Don’t get me wrong .. it’s a better note .. but I think that this is a mixture of my being used to the old flute for half my life and the Olwell being a much superior instrument and giving a lot of tonal flexibility.
Maybe better to say .. I can blow into the old flute any way and get a decent if not musically outstanding second register G without effort .. the Olwell demands very precise embouchure to get any 2nd G but when you do get it it is much, much cleaner and sweeter than my cheap flute.
Firstly any thoughts on the precision of the better flute or Olwell’s more specifically?
Secondly - and this is the reason for the wider post - how do people generally find the journey moving to a new flute? Do people find it easy to pick up any flute once you get used to a certain style? Are there differences moving from flute to flute even with the same maker? How long do people find it takes to get used to a new flute? I also thought there was a question around thinking that a flute ‘didn’t suit me’ when in fact all you needed was time to discover the subtleties of the new flute?
Getting to intimately know new and different flutes is what fuels my passion for Irish Flutes. I am a self proclaimed Flute Philanderer!
I am rubbish as a musician, but I can usually get beautiful sounds out of a flute.
Olwell flutes are actually the easiest flutes I’ve ever played. But any “Good” Pratten requires lots of “support” (from the diaphragm) to get the best tone.
I’ve spent the past 3 hours exploring the lower and higher register .. doing exercises going from low D to high D then E etc. What I’m realising mostly with the Olwell is that there’s such a lot more you can do with it. Even after my first night of playing my old flute now has the feeling of blowing into a bottle (so sorry old flute) .. as in it makes a note but it isn’t all that sophisticated .. I have to be very controlled with the Olwell but the reward is there with a beautiful sweet spot .. with the old flute it didn’t really really matter what I did.
All this is very interesting and I’m really enjoying it.
So yes I’d say the Olwell flute might be easy but there’s definitely more control needed to get it right. It might sound counter intuitive to suggest that blowing the cheap flute was easier for me .. and maybe it was that I was just used to it for 25 years .. but I actually think it comes down to the sophistication/delicacy of the instrument .. on the old I was just blowing a lot and it would produce a tone on the higher ranges .. no question but also no sophistication and sort of a very airy, leaky tone .. when you hit the right spot on the olwell it is Sweet.
Anyway .. have to go to bed as I’ve work in the morning .. but so enjoying this instrument and looking forward to getting it right ..
Konga, depending on what your crappy flute is, your journey toward competence on the Olwell could be more or less difficult/time-consuming.
I started on a Bleazey, a very small-holed Rudall copy. I tried a few large-holed flutes, but never really mastered them. I loved the Hammy but was never comfortable with it. If your old flute was very small-holed, it will take some patience to really master the Olwell Pratten. But it will be worth it.
As Jordan said, practice, and it takes time. Your idea of doing octave transitions is good, you might try overtones, short tones, long tones, and all that.
Best of luck, sounds like you’re in for a very fun journey.
After playing one of Casey Burns’ folk flutes for a couple years, the only flute I’ve ever known, a had a short go at an Olwell, and was a surprise at just how hard it was for me to find and keep the lower octave. I’m not sure what that says about me or either flute, but it was certainly interesting.
What seems to be coming through is that while the Olwell might be an easy to fill flute how easy it is to play depends on what you’re coming from. Instant for some and requiring some modifications for others.
It does seem to be practice, practice, practice doesn’t it?
“Scales slowly through the octaves .. Intervals between notes in the second octave .. Arpeggios” .. it might be worth doing up a list of practice routines to work through daily. Not exciting but necessary. Maybe there’s a list or youtube with such things somewhere?
You might try typing “exercises” in the search function, limiting it to this forum. It comes up with 41 pages, which is quite a slog, but there are loads of threads on this.
It’s standard practice (not for everybody but for most musicians) to begin with
exercises. It’s a really good way to warm up.
Scales really help, arpegios, etc. There is a book for fife called, Better, Stronger, Faster,
which I found helpful. Also when playing a tune, where one is having trouble with a passage,
stop, play it very slowly a number of times, make it an exercise, also play it several times starting
on the second note, then several times on the third. One can get to enjoy this and enjoying it
is helpful. Break tunes down into phrases, phrases into shorter groups of notes, and so on. The flute is an instrument for exploring the intervals between notes, and between
groups of notes.
Olwells are, IMO, easy playing flutes as flutes go, the Pratten being the most demanding.
Also they have extraordinary expressive potential.
One can’t judge how hard a flute is to play by a short go at it.
