Reading some posts of people who tape up unused holes on their flutes got me to thinking (I know, this is a dangerous thing). If I put a piece of tape that half covered T1, I would have a D flute that played natively in G. Now that’s not such a big advantage because there are several viable cross-fingerings for Cnat. A disadvantage is that C# and Cnat often appear together in the same tunes.
So I went further down this path: what if I half covered B1? This would give me a built-in Fnat which, to me at least, is a much more useful beast. Coming from the world of Boehm, I don’t half hole very easily (Fnat is especially tricky for me) and the only cross-fingering I’ve found is quite inadequate (IMHO). This would allow me to easily play in C (a pretty common key for American folk music).
But I suspect that would mess up G and probably A, B, & C as well. Any thoughts?
(Someday I’ll get a simple system flute with keys, but until then as long as this idea doesn’t work, I’ll just play my C-whistle and transpose. Or avoid songs with lots of Fnats.)
Yes, it gives what I call Dorian tuning (with c-nat), though it’s really an ascending melodic minor. I have a D whistle semi-permanently set up that way. Any advantages are in the eye of the beholder - judging from the odd reaction I get from other players who have a go on it.
It lets you transpose tunes down a full step with “natural” fingering - D tunes in C, G tunes in F, etc. Could be useful for playng your D flute along with another C flute. You can play DDor tunes with DDor fingering; and if you have a good cross-fingered Bb, you can play GDor tunes with GDor fingering. If you can cross-finger or half-hole an F#, you don’t necessarily lose your “normal” keys.
If you’re coming from the world of recorder or, as you say, Boehm system instruments, the F-nat seems pretty intuitive IMO. If not, then maybe not.
Thanks MTGuru. That’s very encouraging. I probably won’t use the tape much (I am seriously working on half-holing and cross-fingering, I’m just not good at it), but it sounds like something fun to play around with.
Band music is always in flats so I can read up to four flats pretty well. As you guessed I’ve had less practice with sharps, but 3 or less isn’t too bad. Reading in B or Db? Ouch!
