The Dizi and the Irish Flute - Help!

Irish Flute
1

Greetings all!

Please bear with my explanation and see if you can help me.
In the Summer I acquired a Chinese Dizi in E and a book about how to play it, the pictures are on the whole most instructive but I seem to be missing a few key points as there is no English translation. The book has three different finger charts called ‘5’ ‘2’ and ‘1’ and the grid below apparently tells me which one to use. With a little deduction I decided that finger chart ‘5’ was the one for my E Dizi.

However, now I am just acquiring a 6 hole Irish flute in D that will be exactly the same apart from not having the extra dimo (rice paper) hole. I want to play the tunes from my Chinese book as I assume they will be transferable however, can I use just finger chart ‘5’? or just finger chart ‘1’? or both are equally fine? or is one of them better than the other? To play the anything that uses chart ‘2’ would I have to have an instrument in G,A, Bb or C or am I mis-understanding the grid?

All suggestions and advice/links are most welcome.
Please can someone help me!

The Grid: I apologise for the formatting its the best I could get
… 5 2 1 (these numbers each seem to realte to a different finger chart.)
A/D: D G A
B/E: E A B
C/F: F Bb C
D/G: G C D

2

does this help for the dizi? http://www.goamcan.com/imports/How-to-play-dizi.html

this should get you started

Irish Flute
D  XXX XXX
E  XXX XXO
F# XXX XOO
G  XXX OOO
A  XXO OOO
B  XOO OOO
C# OOO OOO
3

I used to have a page at my website about the dizi, but I soon found that the questions that I was getting were making me dizzy, so I took it down.

Juliette, I think that you will be able to play the dizi music on your six-hole simple-system flute, and vice versa. The dizis that I am familiar with are diatonic instruments just like simple-system flutes. Some people do try to transpose as they are reading the music, but I think that most folk musicians, regardless of the key of the instrument that they are playing, read the music as if they were playing a standard flute (such as a low D Irish flute or a concert flute in C). If this is not crystal clear, we will need to call in the music guru for clarification.

4

Thank you Denny and Thank you Doug! The Dizi link bit that says ’ A traditional six-hole dizi plays a major scale, usually in the western key of C or D Major, with the fifth pitch (sol) as its lowest tone’ made it clearer. Therefore for my E dizi, three fingers down = E, This Explains more of the chart too me. I already have an Irish flute finger chart but thanks for the image.

I now Understand! Having sat down at the piano and confirmed everything, let me now explain it to myself and anyone who was confused by my post. I think it was the fact that the books was in Chinese and the fact that they use number notation (rather than western staff notation) that confused me so.

I can see that the finger charts ‘5’ ‘2’ and ‘1’ refer to the notation number for the scale it works in when all the fingers are down. The middle part of the grid tells me the KEY.

‘5’ = (3 fingers down = E for) E major: = E, F#,G#, A B C# D#
x x x x x x = .5 = B
x x x x x o = .6 = C#
x x x x o o = .7 = D#
x x x o o o = 1 = E
x x o o o o = 2 = F#
x o o o o o =3 = G#
o x x o x x o = 4 = A

‘2’ = A Maj: = A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#
x x x x x x = .2 = B
x x x x x o = .3 = C#
x x x x o x = .4 = D
x x x o o o = .5 = E
x x o o o o = .6 = F#
x o o o o o =.7 = G#
o x x o x x o = 1 = A

‘1’ = (All fingers down = B) B maj = B, C#, D#, E, F#, G#, A#
x x x x x x = 1 = B
x x x x x o = 2 = C#
x x x x o o = 3 = D #
x x x o o o = 4 = E
x x o o o o = 5 = F#
x o o o o o = 6 = G#
o o o o o o o = 7 = A#

So to play from my Chinese Dizi Book using my Irish flute in D, I look at the DG option and I can play from notation grid ‘5’‘2’ or ‘1’ but finger chart 1 is best as it follows the traditional fingering anyway. It sounds so simple but it took me so long to put together (possibly because chart 1 was the third one in the book).

Thanks!

5

This is an oldish thread, but I have my own question to add.

On lark in the morning there is a good Dizi that they say is in the key of CG. This is pretty confusing. Is that supposed to mean it is in the key of C, and G is the lowest note? Then on another site, there is a dizi for sale, and they denote the key with only one letter, say just “C.” So, that “C” should be referring to the key of the flute, the middle note, and not the bottom note. Correct?

Here is the Lark in the Morning flute, read the description and tell me what you think:

http://larkinthemorning.com/product.aspx?p=CHI011

Here is the other flute, of some site I’ve not heard of (let me know also if you think this is a reputable and safe site).

http://www.shoppingchinanow.com/shop/maestro-dizi-flute.html

Again, read the description of this one and let me know what you think.

I like the sound of these flute and I’m wanting to get into for the diversity of sound, some more variety to use with production and recording, new opportunities, and just plain old fun.

6

With regard to the key of the dizi - the first letter is usually the tonic - ie - XXX OOO, with the second letter indicating the key as per western tradition - XXX XXX; so if you wanted an instrument to play Irish music in its standard key you would need a G/D, where only one letter is given this would normally be the tonic but you would need to check to be certain.

The dizi shown on lark in the morning seems is very expensive for what appears to be a pretty bog standard mass produced dizi, these can be picked upon ebay for a fraction of that price, hand made, from a recognised maker, dizi can be obtained from Eason enterprises in Signapore, they have an excellent reputation for quality and reliability, eg a dizi made by Xie Bing, a highly regarded maker, is $89.99.

http://www.eason.com.sg/products/products_new.jsp

Another resource you may want to check out is -

http://starvoid.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Wind

a traditional Chinese music forum with a lot of info on dizi’s including links to numerical, jianpu, music notation sites.

Paul