So many whistlers take up the flute.
Do as many flute players take up the whistle ?
What draws them to the flute ?
Do they stop playing wistles ?
i’ve tried the one piece dixon flute, but i couldn’t blow it for too long, i got a painful lip. i had to pack it in.
so i ordered a copeland sterling silver low D, wich is close too the sound and volume of a flute.
personally i find the button box much easyer than a flute.
Good question. I believe most people start out on whistle, at least when it comes to ITM. I started out on trad flute, and only recently have done anything worth being called whistle playing. Bass-ackwards: that’s me.
I tried flute for a while - Olwell bamboo F (really nice), but now rarely play anything but soprano D whistle - trying to get my chops perfected - ornamentation, better breathing and lilt and building gradually up to some sort of more widely accepted speed.
Philo
Flute is extraordinarily expressive, maybe the
most expressive instrument in the world except
for the human voice. But it’s much harder
to play than a whistle.
I hardly play whistle after getting serious on the flute. I had my Eflat Water Weasel out tonight; it’s quite a nice whistle, I should give it more credit than I normally do. I had it out trying to pick out a phrase in a Deanta piece (Beaujolais in Boston) that’s played on an Eflat flute.
I didn’t take up the whistle intending to play the flute. Actually I took it up intending to play the U-pipes. But I got a flute and it frustrated the dickens out of me. So I got another flute and it just clicked. I don’t intend to abandon the whistle completely, but I don’t ever see it competing with the flute, for the same reasons I don’t think I’ll take up the pipes.
The thing about the flute is the player has SOOO much more control over the sound. Volume, raspiness, pureness, chiff – you can get varying amounts of all of them over two-plus octaves with one flute. Of course, with some flutes more than others, but I can get a greater range of sounds out of one flute than I can get out of two flutes’ worth of high-D whistles. And with the flute you can do one thing you could never do with a whistle: play with much less volume in the second octave than in the first. That one thing allows the player to play with more emotion or tension than is possible with the whistle.
On the other hand, the flute is a damn hard instrument to play, and even harder to play well. (FYI, I’ve taken up a few other instruments that I’ve abandoned, so I’m nothing special in terms of sticktoitiveness, the flute just fits.)
That’s just my take on it; I’m sure for every one of me there are a couple of others who are at least as good musicians as I, for whom the flute just doesn’t fit.
And a whole bunch more expensive.
Chas,
What make of flute helped your flute playing click?
Don’t you play a Bleazy?
Nate
I like my tipple. I can play tunes with it, somewhat. Somewhat depressing that I haven’t been able to develope better tone though. From what I’ve read that’s not the fault of the instrument at all though.
The fact that I was able to pick it up and play some tunes fairly quickly should say something for it. From what I understand it’s easier to pick up than most.
Rather impressive looking piece of pvc, I’d have to say. Got really good reviews. The mp3s I’ve heard of it sounded rather good.
I agree with Jim about the flute’s expressive powers, and think of all musical instruments as vehicles for human expression, but I believe that wind instruments in particular provide an infinitely more powerful and personal of a conduit between the player’s soul and the listener’s ear. I’m a professional horn player in an orchestra by day, but when I play Irish music on flute or whistle it releases a part of me that the horn could never provide a vehicle for, which is part of the reason I play Irish music in the first place.
I think you’ll get the same response about expression from pipers and fiddlers, that their instrument is the most expressive (and I would tend to agree with them more than with fluteplayers claiming the same) but feeling that way is the reason they chose their instruments so they are likely to say that.
Whistle to flute has always been thought of as a natural progression, not something to fuss about a lot. Last saturday I was at a concert that included a dozen or so fluteplayers in their early to mid-teens, some of whom had made the transition only a few months ago. Not a bother on them, they were playing a way just lovely.
Personally I am not too fond of the flute on it’s own (slightly contrary I was completely put off the flute by Matt Molloy’s playing during the 80s), I think it’s best heard playing with other instruments, I don’t think for instance you can beat the flute-fiddle combination. Having used the whistle for years playing music when going out I bought a flute late last summer with the intention of eventually using that playing the odd session. As pointed out developing an embouchure and breathsupport is the hardest part although three months or so into it I get a good roar off it and the fingers don’t give any problems, if the breath keeps up I can do on the flute what I can on other instruments. That said, I won’t be taking it out for a while yet.
I started playing whistle, in particular low whistle, as a flute substitute. I wanted to be able to play an instrument that sounded like a flute without going to the trouble of developing an embouchure since I play a lot of other instruments and it’s hard to find time to practice.
A couple of friends kept gently suggesting that it was time I moved on to flute and eventually I succumbed. The transition was easier than I’d expected but it will be a while yet before I play in public. I doubt I’ll ever put more time into it than concertina and string instruments, particularly guitar, but who knows? I think it’s a very expressive instrument, not more so than pipes or fiddle, but still very expressive. It’s also louder than low whistle. Also, with a keyed flute, you can play a bit more chromatically than you can on whistle unless you’re brilliant at half-holing.
Yeah, it was a Bleazey boxwood Rudall-style. It’s still the easiest to play flute I’ve tried, and, while I can’t get the range of colors of sound from it that I can from the Schultz, it’s still quite capable of expressing a range of emotions. It’s the one flute I know I’ll never get rid of.
Here’s my musical progression:
- –Second grade = played a “Tonette,” which was an 8-hole (as I recall), torpedo-shaped, foul-tasting, plastic THING
–Fifth grade = got my first “concert” flute, a nickle-plated Bundy that I still have and loan out to beginning players from time to time
–Eighth grade (or so) = a metal piccolo (much easier to cope with in a marching band)
–Ca. 1979 = an H. Bettony from Boston, a wooden Boehm flute (offset g, plateau keys, C foot) that re-energized my interest in flute and trad music
–Ca. 2000 = assorted low-end whistles, quickly put aside
–Ca. 2002 = assorted Elfsong whistles, lovingly played
–Ca. 2003 = a Haynes wooden Boehm flute, warm and responsive. When I pick it up, it’s hard to put it back down.
