Hello all! I’m new to the Irish flute and do not own one with keys.
I have never found any explanation as to why the short F natural key exists. When you look up explanations online, people usually say that the reason for having two F natural keys is that it makes it easier to slur between D and F natural. Okay, that makes sense…as an explanation for why you would need the LONG F natural key. But why do people get flutes that ALSO have a short F natural key? Isn’t that completely redundant? The short key seems like a more awkward, harder-to-use key that accomplishes the same thing that the long key already does.
In what situation would one ever need to use a short F natural key rather than the long one?
Another, related question: Why have any F natural keys at all? Why not just drill an extra hole beneath the flute that is covered by the right thumb, which one can lift to turn an E into an F natural? Ukranian Sopilkas and Russian Svirels do this (as do some fifes, apparently). So why not do the same on a flute, and not bother with any F keys at all? It doesn’t seem like this would make the flute any more difficult to play, and it would save a lot of money.
I know there must be a logical answer to these questions, but it really seems that the keyed Irish flute is unnecessarily overengineered.
Historically, the short F came before they added the long F. It might have something to do with F-natural fingerings (XXX XOX?) from the baroque one-key flute, but I’m not sure about that.
I personally use the long-F key much more readily than the short-F, although the latter seems to be the preference for most trad flute players. I would say that when you are a new flute player the third finger of the right hand is stronger and more agile than the 4th finger or the left hand, although once you gain agility with practice, then you can quickly play long-F or G#.
Given that I prefer the long-F, I can readily use it to play in the keys of C, F and Bb. Then I came to Eb, and discovered that the small finger of the left hand needs to play both long-F and Ab, and that is is where you require the short F to handle the note changes. Admittedly this does’t come up very frequently in ITM music, but I have a wonderful tune in C-minor (3 flats), where it becomes necessary to figure that out.
Thank you! That does make sense. Although I still wonder why you need any keys at all, when a right hand thumb hole would seem to solve the entire F natural problem just fine.
If you use a traditional “Rocstro” flute grip the right hand thumb must stay on the flute at all times to keep the flute supported. Wouldn’t be available for opening a tonehole.
Ah, that makes sense. I use the hold that Grey Larsen recommends, where neither thumb plays any part in supporting the weight of the instrument, and the forward pressure is created by the bottom pinky instead. If you use this approach, there’s zero reason not to have an F natural hole.
Still, it seems to me that even if you’re used the Rockstro method, it would still be possible to adapt to a flute with an F natural hole without too much difficulty. If the hole were put on the side of the instrument rather than beneath it, you could exert the necessary horizontal pressure on the flute with your thumb the entire time you play, while simultaneously closing the f natural hole. This pressure would only diminish momentarily when you lifted your right thumb off the hole to play an F natural, and during that time, you could make sure your bottom pinky and/or your other fingers were holding the flute in place instead of your thumb.
It’s ok to shift around which fingers are doing the work of supporting the instrument as you play, isn’t it? Sort of like how many whistle players use their bottom ring finger to support the instrument, unless they’re playing a D, E, or F, in which case they support the instrument with other fingers.
Or, maybe not. I’m a beginner, so I certainly wouldn’t know lol. All I know is that if you use Larsen’s hold, you could easily get away with an F natural hole.
I use the hold that Grey Larsen recommends, where neither thumb plays any part in supporting the weight of the instrument, and the forward pressure is created by the bottom pinky instead.
On the whistle, sure. However on flute, the pinky pressure doesn’t go in the correct direction to balance the weight of the flute against the left index support; pinky goes down-ish while the thumb presses outward.
The Rockstro or “three point” hold is very balanced and secure and frees up your fingers to be available for all the holes and keys.
On an 8-key flute the bottom pinky is needed to play the Eb key and the C/C#. The E note often benefits from or requires you to open Eb key to open up or resonate better. Since the pinky moves around quite a bit, it is better to depend on the right thumb which never does anything but support.
Of course most ITM musicians tend to play in keys that don’t need the keys and they keep the pinky down for support most of the time. They often turn foot out so the Eb key doesn’t get in the way.
