I spent the weekend learning the tune ‘Crested Hens’, which I heard on the first Solas album. It’s a very beautiful tune, with a slow and mournful D# right in the middle of the B part. While I have no trouble getting a good slide into this note on a whistle, I don’t have sufficient control of my keyless flute yet to get a good D#. (Very frustrating!) Other than half-holing, or buying a keyed flute, is there a way to get this note?
IMHO, there is no good way to half-hole for D#. Between the thick depth of the tone hole and small size of the hole, the best you’ll get is a fuzzy note that’s close but not quite right. A key is essential for D#.
YMMV,
Eric
You could also try transposing it…try it with the first note of the tune as A instead of E. This requires half-holing an F-nat and a G-sharp, plus you have to go up to the third-octave D, but that’s good practice for your embouchure, and it’s a lot easier to half-hole those notes than to try to play D# on a keyless flute. For G# if half-holing is difficult you can try playing A and flattening it by putting down the first two fingers of your right hand.
By the way, the Solas version is a very slowed-down version of the original tune, which was composed by a hurdy-gurdy player and was meant to be played as a bourrée.
If however you want to play a D#, and if your flute has a short foot joint, you could try this trick: play an E while leaning over and stopping the end of the flute on your leg. That will give you a note pretty close to D#, although it may sound a bit muffled!
Practice. The flute and the whistle are very different instruments that happen to share a common fingering. You shouldn’t expect much other than knowing the fingerings for tunes to transfer over when you shift from playing whistle to playing flute - no matter how long you’ve been playing the whistle. If you don’t have sufficient control of your keyless flute yet to get a good D#, work on gaining control of the flute. Chances are your lack of control is manifesting itself on other notes besides just the D#. How’s your D? How’s your E? Are you aware that there are embouchure differences (albeit subtle) needed between these two adjacent notes in order to play each of them cleanly? This is the type of thing that’s different between the flute and the whistle, and something that whistle players tend to gloss over when making the switch. So, if there are differences in how you’re going to approach the D and the E, both of which have totally closed-hole fingerings, imagine how much more complex it’s going to be to produce a good clean D#, in which you need to combine a half-holing finger technique with an embouchure shift in order to produce the best possible note. But it can be done, with practice. Some folks will need more practice than others, bit if you can play a good D and a good E, you should eventually be able to produce a good D#. (Not saying I can do it myself - but then I’ve never tried, because none of the tunes I play contains that note.) Find the D# note and learn what you need to do to sound it consistently before you try sliding into it. Don’t cut corners. Every note is important, so before you start a slide, you need to know exactly where you’re going with it so you can end the slide consistently and cleanly.
And BTW, don’t think that having keys would be an instant solution to problems like this, either. In addition to learning the new fingering patterns for using the keys, you’ll find you need to blow the keyed notes differently to get them to sound as cleanly as their neighbors. With practice, these things do tend to eventually become second nature. But the flute is a very physical instrument, which is something not too many non-flute players realize. It’s a hard instrument to play well. I’ve been at it for almost 15 years, and I still realize this on a daily basis. Whistle I’m sure is hard in its own way, but its challenges are very different than those of the flute - so anyone who’s trying to play both instruments needs to be aware of this.
Try hitting just the edge of the hole, either front or back, whichever works best, and blow down deep into the flute with a good pulse from the diaphragm-seems to work fairly well on my Jon C Pratten with some practice.
Thanks. And Barry, it happens to be a Jon C Pratten flute that I’m wrestling with on this. Rather large holes, and lots of room to get around.
When I’ve been able to get the sound I’m after, it has been by fingering just past the D hole, and letting the side of my finger glide just above the front of it. When I hit it right, I get just the right kind of sliding “sigh” sound. This proves to me that it can be done, and with full volume to boot. The problem has been in trying to do it consistently. So, I don’t doubt that the solution is just to keep practicing, as suggested.
Right. This is the hardest note to half hole, but it can
be done. It takes time, practice, and patience. I aim
for the bottom edge of the hole.
LOTS of time, practice and PATIENCE–but it can be done
and it’s definitely worth acquiring.
G# is another doozy and it’s doable. Practicing A
scales helps.
Bb is for me the easiest half hole.
Keys help and it’s worth being able to do this stuff
keyless too.
P. S. it’s tough enough getting the D#, by the way.
Sliding might be postponed for awhile.