I’ve recently had the lend of a copy of the Larsen book, and reading his (brief) comments on the “piper’s grip” got me thinking about just what that term means. As it’s currently used, it seems to refer to anything other than the classical LH flute hold. In my opinion, this is a too-broad use of what should be a very specific term.
Leaving the standard grip aside, there are actually two alternate LH holds that one typically sees. Some players use the second joints of the LH fingers to cover the holes, supporting the flute generally on the flat part of the first joint of the thumb. This, to me, is the true “piper’s grip,” as it very closely resembles the way the LH is used in the playing of the uilleann pipes.
Other players, myself included, cover the holes with the first joints of the LH fingers, generally supporting the flute on the tip of the thumb (unless one has a hitchhiker’s thumb!). Alternately, the LH thumb is placed on the side of the flute, doing more to hold the flute against the lip than support its weight. This most emphatically does not look anything like how a piper holds the chanter.
In my travels, I have encountered at least as many players who use this hold as I have players who use the “piper’s grip,” if not more. It is in every way a distinct and, in the Irish music community, common way of holding the flute with the left hand, and deserves its own name in order to clearly distinguish it from the other two. In acknowledgement of the prevalence of this hold in Ireland and amongst Irish payers, I hereby submit that this should be called the “Irish hold.”
On a large bansuri I use the following “pipers’ grip”
top phalange of LH ring finger (the “anchoring phalange”)
middle phalange of middle and index fingers
(this is pretty standard for bansuri players who use non fingertip style)
Top phalange of LH thumb is at about 220deg (looking down from embouchure end) somewhat higher up the tube than the index finger.
This is critical for large bansuri for to stabilise it by pushing approx. opposite pressure of chin (just below lip).
I do not use this grip on my Wicklow flute because it has a thumbhole and I just use a fingertip style for the LH (and using a piper’s type grip for the RH).
Interesting about the bansuri, Talasiga. There are obviously layers of complexity to the issue of holding the instrument that come into play when one includes other winds, thumbholes, etc. But keeping the question simple…
What did you think about the point I raised concerning what is and what is not a “piper’s grip” for the Irish flute?
My LH grip is pretty much exactly as you describe it. My LH thumb balances the flute a little, but I also use it to push the flute against my lip. Due to a problem with my elbow, the Rockstro grip causes my arm to become uncomfortably stiff.
So, I can get behind “Irish hold”…or at least some way of distinguishing from a true piper’s grip.
Rob,
If one is ever going to use the LH keys - the G# and the long F keys - wouldn’t you have to use the Irish grip?
You’ll be famous now for inventing a term for something that everybody’s been doing. Sad to say though we don’t know who first coined the term for “skipping” or “flirting.”
I could never get very far with the obsessive Larsen tutorial - though I don’t get very far with most instruction books that deal with something that seems to me so intuitive. I learn how to flute by watching, listening, and playing. No book can substitute for hours with your instrument.
Any grip, no matter how you define it, must , at the end of the day, be an ergonomic outcome. And that infers differences that arise due to
the particular flute
the the particular hand
the particular posture angle
the particular kinesthetic.
I really don’t think it is useful to go about saying things like,
" Ah Joey is not using the “proper” piper’s grip because e’s using his LH ring finger’s top phalange instead of the middle phalange".
The pipers’ grip is, at best, a descriptionn not a prescription. That is why I gave a link to that site about the bansuri - to demonstrate that even one of the oldest living traditions of simple system fluting is not absolute in its prescription. Issue for extrapolation.