Chiff and Fipple Forums

I don't like to bottle out of using the keys on a D flute, but G minor can be a bit of a struggle at speed. On an F flute, however - hey presto, say goodbye to G minor misery!

Just seen and heard Birgit and her accordion-playing partner Benjamin Macke on their stopover in Sheffield, organised by the city's Eurosession. Stunningly good playing on the Flemish bagpipe (what an exciting instrument it can be) and on the French baroque musette. Northumbrian pipers should be fas...

Baroque music makes excellent material for a six-key flute. For example, the 12 fantasias for solo flute by Telemann range through as many key signatures and have a great many modulations within them. The proper instrument is a one-key baroque flute, but they are a heck of a lot easier to play on a ...

Yes, the absence of a price list always suggests the old maxim that "If you've got to ask, you can't afford it".
Unfair in this case, I'm sure.....

I don’t know if it qualifies as “entry level” or not, but let me put in a word for the Essential Flute designed and made by Geoffrey Ellis. His website describes in detail the lengthy genesis of the instrument and how he sought inspiration from the best bamboo flutes. The result is a one-piece instr...

You could just get hold of Vicki Swann's book "Scandinavian Folk Tunes for Flute". Among its 73 traditional tunes (most of them arranged as duets) there should be few you fancy and (from memory), there are plenty of major sevenths. The book is is in the Schott World Music Series and includ...

Steve Bliven wrote:Guessing that it may be this one. We'll probably get a fuller explanation soon....

Best wishes.

Steve

No, definitely not this one, because I bought it, still have it and enjoy playing it - whether it was made by Wylde or anyone else....

I wonder if there is a touch of psychology here...an expectation of a better sound from a newly oiled flute allied to a sense of virtue at having carried out the task. I say this because of a parallel experience as a player of sackbut (trombone). When it has had one of its twice-yearly polishes, I f...

In 2014 I purchased a five-key R and R style flute from Tony and grew to like it so much that a couple of years later I got him to upgrade it to an 8-key. Of the various flutes I have accumulated in recent years it is my favourite - a nice, elegant instrument that blows easily right up into the thir...

Is there perhaps a middle way between the no-tongue-at-all approach ( articulating either with glottal stops or the fingers) and single tongueings using "t" and double tongueing based on "tk-tk-tk"? Modern wind pedagogy tends to be rather reductive, so these are the articulations...

And another unsolicited endorsement for Barna Gabos... I got into bamboo flutes when I splashed out on a second-hand Olwell in F via the C & F forum. I liked the sound, the feel and for that matter the appearance so much that I looked around for current makers of top class bamboo flutes in other...

I agree that an F pitch flute is a wonderful thing to play – light and agile but not excessively chirpy. A desire to play certain Playford tunes fluently in G minor – something I have to do quite often - led me to source a six-finger F bansuri from Punam Flutes – one of the most professional and eff...

There are indeed lots of scenarios in which a choice of F keys is desirable, but perhaps the principal one is the near impossibility of moving smoothly from D to F and back again without the long key. The famous Charles Nicholson pooh poohed the long F, writing that players should be able to learn h...

When reading threads on humidification for wooden flutes (and it is a topic that comes up a lot) I find myself wondering whether this is an issue solely for people who live in territories that experience climatic extremes. Should those of us who dwell in maritime countries - i.e. damp and rarely ver...

If you don't want to take the obvious (but challenging and rewarding) route of playing early 19th century study material that was actually composed for the 6-8 keyed flute, there are countless English sources of traditional dance music that cover a good range of keys. Many of them are fiddler's manu...