I play the concert flute, as many know. I asked advice about buying one a while ago. But have recently started to play the marching 5/6 key flute in the boys brigade that my mum helps at (as well).
We had a few chaps come down to visit us from a not very local BB band who had been playing for a long time. One for 20 odd years. Both the two chaps said that It would ruin my concert playing.
I’m curious how. As far as I can tell, I pretty much play them the same way. Breath control etc. The only potential problem I could see; is remembering to differentiate between the fingers on them both.
Obviously I wouldnt want to seriously jepodise playing one or the other, but I enjoy playing them both. Does anyone have any experience in this?
I thought it would be nice to have a go a the piccolo aswell as my low D flute. I had to stop playing the piccolo as it was starting to hinder my development on the flute. The emboucher for smaller, higher pitched instuments tends to be different. I found it hard to go back and forth between the two. In fact, when my flute was away getting fixed for two weeks, all I played was the piccolo. When i got the flute back, i stuggled to get a decent sound out of it, something which surprised me greatly. The keys/holes on a marching flute/piccolo are closer together than they would be on a concert flute/D flute. In fact, i’ve also stopped my tin whistle playing, because my fingers get used to the small finger spacing. Some people have no problem playing these different types of flutes together (though not at the same time :))
I just find it easier on the hands and the mouth to stick at the low D flute.
I have no personal experience from which to speak, but judging by Harry Bradley’s playing on both of his albums, playing the marching flute certainly did not hurt his concert flute playing.
Best,
Chris
[ This Message was edited by: ChrisLaughlin on 2002-12-12 09:23 ]
I think the two need to be played/practiced separately, as two separate instruments, not substituted for one another. Playing a fife or piccolo will not hurt your flute playing, necessarily, but it will not help it, either, if the flute is put down for a bit, as the two use different mouth muscles, finger muscles, etc. Same with whistle, which does nothing for your embouchure and, of course, the spacing and general musculature is different. But if you practice both, you’ll play both. That’s the case, I’m sure, with Harry Bradley, as with Skip or David on fife, etc. I’ve tried learning fife recently and, while I have no trouble with the embouchure on it, it does interfere with my embouchure on my flute playing. To avoid this, I’ve had to equal double practice time on the two, not split the difference. Not having loads of free time, and since my main interest is flute, the fife gets the short end.
As I read the topic, my reaction was the same as Gordon’s, so I’ll just echo his conclusion.
I haven’t found that playing different woodwinds has effected my embouchure (in the LONG term - in the short term, I do find it difficult to go from my whistles to my flute or from a brass instrument to my flute within minutes of playing them).
For example, driving a car doesn’t effect my ability to ride a bike even though I’m using my arms and legs in each activity. However, if I only drive my car and don’t ride my bike anymore, I will fall out of practice on the bike.
Oh, and regarding fingering… mine has never been effected. Your fingers will know when they’re on which flute. F# will forever be XXXOOX on my Boehm flute and XXXXOO on my Trad flute. I think that this is because I don’t worry about key signatures when playing the trad flute. If I play from written music I simply confirm that it is in D (or some appropriate key) and then read it as it were in C; well, more or less.
I have never had any negative effect carry over from playing the marching band flute. My embouchure was quite developed before I ever picked one up though. I imagine it MIGHT colour your approach to a concert pitch embouchure if you were trying to develpoing it while playing as much on the MBF but I think it would sort itself out with good, foucused practice on both instruments. So go for it and enjoy!
:))