A few related (I think) questions, out of curiosity.
To those of you who play instruments in addition to the flute, what’s your motivation to do so, and how to you juggle reaching and maintaining fluency on multiple instruments?
Do you play the same style of music (i.e. ITM) on multiple instruments, or do you use different instruments for different styles?
(Or, conversely, do you play multiple styles of music on one instrument?)
Wow, great topic! I’m looking forward to hearing the replies.
I have always struggled with this question. I opted early on to be a jack-of-all-trades, knowing that I would probably end up a master of none. (I did).
I play guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, flute, fife, & whistle. My best music is fingerpicked piedmont-style blues on acoustic guitar, (a la Etta Baker, Taj Mahal, Blind Boy Fuller, Dave Van Ronk, etc…). I play all types of music, but gravitate to “folk” styles. I play some ITM, but not well. Mostly I like learning American oldtime fiddle tunes on one instrument, (say fiddle), and then moving them over to all of the various instruments. Mike Seeger is a master of this multi-instrumental mode, and I have accepted him as my personal hero and saviour. 
Flute has been the one constant, but I play bodhran and bones because, for me, they are dead easy, and I like them both a lot. I’m not saying they ARE easy; just easy for me. Would that I could say the same for flute. I played guitar so I could write songs, but don’t touch it much anymore. I wanted to learn piano, and have a fine one, but it just isn’t my instrument. I play whistle because it is a natural extention of flute, but don’t really love it.
I’ve played tenor banjo for longer than I’ve played irish flute, but I played classical flute for longer than both. I don’t think there is that much style cross-over between banjo and flute, but this may not be a typical combination. 
I have noticed that I can pretty easily pick up tunes on flute that I already know on banjo, but if I learn a new tune on flute then picking it up on banjo later on is a lot harder, and I often don’t like how it ends up sounding on banjo.
I play the GHB mostly for competition style music. I used to play Breton music on it but haven’t for some years.
I play the border/reel pipes for more general Scottish music and light pipe tunes.
I play the flute for ITM.
The whistle for Irish and Scottish music.
Should I decide to ease off on the GHB competition I may pick up the uilleann pipe for ITM.
I’ve been known to play some pipe tunes on the trump as well.
Jazz on sax, ~ITM on whistles, everything on flute, klezmer on the accordian and clarinet, gospel and jazz on piano, Bob Marley on the stereo.
Why? Short attention span, I guess. Maintaining fluency is tough: Flute has to be an hour-a-day thing to keep making progress, but the others are OK with 3-4 sessions a week. I’m simply giving up on brass instruments, and I may bail on guitar and zouk. Stay tuned for a yard-sale!
Wow, spoooky – I was just wondering about that myself last night! I was thinking about Turlach Boylan and Seamus Egan both being fine banjo players, and was wondering what the connection was. And then there’s John Williams who plays flute and whistle in addition to box and concertina and … (we joke that he and John Doyle could now do a Solas reunion tour as a duo since Doyle now plays fiddle and banjo, too) And then there are the flute/concertina crossovers I’ve met. It amazes me; I have enough trouble with flute and whistle, though my dream is to throw myself at the Great Wailing Wall of the pipes …
But I’m really intrigued with the totally nonrelated marriages like flutes/banjos, etc.
Thanks for a good topic; I’m looking forward to hearing more!
Hey Cathy
Don’t dream, just do it 
Join the surlies 
David
Strangely enough - I play both flute and tenor banjo, too. I probably should add whistle, but since it’s just flute-lite I won’t count it. 
I play flute at an OK level, and tenor banjo terribly (and I’m sincere about my banjo playing ability). There is some strange connection between flute and tenor banjo - I’m convinced science just has yet to put the research dollars into this issue that is deserves.
Personally, I’ve always played woodwinds (sax mainly in the past), but I’ve been a string wannabee for a long time. I toyed with guitar, but we never bonded. I liked mandolin enough to own one and take lessons for a few months, but I tired of having to tune four sets of double strings perfectly (my head explodes if mando courses are out of sync). Therefore, tenor banjo, having only 4 strings (and thus suitable for even an idiot like myself) was perfect. Plus, I like it’s deeper, plucky sound better than the mando.
