Does D flute play in Concert pitch?

Irish Flute
1

When a D flute sounds a D is it playing a concert D? As in the same D that a piano would sound? Unlike a Bb Trumpet, e.g., that sounds a concert Bb when playing a C. Thus requiring transposition to play along with a piano.

Wondering as I will be playing some traditional Christmas carols with a piano at a family gathering. Assuming I can play along with the piano music for anything in D or G that has no accidentals (I don’t have keys) and doesn’t go below a low D.

A weird way to put it, is the D simple system flute a “C” instrument that only plays in the keys of D and G?

2

Yes. Well, it is supposed to, and normally does.

Note that these antique flutes are sometimes in “high pitch”, i.e. about a half, half-tone sharp. And yes, there are Eb flutes as well, where the “six-fingers on” plays an Eb.

Also note that many of these flutes are called C-flutes, in auction catalogs or museums. But, the Irish Flutes and most simple-system antiques play the D-scale (with F# & C#) when you start with the six-fingers on, D-note.

3

Yes. Putting it another way it’s a C instrument in “orchestral score” terms. As is a Boehm flute - on a modern keyless our six-finger D is that same as theirs.

Unfortunately because of voice ranges Christmas carol scores are often not in one or two sharps. A C whistle (in our terms) can be handy.

4

Good clarification re antique flutes. Mine is a modern keyless flute in D so I’m pretty confident it is tuned to today’s standard pitch of A440.

I do have a C whistle, but I could probably only read music with it in D. Ironically. Now that my brain is wired into that scale. Though maybe I could pick up a few standard carols by ear.

5

That’s the trouble with using whistle for Church gigs, Christmas gigs, etc which I’ve done hundreds of times- unless the piece is in D Major or G Major, thus requiring a whistle other than D, you’re put into the position of transposing.

For me, because I also play Highland pipes, I can sightread on an “A” whistle in Concert Pitch too.

In other words this xxx|xxx can be D or A, this xxx|ooo can be G or D.

With simple tunes I can sightread one or two lines or spaces higher or lower, so sometimes I can sight transpose. (I can get mixed up reading up a step, or reading up a 4th, so it’s better not to risk it.)

When I show up at a sightreading gig I come early and look through the music. I often have to quickly write out transpositions for a tune or two. (It’s a pain when I have to transpose several things, which does happen.)

Every transposition I write out goes into my “book”. With Hymns and Christmas tunes there’s a couple hundred already in my book, compiled over 50 years of doing this stuff, so at many gigs I have transpositions ready to go. That’s the thing: if you have whistles in a wide variety of keys you only have to write out one whistle transcription (in either D Major or G Major) which you can instantly transpose to any key (even Db Major) just by grabbing the correct whistle.

Oddly there have been a number of gigs where I only use two whistles: “E” and “Eb”, due to everything being in three or four sharps, or three or four flats.

More common are gigs where I only need a “D” and a “C”.

6

Tools such as MuseScore can transpose in any key you want. But a C whistle is a Bb instrument in orchestral terms, same thing as a clarinet, so transposing is straightforward: shift the key signature 2 sharps up and read one tone above what’s written. E.g. C major (0 sharps) → D major (2 sharps), G major (1 sharp) → A major (3 sharps), Eb major (3 flats) → F major (1 flat), etc.

7

Thanks Flutern. At the risk of adding confusion, is the Bb whistle also a Bb instrument in orchestral terms?

8

No, it’s a Ab in orchestral terms. As a rule, take a trad key and bring it down one tone to get the corresponding transposition (C → Bb, D → C, Eb → Db etc.)

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9

Interesting. And why the “D” flute can play with the piano it seems, so long as playing in keys that the flute can handle, like D or G. Unless the flute itself has the other type of keys, I would assume, then giving it the ability to play a wider range of notes and musical keys.

10

At the risk of confusing a subject that is already pretty much unintelligible, I’d say that whether an instrument is transposing or not really just depends on how you perceive it.

