I think I am going to stick with the flute so I am looking around, while saving up, to see what I might want.
Casey Burns makes flutes in a small handed version and is on my wish list.
But I was wondering, if there are other makers who do this, or are willig to make a flute with a smaller spread and smaller holes?
I would like to make myself a little list of what I would like, in wood.
You can PM or email me, with your experiences if you ever ordered a custom flute from a maker and how it worked out.
Also would like to hear from makers themselves what they think on this subject.
I think the sizes of the holes may have more to do with hand comfort than how far apart they are. Also, good hand posture and avoinding tension go a long way to make a hard flute playable.
Glauber, for me personally, the finger spread makes more difference than the size of the toneholes. Sometimes those small-holed flutes can have a pretty impressive finger spread.
What I appreciate about Casey is that he’ll attempt to fit the flute to your hands. I scanned a picture of my hands (not pretty) and emailed him an actual-size copy. He was able to dramatically reduce the distance between holes 2 and 3, and also somewhat between holes 5 and 6. The simple system left hand spread (holes 2-3) has always kept me from having a comfortable flute. (Piper’s grip on that hand actually seems to make the pain worse). I don’t know how he does it, but I’m glad someone is trying to help those of us with size-challenged hands.
My Bleazey flute has about the same spread as my Casey small-holed flute, but it has a much stronger E (which suffers sometimes with small-hole designs). I don’t think Phil does the offset holes as Casey does, though, plus the diameter is somewhat larger.
In my experience, Casey’s flutes are the best for
small hands and ergonomics. Never seen anything
comparable. Casey has obviously put a lot of
time and energy into working this out.
I don’t need all of this, in fact, personally,
but the ergonomics are welcome, especially
on the Bb flute.
Well, I usually look to Ebay when i’m seeking for a flute, the real problem is that is difficoult to find a good modern flute with large holes and 8 keys.
but I have seen so much antique flutes with small holes and fully chromatic (6-8keys) sold for a very small price.
And, even if you have to add to this ending price, a part of money to give to “your” flute a good check up, it could be wonderful owns a “clementi” or a Metzler" or others great flute instead of a silly keyless…
an hundreds year piece of wood have a very different sound from a new one!!
If you are still looking for a moodern Small holes flute, well terry McGee has his Larsen’s model (and many peoples claim that it Rocks) and also Thomas Aebi has good flutes with this features.
Frank
This brings up a question: What do people mean when they say their hands are small, large, or “normal”? Have there been any posts attempting to define what hand sizes really mean? It would be helpful to have some kind of objective definition so when someone says flute X is good for a certain hand size, we have a better idea of what that means.
sorry for the black&white. The scanner added bizarre colors. My hands are really just all light-pink, none of the blotches that appear in the picture are real.
My Cotter flute (almost standard Pratten, with large holes) causes me some pain unless i’m very careful about hand position. My Cameron/Grenser baroque flute has longer spread but much smaller holes, and it doesn’t cause me pain at all, even at A=415 (that is, by modern standards it’s really in C#, not in D).
A few years of classical guitar playing gave me a better stretch on the left than on the right hand (about 5 cm more, from thumb to pinky in full spread).
I think CB’s ergonomic flutes are great. As i said in the beginning of this thread, at least for me, large holes make the problem of finger spread much harder.
George Ormiston offers flutes with smaller holes for people with smaller hands, and in a few threads here in the forum people have mentioned quite a few times that his flutes are suitable for people with smaller hands.
Unfortunately I cannot say much about his flutes so far, as I’m going to order mine next week and will have to wait for it until December, as George’s waiting list is 6 months at the moment.
Thus I can only say that the e-mail contact with George Ormiston has been very helpful, he told me the exact differences between the holes, for example, so I could check whether I’ll be okay with that. He also makes the embouchure hole in the shape you want.
But as I said - I haven’t played one of his flutes, so you’ll better have a look for yourself:
I definately am not showing my hands. I wouldn’t be able to stand all the laughter. My hands are a disaster for the piano, but my stunted pinkies don’t bother my Irish flute playing one bit, thank you.
Here are my ideas about flutes for small hands. I am thinking out loud, so please correct me if I am wrong. In general, cylindrical bore low D flutes, like any flute made from PVC pipe, will require at least average adult-size hands to successfully cover the finger holes. If I were to make a low D flute with all small size holes, I personally would not want to play it, because it would be too uncomfortable. And I don’t know any way to bring the small holes any closer together because the physics of the scale determines the position of each finger hole. If you ergonomically offset one of the finger holes, which I often do, the flute might be easier to finger, but the finger holes would actually be farther apart (Think of the hypotenuse of the right triangle here). The way that I compress the fingering on my large, low D flute is to alter the size of the finger holes. Having a larger hole next to a smaller hole can bring the center of the holes closer together. To maximize finger hole compression, I use three different hole sizes for the three right hand fingers. The second finger hole is 7/16” in diameter, and that is a big finger hole. Having made these adjustments and thereby maximizing finger hole compression, the flute may still be uncomfortable for a person with small hands to finger. For this reason I do accept returns on all of my flutes.
On cylindrical bore flutes larger finger holes do have some advantage. First, the larger finger holes helps correct the slight flattening of the upper part of the second register, which is an inherent quality of cylindrical bore flutes. Secondly, larger finger holes make for loud and clear flute tones. And thirdly, larger finger holes make slurs more expressive and half-holing more successful.
Having said the above about cylindrical bore flutes, let me say something positive about conical bore flutes for people with smaller hands. First, the flow of air in a conical bore flute is compressed by the taper of the bore. This also compresses the fingering. Therefore, finger holes can be made smaller in diameter and closer together, depending on the taper of the bore. For this reason, conical bore low D flutes are the best choice for anyone with less than average adult-size hands, in my opinion.
I’m utterly shocked by the size differential in Dana’s and Glauber’s hands! His hands are easily 6-8 times as large as Dana’s.