Fair enough. I listen to everybody you mentioned (save M.C., whom I clearly must Google), and I agree there’s definitely more than one way to flense the proverbial feline. Taking flute players as a whole, however, I would wager that more folks are at the flowy thing than the huffy-puffy thing (don’t you just love technical language?). I was holding Matt up as the avatar of legato Irish playing, and in fairness who can top him? I didn’t mean to suggest that he’s the living embodiment of all facets of trad fluting.
Me, I like a bit of argy-bargy in the flute. Too much smoothness palls pretty quickly, lulls the ear. When I play, I make my style choices based on what pleases me, but I know how to play all around my preferences, i.e. huff and puff, straight legato, tonguing like Galway (sort of). Exploring different approaches is part of a mature understanding of the instrument, after all. Still, when one is starting out you can’t put it all on your plate at once and expect any of it to make sense.
Clearly we both agree that a foundation in legato play is essential. I also agree that it isn’t everything the flute has to offer, but understanding that style is crucial to getting the instrument, regardless of where you end up stylistically. I would maintain, however, that even if the OP is after something with a few more lumps in it, tonguing is not the way to get there.
When I started, without knowing it, I used tonguing (initially) and breath pulses (later) to cover up a lot of fingering slop. Later, it became a habit. Now as an advisory, let me say I do play “utilitarian” music, i.e. mostly for real dancers. Sometimes in a different style for listeners but mostly dance music of different genres. And you can get away with a lot of breathy rhythmic pulsing because that’s what often works for dance.
But at one point I started recording myself and listening critically, and was really quite appalled. So I started concentrating on smoothing things out. Lots more legato. It really helped!
Then my bandmates asked “couldn’t you put more of pulse in that, more oomph, like you used to do?” So I started to work toward the right mix, something I’m still aspiring to, clear and articulate phrasing with feeling and lots of lift but without too much pointless chatter.
Regardless, I think the best approach is to get your fingering right and precise right from the start without leaning on breath or tonguing to hide defects. Later on you can add as much of that as is helpful to the sounds you aspire to play.
I was listening to Eddie Maloney’s playing, which is decidedly punctuated throughout, giving a lot of the chirp that’s evident in the Ballinakil Traditional Players recordings http://www.lafferty.ca/music/irish/flute-geezers/
Technical language/thing is not the music, for sure, but it’s better to know how to do the thing, and the technical language is less sibylline than others IMO, especially when you want to be clear with a beginner, about flute and/or styles.
Of course, but you have to taste all the food (or not) before you learn all the recipes (or not) !