–Birthday 2004 = A Busman curly maple (ditto)
–Christmas 2004 = Santa (who is a guitar player) has ordered a Casey Burns “small hands” Folk Flute for me
I went to the regular D whistle because I couldn’t make the reach on a low whistle or Irish flute and wanted to play around with smears, taps, and rolls which are, shall we say, a “challenge” on a keyed flute. 
I’m looking forward with great anticipation to the Folk Flute’s arrival. There are some tunes I really enjoy playing on a simple-system instrument but they’re in the high part of the range, thus a bit hard on your listeners.
M
PS–have you doublers noticed that there are some tunes that seem perfectly designed for simple system? “Tobin’s Favorite” seems that way to me. On a concert flute, with the different fingerings of F#, you have to do a fair bit of planning of which finger (second or third) will fit best (e.g., second finger if E is the previous or following note), but on a whistle, it’s effortless for the index finger.
I started on a whistle, as an adult, having been a singer all my life. I did not intend to move to the flute. Then I had a chance encounter with a little girl who was learning to play the (Boehm) flute in her school. She showed and told me that she made the flute tone by blowing a “t” sound. More than a year later, I was at The House of Musical Traditions and they have an Olwell bamboo flute. I picked it up and tried what the little girl had told me. To my astonishment, it worked! I got a tone the first time I tried. I bought that flute and the rest is history. Now I play flute far more than whistle. I love its rich expressiveness and response to my playing. It feels like more of a balanced playing relationship than the whistle. I still love whistles, too, but my passion for the flute has surpassed my love of whistles. I play whistle better, though. And for both, I still love slow airs best.
I must take Peter’s point that other instruments
have a claim to extraordinary expressiveness,
especially violin. I got a bit carried away there.
Still, with whistles there is a
whistle that makes the sound–the player, while
important in tone production, is less so than in the transverse
flute, where his/her lips do what the whistle does
on whistles. There is a lot more control of
the tone. Which is not to deride fipple flutes;
different instruments that can do things
flutes can’t do, or do less well.
However I think many people find flute, at least partly
for this reason, very satisfying to play.
About expense, the point is also taken:
still, while there are good whistles
at a very low price, one can get a playable
flute at the price of a high end soprano whistle, FWIW.
I never intended to pick up the flute as I was pretty happy with the whistle, but on a visit a few months ago to the town of Julian (a little apple-pie baking touristy place in the mountains east of San Diego) I ran across a ceramic flute that was so pretty (cobalt blue glaze, patterned by pressing lace into the clay before it was fired, etc.) that I had to have it. I also had to have it because it was 30 bucks and I could make noises on it that sounded like notes. Really, it was a workable instrument but heavy as hell and not in D. Just recently, I bought a Tipple flute (the grey PVC with offset holes) and have been cheerfully making noises on that (sometimes these resemble Christmas songs). I really love the sound of this flute but I’m having a couple of problems. I’m trying to remember, to put it bluntly, where my diaphragm is and what it does (after about a 6-8 second phrase, I sound like The Simpsons’ Mr. Burns trying to play the flute). Second, my left thumb gets cramped in the first joint. I’ve asked a flute player to show me the proper way to hold my flute so this doesn’t happen, but it still happens, and it’s sore right now. But it’s worth it when I make it through either “O Holy Night” or a slow air…
That’s not right CG… you don’t need thumbs to play simple system flute… if you’re a righty the left thumb can hang quite relaxed away from the flute and not touch it at all, the weight of the flute is carried by the bottom of your left index finger.
Back on topic… I always wanted to play the flute but made the mistake of buying the world’s biggest POS ‘student’ flute: the “Acoustica.” How to describe it? A piece of plastic electrical conduit with a cork stuffed in one end. Dreadful thing. So while I was trying to get a note out of it (and failing) I came up with a Cunning Plan: buy a whistle, learn the tunes on that, so that by the time I could get the POS to sound, I’d be halfway there. It was a good plan until WhOA kicked in.
My Carl Bell Bb flute gets most of my air these days, except at weekends when the Bleazey D and Allan Eb get a look-in. And concertina at night, when I don’t want to disturb the neighbours.
I keep the ‘Acoustica’ propped up in a corner of the living-room to remind me that no matter how clever I may feel, I am capable of acts of incredible stupidity (like buying that POS and imagining for a moment it was a flute, and that I could learn to play with it).
And I still play whistle, so no, Emm, you can’t have it, it’s my prrrrreecccciousssss!
Thanks for the tip, Gary! I will keep working on it (I don’t want to ruin one of only a pair of thumbs, after all).
I agree with Peter (and Jim’s later statement) that many instruments are very expressive. But the flute (or fiddle or U-pipes) is still much more expressive than the whistle.
As to expense, that depends. There are a lot of flutes out there costing under $100 that play perfectly well and can generate many different moods. For the most part, when you want to change moods on the whistle, you have to reach for another whistle. A Clarke, an Oak, and a Water Weasel and suddenly you’ve spent as much as an Olwell bamboo costs. A Thin Weasel, a Copeland, and an Abell, and you’ve spent almost as much as an Olwell wooden flute.
That’s not to say that I don’t intend to have a few different flutes eventually, nor that many people don’t choose to have just one or two whistles. But once one starts collecting, it’s possible to spend as much or more on whistles as one does on flutes.