It doesn’t work that way on flute, at least not once you get into keyed flutes and want to play tunes that require use of the Eb, C#, and Bb keys. The Rockstro hold – or as I think Terry McGee would prefer, the “three point hold” because Rockstro didn’t invent it – turns out to be a very solid way to hold the flute, while freeing up the necessary fingers for both tone holes and keys. It took me a while to understand this.
I didn’t really get it, until I started playing a few tunes that needed the Bb key. That’s sort of an acid test for your flute hold stability. I had to reluctantly cut the fingernail on my right hand thumb short to get a solid outward push on the flute body for a three point hold. The thumb tip slipped around too much with a long fingernail. Sad, because I still play some fingerstyle guitar where a thumbnail is useful. but I can adapt with a thumbpick.
Regarding the short Fnat, I never use it. I don’t feel limited using the long Fnat for everything, and it was too much mental gymnastics to try remembering which key to use for the same note in different tunes. That’s just me, I know others find it useful.
I would still buy a keyed flute that had both Fnat keys and stayed with the “standard” 19th Century layout for reasons of compatibility. Easier to sell a six or eight keyed flute set up that way, easier to find on the used market. Odd key layouts, and unusual ideas like a thumb hole on the barrel limit those purchase and resale options. It’s not that hard to adapt to what most people would consider a standard layout of keys on our “Irish” flutes.
No, I don’t just mean for whistle. For Irish flute, Larsen says that it’s better to use the pinky pressure to hold the flute in place, rather than using the thumb. He says the right thumb should be completely free to move around without disturbing your grip on the instrument. The base of the pinky never comes off the flute, except for playing a strike/roll on E. He acknowledges that this method completely contradicts the Rockstro hold, but he says he likes it better.
The way I currently play, that’s how I hold the flute. And I don’t really see any downsides to it. The bottom joint of my pinky simply never comes off the flute, so there’s always sideways pressure on it, and my right thumb is always free to do whatever it wants (although I always keep it on the bottom of the instrument, because there’s no reason to do anything else with it).
I might add that Larsen can’t be the only one who holds transverse flutes like this. Players of chromatic fifes HAVE to hold their instruments this way in order to access their F natural holes. And every professional Boehm system player I’ve ever seen has their thumb completely beneath the instrument, not exerting any forward pressure on it whatsoever. Yet 10-hole fife players and Boehm players aren’t dropping their flutes.
Additionally, watch these videos of certain professionals playing (including Matt Molloy):
Now, I’m no expert, so I could be totally wrong here, but they don’t seem to be using their thumbs to exert very much forward pressure on the flute. Their thumbs are almost on the bottom of the instrument. Their pinkies appear to be doing all the work of pushing the flute forward.
FWIW, I felt the same way about using the pinky to stabilize the flute, until I got a keyed flute and started learning a few tunes that needed the Eb key, like Beare Island or the J.B. Reel (which also needs the pinky for low C#).
If you never play that kind of tune, and many ITM players never go outside the more common repertoire, then a pinky stabilizer can still work for you. I know Molloy often rotates his foot joint out and apparently seldom uses the Eb key, so it’s not an uncommon approach. It’s really all about the repertoire you end up with.
If you never play that kind of tune, and many ITM players never go outside the more common repertoire, then a pinky stabilizer can still work for you. I know Molloy often rotates his foot joint out and apparently seldom uses the Eb key, so it’s not an uncommon approach. It’s really all about the repertoire you end up with.
Right, however over time you improve and you start to learn other tunes, or want to play baroque, brazilian music, or even Beethoven. Then you need to have the most efficient and easiest hold that permits that.
Fore-warned is fore-informed. You don’t need to re-invent things yourself, and you are standing on the shoulders of the masters of yesteryear, i.e.the 19th Century.
My strong recommendation is to start with the historically “correct” (i.e. Rockstro hold) for many reasons, but most importantly, you don’t want to discover three years down the road that you need to relearn your fingers and hold.
That’s fair! Thanks for clarifying. It appears that Larsen plays keyed flutes occasionally (and quite well, I might add), but he does seem to be primarily a keyless player, which might account for why he uses the grip he does.
Totally understandable! That’s exactly how I feel about the whistle; I wish someone had told me when I started out that I should use my pinky as a stabilizer.
