Hello,
I play a flute with 6 keyes, made by Michael Cronnolly (that I would recommend to everyone).
Recently I started to use my simple system flute more frequently for playing Swedish polkas or baroque stuff…however, I am not able to play as fluent in “exotic” keyes, as when I use my boehm flute.
Can you recommend some etudes or tunes that are a nice (and fun 
) to learn using all the keyes of a flute ?
What music do you play on your simple system flute, that requires al lot of key work ?
Thanks for your help and input !
Swedish sackpipa tunes are a good work out for the G # key.
I found that taking simple tunes you already know in one key and transposing to another key can be a great start. Take a simple jig in G like Wards and play it in F. Or an Am jig or reel and play it in Gminor like Mist Covered Mountain or Star of Munster
Then tunes like Crabs in the Skillet, Broken Pledge (to practice low C)
Take Scottish pipe tunes in A mix and play them in G mix or D mix ( again using low C)
Just some suggestions to start.
Most of the tnes that I play which are ‘Key Heavy’ are hornpipes, my favourite is Cliff’s Edge written by Danny Hathaway.
https://thesession.org/tunes/9373
Anything in Eb (e.g. Entr’acte from Carmen), which uses all the notes D doesn’t!
Les Poules Huppées (Crested Hens) in its original and best D minor/modal setting.
Freddie’s Tune (old, old Shetland slow air in Bb).
Anything from anywhere that takes my fancy (classical/romantic flute repertoire, show tunes etc.).
Any simple tunes (even nursery rhymes!) repeated in every possible key.
That sort of thing…
(PS I’m playing a four-key with C nat thumb hole.)
On a six-key? (Which I assume to mean Eb, two Fs, G#, Bb and high C…)
Of course one of the reasons there are boehm flutes is that they are easier to play in exotic keys.
Personally I like and use the keys on my wooden flute, but I’m just a folk musician. Quite enough to challenge
me there. Kudos to those
who try!
Well Crabs in the Skillet, and any pipe tune taken down to Gmix are grand on a six key.
Freddies tune is one of my favourite tunes by the way.
It’s another nice tune to move about in different keys. I started learning it on a Bb flute.
Then I learned it on a keyed flute. For some reason I changed the key to C as I like lingering on and using different fingerings for the opening C. I usually play it in c fingering on any whistle as well.
I used to love playing Crabs in the Skillet. But then the version that people played changed to one which I think was first played by Eileen Ivers. I prefer the one I used to play - which is basically as it was in O’Neill’s. Either way, it’s good for key practice right enough.
Mr O’Connor, by O’Carolan, is another great Gm tune (or Cm if you want a change).
Yes I think the setting I play is the Oneill one: ?
X: 1
T: Crabs In The Skillet
R: jig
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
K: Gmin
D |: G3 d2^F | G2A B2c | ded cBA | dcB AG^F |
G3 d2^F | G2A B2d | cAc f=ed |1 cAF F=EF :|2 cAF G2 ||
d | gag gf=e | fgf f=ed | cd=e fed | cAF G2d |
gag gf=e | fgf f=ed | cd=e fed |1 cAF F2 :|2 cAF F=EF ||
G2z A2z | B2z c2z | ded cBA | dcB AG^F |
G2z A2z | B2z d2z | cAc f=ed |1 cAF F=EF :|2 cAF G2 ||
And I used to play it with this one in F:
X: 1
T: Paddy Rainey’s
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Fmaj
|: cAc FAc|faf g2c|efg cec|BdB FGG|
ABc FAG|Acf a2g|fec afc|cAG F3:|
|: cFF FGA|cfg efc|GAc Bcd|e2e gec|
cAc ABc|gbe g2g|fec afc|cAG F3:|
Excellent! Good man. That’s the one I play. Much better than the other, IMHO. 
It was your specific references to low C when the OP had a six-key…
Freddies tune is one of my favourite tunes by the way.
