Flute balancing

Irish Flute
1

I balance whistles with the ring finger
of my right hand down on the bottom
hole.

I’ve transferred this to
the low D flute. Is
this an adequate way to do it?
Is the pinky better? Is the pinky
always down?




[ This Message was edited by: jim stone on 2002-01-20 04:20 ]

2

Would be grateful for some help–
balancing in St. Louis.

3

Hi Jim,

I do use my pinky to some extent. It depends upon the notes.

I use 3 point balancing as follows:

D,E,F#

  1. mouth
  2. LH1 palm with some thumb use
  3. RH Thumb, pinky up though sometimes down depending upon what the previous or next note is.

G,A,B

  1. mouth
  2. LH1 palm with more thumb use
  3. RH Thumb softly, pinky softly

C#

  1. mouth
  2. LH1 palm, thumb softly
  3. pinky, thumb softly

Other folks don’t use there pinky’s nearly as actively as I do (it is particularly difficult if you’re not used to controlling you’re pinky) - some people leave it down all the time while some leave it up all the time. I hope that you figure out something that works for you. Have fun with your transition to the flute.

Erik

4

Jim,

I personally balance with my pinky on both flute and whistle. While I don’t think there is a right or wrong to this (unless the hole covered affects the pitch of a note), there are some small advantages to using the pinky method. With the ring finger down method to play E it is necessary of course to lift the finger… then moving on to D the ring finger goes down and the first finger (usually) goes up. (xxx xox to xxx xxo to oxx xxx) Lots of finger moving that affects the speed I can play. But that is just me… I have seen others who play faster than I make these transitions without problems. So my guess is that if this is what you are used to, go for it. And if the speed and notes are there, what’s the problem?

Clark

5

Many thanks!

6

Just to chime in here, I’m still learning, but have the MadForTrad flute and whistle tutorials, so I can tell you what Brian Finnegan and Seamus Eagan do, at least as far as I can tell.

Brian tends to have the pinky up for F#,E,D, then resting very lightly against the whistle for the notes above that.

Seamus has the pinky up for E and D and down for everything else. Although Seamus also plays the whistle “backwards” from the way he plays the flute (right hand on top), and still sounds freakin’ incredible so he’s a mutant anyway.

For what it’s worth, I’ve adopted Brian’s pinky style (unfortunately the only thing from his style that I can successfully emulate), and it works pretty well for me. It made things like rolls on E much easier for me to have the pinky up for it.

It sort of just becomes another part of the fingering, i.e. I think of D, E & F# as being fingered with the pinky up, and the rest with it down.

This style has translated well to whistle for me; I know my crans and E and F# rolls have improved on it because of it.

Good luck,
John

7

Thanks, John!

8

I have recently added a page to my site with photos of one way to hold the Irish flute. The flute in the photos is an M&E.
It’s at

http://www.flutesite.com/flute_position_&_posture.htm

Odd that I read this topic today, I just posted this stuff last weekend.
–James

9

James, that was a really good explaination of how to hold the flute and helped me quite a bit! I mistakenly thought that the flute rested on the left thumb and all. But now I see its not so. The idea that the right thumb is causing the flute to be pressed against the chin really helps. Fingers are more relaxed now. Thanks a lot!

[ This Message was edited by: Eldarion on 2002-01-22 22:00 ]