Newby Journal Vol 1 - The Flute Arrives

Irish Flute
1

The man from the yellow van dropped the package I’ve been anxiously waiting for at the door today. Finally, the wait was over and, with great anticipation and plenty of sniffing from my dog, Kobi, I carefully opened the bright yellow box. The Copley & Boegli 3 piece, slideless, blackwood flute had arrived. And so begins yet another musical adventure.

Inside the black plastic case the 3 sections lay on a bed of gray, egg carton foam along with a nifty little hygrometer, which was showing 48%, and stick of cork grease. Visually, the flute is stunning in its simplicity and craftsmanship. The blackwood finish is a gorgeous, satiny, piano black with 4 sterling silver rings. The L2 and R2 holes are larger than I expected, especially R2 hole which seems huge. The embouchure cut appears to be like a slightly elongated oval but not at all like the McGee rounded rectangle. It even has an aroma: an oily, woody essence that is noticeable up close…not offensive but certainly not sweet. It has obviously been meticulously crafted by a master craftsman. In a word: beautiful.

The sections fit together snugly with the headjoint a little tighter than the bottom section. Since I have played the silver Boehm flute for a few years, I just lined the finger holes up with the embouchure hole and gave it a blow. Partial success. A little twisting of the head inward and, ahh…there it is, a warm, rich, throaty tone. No problem with air; it seems easy for me to fill the flute fully. Without consulting a keyless flute chart, I just played the scale from D1 all the way to F#3 as if I was playing my silver flute, and I seem to get a fairly strong low D too. G3 stopped me; the Boehm fingering just didn’t work there.

Two things surprised me: (1) I was able to play the scale into the third octave, and (2) easily covering the holes and finding a comfortable hand position was proving to be problematic. After I got a keyless scale chart from Terry McGee’s website, I found I could play up to A3 but, try as I might, B3 just didn’t want to cooperate. Also, hand comfort had me worried.

Keeping mind that I had a limited amount of time to play without risking the dreaded crack, I played more scales and tried a few tunes from The Complete Irish Tinwhistle Tunebook. Now things were beginning to deteriorate. My embouchure was getting sloppy and my fingers were not cooperating, especially the R3, which is a stretch for me. So I disassembled the flute, swabbed it out, and reluctantly lay it aside to dry.

After a couple of hours, I reassembled the flute and, while studying the pictures in Grey Larsen’s Essential Guide to the Irish Flute and Tinwhistle, I tried to find a more comfortable hand position…even the piper’s grip which felt horrible to me. So finally, while standing in front of a big mirror and fussing with twisting the sections, I found a bit of a compromise. It was best for me to use more of a piper’s hold for my right hand and cover the holes further back on my fingers behind the pads of the first joint. That felt more relaxed, and I was having more success sealing the R3 hole.

Some final thoughts and questions:
The flute is not comfortable for me from the get-go. The R3 will take some getting used to as will the L3 but less so. The angle of my right wrist seems to be more acute when supporting the Irish flute versus the silver flute. I’m a little worried about how tiring that feels. Any suggestions?

I’m certainly more comfortable with the rounded rectangle embouchure of the silver flute, but the Copley cut seems pretty easy for me to play. Filling the flute is no problem at all for me. My tone seems a little sweeter than I would like; my wife says it is definitely more “breathy” in quality, but it isn’t as reedy as I hope to be able to eventually get. Is that something that comes with embouchure development for the Irish flute, or is that more a function of the style of Irish flute? I’m not sure if this flute leans more toward a Pratten or a Rudall? Anyone know?

All and all, this seems to be a fabulous flute. Whether it is a good fit for my medium sized hands is yet to be determined. I do wish I was able to compare it with a GLP, for example, to see if that would be a better fit, or if this is just the normal learning curve for a relative beginner. Has anyone played them both? If so, how do they compare and contrast? Maybe you can chime in here, Doc? :slight_smile:

BTW, I titled this thread Newby Journal since I thought that I might periodically post about my experiences with the Irish flute from a newb’s perspective. Perhaps other newbies searching the forum like I did might find my journey helpful and could easily find any additional “volumes.”