For example, we might say that in orchestral terms an Irish flute (D in our terms) is not a transposing instrument because when we play the all holes closed note, which we think of as D, it actually comes out as D. In orchestral terms they say that this instrument is in C, or concert pitch, because the notes that are produced when you use the correct fingering for a written notes are at the pitch you expect.

So, in this sense, if you get a Bb whistle, and think of it as a Bb whistle that plays Bb when you cover all the tone holes and blow, then it too is a concert pitch instrument, and hence is also in C.:rofl:

However, if you think of your Bb whistle in the same way as you think of your D whistle or flute, then when you play the all holes closed note, rather than getting a D you will get a Bb. So in this case, the instrument will appear to have transposed the note up 8 semi tones. So rather than being in C, as the D flute was, it will be in C plus 8 semi tones, which is Ab. Somehow, I never personally find this way of thinking about it very helpful. Just sayin.

It really just comes down to how you perceive the instrument and how you interpret sheet music. Do you do the transposing yourself, or do let the instrument do the transposing.

You could equally well view your range of trad whistles/flutes as being transposing instruments in a key one tone lower than the key we usually use to describe them. Or you could think of them as all being non-transposing instruments and recognize the actual scale each plays.

Where is gets completely mind boggling is when you get stuck in the middle between these two mindsets and try to use them both at the same time. :thinking:

Learning and playing by ear avoids all of this entirely, because its really just a symptom of using written representations of music and then not rigorously sticking to it, i.e., tying the written representation to the note actually sounded.

11

I think of what I am holding as being a transposing instrument when playing from sheet music intended for it and the sound that comes out for the note under the bottom line of the stave is not a D.

This is usually because am playing a C whistle as if it was a D whistle to get Dminor or an F flute to get Gminor. In both cases with “E minor fingering”. Some consider that this is cheating and I should learn to play in flat keys on my keyed flute. However, I hold that if I can play a trad tune that way and have all the notes then it is probably from a tradition where simple wind instruments were in those keys and so the ‘proper’ thing to do. And easier…

12

Classical musicians use the note C as the reference note, Irish musicians use the note D. The scale it produces is irrelevant.

If when you play a D fingering an actual D sounds (or a C fingering an actual C sounds), then it’s a concert pitch instrument (C for classical, D for Irish).

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13

I thought the naming convention for orchestral instruments grew out of the fact that the music staff, which is the foundation of the standard written representation for sheet music, is based on the key of C major. Each line or space represents the white notes on the piano key board.

When an Irish musician plays in the key of D, or uses sheet music to write down a tune in the key of D, they still use the same sheet music representation, with a music staff based around the key of C (if they use sheet music at all, of course). That is why the F and C lines/spaces get the sharp symbol.

The fact that you describe the third and seventh steps of the scale as “sharps” is evidence that you are still essentially using C as the reference.

A flute that plays C when the six main tone holes are closed isn’t considered concert pitch in either Irish or classical music, is it? If you played a D major tune on it in an Irish music setting, treating it as if you were playing on a D instrument, it would emit the tune in C major, hence transposing it down a whole step.

In classical terms, I believe such a flute would be referred to as a Bb instrument, i.e., one whole step down from a concert flute which would be described as being in C.

14

I don’t know that the naming convention grew out of the sheet music or the “default” music staff or not, but in the end, the origins don’t really matter. The key point is that for classical musicians, the “key” of an instrument is based on the note that is produced when playing a C fingering, whereas for Irish musicians, it’s based on the note that is produced when playing a D instrument (for Indian musicians it’s based on the note produced when playing a G fingering, if I recall).

It doesn’t really matter which system you use, as long as you can translate when needed.

”A flute that plays C when the six main tone holes are closed isn’t considered concert pitch”
The 6 fingered note is the D fingering, and so for an Irish musician we call that a C instrument because when playing the D fingering, a C is produced. A C fingering on this instrument would produce a Bb, so classical musicians would call it a Bb instrument. Neither is “concert pitch” (or non-transposing).

