busterbill wrote:
I have a keyed flute and figure my issues of playing in A have more to do with lack of practice than anything else. I play with a keyless player who seems to manage somehow on flute and whistle.
To clarify my comment: D and G and their relative modals and minors are simple because I've played them regularly for 35 years. While the tunes in F and A and any music in key signatures I don't use don't come as easy. I write this off to seldom playing in those keys.
When we are kids in elementary school bands the teaching builds on skills one note at a time gradually introducing us to most key signatures. When I played the Boehm flute and later the clarinet as a kid I and my peers could play in any key the band teacher tossed at us.
But when I started to focus solely on the whistle and flute for ITM the majority of the key signatures were dropped from my practice. When I finally got myself a fully keyed flute I found I used the C# the most, the F naturals seldom and the others once in a blue moon. Gone were the days when I would practice the chromatic scale on a daily basis.
Fast forward 25 years, which contained an occasional rendition of Out on the Ocean and Fox Hunters Reel in A to please a particular fiddler or provide some lift, to the introduction of a set which included Music for a Found Harmonium. Hello keys! Then 4 years after that someone discovered Catharsis. Then 2 years ago another session: All the Handsome Young Ladies.
So, when I say lack of practice, I should rather say the lack of these key signatures coming up lead to a lack of familiarity and muscle memory. The simple system flute was the staple for orchestras for years playing smoothly in all key signatures.
So yes, it may be difficult, but it may be us, not our instruments. Certainly if I'd played tunes in Bb for 35 years I'd be a heck of a lot better at it than I am now.
