So -- I've been busy on the weekend making a new flute which is a bit better suited for chromatic playing. Works really great. But it might not be fair to compare it with "proper" Irish flutes with a conical bore. There are so many effects at work to make a half-holed note sound good. For example on the typical flutes the thick wall has a chimneay effect which can strenghten the note but at the same time make it more difficult to half-hole.
Of course it is no question that bigger holes make half-holing easier and sound better.
But I still disagree that half-holing and cross-fingering is difficult. A recorder player does it all the time. And I played ocarina before I started flute (again) -- on the ocarina there are many cross-fingerings for all the accidentals.
Sure, a quena or quenacho can be half-holed easier and will even sound pretty good for Irish music.
My goal however was to make a flute that will have the typical "reedy" sound and can be played chromatically at the same time. The easiest way would probably just to add a new hole for the pinky to play Eb. But that would be cheating.
So the flute I came up with works great for Irish music and can be played chromatically. The sound-quality of the cross-fingerings depends mainly on hole size but also on other aspects of the construction -- wall thickness, undercut on the holes, etc.
And another factor not mentioned so far is the stopper position. When changing the stopper position the sound quality and strength of different notes will also change -- even with the holes being the same size. That is because the standing wave inside the tube gets shifted.
So a stopper position a bit closer to the embouchure might strengthen the low Eb far enough to make it easier to half-hole.
Also I came across this page:
http://mfleck.cs.illinois.edu/flute-tips.html
Rather interesting as she notes that the typical Irish tutorial books are not well suited for chromatic playing since they don't even mention most of the fingerings needed.
And -- yes, of course this is all easier to do with a keyed flute, which is probably the reason nobody does it routinely. But where would be the fun in that
. Besides, the lighter the flute, the better for longer playing. The flute I made weighs 182 grams.
The lowest hole is 8.5 mm which is probably bigger than on most normal flutes but still smaller than the lowest hole on my Qwistle low D.
I also ordered some new drill bits with 13.5 and 14 mm for the second lowest hole so I can move the lowest hole a bit further down and still be able to play the right hand fingerings with normal grip and not piper's grip (which I also often use anyway).
I learned Bourree in E minor, which works quite well. And I am currently learning a few other Bach tunes -- mainly "Minuet and Bandinerie".
Of course there are tunes that are quite hard -- like "Last Waltz" from the movie "Oldboy" -- a favourite tune of mine. It is originally played on clarinet in B. So there are some note changes from a half-holed F to a half-holed Eb. Quite tricky of course. But probably not all that much easier on a larger-holed flute. Just the change from one cross-fingering to the next can kind of mess with your head (and tie a knot in the fingers)
.
But I have to thank all of you for the discussion and especially neyzen. If it wasn't for you I probably wouldn't have tried playing all that classical music I love (could have just used my boehm flute but I really dislike the construction, all those keys and that I cannot properly play Irish music on it, unlike some people who can, like Joannie Madden). The last few days were quite a musical journey for me. And a lot of fun. So -- I think it is a lot of fun playing chromatically on a keyless flute. Not really hard at all. Not harder than some other "normal" tunes I learned.
Oh, almost forgot -- this is the flute I especially designed. I made the hole #3 (from the top) a bit smaller to make it possible to cross-finger G# (still too sharp in the 1st octave however but works with a litte reduction of air-pressure or slight inward rolling of the flute). Half holing G# is easier however and will sound nicer.
I can post a complete fingering chart for it, if anyone is interested.
However -- it is more or less identical with this one:
http://mfleck.cs.illinois.edu/flute-fin ... imple.html
And for the 3rd octave:
https://www.wfg.woodwind.org/tinwhistle/tw_bas_3.html
An interesting side-note -- German marching bands play 7-hole cylindrical chromatic flutes that are like a hybrid between a renaissance flute and a modern flute. But the fingerings differ a lot from a 6-hole flute or tin-whistle:
Something like this would be the equivalent to a normal D flute -- it is advertised as a "C" flute but the lowest note is actually D.
https://www.thomann.de/de/sandner_tenor ... _black.htm
Would be a cheap alternative to a baroque flute.