitely without keys. I understand that you
missed them from the first. I meant that it’s possible to
play happily without keys for the rest of one’s life,
and go deeply into the music, and become a super
flautist. That’s true, of course.
Of course you’re right that keys are helpful and may
open things up, but there are people playing unkeyed
flutes who are deeper into this music than any of
us will ever go.
Consider the integrity of the best makers. They’re selling
at a high price keyless flutes for ITM. They would not
do this if these flutes were significantly deficient at
playing the music they’re meant for. Ergo
you don’t need keys to play ITM.
We are now cycling around permutations of ‘half-full/
half’empty.’ We all agree about the particulars.
I submit that one doesn’t need keys to play
ITM on an Irish flute–they can be helpful, of course,
and nice to have, and there may be some things,
though they’re rare, one can’t do without them.
There’s nothing really here to argue about.
Are you sure that you don’t need to use a restroom?
I will have to agree with Mr. Stone and his analogy of a beginner opposed to one with experience. I purchased my first flute only one month ago and Im struggling to get my fingers in the correct position and not loose the angle on the mouth hole. Ive played the whistle for several years so Im not a total noobie but it is frustrating.I have a beautiful generic German 6 key from about 1900. It sounds wonderful.... on certain notes but Im looking for an inexpensive keyless Irish flute to reassure me of my meager skills.
And my thoughts on the Flautist vs flutist were mentioned earlier but are the same as Lawyer vs Attorney… I can afford a lawyer.
I only stated my own opinion of course, and quite explicitely:
Depends how one would define “significant” here. I would say:…
What you call significant may not be what I call significant, hence “depends on how one would define” it. To put some meat to the bone I added actual weight figures as an example, which may aid roj in his evaluation.
Re: flautist/flutist/fluter/flute player
I don’t really care much whatever term is used. But there is no need to ridicule the term “flautist”. Its just a convention more often used by classical players.
This is very sad. Why order such an expensive instrument if you are not sure that it fits for you? I recommend asking the flute maker for sending a keyed instrument to try out first. You may be surprised how many changes you would like. But you really should know before ordering any flute if you need to use piper’s grip or not. And it does not need two years to find this out. Just try a friend’s flute for a day, to get a feel for the necessary stretch.
It may also be the other way round: A player starts on a keyless and gets used to pipers grip, perhaps from playing the low whistle, and never tried anything different. Then acquiring a keyed flute he may be surprised that piper’s grip does not work so well any longer. I mean you can develop habits on a keyless flute which are not helping you on a keyed flute. In which case a keyed flute from the start may impose better discipline.
you’re all a bunch of flute ho’s and i’z da pimp. forget this flautist tag right now and get back to work.