Eric
I’ve played a lot of instruments over my life but never to a high degree of fluency. Of all I played I think perhaps the flute held the most promise for me, which is one reason I’m going to give it a go again.
I started on piano. Even now the visual things in my head regarding music are sometimes piano-related. I see sharps and flats and think black keys. If I imagine “up the scale” my right hand fingers press down to the right. That’s backwards to a flute where they would lift up to the left. But when I’m playing either I would never get confused at all. The brain adapts I guess.
The fiddle to my mind has no keys and I cannot map the fingerings to the notes on the page for anything. Put a finger on a string and ask me what note that is? I don’t know. Ask for me to play a particular note? I’ll have to start on one and count my way up. And that’s how I read the music with a violin. Figure out what the first note is and go from there. Maybe that’s a good thing for ITM and I should have stuck with it since everybody says reading music is a bad thing for ITM.
I took flute lessons for a year as a teenager and played the recorder in a quartet in church. I really thought flutes seemed like the easiest. It’s not that hard to blow. There isn’t the whole white key/black key thing, no chords – only one note at a time. That last one is what got me to want to try the fiddle. It can get boring playing only one note at a time.
But now I’m coming back to the flute. I think it may possibly be the only instrument I’ll be able to progress further than a barely intermediate level. If the flute doesn’t work out after all (I’m still waiting for my CB FF to arrive so I have yet to play an Irish one) then the whistle will have to do.
I guess that didn’t really answer your question about maintaining fluency since my fluency is pretty limited, but it possibly answered the question about multiple instruments. I may still work on the fiddle since I like how much character they have. And I definitely will continue to work on the whistle because it is so portable and brings so much clarity to ITM. Having a whistler in a session really makes it whole.
Thanks for the interesting responses so far!
I also cross the wind/string divide, having played acoustic guitar for more years than it sounds like.
My guitar playing has never progressed beyond intermediate–I’m sure, in large part, because I haven’t focused on learning a particular style, even though I’ve played around on guitar for 14 years. (And perhaps also because–after so many years of flute playing–I’m not very good at thinking chordally.)
I’ve played the flute the longest and with the most focus of any of the instruments I’ve played or dabbled with over the years. At this point, I pretty much exclusively play Irish trad on the flute, and I’m generally pleased with my progress. But the amount of time and work it has taken to get where I am on the flute–and it’s still far from where I want to be!–pretty much takes the romance out of the idea of properly learning another instrument, even though I like to daydream sometimes.
I’m also not very inclined to learn another style of music on the flute, because properly learning a style of music can be almost as much work as learning an instrument!
With only x amount of music time in a day, I’m inclined to devote it to flute playing, rather than dividing it up.
I play ITM on Flute, whistle, Mandolin, and Bouzouki. I am best at Flute and whistle, ok on Mandolin, and not that great at Zouk. I also play a bit of Jazz on thos four, but not often. My Flute playing sounds pretty similar to my Mando playing as my influences are still the same musicians, but I am just on a different instrument.
I also play rock on Bass guitar and that is a completely different thing that my ITM playing.
Very cool topic. I also play whistle, flute, tenor banjo, and very recently, fiddle. I am mostly partial to the tenor banjo, but am still in the learning stages after 3.5 years. I think the percussiveness (sp?) of the instrument really attracted me. whistle and flute I have been playing for longer than I care to admit.
Arbo
besides flute which takes almost all of my time, I play whistle, but much less now and struggle with the bodhran. Think, it’s a good add-on to be more acurate rhythmically.
Flute and whistle have been the (pretty much) constants in my music life. I had some breaks from the flute whilst I was struggling with a what I thought was a wrist/hand problem but turned out to be a shoulder injury that was causing referred pain in the wrists. I also played the fiddle for 8 years, and dabbled in mandolin during that time. I also played DADGAD guitar and Bouzouki for a while. I managed to attain a decent level on all of the stringed instruments, but the winds are where my heart and true abilities lie. Last year, after long procrastinating (which I’m kicking myself for!) I started on the pipes…it’s going reasonably well, we’ll see what the future holds…So, now it’s just pipes, flute, and whistle for me…surprisingly I don’t miss any of the others at all!