It’s another nice tune to move about in different keys. I started learning it on a Bb flute.
Then I learned it on a keyed flute. For some reason I changed the key to C as I like lingering on and using different fingerings for the opening C. I usually play it in c fingering on any whistle as well.
I enjoy tunes in keys that might not be considered the trad flute norms when they work for me, and Freddie’s Tune works (with limited options for fingered vibrato!). I like having these things in their standard keys, and Bb’s the standard key for it… also good for finishing up the octave as Maggie Adamson and others do on fiddle.
Well c is one of the most expressive notes. Play it on a C whistle starting on c (in D terms) or c flute and you’re in the original key. Play it on a Bb and you’ll be playing it in D fingering in the right key.
Changing key to suit instrument is very common.
Any rigidity is unnecessary. Look at Ennis taking things down a tone to get the best out of the chanter.
Playing it in any key is simple really.
I’d obviously played around with it a lot before deciding starting on note with a lot of options like C was best. For instance it sounds great on the uilleann chanter.
Why not go the whole hog and obtain an anthology such as 100 Classical Studies for Flute (Universal Edition) or 100 Easy Classical Studies for Flute (from the same publisher, and they aren’t all that easy, most of them)? A great many of the studies in these books would have been composed (by Nicholson for example) for the simple system flute, and they take you into as many flats and sharps as you can handle, as well as utilising the whole range of the instrument and offering a great deal of rhythmic variety, plus intervals and leaps that help make you a much more flexible player, even if you have no particular desire to become a classical flautist. The success of the Boehm flute and the tendency of trad players to stick to two or three “home” keys tends to make us forget that the simple system flute was designed as a fully-chromatic instrument, and 19th century pedagogy, even when aimed at self-instructing amateurs, expected players to master or at least become familiar with every key signature going.
Not advocating ‘rigidity’. Just saying ‘I enjoy tunes in keys that might not be considered the trad flute norms when they work for me’ (that last bit’s important!), and also like the idea of being able to play them with fiddlers without asking them to change. I don’t actually play The Road to Errogie in B, though I do prefer it in A to G, and can always apply that to low E whistle to get the original B…
This dude has some scans of public domain etudes and method books for the 19th century flute from the 19th century:
http://www.oldflutes.com/facsimiles/index.htm
I imagine this website is well-known here already, but I’m still digging through it and finding it to be a ton of fun. Might be something useful there for you.
If you go to http://imslp.org/wiki/18_Exercises_or_Etudes_for_Flute_(Berbiguier,_Tranquille) you can download Berbiguier’s exercises which were specifically designed to increase facility with all the new-fangled keys that were being fitted to the flutes of his day (c1818). The way that he repeats various phrases and passages show that he was well aware of the more difficult fingering patterns that had to be mastered - then as now.
For traditional music, I find that working on learning tunes that use the keys is more productive than learning from études that include many passages that you’re unlikely to ever encounter in traditional tunes. This assumes that you’re playing traditional music of course; if you’re playing classical then by all means use études.
Regarding Crested Hens, most people nowadays play a slow version inspired by the one recorded by the Irish group Solas, but it’s really a bourée (composed in the 1980s by a hurdy-gurdy player) and was meant to be played much faster. See this clip here; the player starts the tune about 2 minutes in:
This is indeed an old and perennial topic, none the worse for a new airing. This page of Terry McGee’s grew out of discussions here and elsewhere and drew upon C&F members’ views and advice.
Yep, that’s just how I have it (the original, as published in The Massif Central Tune Book No.1), and think it’s a pity it’s become better (only?) known to so many in a smoothed-out, slow version with no ‘corners’!
Nice link, Jem! I must have seen it before, but still…
Lovely version that. That’s how it is in my head, although I rarely play it. Another one that’s been spoiled by people copying one recorded version.
Thanks for all the advice. Especially the link with the etudes ! I like the sound of my simple system flute so much so it always annoys me that, that I have to use my boehm flute for everything that needs more key work