Gentlemen, Ladies Please excuse the distraction of my question as I am not a flautist but my Daughter has become quite proficient on the woodwind instruments of late.
We are trying to find an instrument that we heard and to explain slightly the reason for our quest.
I am the lead vocalist/second guitar for a new band that is paying tribute to classic progressive rock. We cover material from Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, Atomic Rooster, Rush, Focus, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, UK, ELP, and Gentle Giant.
My Daughter will most likly become an extra for the band as some of this music has some wonderful Flute highlights contained within. We found an instrument that we feel we would like to try and use as it seems to have the flexibility and range of a standard flute but is played through a mouhtpiece similiar to an Irish Flute. What we have found is called a Fipple ?? style flute.
So if you can humor us for a moment… The only image we can find of this instrument is contained (starting at 10:21) within a fantastic piece of music from our friends in Gentle Giant here;
I have tried on my own to find out what this flute actually is but so far I have yet to find anything that resembles this large “Concert Whistle” that the (keyboardist) musician, in white, to the right of the stage, plays. It seems to be an extended recorder of some sort.
Any information (what its called or perhaps even how to obtain one) would be just wonderful.
nice site, I think from what I have looked at this group is an advanced forum of musicians so I thank you in advance for any help with our quest.
Yep, the dark one’s a tenor recorder and the others look like treble (alto) and two descants (sopranos). But I’d have to say (as a recorder player) that most tenors are quite tame instruments and you might be disappointed if you’re expecting ‘the flexibility and range of a standard flute’.
Wow that was fast, and thanks. Well then I guess your observations may lend me to ask another question? Is there a flute that has the verticle position and mouthpiece for ease of play availble anywhere?
It seems someone must have made a marriage of the two at one time or another?
Thanks for the information again we are checking now to find soemone who sells something similiar to the Tenor instrument you mentioned.
Randy
I’m presuming that by “Irish Flute” you mean whistle. Whistles
, recorders
, or any winds with fipple setups
, can technically speaking all properly be called fipple, or duct, flutes. “Fipple flute” is a very, very broad category that can include organ pipes if you like.
Colloquially speaking, the so-called “Irish flute” is, actually, a transverse wooden flute. As in sideblown, no fipple, blow-across-the-hole, all that, just like any other flute you’d call by the name (and what I expect you meant by “standard”):
Still, if you’re playing them through a sound system, it might not be a problem.
To the OP: you might want to check out the modern tenor recorders available from Moeck and Mollenhauer. In particular, the Mollenhauer Helder tenor is designed to compete with the flute - at a certain price.
Nice one! But note that I said ‘most tenors are quite tame’ (not ‘all tenors are tame’) and, with more trebles and descants being pitched at their larger solo repertoire as well as the lower volume and slower response that tends to come (granted it’s not a given) with larger recorders, that’s probably true!
Gentle Giant were spectacular in concert. The clip you showed above was missing a couple bits of their theatrical talents though. There was a large entourage that traveled with Gentle Giant, family and friends. They were mostly dressed in character just like the band for many performances. And several of them also played recorder. At that point in the concert, when they got to the recorder consort, it was customary for the stage lights to go dark, the recorders would start and then flickering Christmas style twinkle lights would illuminate the outlines of the stage set as the recorders continued. The entourage would join in playing from around the venue. That always elicited huge “ooohs and aaahs!” from the audience. It was a real feel good moment each time I witnessed it. I love a “good” flashback!
Anyone else remember that? Or was it just something I ate?
And by all means, pursue the recorders with your daughter. Buy a SAT (soprano, alto, tenor) set of Yamaha 300’s - good stuff for not a lot of money.
The recorder was a fairly consistant part of Prog Rock in the seventies. Being able to play the recorder parts was a real bonus for a good “cover band” back then. The intro to Led Zep’s Stairway to Heaven is played by a recorder consort. Here’s a link to a bit of the parts. And don’t forget Your Move by Yes. I accumulated two sets of decent recorders just to perform those and a few others back in the day. And I did take up the silver flute just to play the Tull stuff.
