My flute is keyless.
It plays diatonically in the key of D major.
Therefore it is not keyless.
My friend’s flute has 6 keys.
It can easily play fully chromatically.
Therefore it is keyless.
I’m confused.
Haiku:
Simple keyless flute
Diatonic, keyed in D
So keyless no more
This statement is false.
Hmm, using this logic maybe all “keyless” flutes should be called five-key flutes, because without any half-holing or cross-fingering (other than the C natural) you can play in at least five keys easily, such as D, Em, G, Am, and Bm on a D flute.
Play more, key less, that’s the key to less distress.
Shannon, please tell me you’ve read “Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golded Braid” …
do you walk to work, or carry your lunch?
I got partway into that book and totally got lost. What I could deconstruct (humanities person here) was really interesting, but it is definitely not easy going.
I’m clueless about the keyless definition. My open-holed, silver flute has 17 holes, all of which are covered with keys. It is clearly chromatic, playable in any key but still tuned in D with regard to the open holes, just like the Irish simple system flute. I wouldn’t consider it keyless for that reason. If this is not correct, then I may be wrong.
Maybe a better phrase would be omni-keyed?
Yep, read it when I was an undergraduate, in the 80’s. I agree, it’s not easy going. You did too, didn’t you, Fyffer!
Indeed – I have read it three separate times, spaced by approximately 5 years between reads. As a matter of fact, it’s about time to read it again. I read it, worked through it, agonized on it, wrote some programs, read more of it, laughed, cried …
'tis a lovely thing.
'f y’wanna read it together, I’m up for it. But I’m a slow reader.
Metamagical Themas is good too. I’ve read most of Mr. Hofstadter’s books but wouldn’t claim to understand more than 1/2 of what I’ve read.
-Brett
P.S. I’ve been trying to get myself to read A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram (Mathematica guy) but haven’t made it very far…
Oh my! Look, Shannon – another self-proclaimed math super-geek has come out of the closet!
Brett, you may or may not believe this, but I started to plow through Metamagical Themas as well, and got very sidetracked along the way. I do still have it, and hopefully I’ll get back into it. Wanna get on the GEB bandwagon with me and Shannon?? We’ll start a flute-players/math geek book club.
There was one other Hofstadter book – which I have long since lost, and forgotten the title. It was gold with black lettering on the jacket, and the cover art was a strangely scripted alphabet, and much of the book was essays and theses on intelligent computer programs, one of which was supposed to derive complete fonts based on a couple of example letters. Other essays were about programs to do “Jumble” puzzes. I really liked that book, and was sad to have it disappear (besides, it was a $30+ hardcover, first edition, uneven pages and all!)
FLUTE PLAYING MATH GEEKS UNITE!
I read it a few years ago, it’time to read it again and refresh the ram; May I join the club? (in French version)
Wow – who would have thought?
Anyone who is interested, meet here for now:
http://godelescherbach.blogspot.com/
I know that ya’ll joking and that but for the record for some who may get confused, I hope this won’t confuse further:-
In english music usage “key” has three meanings.
In the sense of meaning 1 above an unkey3ed D flute easily obtains 7 keys - D, E, F#, G, A, B and cross fingered C whereas a key3ed flute obtains 12.
However this capacity has little relevance to the sense of key2. In the sense of key2 the unkey3ed D flute only obtains two key2 and that is the key of D major/B natural minor and G major/ E nat. minor. This is why Indians refer to what we would call a D flute as a G flute.
I am quite mystified as to how brad gets A minor given his post is premised on only cross fingering for the C. The A minor progression is
A B C D E F G A+.
How do you get the minor 6th - the F - without half holing Brad?
Ooops…wrong Brad..
But anyway…XXX XOX…and a little practice w/ a tuning meter…works on most of my “Rudalls” and “Pratttens”…works best on M&E Rudall and Noy keyless.
Sorry Jack - wrong method 
Youv’e definitley got a point.
It works well enough on a slow F, as I’m lipping it down, but I notice I’m shading the f quite a bit with R2. But then, I’ve never had much luck trying to half-hole.
You just don’t get it Jackie Baby, do you?
Brad Hurley’s post infers that he can get an A minor progression on a D flute without cross fingering or half holing.
See?