Learning Irish Flute with no Irish Flute?

jomac · Post by **jomac** » Thu Aug 30, 2001 7:39 pm

Hi, all, this is my first post here. I'm an Irish music newby, though I've played music all of my life. I'd love to learn Irish Flute, but do not have one or the wherewithall to buy one. But what I DO have is a standard Boehm metal flute (which I cannot play - yet) and a pennywhistle. So what if I work on tunes on the pennywhistle (which I am doing), and work on tone production on the flute (which I am doing with long tones and scales)? The idea being that I'll get my fingering/repetoire (on whistle) and tone production (on metal flute) happening, albeit on separate instruments. Assuming I get pretty fair at these two aspects, and then I get an Irish Flute, do you think I'd be able to adapt to it easily? In other words, does this seem like a reasonable plan? Thanks for any input.

Joe

gcollins · Post by **gcollins** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 8:24 pm

Any practice listening and trying to interpret tunes is likely to help.

I'd suggest though that you get an inexpensive (not cheap, mind you) keyless flute to practice on.

You can get an Olwell Bamboo D flute for about $72 and it's a darn good flute. That way you can practice the different embouchure on the wood flutes and the fingering techniques more directly.

MarkB · Post by **MarkB** » Sat Sep 01, 2001 5:35 am

Hi Joe

Go to the second page on the whistle forum and look for the posting
"Whistle to flute transition" You'll find an interesting discussion on your question

Mark

eubiedubie · Post by **eubiedubie** » Sat Sep 01, 2001 6:02 am

Mel Bay has a book called the Complete Irish Flute Book by Mizzy McCaskill and Dona Gilliam,with a Cd.It's instructions on playing Irish music on the Boehm flute.It's very good and get you prepared to play a wood flute.