Wow, great group lots of help here, We are looking at some instruments now.
And YES YES, if you ever happen to catch our band “Downing Grey” you will hear some shockingly accurate covers of all the Progressive A listers of that era from our group. Gentle Giant, I might ad, has proven to be the most difficult of the bunch to master, exceptions being the keboard work of Keith Emerson or the guitar proweess of Steve Howe but overall this group were masters of so many instruments we are stretched thin to bring them to life on a stage with 5 people.
So far our only real weak link is me… I am the lead vocalist and I play a lot of second guitar parts and even some keyboard work to recreate the studio versions of songs. I am not capable of the Flute… So far… So I am looking to my Daughter to help with this as she is already dressed in the court jester suit and ad’s to the show. Her Native American Flute’s are so beautiful but she needs just a little more range to help with the rest of this. So we are trying to find this “happy medium” and someting that does not require all new fingering work or perpedicular play to make the sound across the hole.
Oh, I see. I played whistle and some flute before confronting this music back in the olden times (I played primarily guitars and keys). I was “encouraged” to take on the recorder because it can be applied to music in any key signature. The whistle, being diatonic, didn’t cut it and there were too few whistle keys available back then.
All end-blown flutes have common techniques which are applicable. So it may or may not be a leap for your daughter to play either whistle or recorder. The whistle is fairly straightforward, IMO. The fingering of a recorder can get complex depending on the key you are playing in. But it does allow you to play chromatically. And it leads to harder stuff - with reeds and such.
There is presently no reason you couldn’t play a whistle (or whistles) to emulate the recorder parts of most of the Art Rock anthems that originally used recorders since the whistle now is made in every key you could want. So the trade-off is between needing a bunch of whistles and learning to play alternate keys on a recorder or two (they are made in C or F for the most part). Actually using diatonic whistles could make the Gentle Giant style interlude easier for players that aren’t wind players to start with (cuts down on the possibility or wrong notes). Let’s say the tune you want to place the break in is in D (I haven’t played anything Gentle Giant in years so I don’t remember what key Panurge or Pantagruel are played in). You’d get a High D, a Low A(plays in D easily enough) and a Low D whistle and go to it, pick your parts. If in C - get a high C, Low G and Low C maybe. From a cover band perspective, I know that slavishly recalling the originals note for note is in vogue (all those touring tribute band shows) but I would think that some improvisation or alternate interludes would be reminiscent of the era and the “ambiance” of the originals. So play what you can play as well as you can do it.
Of course most of this has been replaced by sampling synthesizers for performance economy. But I think that the twinkle lights and the recorders, no matter what was being played, was the real impact of the Gentle Giant performance. Just the juxtaposition of light and dark, amplified music and acoustic music made their mark. Contrasts.
I love the Jester’s suit, by the way. I recall one such outfit among the Gentle Giant entourage.
What a great surprise to see Gentle Giant on the C&F. There are a few bands I like a little more, but I have more reapect for GG than for any other band. As I think Derek said, “We wanted to put out high quality music potentially at the expense of being very unpopular.”. Or something like that.
Anyone not familiar with them, look for “Memories of old days” or “So sincere” on youtube. Those guys were truly great musicians and extremely creative.
Thank you all so much. This is an Excellent site filled with very knowledgable people. it seems there are music lovers of all kinds in here so with that in mind let me please give you a small sample of one of the pieces we do in any given evening. There are some pieces listed on YouTube under our band name Downing Grey but this one is a little quieter. Hope you enjoy;
There are plenty of recorder shops online, get yourself a Mollenhauer Denner series tenor (powerful, quite grainy, full tone) or the Yamaha 300 series plastic tenor (powerful, smoother sounding). I wouldn’t touch the one you found on ebay with a barge pole.
