I’ve been practicing away with an old German flute; I’m much taken with the playing of Galway man Paddy Carty, who if you don’t know played a “Radcliffe” mechanism Rudall Carte flute - Boehm type keywork, but with fingering more like the simple system. Aside from liking all the volume, Paddy was great for the Galway music, which has lots of tunes in G minor, etc. - which apparently derived from fiddlers in the old days wanting to play with the piper Dinny Delaney, who had a set in Bb - which I play a copy of. The fiddlers didn’t tune down to his set, they learned to play in the flat keys. Paddy also wasn’t shy about using the low C natural and C sharp keys on his flute, perfect every time. Get his Shanachie album, awesome stuff.
So - I’m beginning to get the bug for perhaps picking up a modern maker’s flute with 8 keys. What’s your experience with their playability - can you cran on them, or grace them sucessfully even? I notice that this thread, a review of Peter Noy flutes by that Naughaheadroom guy, mentions that Peter’s low C’s work like a charm: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=15351&highlight=c+key. And Peter’s just up the road from me…I’m going to email him about paying a visit I think.
The action on those keys does vary from maker to maker and Peter’s are, indeed, very usable. Ornamentation is achieved slightly differently with keyed holes vs. fingered holes, but it is certainly doable.
certainly is possible but not everybody use them.as far as my experience is concerned Aebi Wilkes and Grinter make perfect low keys (in the old
R&R way, with pewter plugs -which make a little “click” every time you use them, unless you oil them with some bike oil,which is not very healthy for the flute).if you don’t like the “click” ask for pads on the low keys. english flute player (living in ennis co.clare) kevin ryan is the most
unbelievable low keys player i ever met,and one of my all time favourite
fluters.he’s working on a solo recording and i bet it will be full of low c’s!
I remember reading something about someone making a record, and they couldn’t record a tune because they needed a key and the clacking was showing up on tape…
One thing about my old Koehlert flute - the C keys are simply placed side by side, no connecting leverage of any sort, which is typical of German flutes; and to get enough pressure on them to seal firmly you have to play the right hand finger holes with the flats of your fingers, with the C keys operated with the middle joint of the pinky. Takes a minute to adjust, and you get a lot of extra slurring off the holes as a result - something I’d been doing on the whistle already.
C# in the middle of the flute’s range, played with the d’’ fingering and the low keys pressed, was an alternative fingering classical players used to employ, also. In case you want to justify purchase etc.
The low C and C# on my Chris Wilkes large hole Rudall Rose “clone” are quite reliable. As long as my embochure is set to get a good hard low D, the C and C# sing right out. The clacking from the pewter plugs just adds charm. 