The more explanations that are added, the more confusing this gets… but a few caveats anyway:

  1. Sometimes when musicians need to, they’ll use the absolute pitch that’s produced, even when playing a transposing instrument, especially musicians who play completely by ear and don’t use or need sheet music (which is a large segment of the traditional music world)
  2. Transposition is really a thing to make it easier for musicians to play instruments in the same family and not learn a new fingering system - So flute flute / whistle players can play a concert pitch flute, or a flute d’amore, or a piccolo, or a bass flute, or whatever, and read sheet music that shows them what fingering to use, without worrying about the absolute pitch. Similarly for saxophone players, clarinettists, oboists, uilleann pipe players, whistle players, and more. Lots of families of instruments disregard this and make it harder for the musicians (viola, recorders for example)
  3. “Concert pitch” is doing a lot of work here. Concert pitch could mean non-transposing which is how most of this discussion is using it, but it could also mean A440 (or A442 depending on the concert orchestra…), and possibly more… I play a flat set of pipes that is both transposing AND flat of A440… doubly not concert pitch :smiley:
  4. In the traditional music world, there is an additional complication that many of the instruments are nominally diatonic, rather than chromatic and the “root” scale is often used. A normal, non-transposing, concert pitch concertina is a C/G concertina (because one row plays a C scale and the other a G, and then there’s usually a third row with accidentals), and Irish musicians would probably still call this a D instrument. But then there are two main systems of button accordion used: B/C and C#/D. Both can be concert pitch, non-transposing, depending on how the musician learned. Finbarr Dwyer would often play a C#/D accordion, but he learned B/C style, so his playing would come out a full step above “concert pitch”
15

For sure the concept of some instruments being “transposing instruments” has nothing to do with the instruments themselves, but is an artifice created because at some point in the past people decided to write the parts for that instrument in the wrong key.

Many musicians are fluent at reading both in the standard offset pitch and the actual “sounding” pitch.

A simple example of that is the Highland pipes, which sound in three flats but are written in two sharps. Many has been the time when I’ve had to sightread music written in the sounding pitch, written that way due to the composer not knowing that the Highland pipes are a “transposing instrument”.

And fairly well-known is the instance of a certain composer who wrote a piece for Highland pipes and orchestra where the orchestra parts are all in the wrong key because the composer didn’t know. To perform this piece Highland pipe makers have had to create a special chanter which plays at the written pitch.

16

The wonderful thing about naming conventions and standards is that there are so many to choose from! You can try to simplify something that most, but not all, people find intuitive, and turn it into something that confuses even experts by defining and simultaneously using enough different standards and naming conventions. :rofl:

17

@paddler Exactly! :laughing:

(D for trad, C for classical, k.i.s. and silly)

18

“For sure the concept of some instruments being “transposing instruments” has nothing to do with the instruments themselves, but is an artifice created because at some point in the past people decided to write the parts for that instrument in the wrong key.”
Well, no… it was decided to write parts for that instrument in as simple a way as possible for that musician. In fact, I’d bet it was the musicians themselves who made their lives easier, by rewriting parts so they could use the same fingering on different pitched instruments.

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19

A good example being band flutes. They come in three keys and two or more octaves. The xxx xxx notes are Bb, F and Eb. But the band music is scored as if they all were in D. So if the F flute player can’t show up on the day, one of the others can step up and play that part. (They need to do it on an F flute of course!)

So perhaps a bit weird that the music is scored in a key none of the instruments are tuned to!

20

I have enjoyed reading all the replies even though they make my brain hurt a bit. :rofl: I need to go back and re-read some. One thing I’ve learned is that my reference to “concert pitch” was probably wrong…or at least imprecise.

The other thing I believe I’ve learned is that for my practical application, playing my keyless “Irish” flute in D along with a piano should work if I’m reading the melody line of the piano music and that music is in either D or G and within the flute’s range (and has no incidentals that I cannot handle without keys). So if I can find a couple carols that I can play in D or G, I will. Otherwise, I’ll stick to singing or playing some other instrument!