For those who have learnt both pipes and flute and managed/struggled to keep up both.
How has moving from one to the other affected one’s style eg. do tight pipers who learn the flute loosen up a bit. Are flute players more inclined to play pipes as though they’re just an extension of the flute and not get into the technicalities of staccato/tapping/trilling etc.
Notable players who can play both brilliantly would include Ronan Browne. I understand Tommy Keane’s a flute player too although apart from his piping I’ve only heard him on the whistle. One of the struggles I’ve encountered learning the flute after already taking up the pipes is that my fingers know what they’re doing whilst my embouchure is obstinate and hard to develop.
Looking at it from the other direction - I’m looking forward to hearing how Harry Bradley plays the uilleann pipes.
Incidentally, I’ve heard it said more than once - and I can’t remember where, who or when - that Willie Clancy was a better flute-player than piper. Was he ever recorded on flute? Anyone know if this was true or not ?
Heh. That’s the problem whistlers have moving to the flute, too.
I’m far from a good whistler, but I know a fair amount of tunes - and trying to play most of them on flute with my undeveloped embouchure is frustrating. That I’m still using my Dixon Duo - far from the best flute, or even the best cylindrical flute - doesn’t help, but I’ve heard more-skilled players sound pretty decent on it.
I keep telling myself that when I get my embouchure under control, and start sounding halfway-decent on the Dixon I will upgrade to something better and sound really, really good.
Other than embouchure and open-vs-closed style issues, do you notice any other major effects on your playing style? I would think the need to fit breathing into your phrasing would be just as big a difference.
Are flute players more inclined to play pipes as though they’re just an extension of the flute and not get into the technicalities of staccato/tapping/trilling etc.
At first, yeah! The best advice anyone ever gave me on piping was “Remember you’re not playing a flute!” That was BK. I’m only just now starting to get the hang of popping (like when to use it and when to refrain). But I’ve always used taps and trills on my flute anyway, so that wasn’t too hard. Staccato took a while to get used to, but now I really like the staccato BC#D triplet in some tunes and have taken to throating it on the flute.
edited to add: And I love not having to breath on the pipes! I like how I can keep longer notes long and maybe do a roll that I couldn’t do on the flute. But then when I learn a tune first on the pipes, I have to figure out breathing when I play it on the flute. And tunes I learned first on the flute, I have to remember that I can just keep playing along without a breath on the pipes.
This is not as silly as it sounds. The Dixon is a really hard flute to get a decent tone on, you have to have a well focused embouchure to hit it. I started out on the Dixon and when I felt I had a decent tone on it I recieved my first M&E R&R, and I acctually sounded quite nice on it right out of the box. Of course my embouchure needed some adjustment to fit the M&E but since I already had a fairly good idea about embouchure technique (perhaps better that I would have if I started out on something easier) it didn’t require much effort. This is a good reason why the Dixon is a good buy for a newbie, as long as he is aware of the fact that it is a hard flute, so that he doesn’t get discouraged.
Clancy was known as an excellent whistle player, not flute. He took a stab at fiddle, as did Ennis. Ennis thought he was the better fiddler of the two, but from the little I have heard of Ennis’ fiddling, I think Clancy was much better.
I have not been able to match flute playing to piping. The breathing itself is an ornament of flute playing, so the whole feel of playing is different (to me). The thing that has brought my embouchure on the most is having two very different flutes by two different makers: a D ergonomic by Casey Burns, and a Bnat Rudall Perfected by Terry McGee. Having to change from one to the other makes me more conscious of the differences and keeps me mindful of what I have to do to get my embouchure to work. This makes me more sensitive to the needs of both.
Willie Clancy was an accomplished flute and whistleplayer long before he ever even saw and heard the pipes. According to Pat Mitchell (in the book) he was able to do all the variations and ornamentations he did on the whistle on the flute.
Breandan Breathnach is on record saying he thought more of Willie as a whistleplayer than as a piper. I have spoken to people who heard Willie on the flute during the 1930s and they all said he was, and remained(that was ten fifteen years ago), unmatched. Considering his peers that included locally: Martin Talty, JC Talty, Peter O Loughlin and Josie Hayes (whom I all heard) that indeed means something.
No (known) recordings of Willie’s fluteplaying survive.
I think it goes both ways, in my experience you can put the pipes on the flute, and to some extent put the flute on the pipes.
For example, when teaching players who have experience on whistle or flute as well as pipes, often times they seem forget that when they play flute they (at least the more experienced players) coordinate the phrasing with their breathing because of the necessity to take a breath. When bringing the same tunes over to the pipes, the same players will often times run the phrases together since they don’t have a need to breath. I encourage them to visualize the phrasing they would do on the flute, and try to bring that over to the pipes to put life back into the tunes. Its pretty subtle stuff, but it makes all the difference.