I’m playing pretty much exclusively Irish music, but I love Breton tunes and have a few of those I like to play.
I’ve blabbed a bunch about playing GHB, but that was 20 years ago. . .
Flute, obviously.
I have owned some variety of guitar since middle school. I use a 12 string for about 3 or 4 sets with the guys I low-level gig with. But it’s not a serious thing.
Here’s the weird part. . . I am going to start harp lessons this summer. Last year at Swannanoa I sat in on the harp class out of curiosity, and somebody loaned me a harp when they saw me come back for the second class as an onlooker. So I actually took lessons for the rest of the week, and the bug never left. We’ll see what happens, but it should be a lot of fun.
I play the guitar in addition to flute. I’m interested in Irish music fingerstyle, but I love a good melody regardless of country so I’ve learned chinese, Jewish and cuban melodies as well.
I notice that I gravitate toward the guitar when I’m decidedly more depressed and the flute when in a different (difficult to describe) sort of mood.
This is an interesting topic, thanks for asking.
Jeff
I play ITM on flute, whistle (and pipes, but still have alot to learn there). I play Jazz on flute (yep, the same flute) and whistle (yep, the same whistle ). I also play the piano quite a bit, mostly for improvisation, song/tune arrangement or the occasional classical piece (even though I can’t read the dots). I also know how to play the saxophone, but I don’t have one any more - my new flute was expensive. I tried to play some ITM tunes on the sax, but, well, .. 
I used to play french bagpipes for quite some time, mostly in a “medieval” band, playing some dance music on those medieval markets (german equivalent to renaissance faire). It was fun. But I sold the pipes some time ago to fund my uilleann’s. I played baroque clarinet (“chalumeaux”) in the same band. I also used it for some arabic music which worked well as it had some keys for the odd chromatics.
I’d love to learn octave mandolin/zouki or guitar (dadgad) to backup myself on recordings. But it seems that I am too dumb for strings. 
Hi. I’ve been playing guitar for about 25 years now and that is my main instrument. I sing/write/record (folk/ballads) and gig. Played boehm flute for couple of years, low whistle (C and D). Just recently rediscovered Irish flute after a disastrous attempt about 4 years ago, on a one piece plastic job, which would have been more suited to being used as a drainpipe! Also play piano, and am learning Celtic lever harp. (Oh yeah…and play the bones).
My main motivation with my ‘other’ instruments, is to accompany my voice and guitar on recordings. I’m lucky that I’m self employed, and that if I want/need to, I will practice all day. (This happens very frequently, when I lose track of time!) I’m passionate about my music, and there are so many instruments out there that I want to play, but I’ve got to put my ‘sensible head’ on, and admit that there are only so many hours in a day that I can practice!
Happy playing!
Cass.
i totally agree with you on this and thank you very much for explaining why i taught myself to play the whistle left-handed (kick myself in the butt one more time.)
i hardly play the keyboard anymore even though it was my first instrument. i quit playing when our piano got so out of tune that it hurt my ears so we gave that one away and got an electric keyboard. after years of not playing i never started back. if i have to learn a song from scratch, i still play it on the keyboard first.
then i play 12 string acoustic (when i need to sing too.) i recently had a string problem with my 12 string and had to play a 6 string for a few weeks until the new strings came in. when did they move the 6 strings a mile apart from each other?
then i play the harmonica, whistle, and flute and it depends on which key a song is in and whether i am playing solo or with other musicians and which of those instruments sounds best, whether the song has accidentals, and if i need to transpose in my head and if sheet music is required. i have sheet music that over the years has evolved to have an assortment of notes and transpositions and tabs for guitar, whistle, and harmonica all on the same piece. i have one piece of sheet music for silent night that has the guitar chords in 4 different keys, none of which are the set of chords that our church currently uses.
i mostly play church, folk, classical, showtunes, pop songs, & back ground music.