After reading the spate of recent posts regarding flutes in different keys, I was curious about how often the inhabitants of this forum find they have the need for a flute in a different key, especially if you already have a fully-chromatic keyed flute. The reason I ask is because I am interested in leaning English country dances (someday) and have read that, particularly Playford’s settings, sit well on a C flute. I suppose it isn’t necessary to have a flute in the same key as the setting of the tune, so long as you can perform some transpositions (which is a skill I am working on), but I guess it can make certain fingerings easier.
Anyway, if anyone cares to chime in on this topic, please do so. Also, if there are particular flute keys that seem to be used most frequently (like D,C,A, and Bb tend to be for whistles), I’d be curious to hear about them.
I play Playford tunes quite a bit and I’ve never felt the need for a C flute to play them. I play on a small-holed 1-key or baroque flutes. There are plenty of tunes in F and Bflat, but also plenty in D and G. Part of the fun of playing from Playford is putting together a set in 4 different keys. I suspect people say they sit well on a C flute because there is the occasional tune that goes down to low C. There aren’t so many of these that I’ve noticed, though.
I play lots of classical music in funky keys. Some are more difficult even on an 8 key flute, but that’s no different than when I played saxophone - some keys are just difficult on a certain instrument. Same with fiddle, but I do not know of violin players who go rushing out to buy a fiddle in a different key…you just need to practice.
Whistles seem to be different…it’s one of the few instruments (along with recorders) where I see good musicians buying them in multiple keys. Some of this is likely the cost since they’re often cheap, some of it is that you don’t find a keyed version.
I’d suggest getting a 4, 6 or 8 key flute, or a flute like Chas’s (one keyed small hole that’s fully chromatic) and play anything you want on it.
By way of a direct answer to the OP, I suspect (can’t actually read minds and haven’t directly asked 'em!) that a majority who acquire flutes in different tonalities, especially keyless ones, do so for precisely the same reasons as whistle players do - to be able to play in the same basic set of 4 or 5 modal fingering patterns but also to access a wider range of key-signatures than is thus possible on a D instrument. This may be in order to play particular tunes in keys/modes that don’t sit happily on a D instrument or to play tunes normally played on it at a different pitch to match other differently tuned instruments, thus Eb for an Eb session, B to play with a “flat set” of pipes, and so forth. This purpose remains even when playing fully keyed flutes (or cross-fingering chromatic like the Baroque flute) as, even with major effort in practicing to use them effectively, playing in far- “foreign” keys is often awkward.
There is, however, another major motivation (and, I think, the main one) other than the one of key-signature accessibility, namely tone-colour. We often read on C&F praises being sung of F flutes and whistles, for their sound quality, not their handiness for particular key-sigs. Likewise most of us are attracted by the tone qualities and expressive possibilities of sub D low flutes, which is the main reason for the fashion for low Bb, B and C flutes. I think most owners of, say a C flute, don’t have it to be able to play D minor tunes with E-minor fingerings, though it is handy for that - but to play tunes from their normal repertory with their normal fingering but utilising the noticeably different sound.
A third, but I think minor motive may be one of tessitura - the range available from an instrument - sometimes one might find having a lower range useful to avoid having to octave-fold etc., even if it means playing a piece in a more difficult fingering pattern. I have certainly used whistles that way on occasions - using say a G or A whistle rather than a D one to keep a tune in its original pattern of pitch relationships through the melody rather than adapt it. Conversely, I know a few tunes in G minor that I have learnt with (simpler) transposed fingering but also necessary adaptation on the F flute, but prefer to play in (more “difficult”) original form using the keys on my D flute to keep the shapes.
I think it’s called “Flute Acquisition Disease” or Disorder, better know as FAD. When you have a few D’s: one in blackwood, one in cocus, one in Boxwood, and one in Delrin, one with six keys,and one with 8 keys, it’s time to try one in Bb, one Eb, or maybe one in F.
Right now I’m lusting after a Low A with keys for G# and G. The people I play with seem to like to go below low D.
I get a lot of pleasure playing flutes in high A, G and Bb. They are easier to finger, they develop
embouchure, they aren’t terribly expensive (Sweet flutes are very good, all wood, Billy Miller
bamboo flutes too) and
they sure help busking. Also have a lovely sound. I’ve also played a lot of non-standard tunes (e.g. fiddle tunes, old time
tunes, even pop tunes and blues) with others, and these come in handy.
I’d love to be able to say that I’m perfectly comfortable in all keys and modes on the flute, and that my Eb and A are for tone colour and extended range. While Hindemith and Glazounov are fine for me on sax, I don’t think that even ‘period’ keys and chromaticism (1840ish) will be within reach in the near future.
Yeah, I know. Practice.
I have the greatest respect (sometimes envy) for those who are ‘fully chromatic’. Distant keys are just friggin’ tear-jerkingly hand-crampingly brain-spazzingly tough without having put in the required work.
True enough. Simple certainly evolved, where sax was invented. I’ve picked up a 19th C sax and was surprised to find few surprises. Played just fine. Picked up a flute with an open G# and my brain fell out. Same with Albert system clarinets.
Aside from things like my A whistle, to play Emajor tunes and D tunes that go below the D, my motivation has always been the tone and expression… Playing normal tunes on a big deep Bb flute gives something incredible, and the brightness you get from higher flutes like Eb, F, G, I’ve an Ab, such a nice change from the usual low D.
There’s also some good practice on your embouchure and fingers having different keys- The high flutes will give you good embouchure practice, and when I go back to the D there’s no trouble getting a good tone out of it anymore. And the Bb is such a big stretch that the D doesn’t seem like a pain anymore!
Yep. You get comfortable with a Bb or an A and the rest of the flutes seem like hotrods. If I want the low A to feel comfy, I just play an old Buescher Tru Tone baritone sax. Keywork by the Marquis de Sade. Or a ginormous contra flute (actually baritone D) from my PVC binge. No, it’s only a 5-holer.
