Chiff and Fipple Forums

Olivewood is a pretty popular wood for high-end recorders. You see African blackwood/grenadilla in recorders a lot (and it’s almost universal in clarinets) but I don’t think I’ve heard of a boxwood or mopane recorder. Which also makes me wonder about why plumwood, pearwood and cherrywood, very popu...

I've never been to the Irish Flute Store in person, my credit card would be leaping out of my wallet too. But I did buy my two current main flutes there online -- an 8-key Peter Noy and 6-key low Bb LeHart. I also sold my keyless Windward there several years ago. A fine place to do business, especia...

As a practical matter apart from any playing considerations, a 4-key flute may be more difficult to sell than a 6 or 8 key flute if you ever need to sell it, and there will be far fewer available on the used market if you want to buy one secondhand. You may also need to retrain your fingers and poss...

E is the stuffiest, most out of tune note on woodwinds in general. Yes, but If you're mainly playing Irish trad dance tunes -- jigs and reels at full dance tempos, how often do you get a chance to hear that one slightly soft E note in the middle of a flurry of other notes? I think that's the reason...

I've wondered why we don't see more low B flutes, given how many flutes in other keys are commonly produced (G, F, Eb, D, C, Bb ... etc). I believe most of the examples of famous artists using a low flute are using a Bb, and there is a tendency to emulate our flute heroes. So that might be one reas...

The Winward & Noy both look like fine instruments, but I don't know if 2k is how high I will go for my first flute. Who knows, though. If nothing a little cheaper pops up on the radar I just spring on it. It's hard for me to say if those particular flutes are over-priced at the shop, a bargain ...

Just my $.02 opinion here, but if you only have six weeks, then I'd recommend sticking with the Boehm flute and spending 100% of that time getting used to the pulse of the various dance rhythms in Irish trad. Get the set list for the gig in advance, look up some good examples of trad players on YouT...

There are fingering charts on Terry McGee's web site. I'm posting the header page because there is a ton of useful info there, just scroll down to find the 6-key chart: http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/

Meanwhile the Olwell website says the opposite and suggests almond oil, which is what I have been using :-? Flute maker opinions do vary on this. My first wooden flute was a keyless Windward in blackwood. The Windward web site says the following: "We recommend a synthetic hypo-allergenic food ...

My $.02 opinion on some of those questions: I would like to have an 8-keyed flute to get the C# and C, nevertheless I read in Terry Mcgee’s website that he does not recommend having a foot joint because the low D will to sound so good? What can you say abut this? I have two 8-key flutes: a Thomas Ae...

Is it just light or an exposure of the surface to air that makes the changes? Air as well as light is needed to fade some inks - many posters stay as new under the sellotape. I did a little research and the consensus seems to be that it's a combination of oxidation of the surface from exposure to a...

I know from experience in the guitar world that lighter colored woods will darken faster with exposure to ambient lighting. If you buy a newly made guitar with a spruce top, especially direct from a luthier where the top is "fresh" and hasn't been sitting on a store display rack, it can be...

There's so much about the way Coleman is explained that I don't understand. You're told he was typical of the style of the region, and that his brother was a better player, but nobody in Ireland ever bothered to record his brother, and for some reason the records--which were typical of the region--...

Antiques can be a great option, as others have pointed out, but intonation may not be as good as modern flutes optimized for A=440 (especially when using modern fingerings), and the foot keys might or might not work well. Buying a flute with foot keys that don't operate reliably would defeat the pu...

I have two 8-key D flutes and one 6-key low Bb flute, all with the standard key layout. Here are my preferences, for what it's worth: I never use the short F key. The long F works fine for me with the tunes that need it, and it's one less thing to have to think about. I know there are theoretical re...