We now have American Native Flute forum etc, can we not turn the flute Forum into Traditional flute instead of Irish Flute as its a bit of a con! We have People selling Rudall Carte and Rudall Rose flutes,Hawkes, Boosey, nicholson,Pratten saying they are Irish traditional flutes when they were built in England made for the British Flute Player and British Marching Bands but Bastadized into Irish Flute Playing as were the German Flute and Greek Bozuki.
Its like saying the Pipes are Scottish but we dont have a Scottish Pipe section???
Let’s suppose that I’m getting your point: you’re asking for a forum about the “traditional flute”, while “flute” being the school of playing the instrument in a certain style, not the instrument itself. This includes irish, english, scottish, galician, breton etc. styles of playing, but excludes the native american flute (which, actually, is not a flute, but a fippled instrument). That’s okay so far, but furthermore you’re saying that the “english flute”, i.e. Pratten, Rudall&Rose etc., has been “bastardized” into irish flute playing. I don’t get the point how those two things come together. Who prevents you from playing irish/breton/scottish/whatever music on a a flute made in New Zealand or America, or China? Or on a Boehm flute, or with a Meyer system from Germany? I support your point of broadening this forum’s main topic to more traditions, as there are many player who play non-irish music on the simple system flute (I love to play jazz music on it), but your subordinate clause of the bastardized good ol’ english instruments sounds a bit jaundiced to me. That’s why I commented with the worms.
All in all, I’d say that revising the forum’s subtitle considering “multiple traditions on various styles of flutes/the simple system flute” could be a topic to look into, but the rest is not a case worth discussing. It does not matter on which instrument the music is played. After all, the greek bouzouki blended into irish tradition and transformed to a new instrument and school, the irish bouzouki, so why should we not talk about the instrument and school called “the irish flute”, especially after many makers offer their flutes as instruments made for the irish tradition of playing the flute?
There is a musician on YouTube, playing the Khene, a laoitan instrument. He plays The Gold Ring on it, and he plays it nicely. It is Irish Music, and it doesn’t matter which kind of instrument it is played on. He could also play scottish or english music on it. Why should it not be traditional?
We have people from The Americas, Australia, Germany, Great Britain etc playing a wide variety of Fluting and systems, comming under the one banner of Irish Playing when it should be Traditional to accomodate all aspects of playing?
Do you not think? Or do you think Irish playing that took the German flute and made it its own should be a an umbrella for all aspects of Flauting?
There really weren’t any Irish flutes in the beginning of the tradition - the whole reason it started was 'cause the English (and German and French and …) flute players switched to the Boehm system and sold off their wooden flutes to the less fortunate (of which the Irish were the prime example). SOOOO, there is no problem with playing Irish music on ANY kind of flute!
I play mostly ITM, but also church music, on a McGee GLP - based on a Firth and Pond (American makers from the 19th century) flute played by an American (Grey Larsen) and made by a guy in Australia!!!
Thats exactly my point Pat you play Itm and Church so should the forum be called Irish Traditional and cover all aspects of Flauting or Traditional to cover Irish, Church Native American, Germanic etc??
