hello

Irish Flute
1

hi
this year is a time of firsts for me:
first heart attack,
first heart operation,
first post on a forum and first tune on a flute.

Been playing flute about a month, don’t have access to any others who play flute or itm for advice. Have got Grey Larsen’s book. Decided to record my effort today and thought i’d post it. Didn’t take any care about settings, mic etc…

Play a bit of guitar, took me a week to work out which end to blow in on that!!

As i said this is my first post so not entirely sure about where/how to go about it, if this is the right place. Feel free to give any advice/comments. Life is a bit different now so i thought i would post and see how it goes.

tree

http://www.box.net/shared/dz0ziqu8sa

2

Hi Tree - wow - I’d have given my eyeteeth to play that well after a month - I don’t play that well after 15 months! Nice job. I’d say you and the flute are off to “the start of a beautiful friendship”. Keep up the good work and welcome to the C&F board. Lots of good people/info/& stuff here.

Deisman

3

Good good! That isdefinately very good for just a month. Some things i noticed. I’m not much of a flutist (or a musician in general), but I have been playing longer for a month, so this is what I saw.

-When you breath, you take a bit more time than you should. Breathe within the beat.

-On the three part feet of the jigs (the DAdada), especially on the last of a set of two, you tend to sort of peeter out by the end, the notes get quieter and sometimes downright disappear. This gives a sort of wavey, washy effect to the music, sort of like a person who (like me) does just that in speech- starts aphrase or sentence strong and ends mumbling.

-Rhythm needs improvement overall but pfft, that’l lcome with time. Keep tapping your foto as you play, and sometimes playign with a metronome

-Same for tone. Doing stuff liek this- recoridng yourself as yo play- is good good good for tone.

Word on the metronome-

Do NOT set the metronome to teh beats as written. That’ll teach you to be a typewriter, not a musician. I think the reason a lot of people think that metronomes teach you to play rhtyhms like “a robot” is because they make this mistake, though of course I can’t invade ever person’s home and make sure of this.

Because even though Irish music has noticeable swing and lift and whatever, in Irish dance music the rhythmic “feet” STILL move evenly: the first note of a reel might be a hair longer than the second, bugt the first four notes are NOT longer than the second four.

What you wanna do, is set it the way the music wants you to set it. Listen to the blocks and bits and even pieces the music moves in- in that jig, for example, as in all double jigs, the music divides itself into sets of two beats. Each of those beats contain three notes, but geuss what- that doesn’t matter! You wanna set your metronome, not to 6/8, but to 2/4, or whatever will give you just two beats in a “measure”.

And- this is most important- the “clicks” you hear should only click on the first note for each rhythmic foot. If the jig oes “DAdada DAdada DAdada DAdada” set it till you only hear “DA…DA…DA…DA…”

I knwo you didn’t ask about metronomes, but I figured I’d sa all taht. Sorry if I was abother.

4

Hey Tree,

well it seems as if you are going to be a monster player if you have only been at this for a month. :astonished: If you talked to the average established player and ask them what the most important thing was in playing ITM, I would bet that 9 out of 10 would say rhythm. When you play the flute, intonation and tone are are very important but if you have a lack of drive and lift then you have nothing. We have all heard great players that maybe don’t have the greatest tone or the best intonation but there rhythm is rocking and you can’t stop yourself from cracking a smile. This music is made fore dancing and ultimately if it has a dead or unstable swing than it is not living up to it’s main function (dance music). When I was first starting, I listened to ITM non stop and slowly but surely it sank in. I still evaluate, check up and practice with a metronome. I am no pro flute player by any stretch but I play the drums for a living and with out the groove, you have nothing.

I can’t wait to hear you in 6 months! Good Luck :slight_smile:

5

Thanks for the kind comments. there certainly are plenty of kind folks on here with great knowledge and the willingness to pass that on to others.

I’ll try the tip with the metronome next practice, thanks. the point about the breath seems to be improving with practice, feels like as i get more confident with the fingering etc i can think more about breathing. when i work on a piece for guitar it is very much a case of learning the piece then going back over it and improving the dynamics etc as i become more comfortable with it.

My youngest daughter plays drums too (eldest daughter sax, youngest son guitar and wife sings) and i play guitar with her when i get the chance. You are right about the groove regardless of genre of music. The thing that has always amazed me about playing with others is the connection between people through the music and the musical conversations that seem to take place. I’ve never thought too much about the people dancing (that’s guitarists for ya!!) but i’ll try to think about that when i’m playing.

6

Well, now you do have such access, and there is a wide range of experience, here.

Welcome!

:slight_smile: