I use piper’s grip. Is really comfortable and you’ll never have problems with big holes and big flutes. It is easier to half hole and slide when needed. You get an easy and nice C natural (both octaves) by half holing L1.
About keys, you just have to ask the maker to adjust them slightly (that’s what i did with my lehart, and i have no problems playing it)…
I play with classical grip. The one thing I don’t like about it is when I play for an extended period of time, the base of my left index finger where the flute rests gets very sore. I’ve thought about creating some kind of cushion on the flute or wearing a bandage of some sort, but I’ve never pursued this. I try to pick up the whistel for a break every now and then.
I’ve messed with the piper’s grip, but it’s like learning all over again, and I’ve never gotten it to stick.
I have used the piper’s grip with success on some whistles.
Michael
classical grip. I find pipers impossible on my hands…
berti
Y’all knew this was coming…
Breaking the fluthering world down into two columns, piper’s and classical grips, is enforcing an artificial dichotomy. There are many different ways of holding a flute, some of which are distinct enough to merit a separate name. I’ve often lobbied for a different name for a straight-fingered grip that doesn’t use the second joints to cover the holes; this grip (my preferred one) is as different from the so-called piper’s grip as is the Rockstro from the standard classical hold.
Rob
I just can’t get imagine why this is a useful observation. In all my years camping with a flute in the pack…
Are you having a problem playing with your current grip? Or is this a red-state, blue-state thing?
Anyway, I have seen all manner of grips over the years - lefties playing flutes keyed for righties, crossed hands, scrunched left hand fingers with flat right hand fingers, etc. You use what works for you for the reasons that have utility to you. I played Boehm flute when I was a young man. That keywork “suggests” a certain type of grip. Then I started playing simple system flutes in my twenties and there were no teachers anywhere to limit the imagination so I did what worked for me. And as you travel you observe what works for others and adjust your hold as you feel there may be an advantage. Now, many more years down the road, after injuries to the left hand, nuerological adventures and some arthritis, I play fully flat fingered with straight wrists. Piper’s grip? It works for me. Tipping eludes me but everthing else is doable. I can still sit around the campfire and play with others, regardless of how they hold their flutes. Love the grip your with. 
Feadoggie
WARNING: longwinded ruminating screed ahead.
The general, default context of this forum is important. With few exceptions, the primary context here is, and has been from the start, that of the realm of simple-system flutes, and the forum’s (usually) understood bellwether is the 18th Century Atlantic European incarnation of the beast in particular. A further, and original, big context that applies here is that of Irish traditional music both in flutes and in general, although of course there are again a few exceptions. While this is no longer the exclusive thrust of the forum, that is its still-honored undercurrent, and that undercurrent remains very strong. This is ignored at one’s e-peril. Naturally, terminology and vernacular peculiar to this musical inheritance and idiom are very common coin here indeed, and the outlook and attitudes that go with it thrive here as well. In other words, we see the expressions of a particular, and predominant, culture and tradition.
While we of course make for plenty of wiggle room, this is not really a catch-all flute forum although sometimes it looks like it. Other flutes aside, let’s take the Baroque traverso or the modern flute: players of those instruments are sometimes directed (politely, one hopes) to discussion boards specific to their instrument and art, especially if that instrument is the only one that they play; the reality is that there is a limited amount of information that can be helpful to them here, depending on who’s reading the lists. Now, if you want reliable advice on Irish playing on the Irish instrument, then this is a good place to gamble on (and that’s another thread). BUT: my advice to a traverso player regarding embouchure or crossfingering would be near useless, and any advice of mine to a modern flute player would be useless as well; I only play the default instrument of this forum, that is to say the postclassical late-18th-Century English-style conical-bore simple-system 8-keyed blackwood-and-silver D flute. We’ll ignore Eb, and wood, for now. 
To illustrate context further, in the ITM vernacular that IS the “concert flute”. Which is a mercy, because the other takes too long to say. And that’s the crux of the issue: instrument, culture, values, and vernacular. One size does not fit all when you take context into account. If I meant a Boehm intrument, here it behooves me to specify it as such: I would probably say “modern concert flute”, or the like, so as to be understood HERE.
What we have before us is a need to clarify terms when we are speaking from different worlds, and for a willingness to resist the urge to regard others’ worlds as invalid. An all-or-nothing stance is provincialism or parochialism depending on your perspective, and both can cut both ways. That said, when in Rome, it’s a darned good idea to learn to speak Italian or at least ask for translations, and shouting slowly in English isn’t going to help. And don’t point and laugh at the locals if you don’t want your food unpleasantly messed with.
As screeds go, Nano, that is positively screed-tastic.
I am out of e-breath, let me tell you.
It appears that the use of the piper’s grip could largely be ITM-centric, as the use of the classical grip is known to go at least as far back as the 1752 publication of J.J.Quantz’s work, On Playing the Flute, and [u]HERE[/u] is an example of the classical grip as used on both a simple system flute and a Boehm flute.
So, because the use of the classical grip on simple system flutes appears to precede the use of the piper’s grip on simple system flutes, it appears that a question as to which of the two grips, as could currently be in use by players here, could be valid.
It COULD???!! 
Can we assume that is a conditional “could”? 
From my vantage point I would say either would be valid, equally or in combination, depending on the benefits and difficulties borne of experience with those various approaches.
sorry, invalid conclusion.
Well the first paragraph was okay.
The second paragraph seemed to me to wander about without much focus. It seemed as if there was a great deal of effort to bury the main point of the paragraph in a bit of western music flute history. (Well, I’m guessing that it was the main point…) I got a sense of your relief right at the “Now, if you” part. 
Your editor overlooked the “blackwood-and-silver D flute. We’ll ignore Eb, and wood, for now” slip…
The third paragraph…now that one is lovely!
Takes off in one direction, pivots and runs back over top of itself.
All in all it was pretty good for a screed. 
I’m not an academically trained writer, you know. And I did say “ruminating”.
…Or are you saying it wasn’t monotonous enough?
I thought concrete examples, being illustrative, would actually make things clearer if not easier. I admit I tend to build up to the point; call it personal style. But I didn’t have a week to pare it down. And then it wouldn’t have been a screed. And I would suggest that the relief may have been yours.
That was no slip, clumsy though the outcome may appear. Meditate on this, Grasshopper…
Yes, I’m quite pleased with myself about that.
Screeds being by definition long and monotonous, I should think so.
Lovely review. Thank you.
Is the “Irish Hold,” or “Irish Grip” the same as the pipers’ grip? If not, would anyone be able to describe the Irish Hold? Thanks.
Shall I?
Well, hardly anyone has saluted since I ran that term up the C&F flagpole, but assuming there is such a thing as the Irish grip, and I merely suggested the name because it’s something you see employed by a significant number of players in Ireland, it looks similar to piper’s grip at first glance. The big difference, though, is that pipers, and PG-employing fluthers, use the second joint of each finger to cover the holes, while this other grip uses the flats of the first joints. Piper’s grippers also tend to hold the flute up on the flat part of the LH thumb (and RH thumb, I suppose), whereas Irish grippers tend to balance the thing on the tip of the LH thumb, maybe doing a bit of pushing with the RH thumb. Here’s a video of a startlingly handsome young fellow gripping it thusly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76aKx23qd58
Rob
Solid work, Rob. Enjoyed the tune and the example. I broke my left wrist and thumb three summers ago and ever since I deal with a hell of a lot of pain in my left hand/thumb and will have to give that a try.
Thanks, Liney. One of my students taped me nosing through that tune, and later asked for my permission to post it. Interestingly, he was in the process of evaluating his own grip and wanted to see exactly what I was doing. Despite my advice to the contrary (I usually recommend that folks try to stick with the standard grip, perversely), he switched over to the Irish hold and has never been happier. Cheers,
Rob
p.s. The other gent in question has a wild Hitchhiker’s Thumb, making his grip a bit different from my own one (thumb pad flat, but parallel to the bore, not perpendicular like most of them piper lads).
The Irish grip as I experienced it was firm, sometimes to the point of hurting. I attended my wife’s father’s funeral in Limerick in March, and during the visitation at the mortuary I shook a couple thousand Irish hands. Of course, my wife’s family grew up on a dairy farm in rural County Limerick, so many of those I shook hands with were farmers and other laborers.
Now, Rob’s Irish grip, on the other hand, looks much more supple and relaxed. I think that’s one of the keys, supple and relaxed.
That’s my case. My left thumb pad generally sits at the barrel socket ferrule, sometimes beyond it. Never heard of “Hitchiker’s Thumb” before that I can recall…but I can bend both thumb tips backward, on their own, to almost 90 degrees. Gives people the willies. Got it from me mum. So I could position the thumb pad further in, but the thumb looks broken then (icky), and anyway it’s more joint-friendly for me to extend my thumb so. I can do weird things with my feet, too.
So, in the interest of indicating certain notable points along the spectrum extending from the classical to the “piper’s grip” (that’s what I use per Rob’s definition, having teensy hands and so have done as needs must), I think the “Irish grip” is a good term for certain specifics; looks to be somewhere at or past the midpoint of the simplified classical-to-piper’s spectrum.
I agree, Rob: if I were teaching Irish flute, I too would still strongly encourage the student to first try out the classical grip before anything else, and give it the money’s worth. Just in case, like. I think a person should have all options available to try and see.