Hmmm. When learning tunes on the flute, actually, I tend to first phrase them as if
I never needed to breathe, and simply drop notes wherever a breath happens to be
needed, and only later adjust the phrasing for breathing, or at least drop more sensible
notes. It seems like the pipes would just be easier and better in this respect. On the other
hand, I’d hate the lack of tonal variety. It seems to me that with variations in breath
pressure and embouchure, the flute is much more expressive than the pipes.
Of course, it could be argued very reasonably that that expressiveness is not so important
in the dance tunes, compared to the continuity, precision, and ornamental crispness the
pipes can achieve.
Still and all, the more I play the flute, the less desire I have to pick up
the pipes… not that there won’t always be a bit of ‘it’d be neat to try,’ but $10,000 is a
bit more than I’m willing to drop for ‘it’d be neat’!
(I know, I know, you don’t buy a full set when you first start out.)
I dunno if there’s a lesser amount of expressiveness in pipes - it’s just different. FOr one thing, the articulations pop out a lot more, which can definitely have an “expressive” effect. You can also get the staccato style of playing, which, while it’s possible on a flute, is not as distinctive.
And if yer good, you can be your own accompanist with regs.
Then again, a decent flute costs under $500. $$ talks
Ok, bare with me, because I am a Highland piper, not UP.
For me, I find the whole mouthblown pipe to flute thing, a little difficult in performance occasionally, you have to keep the transition practiced. Otherwise, since the pipes have a continuous sound, I find myself phrasing percussive sounds over breaks in breathing on the flute. Whereas on the pipes they are accomplished with hits, which are among our more aggressive gracings.
Other than that, its hard to learn embouchures, but once you’ve got em, there’s no turning back.
There are lots of people who play pipes and flute and manage to have fairly different styles on each.
Before I started on pipes, I tended to play flute with a lot of piping ornamentation and many of the tunes I learned were from recordings of pipers. Lots of rolls and crans. When I actually started playing pipes, I began to drift away from playing so much like that–unconsciously at first. I find that rather than visualizing pipes in my head when I’m playing flute, I tend more to think about how a fiddle player would do it. I’ve been listening to some recordings of Packie Duignan lately, and that’s got me thinking about more of a “less is more” approach to ornamentation.
There are a number of characteristically pipe-centric tunes that I prefer on flute, though. Particularly Colonel Fraser, as there are opportunities to really punch notes out on the flute in a way that you can’t really do on the pipes…
As another GHBer I know exactly what you mean and I could not agree with you more I usually put in stuff like doublings and wish I could do grips and tarolutahs on Flute.
MIke McGoldrick plays Pipes also listen to Otherworld by Lunasa him an McSherry switch off.
On some tunes you can get away with a tasty grip or two on a keyless. . . I love playing the Foxhunters (Waltz) like the Chieftains play it, using grips.
Is the ability to play flutluaths worth $300 for a low C key?
Part of the effect of crunluaths and taorluaths is that GHB has a natural crescendo on the bottom notes due to the conical bore (opposite of a flute). Notes on the C Foot don’t tend to have much of a wallop to them so even if you did finger either of those movements with the key, it would sound weak.
Fosgailte movements have a nice flutter to them on flute and whistle.
And I’m with the other GHB folks… embouchure and breath-phrasing are the biggest challenges with learning flute.
My belated thanks to Peter Laban for his contribution, – and just in case that’s not enough evidence that Willie Clancy did indeed play the flute, I offer the following:
from sleeve notes to “The Pipering Of Willie Clancy” Vol.1 [ by no less a personage than Seamus Ennis ] commenting on 2 reels played by Willie Clancy on whistle:-
“ two lively reels in which Willie displays his ability to play comfortably on the tin-whistle, thus giving us an insight into what his flute-playing was like before his denture days”.
also from Fintan Vallely’s “Companion To Traditional Irish Music” :-
“ Willie began on whistle at the age of 5, then played flute until he lost his teeth.”
What a shame we’ll never know what he sounded like, and what the relationship might have been between his flute-playing and piping.
[ Now where did I put that dental-floss ? ]
There are several pictures (and stories) of Willie with the flute from his days with the Tulla ceiliband during the mid 1940s. The flute he played was passed on to Martin Talty and is still in the hands of Martin’s son, piper Sean Talty. Who is one of my neighbours.
Willie learned his fluteplaying from his father Gilbert who played music with the man next door Peter Smith, the father of concertinaplayer Kitty Hayes Who grew up listening to her father playing the concertina wit hGilbert and can still, out of the blue, come up with memories of tunes they played.
During a memorial lecture at the 1982 Willie Clancy summerschool several of Willie’s friends ( John Kelly, Sean 'acDonncha, Seamus Ennis and Martin Talty, now all gone) told stories off Willie, Ennis had one of Willie entering a flute competition in London, where Ennis was living at the time. Ennis drove around afterward with Willie hanging out of the window shouting at passers by, overjoyed as he was with winning the competition.