But the burning question in my mind is why Boehm system flutists don’t seem to bother putting their thumb on the side of the instrument at all. If professional Boehm flutists don’t do it and are still able to play fast, technical classical music flawlessly, it really doesn’t seem absolutely necessary, does it? It’s not like Boehm flutes require less dexterity to play properly.
I might add that “historically correct” is not always the best or most efficient way to play. Historically, people always played whistle using the bottom ring finger as a stabilizer (rather than the bottom pinky), which I consider an objectively inferior way of playing the instrument, despite the fact that nearly all the best whistle players in the world still play this way. The traditional way isn’t always the best way - even if it normally is.
By “historically correct”, I don’t mean the way random session players sometimes hold their flute, which admittedly is quite varied.
I’m referring to the recognized flute masters of the 19th century who have written the book/the books on how to play flute for orchestral music. Nicholson, Quantz, Rockstro, and dozens of others… and I don’t even know who they all are. But, there is a very long and very detailed tradition with baroque, simple-system and boehm flute methods.
To answer your original question, it’s often easier, for example, to play from f nat to g# using the short F key. With the long F you need to slide your left pinky, and that can be more or less easy/reliable depending on the shape and position of these keys on a given flute.
Regarding RH thumb hole. From playing various bagpipes with a RH thumb hole, the position of the thumb hole along the axis of the flute already requires a - for me - uncomfortable repositioning of the thumb from where I would naturally have it. I can only imagine that being more of a problem with a RH Thumb hole on a flute. I speak here as someone who is a big fan of a LH thumb hole on a flute, which works fine.
I’m coming to this thread late, but just to add my 2 cents, I understand that the short ‘fnat’ came first and the long ‘fnat’ was added because it’s not possible to go from ‘d’ to ‘fnat’ using the short ‘fnat’ key without also sounding the ‘e.’ So…the long ‘fnat’ was added for the particular note combination of ‘d’ to ‘fnat’ without sounding the ‘e.’ I find the short ‘fnat’ an easy key to use when the flute fits (my Copley fits). When I played a flute that was too big for my hands, the blocks on the short ‘fnat’ key interfered with covering the ‘e’ hole with my right ring finger.
I’m a long-time player and have tried the Rockstro-style grip (thumb on the side of the flute, pushing out) several times over the years and never mastered it. The flute is unstable in my hands. I use a three-point grip with the right pinky pressing out, with the right thumb available as needed as a post (without gripping the flute) to prevent downward pressure from the fingers on the holes pushing the flute out of my hands. Using Rockstro, I had to use a lot of hand pressure just to hold the flute during play, leading to hand fatigue. With the grip using the pinky pushing out and right thumb only as a post, very little pressure is required so no hand fatigue.
To correct one statement, Larsen has played a six-key flute exclusively for many years.
This may be another reason not to have an F natural hole. I find that it can be difficult to have enough downward pressure to cover the holes adequately when my right thumb is off the instrument, because the whole flute pushes downwards. It’s not impossible - especially if my pinky grip is firm - but it’s a bit difficult. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think an F natural hole for the right thumb would be manageable, the way you play?
Another thing: if you use your pinky as an anchor point rather than using the Rockstro hold, how do you go about using the pinky key for D#? Do you ever play tunes with D#s in them? If so, how do you manage applying pressure while also using this key (doesn’t using it require you to take your pinky off the instrument momentarily)? And how do players like Larsen do this?
I infer that you mean an fnat hole on the underside of the flute to be covered by the right thumb. I have no experience with such a hole and it would require a lot of re-tooling for me. I’ll stick with the keys.
To complete my response, in the rare cases that I play a D#/Eb in ITM, I lift off the right pinky and use that to depress the Eb key. In addition, when playing, rolling or cranning the E, I also lift off the pinky because it’s physically difficult for me to move my right ring finger without also moving the pinky. On those low notes I have a lot of fingers down that provide flute stability when combined with the right thumb, so I don’t need the pinky.
I think some of our various grip preferences are down to hand physiology. While Rockstro is not useful to me, I have a friend whose terminal right thumb joint bends backward to angles I can’t achieve. Rockstro is comfortable and useful for him.