After lots of browsing in this forum, I notice that most people play either a keyless flute or one with 4 or more keys. Yet, it seems to me that a 1-key (Eb) flute (baroque style) would be the best compromise between keyless and key-laden - as most trad music does not need keys. Why is the 1-key flute not more popular?
Casey Burns recommends that as a compromise for someone wanting a chromatic flute but not the expense of a fully keyed one. I’ve actually thought of adding that key to my Seery, but I’m starting to get a half way decent D#/Eb in both octaves (not great, but passable…and it’s getting better). I don’t think it’s a bad idea as G#, Cnat, Fnat and Bb often cross finger or half hole really well.
Why don’t people do this? Maybe because trad players rarely need the D#? Maybe they have some secret fear they’ll be confused with baroque flute players? 
Eric
I don’t know why.That’s what I have,and I like it. Someone did ask me if it was a baroque flute once,but I set them straight.
-Kelly
the most attractive bit from Casey’s writeup on the Eb key for me was his suggestion that it makes hitting the 3rd octave E easier. can anyone confirm or deny this for Pratten &/or Rudall style instruments generally?
tia /dan
It most definitly does make the third octave E easier on my flute,I don’t have much experiance with a lot of other flutes,but I think it would be pretty much the same.
I like 1-key very much. The problem is the following: in order to make all the cross-fingerings work, you have to keep the fingerholes and blowhole small, and this creates flutes that are very nice sounding but not as loud as the Irish flute market expects them to be. To make a flute louder, you create larger holes, and this ruins the cross-fingerings, so you add keys. Later, you figure out how to add REALLY large holes (wider than your fingers), so you need keys for those too, Her Boehm. Eventually, you figure out how to make a flute cylindrical and still in tune, and presto! you get this:
Very interesting replies. How high up into the 3rd octave can a wood flute go with an Eb key? Or can it go even higher with more keys?
With 1 key, 3rd octave A is standard, A# is sometimes (rarely) possible.
With 8 or more keys, they were playing routinely past the 4th C, at least as high as D. Orchestral stuff from the likes of Beethoven and Shostakovich, uses the 3rd and 4th octaves a lot.
g
There are many roads and not all to roam.
You can also get a flute with large tone holes (see bansuris)
whereby you can half hole the notes …
Hello everyone,
I considered the single E flat key option, as with cross fingerings and half holing, I could get all the notes in the bottom two octaves in tune(enough), but g# was not quite as good as I liked. If I was playing mainly playing ITM, I would get an E flat and G sharp key, just so as to keep those options open. This doesn’t seem to be the common way of thinking though.
What prompted me to go for the 6 key opion was my delusions of trying to use the conical bore flute to play in non ITM contexts. I found that in order to play chromaticaly in the third octave, I needed the other keys.
I use a Mc Gee pratten, and I find that I can easily get all the notes up to high B (on a good day, given the correct phase of the moon etc.)
Having said that, I find that the third octave on the simple system flute takes a lot of practice, and I am far less competent (meaning, able to improvise fast chromatic lines that make sense) than I expected to be (I still won’t play this flute in this way in public). I put this down to the fact that it is an extremly different set of fingerings to to boehm, so my brain is having a hard time adapting(still). I would be interested to hear peoples experience in the 3rd who havn’t been “spoilt” by years of boehm playing, where 4th octave E flat is not out of reach, (some pepole go up to F#).
Getting back down to earth, on the keyless seery, I seem to remember 3rd octave high A is ok, but the high b doesn’t really happen, and notes out of the d major scale are really difficult.
regards
Michael
in particular, which of the 3rd octave notes up to A are made easier by using an Eb key?
tnx /dan
All of them, though the f natural is hard to play, in most flutes.
Keep in mind i’m talking about a Baroque flute (especially designed as a 1-key instrument), not an Irish flute that has had an Eb key added to it.
My impression is that on Irish flutes made today the third
octave is sacrificed somewhat for strength in
the first two octaves. Playing up there is a bit of a leap
of faith, hardly automatic, and the notes are a bit
weird, often, and the fingerings strange.
Or maybe it’s just me. I have sixkeys and if they will help me
I’d like to know how. I tend to call it
quits at third octave E. I know how to go
higher but…
jim, thanks for that info about your 6-key.
Hmmmm… then maybe, for those who want the high octaves, when ordering a flute, it makes sense to ask specifically that the flute be tuned for the widest possible range? Or does the basic design of the flute dictate how high it will go, no matter the tuning?
Yes and yes. There are a lot of misteries and uncontrollable factors in simple-system flute design. If you really want to play on the 3rd octave, look for someone who sells reproductions of historical flutes (even McGee does), not flutes optimized for Irish music. Or buy an antique.
g
I did contact Terry McGee. He told me that his Pratten Perfected most likely had the widest range (four octaves from C4 to C7) as the PP came after the Boehm flute and had to cover the same range.
MichaelS, is this the McGee model that you have? That is good advice to keep in mind: G# and Eb as the minimum keys for versatility. McGee’s keys are block-mounted, so I assume that means the flute must be ordered with all desired keys installed.
I have read that the Pratten holes on the McGee are huge (patterned after the original)! Does anyone know if they are larger than the holes on a Casey Burns folk flute?
Speaking of CB, he does have a Pratten in his line. I don’t know if it has the same range as the McGee Pratten though. CB has not replied yet to my last 2 emails or I would contact him on this matter.
Hi everyone,
yes, my McGee flute is the Pratten Perfected model, in the six key “irish” configuration. I think if you want to play mainly ITM, with the occasional “other stuff”, you could be quite happy with the G# and Eb key (it is quite ok to half hole the f and Bb with a bit of practice), but if you want to really be able to play chromatically in 3 octaves, you need the 6 keys (5 if you are happy with one F key).
regards
Michael
michaelS, on McGee’s site, it says that the 5th hole is almost 1/2" in diameter. Do your fingers have any trouble playing the larger holes? What about the hole spread - does it tax your finger span?
(I need to measure the width of my fingers. On my CD folk flute, I sometimes have to press down harder with my right hand to get the low D to sound.)
Did McGee include any fingering chart with the PP?
With your keyed flute, did you have to change your playing at all to avoid accidentally pressing a key?
Hi headwizer and everyone else,
I found adapting to the simple system flute took a while, in terms of a pain if I played too long, at the beginning (on a Seery). I was told years ago, if it hurts, stop, so thats what I did. After a while (a week or so), my body adapted and it didn’t hurt. This was more getting the fingers to where the holes were, I had no real problem covering the holes. When I got the McGee, I had no trouble adapting from the Seery. The sise of the holes is almost the same. The keywork was also quite easy to get used to, but I worked on it during the playing in period, and was quite painless.I didn’t really have to change anything, but my technique mainly comes from Boehm playing (no pipers grip etc.) so other people may have more problems adapting to keys.
There is a fingering chart on terrys site, but it only goes up to A. I found some of these wern’t so good on my flute, so I messed around with it and finally settled on the fingerings I posted recently. I have found that this flute works very well, and I am very happy with it, except I can’t play it well enough!! (I regularly play Eldarions Olwell, Murry and Grinter, and the McGee compares well with all of them (they are all keyless)).
Can you post the distance between the holes on the McGee Pratten? The finger spread doesn’t look that bad from the picture (what a lovely flute), but descriptions of Prattens always mention the large hole size and spread.
Is it very difficult to play the 3rd/4th octaves?