Best,
Bob

Come to the edge/ It’s too high/ Come to the edge/ We might fall/ Come to the edge/ And we came/ And he pushed/ And we flew!
Guillaume Appollinaire

2

The Boehm has a huge embouchure.
Get closer, make your embouchure smaller.
The breathy is from the air stream escaping from where it should be. (This is where the spit rice thing goes…small rice, very small rice) focus.

It’s all normal.

The Boehm is much easier to hold onto, also. Stay relaxed. :laughing:

3

Denny wrote:

It’s all normal.

I’m really not worried about the embouchure. I know that will improve. I was playing overtones quite easily. So with practice, the trust the tone will develop.

However, I’m trying to tweak the hold and, no matter what I’ve done so far, I feel quite a bit of strain from my left index finger knuckle down to my wrist. In order to seal the left hand holes, it seems like my left index finger is cocked back practically to the max and in order for my left ring finger to cover the L3 hole.

No doubt that the Boehm feels more comfortable for me to hold easily even though it is much more heavy.

Bob

Come to the edge/ It’s too high/ Come to the edge/ We might fall/ Come to the edge/ And we came/ And he pushed/ And we flew!
Guillaume Appollinaire

4

you might try moving the flute a bit closer to the palm on the 1st knuckle, wrist straight. Think of the whole forearm, palm to the first knuckle as a rigid bar. Quit when it starts to hurt. It should get better after a while and you get used to it, but don’t push it into an injury.

On the right hand try with your fingers straighter or straight. The bent finger tip thing I use on the Boehm does not work on simple system flutes.

If there is a tendon between your hands you can turn the right away from you. Many find that helps ease the hold.

5

Thanks, Denny, I’ll try these suggestions and see how they work for me. I had some overuse injuries when I was teaching myself the Boehm flute. I was over gripping with my thumbs to help steady the flute, and I developed a bit of tendonitis and had to stop for a while. Of course, I would play for hours at a time which wasn’t wise, but what I really had to learn was how to balance the flute without stress.

6

It’s worth searching this forum or Terry McGee’s website for info on the “Rockstro grip”. Very briefly, in this grip the thumbs are not supporting the flute from below (the left thumb needs to be free to play the Bb key on a keyed flute). Instead, the right thumb is pushing out (away from your body) on the side of the flute, the left hand first finger base is pushing in towards your body and acting as a pivot, and the result is to press the flute against the lower lip, and these three contacts hold the flute up. This way of holding the flute makes it easier to keep the left wrist straight like Denny says, so there is a line of support from the forearm, through the wrist and palm to the base of the finger. It also makes it easier to avoid twisting the left wrist, or bending it towards the little finger to help make the L3 stretch.

Hugh

7

flutefry wrote

t’s worth searching this forum or Terry McGee’s website for info on the “Rockstro grip”.

I’ll definitely look that up on Terry’s website in a bit. I’m letting the flute dry out at the moment. This break-in period is the pits; I feel like an addict and the flute is just lying there tempting me to use it! :devil:

I felt more comfortable with it today while playing a few scales and a couple of tunes. I followed some of Denny’s tips and found that turning the bottom section out just a bit helped my me reach R3 better with my fingers pretty straight. I am also turning the headjoint inward slightly while pushing my left elbow outward a tad so my forearm and wrist aren’t cocked at such a severe angle. This feels more relaxed. When I adjust one thing, something else is affected, so I think it is pretty much a matter of trying various adjustments at this point and settling in with the flute.

8

When my flute was breaking in I spent time just picking it up, putting it to my lips without blowing putting it down again, picking it up, fingering some scales, jiggling my shoulders and wrists, looking into the mirror to see if I looked anything like traditional flute players in pictures, fondling it whilst reading this forum etc, etc.

The idea came from something I heard someone say about new golf clubs, or swords or something like that. I think it helped me feel ‘at home’ with it and so get more out of the short times I was allowed to play it. Mind you, I was making the transition from a whistle that was weightless in comparison.

Point being - you have longer for training your body to do those slightly different things that just the playing time.

9

Here are a couple more observations and a couple of questions from playing today:

I can play the notes of the D major scale pretty well right up until A3 and B3 which I can only hit when forcing it…generally not pretty. My dog heads out of the room at that point. I’m not finding the fingering differences between the Boehm flute and the simple flute to be as confusing as I thought it might be; I’m able to switch back and forth between instruments fairly well.

