Chiff and Fipple Forums

Thanks! And what about the breathing? Have you examples for practicing on this? Apart from playing playing playing... :-? A useful exercise is to practice taking a normal breath and holding a steady tone on the flute for as long as you can. With practice you should eventually be able to hold a stea...

It's used for Native American flutes; I've never seen an Irish-style flute made of mesquite but I don't get out much.

Some uilleann pipes makers use mesquite for the tubes of their drone reeds; my pipes' drone reeds are mesquite with spruce tongues.

Hey, I have a 6-key low Bb flute by Tom Aebi that I'd like to sell, and I'm in Canada to boot (so no crossing-the-border issues to deal with). There are a few things about this flute that make it hard for me to play, but it's got a great sound; you can hear a sample here: https://soundcloud.com/brad...

I love my 4-key boxwood flute in Bb (by Chris Wilkes), but I would hesitate to buy another boxwood flute. It has never warped in the "banana" sense, but the tenons do go out of round and turn oval in the dry months of the year, and some of the keys get pinched in their blocks. I keep it in...

Yeah. It's a thing. See Jennifer Cluff here: https://www.jennifercluff.com/throaty.htm The thing is, that's a site for mainly classical players, who are going to be articulating by tonguing rather than glottal stops. The grunting we hear often in Irish flute players (including me!) is mainly relate...

You're right, and I checked Grey Larsen's notes to his transcription of Carty's setting of The Jug of Punch (which has a lot of notes below D), and he confirms that Carty just played those notes an octave higher despite having the low C# and C keys available.

Chris N's remark is very 19th century, if you ask me, but perhaps there is a special expressiveness in a flute you learn to blow in tune. It depends in part on what you do to play that flute in tune -- if you have an 8-key flute you can vent keys to get notes in tune and/or you can lip up and down,...

I can't recall seeing any of the trad fluteplayers I was listening to use the footjoint keys. I don't think Carty did, nor Molloy. As to the "why" of not using the footjoint keys, you would have to ask the people who choose not to use them. Carty might have used them on the Jug of Punch, ...

Instead of playing to a tuner, it's worth getting the Tuning CD (now available as a digital download if you don't want a physical CD), which is useful for learning which notes are off and helping you figure out how much to adjust your blowing angle (or vent other keys) to get the note into tune. It ...

It's funny that Catherine McEvoy was mentioned as someone who tongues, because it was a workshop with her back in the 1990s, organized by the late Bill Ochs, that convinced me to switch from tonguing to glottal stops! She said she occasionally uses her tongue, mainly on the highest notes, but otherw...

I agree that Dave Copley would be a good choice. Jon Cornia also makes very good flutes in delrin.

In my experience--which involves some semi-professional work making soundtracks and recording bands--the starting point is a good sounding room, because close-micing a flute won'r really get you a good sound. Lots of good advice here! I would just add that in my case, for recording traditional Iris...

How does one make multi-track highish quality recordings? If this is the wrong thread, please let me know. If you have a computer, the easiest way is by using a DAW (digital audio workstation software) and recording your tracks into it using an audio interface: you plug your mic into the interface ...

At least to start with, I'd be using the on-board mics. The new Sony you mention is out of my price range. Any opinions on the best portable recorder for less than $200? Or are external mics for an iOS device a good alternative? You could actually use your iPhone. The Shure Mv-88 will plug into the...

I have a CM-3--its a great mic! It really is, especially for the price. There have been a few famous blind tests against Schoeps mics that cost 10 times as much, where experienced audio engineers and musicians preferred the sound of the CM-3. It's not a miracle worker -- it's fairly noisy and you h...