One hears a lot about people switching from keyless to keyed flutes, but has anyone done the reverse? If so, what were the motivations?
My wife is a longtime boehm flute player. She wanted to get into the wooden flute, so I bought her a keyless flute to get her feet wet before we ordered an 8-key. She realized she just can’t play without keys. So now I play the keyless and she plays an 8-key.
She’s not the norm – I know of a few on this list who started on Boehm and play keyless.
I played Boehm flute for around 15 years before switching to the wood flute; I play a 6-key one now, but there’s a lot to be said for the light weight and sleek lines (and easy maintainance) of keyless flutes. Becoming -truly- technically proficient with keys is no small thing. Plus, you can get a keyless by a top maker in a reasonable amount of time, when a the wait for a keyed flute may be prohibitive. Do other with keys find the few ITM tunes where keys are essential worth the extra grand or so that keys cost?
I say No.
But I “only” play ITrad.
M
I’ve gone from keyless, to keyed, back to keyless, and now have a keyed flute again. Unlike Mary, while I play ITM, I also play a lot of non-ITM (classical, baroque, ragtime), and when I was keyless it drove me nuts. Notes that sound “charming” when half holed or cross fingered in ITM sound funky when playing Bach with someone else playing guitar or piano.
That said, I’ve found I prefer to have fewer keys (4 is fine by me) - I can get by fine with only the short keys.
Eric
Conal Ó Gráda went from a Rudall (presumably keyed) w/Fentum head to a keyless Hammy Hamilton. He may have gone to a keyed body.
When I’ve seen Molloy on TV with The Chieftains it looks like his flute is keyless. So that would be going from a keyed Boosey/Pratten to a keyless Olwell if my eyes don’t decieve me.
Cheers,
Aaron
Eric, when you play ragtime, do you play an Eflat? I presume most of it is in 0 to 4 flats, which I would think would be easier on an Eflat. I know when I play whistle along with jazz, a Bflat usually works.
Charlie - do you mean do I play an Eb flute? No, I just play my rosewood sweetheart 4 key…but there are a mess of D#s in the entertainer, easy winners, and sunflower slow rag (can you guess I’m partial to Joplin?). Ragtime is a great key learning medium if your playing a standard D flute!
Eric
Didn’t Seamus Tansey remove the keys,AND shave off the key blocks from his Rudall and Rose ( 
)?
Seems akin to an act of vandalism to me.
Then he regretted what he had done.
I switched from Boehm and went back to fife - one of the instrtuments of my youth, then to the keyless D. I prefer the keyless. The idea of making music - whatever kind - from a simple tube of beautiful wood with seven holes in it never ceases to intrigue and excite me. I went back to the fife some years ago but found it not to be a parlor instrument - drove the family nuts in the winter, inside, on a cold a snowy day. Someone on the fifeanddrum list spoke about his wooden keyless flute and the investigation began. So here I are four years later hooked on keyless wooden flute.
BillG
A number of lovely Scottish tunes are unplayable without keys…
Now, I find it really really spooky to play a keyless flute - because I find myself reaching for keys that aren’t there!
Do any of you regularly move between keyed and keyless?
yes, I routinely move back and forth.
I aspire to be able to do everyhting Ido
on keyed flute on keyless–easier said
than done, but not unthinkable.
Matt Molloy plays a six-key cocus Olwell.
I think that EIGHT keys could be enogh…Why some people like to play with double Bb or similars?
Frank
Frank - the double Bb is a nice little touch. An old German flute I formerly owned had one, and I found the RH thumb Bb touch much easier than the LH thumb.
It’s not much different from the 2 Fnat touches you’d be getting with a 6 key…you really don’t need both of those, either.
Eric
Hello
I’d say its horses for courses. I have a lovely robust 8 keyed Boosey ebonite which can (should I say, potentially could) play all those odd keyed Scottish tunes which I love. But I also am lucky to use an unkeyed Dave Williams flute - and it has such a rich, complex subtle personality that I tend to use that one most. She is a beautiful flute which, whilst not necessarily the easiest to play initially, has rewarded me with hours and hours of pleasure. Switching between the two has been really instructive for me. Learning to play the Williams, my playing has improved on the Boosey - I discovered that it had all these wonderful things inside it all along that I was unaware of.
So, can I choose both.
M
I also have both keyed and keyless flutes. I don’t find any problems switching between them.
–James
I had very little trouble switching from Boehm to D keyless, even after 25+ years on Boehm. After all, it’s basically a D scale with F-sharp fingered like F-natural on a Boehm.
Switching to a 6-key D, on the other hand … 
It’s that darned long F key. Teaching my LH pinky to multi-task has been tough. The long C has taken a bit of getting used to as well.
But so far no trouble switching back to a keyless, thank heavens. In fact, it’s like a mini-vacation!
What really gets festive is when I have a wedding or some sort of gig where I drag out the old Boehm and switch between it and the 6-key (and what the heck, why not the tinwhistle, too?).
That seems to require some thought. Maybe it IS a good thing I don’t drink anymore! 
Yeah, what he said. Exactly.