I do have a question about the best fingering for a couple of notes for the keyless flute. I find that playing C1 OXXOOO sounds thin to me whereas
fingering it OXOXXX sounds fuller to me. I’m not able to get either of those fingerings spot on using a pitch meter. Both tend to be 20 - 30 cents flat. The OXXOOO seems to be easier and I would expect it to be preferred for speed. Is there a preferred fingering?

Also, C#1 sounds thin also, but it is usually a bit thin on the silver flute as well.

In the second octave, the same thing occurs for me with C#2 either played as OOO??? (? = optional) or OXXXOO which doesn’t work as well for me. Again, they just sound thin and bit hollow.

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10

I’ve never heard it said that holding a flute is a perfectly natural thing to do, but trying for the most comfortable/relaxed way to both hold the flute and to leave the fingers free to move is a really good way to tackle the matter.

That is, comfort is a good overall strategy, which not only helps now, but serves well into the future.

11

While there are recommended fingerings for the wood flute, it’s also true that deviation from these recommendations could occur. Basically, just follow your ear.

For C1 and C2, I prefer OXO XXO, and sometimes OXO XXX. The usual OXX OOO tends to produce a veiled sound in the lower register, and is untenable in the upper register, frankly. And, I wouldn’t be too concerned as to just which fingerings are faster, for in time each of your six fingers will learn to be independent of each other, and will simply go to whatever positions you train them to. Your fingers will move and get into the right place before you have time to think about it. That’s just one payoff to regular practice, and, yes, there are others, too.

Even these preferred fingerings, however, likely will not produce perfect intonation at first try, and therefore they likely will need to be “lipped” in, just slightly, to get them in tune and to give them a tone similar to their neighbor tones, but it’s not hard to do and will soon become an automatic reflex.

I also see that you are going for the top of the third register. All well and good, but for the most part these tones are not so much needed in ITM. Just getting the first two and a half octaves will serve you well.

12

Cork wrote:

While there are recommended fingerings for the wood flute, it’s also true that deviation from these recommendations could occur. Basically, just follow your ear.

Are there other fingering options for various notes that are commonly used? Is there a good resource available on the web for them? I have Terry McGee’s keyless chart.

13

Why don’t you ask Dave Copley?
Somehow I’d think that he would know…

14

Well, it depends on just what you need/want to do. For instance, there are also some popular half-holed fingerings, to get tones not otherwise available on the standard diatonic scale. I’d suggest simply working on the standard scales of D and G, where G calls for the Cnat fingering. Trust me on this one, please, that just these two scales will keep you entertained for quite some while, as they represent much of ITM, at large. Indeed, if you only learn two scales well, these are them.

The best resource for ITM flutes on the Web? Well, I don’t want to sound arrogant, but you have already found it, right here, the C&F FF. By golly, if a question can’t be answered about ITM flutes here, there may not be an answer!

Terry McGee is also a member of this board, a flute manufacturer of outstanding reputation, a very smart cookie, and a great person to interact with. As I mentioned about fingering charts, however, some flutes could vary slightly in their fingering requirements, so the standard chart really needs to be taken with a grain of salt, so to speak, and hence the suggestion to simply follow your ear.

15

On a Copley there won’t be too many options for accidentals in the first two octaves outside of half-holing. Cork has already noted other options for C. IIRC, the Copley has a pretty good second-octave Bflat with XXO XXX. For first octave you might try XOX XXX or some variant. XXO XXX might sound a G# in the first octave, but I don’t think so. If you have a good flexible lip, which is a great thing for the traverso but less great for the Irish flute, you’ll likely be able to lip at least some of these into tune.

Half-holing is a good skill to have for the keyless-flute player. The size of LH2 and RH2 on the Copley lend themselves to half-holing the Bflat and Fnat. I have no problem with either of these on medium-holed flutes.

16

Dave Copley is a member also :smiley:

17

True enough!

:wink:

18

How long should a new flute be broken in? Im looking for a new flute right now and I’m bididng in a McGee flute on eBay. If the flute is a year old, should I break it in at all?

19

read these…full report due Monday…have a nice weekend :smiley:
Fire Scribble
The Flow
Rick Wilson’s Historical Flute
Terry McGee

20

It would depend on how much it had been played.