I’ve been playing flute off and on since the mid-90’s, sometimes seriously and sometimes not. I don’t go to sessions for various reasons. I work and have a young child and my practice time is fairly limited.
I have recently renewed my flute interest and i have several mid-priced keyless flutes (Seery, Schultz, Hoza Eb and F). I love ITM and related musics but i do get curious about other kinds of music, including that with chromaticism and i sometimes wish i had keys. I do have an antique 1-key which is in some romantic-era high pitch and that i find impossible to play in tune (might be me, might be the flute, might be a little of both). I’m intrigued by baroque flute but reading recent posts on the subject it seems like i’d have to re-learn a lot of things re: embouchure, etc.
So the question i’m wrestling with is this: should i get a keyed flute? I do have the means, mostly by selling or trading (non-flute) instruments i already have with maybe a little cash thrown in if the flute is expensive.
There are plenty of times i think i’ve got my hands full already with perfecting the basics: tone, timing, tunes. But i do get itchy to break out of the diatonic restrictions of the keyless.
I really like keys, so personally I would say go for it. In fact, you could get your Seery keyed which might allow you to sell less instruments than if you were going for a totally new keyed flute.
I love to play ragtime and classical music on my M&E, and it’s much more fun with keys.
I messed around with 4-, 6-, and 8-key flutes and never felt comfortable with them, and I played clarinet growing up. I’ve had a much easier time adjusting to the cross-fingerings, yet I’ve never been able to play recorder.
I wouldn’t ever argue that my experience is typical, but, to throw a monkey wrench into things, I’ll point out that Peter Noy makes a fully chromatic 1-key Irish flute.
come to think of it, Casey Burns does one too, though i always wondered how fully chromatic it could be and still be serviceable as an ITM flute – hole sizes and all – though if it can be done, seems like either of those gentlemen would be able to do it.
I have no idea how he does it. The holes are about the same as an Olwell Rudall, but the bore doesn’t taper as much and the embouchure is if anything a little bigger. The way I play them the sound of the Noy doesn’t have quite the edge that the Olwell does, but it definitely can be played with an edge as I inadvertently discovered one day when I thought it was the Olwell.
And, of course, it’s chromatic in the sense of a Baroque flute – flat F#, sharp Fnat if you don’t put a bit of work into them, but in-tune accidentals the rest of the way.
I guess when you start wanting to play tunes that have accidentals get keys. They’re fun.
My primary go-to flute is keyless. But, I recently got a wooden head for a Boehm flute. Now that’s a keyed flute! I play a lot of non-trad stuff as well so this solution worked better for me than a keyed simple-system tooter. I’m trying to get a bit more monongamist (well, OK bigamist) or I’d certainly have a 6-key Irish flute as well.
One thing I will say is that once you’ve played an F nat or any other accidental with a key you’ll never be happy with a cross fingering again.
I’ve actually thought about this as well… certainly easier to find a decent starter or step-up Boehm and find somebody to repair it as well if something goes wrong… but all that plumbing… oy vey! looks so complicated.
I think, aesthetically speaking anyway, a timber flute is more to my liking; though less-hassle is also more to my liking.
Personally, I’m all about instrument monogamy. I know it’s been debated endlessly, but my playing didn’t get better when I was playing two flutes (Irish keyless and baroque or when I had a keyless Irish and 4 key Irish). My playing has improved much more quickly by playing only one flute for every type of music.
Those keys aren’t nearly as difficult to use if you stick with one instrument and use them regularly.
The Boehm is actually the simplest of the simplest in keyed instruments, not complicated at all. I can teach you all common fingerings for the first 2 octaves in half an hour and you’ll never forget them.
But I’m totally with you on the aesthetics, even a wooden Boehm looks ugly compared to a timber flute (even if it has keys on it).
BTW I’m all for keys on an Irish flute. I think it is impossible to play accurate accidentals and a good 3rd octave without at least 4 keys(Eb, F, G# and Bb).
Personally, I think saxophone is easier than boehm flute, but that’s my poison of choice, as it were. So there you have it. They’re similar, regardless.
When I went to Eamonn Cotter for a keyed flute, I was only interested in Cnat, G#, and Fnat (short or long) and I didn’t have the money for a 6 keyed anyway. He made me a four key as above with short Fnat and a Bb. I rarely use the Bb.
I’m on the waiting list for an Olwell and was thinking about key configurations on that. At the weekend I was playing Shannon Heaton’s Olwell, which gave me an insight. Hers has, in addition to what I’m used to, a long Fnat and an Eb. The long Fnat is very useful, but I found the Eb was in the way of my little finger, so obviously would take a bit of getting used to. Nice to throw into tunes in D major, though…
I’d get keys if I was you. You don’t have to use them unless you want, and they are good for certain notes and decorations, and better tunefully than crossfingering.
m.d.
My expanding midsection says no way. And then there’d be the arch comments from the peanut gallery: “Is that a flute, or are you just happy to see me?”
I refuse to prompt the predictable. Well, sometimes. I suppose it’d be worth it to reply, “I’m happy to see you,” and enjoy the reaction.
I’ll confess that I love having all eight keys. I love ITM, but there’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored: classical, ragtime, old time… I couldn’t imagine giving up a single key, I use them all. And the low C & C# let me follow the fiddles down below the staff on occasions, which is fun. So I’d say go for it, and if you’re gonna do it, go whole hog and get all 8. If you find the E flat key gets in your way, you can always rotate the foot joint, but you’ll probably get used to it.
I totally agree with you Kate. And there is Scottish trad and early Scottish, English, Israeli and all kinds of wonderful Balkan dance music to explore, apart from a lot of Irish airs not in D and G. So get the full ship if you can afford it, and pester the maker to make it as ergonomic for you as he can. Especially the G# key is traditionally very poorly designed on wooden flutes from English traditional design, and hard to use.
Honestly, when I read this I managed to wet the screen in front of me with a bit of the tea I am drinking. LOL!!
Let me admit, that I have feet in at least two camps. For instance, to my right is a modern, keyless Irish flute, with a medium sized embouchure, and to my left is a Boehm flute.
Maybe there was a time when the sun came up in the East, set in the West, and the world was happy without keyed flutes.
BTW, rh, if you do go for the keys, and then find yourself in a chromatic world, you may want to have a good book of scalar practise.
To that end, the work of Taffanel and Gaubert (of the French school) has been THE reference of Boehm system players, for many, many years.
However, a few years ago I got a copy of Exercices (yes, that is the spelling), by Fernand Gillet, which, frankly, leaves the other text in the dust. ISBN: 0971700419
The news gets better, moreover, as the principles employed in the text are virtually universal, and could be applied to just about any chromatic instrument, a GREAT text!!
