Tonight at a Lunasa concert in Berkely, I sat in the front row about 5 feet from Kevin. The whole night, I never once saw him touch or use any of his keys.
I found the whole thing rather confusing. I’ve read on the board that flute players use there keys and don’t mind paying a thousand or two more for them. Is it just Kevin who doesn’t use his keys or is that a commen occurance among you fluters with keys. I would appreciate if somebody would enlighten me, thanks.
Jack Murphy
p.s. I’ve found a flute teacher in the area, and I might take a few lessons to clean up my playing. Hurray!
Kevin Crawford most certainly does use the keys on his flute. In particular, he loves to use the low C and C# keys on his 8-key Grinter. (I know this from having spent a week in class with him at Gaelic Roots several years back.) If he didn’t use the keys at all during the Lunasa concert where you saw him, it would only be because none of the tune sets they played that night had any notes in them that required him to use the keys on his flute. In other words, he never played a low C, low C#, D#, F natural, G#, B flat or C natural (using the key instead of a forked fingering) all night. This is entirely possible as a large majority of Irish tunes are in keys that don’t require these notes. But for that small minority of tunes that do contain these notes, the keys on a flute are most welcome indeed!
John Kerr
Um… for the most part there is simply no reason to use the keys, except for the C natural key. There are very few tunes that require the notes provided by the keys, and for those that are dedicated enough to learn, almost all of those notes are cross-fingerable. Also, unkeyed flutes often play better since there is less chance of leakage through the key-holes (you know what I mean).
However, there are some players, like mutant-freak Niall Keagan, or equally odd genius Cathall McConnel, who use the keys quite a bit and to great effect in order to play tunes in strange keys and/or with unusual melodic variations. I would be surprised, however, to see them use much keywork in a session, where those unusal variations might stand out in a not-so-pleasant way.
Many flute players like having keys so that they CAN, when necessity demands, play the tunes that feature notes uncommon in the Irish modes. Others despise the keys, arguing that they are gaudy, get in the way, create leaks in the flute and are wholly unneccesary.
As for myself, I agree with both camps, but I’d really dig a keyed flute so I could play jazz on a wooden flute!
Best,
Chris
The more you give the more there is.
[ This Message was edited by: ChrisLaughlin on 2002-09-12 09:34 ]
I posted my message at the same time as John, and of course, John is quite correct. Kevin does use his keys quite a bit, especially on the Galician, Asturian, Breton, Scottish (etc) tunes that use notes unfamiliar to the Irish modes.
Best,
Chris
Sometimes it’s just a question of speed: if I’m playing in a group, and at speed, then it’s usually a lot faster to half-hole or cross-finger than to use the keys. Of course, this could just be my laziness… 
Deirdre