i’ve been playing the flute for about a month now, and my left thumb is reeeally starting to feel sore, especially around the joint, i hold the flute with my left thumb pointing left, because that seems to put my left hand in the least awkward position especially for doing B rolls, (and putting my thumb directly below my index finger doesn;t feel as stable to me), my flute’s more or less parallel to the ground, and i don’t turn my head to the side when playing..
any tips on grip/home remedies for sore joints? it’d be awful if this becomes a chronic problem, (and i’m playing a tipple! which should be pretty easy on the thumbs already since should be lighter compared to wood or other polymers)
It’s called piper’s grip, and it’s quite common. All you have to do is relax your hands while playing, which is easier to say than to do. At the beginning my thumb was hurting quite a bit, with time it got much better. It still hurts a bit sometimes, when I play longer sets and forget to relax.
Since you’ve just started playing, I’d suggest to change your grip, because you won’t have problems with keys (when you get them) and for various other reasons (some hard to explain). But if you have small hands you may want to not change your grip…
There are many threads about grips, just use the search function and you’ll find them.
the whistle, brought me to the flute, and for ITM in general, i remember watching riverdance on tv when i was a kid and going ‘wow, what music is that?’ sounded so foreign, so exciting, and i delved further into it, listening to different bands, buying the CDs and whatnot, it wasn’t until two years ago that i bought a whistle online, and since then i’ve started on concertina and later flute^^ and its now my full fledged obsession, but it got a little lonely at times because i really didn’t get to play with others at all until quite recently
I recently started as well, but have a heavy wooden flute, hehe. It is quite heavy towards the headjoint side and as a result I keep my left thumb to the left of my hand to balance the flute at the balance point. I use a mixed grip normally; index-finger’s second segment (piper), middle-finger’s fingerpad, ring-finger’s fingerpad, right hand all fingerpads.
If I use pipers grip on it the headjoint end tends to droop when my hand gets tired or when I go to play B or C. It does hurt my thumb to have it supporting so much weight while to the left, but not as much as my left index, middle, and ring fingers do when I use pipers and go to crossfinger a Cnat. I can’t seem to get the hang of having my left thumb tucked under my fingers or parallel to my index finger, it feels VERY unstable and makes it hard to keep the flute steady. My left hand actually gets more tired with pipers grip than it does with mixed grip.
I tried using fingerpads alone, and while I can, and it feels very much like when I play the Concert Flute (tin typewriter), my left index is locked so tightly trying to support the flute that it becomes very cumbersome and painful to lift it, especially when fingering either Cnat.
It is interesting to note that on concert flute I had a lot of index finger pain, and not dull achey pain but sharp burning pain at the joint - one of the reasons I decided to give Irish flute a try. With concert flute nearly the entire flute’s weight rests on the first segment of the left index finger and it would often slide down to the underside of my knuckle-joint when playing, this is where that intense pain started.
I’m just hoping my thumb needs to adjust to the position and strengthen up a bit, it doesn’t feel like the kind of pain that is indicative of actual damage - unlike the concert flute’s scenario noted above.
if you search the flute forum for grip you will get 133 pages of posts that mention that word. Here are my favorite four threads from the first 10 pages…
Thanks! That last link about the 19th century grip actually helped a TON!. I am modifying it slightly, but I suspect that is the norm given individual hand dimensions. Anyway, my left thumb is free and relaxed now with no pain. I am getting the same soreness in my L1 I had before on concert flute, but I can live with that.
You ought to be able to reduce that too - just as you’ve found how to drop the thumb. L1 does have to curl rather onto it’s hole/key (on Bohm) but you should not be gripping the flute in that curl - merely relaxedly moving the finger-pad on and off its hole/key. If you get the right posture of the L arm and hand for you, the flute should be fine lodged against the base knuckle of L1 and being pressed inwards to your face by that, and only very marginally held up by it - but that should be perfectly secure with the rest of the finger pointing to the sky! It should only get stressed/hurt if you are squeezing the flute with it. If you also get the R hand support correct and balance with that of the L and your head, the flute should be quite adequately secure
a little update.. i’m trying the classical grip on and off now, i must say its reeeally hard to cover the holes, i can’t imagine playing with that grip, as i have to press my LH fingers to the point of getting white in the fingertips to make sure there’s no leakage, not to mention the base of my index finger feels very tensed up. i play with the piper’s grip most of the time, and slowly learning to relax that death grip, part of why my left thumb aches so much was because i was previously pressing the tip of my thumb against the side of the flute, rather than supporting the flute from underneath, by doing that it feels better
Mmmmm. Not sure why you should need to press so hard! (You should not!) Can you post some photos or video clips to illustrate? I’ve seen some of your YouTube clips on low Whistle and you don’t appear to have particularly small hands or problems spanning that, though you have got very narrow fingers.
It is one week now since I read that article on 19th century grip and started doing as it instructed. All pain is gone 100% now from all fingers and wrist. Even my elbows feel less stress on them. I can play much more comfortably and confidently with a solid embouchure now.
Thanks for all the info posted here, I love playing even more now!
sounded so foreign, so exciting, and i delved further into it, listening to different bands, buying the CDs and whatnot, it wasn’t until two years ago that i bought a whistle online, and since then i’ve started on concertina and later flute^^ and its now my full fledged obsession, but it got a little lonely at times because i really didn’t get to play with others at all until quite recently
