Hello and help please.

[ejbpesca]

I would like to buy a wooden fute. I am a guitar player of humble learn by ear background and I have successfully played $3 recorders as a teacher.

Watching the History channel I saw and heard a guy play his big wood flute in the converted missile silo where he lived.

It reminded me of how much I like the flute music that is that haunting sound usually associated with ancient times, native Americans, Peruvians, and Asians.

I need advice on what to buy. My criteria is as follows:

Wood or plastic with wood like qualities
Matches a major key of either D G E A or C
24" or less
Can be played easily by someone with small mouth
Solid true tone by simply covering hole for a note.
Instruction manual either included or available online
$150 is my ball park budget

Please suggest what to buy. I plan to play it in public along with my pre recorded guitar tracks.

Thanks in advance!

Please help. I have no idea how to find what I want.

[Gabriel]

I think a Tipple flute is a good choice at your budget. You could probably afford two of them, in different keys. Huge bang for the buck.

[Steve Bliven]

Another option would be a bamboo flute. You might check Billy Miller's work at http://billymiller.wordpress.com/ or Doc Jones has some in his shop at www.shop.irishflutestore.com/Flutes_c3.htm. You could get two different keys for about the amount you mention.

Note that these are diatonic instruments, not fully chromatic, so if you want to play in D or G and then switch to C or F, you'll need another flute.

Best wishes.

Steve

[James_Alto]

Not sure what to recommend....maybe a proper whistle, if you like the recorder?

You'll have to embark on learning the art of embouchure with non-fipple flutes - I wonder if you're okay with that? It's just that it might take 6 months or longer.

I think most whistles would come in at under 24". If you like the haunting sound of the flute, then you might like a shakuhachi (Japanese) or xiao (Chinese) which also come in the keys you require.

Of course, a $150 could buy you a McCarty flute

But don't go there just yet - there are safe recommendations here. What do you play btw.

[MTGuru]

Watching the History channel I saw and heard a guy play his big wood flute in the converted missile silo where he lived.

Yes, I saw that, too, in the Kansas segment of "How the States Got Their Shapes". Now we know "what's the matter with Kansas": guys playing flutes in missile silos.

I'm thinking along the same lines as James_Alto. If you've not played flute before, and are more interested in flute-like sound than in the long, long commitment required to make a flute sound halfway decent, you'll get more instant gratification from a fipple flute: whistle, native American flute, recorder. 24 inches corresponds more or less to a concert pitch instrument - low D whistle, D NAF, alto/tenor recorder - and all are available in that range or higher.

And if you play a whistle in a silo, you can use the old "Intercontinental Ballistic Whistle" joke.

[Feadoggie]

And if you play a whistle in a silo, you can use the old "Intercontinental Ballistic Whistle" joke.

Q: What's the range of a whistle?

A: Depends on the pitch ... and how fast you are running before you pitch it.

[ejbpesca]

Thank you all very much. I will buy an assortment of these suggestions and go from there. Yes, as suggested by one, maybe a large recorder could suffice. I did take to these very cheap little plastic ones many years ago and got haunting sounds out of them but now retired I have the time to maybe play the real deal.

Thanx so much,

Jb

Oh. There was a question about playing technique. Answer is I have no idea what I'm doing but decades ago I was at the same point with guitar yet after hundreds of hours of trying I somewhat mastered it. I sort of understand the other comment about diatonic vs. Chromatic in that chromatic I think means a full range of the western music scale. Since I play strictly by ear, improvising all the way I think just as long as the flute has any range of notes I will be able to mix it in if it's pitch is 440.

I will make up a melodic finger picked chord progression, record it to a looper then improvise some melody to make the song and add this to my little show I do as a one man band....all volunteer work. So with that in mind if you have a very specific suggestion please reply.

Just imagine say the chords to "Sweet Home Alabama" being played softly with a finger roll. What flute could I execute a sweet toned melody along with that? Does not have to be complicated, simpler the better. I can make a lot of music from a limited scale. Oh..chords to Sweet home AL are DCG.

I take it a flute may be more difficult to play than a recorder?

[James_Alto]

Hi there,

generally most flute players have some experience of other woodwind instrument before moving onto the aerophonic flute. It's called an aerophone, since there is no blade, or lip to strike and form a sound, like the penny whistle or the recorder.

It takes more time to learn how to control the air flow this way, than to learn how to use low and back pressure for the recorder, or rather, it's easier to make an ugly sound on the flute, than it is on the recorder.

If you are playing by ear, a larger chromatic instrument makes sense. The main advantages to a diatonic flute which I see, is that they are much faster to user, without complex keys. A recorder would be much cheaper, and more intuitive for working out music by ear than a strongly diatonic instrument, like a keyed whistle. You could end up transposing music in the wrong pitch more easily on an instrument that can only play in the key of D (or G). which would mess things up for the guitar chords.

From what you've indicated, I get the impression a flute is out of the question! It takes months to break into the second octave smoothly, and maybe longer for the third octave! Modern flutes are pitched at A=440 as are recorders, however older instruments, A=392, 415, 452 etc are all possible!

Recorder it is

[mutepointe]

Since it sounds like you'll be teaching yourself, you might want to do what a lot of us have done. Learn the pennywhistle first. They're cheap, you'll like the sound, and you can focus all your attention on the fingering of the notes. It is not going to take any time to get a sound out of a whistle. The fingering is the same as a flute. After you have the fingering of the notes figured out, get a flute (you could buy the flute at the same time) but it's going to take some time in getting a sound to come out of a flute. You'll be able to focus all your attention on getting a sound out of the flute because you'll already know the notes.

Your friends will be amazed that you learned two instruments instead of one and never figure out that the two instruments are very similar.

[ejbpesca]

On it's way to me is a Yamaha tenor recorder. Penny whistle next, then flute.

This recorder is key of C. From what I am seeing all tenors are in C. That should match guitar quite well.

[James_Alto]

Yup! Cross-posted

You could get a contrabass recorder - that would play in the key of C too

I play the bass recorder - it plays in the key of C, but the bottom note is a F, not a C, like yours. That means, I have to move the clef around to read the music (grumble grumble).

A tenor is an ideal choice - the finger stretch is comfortable too. I love the sound of the bass recorder - it is flexible enough to do solo work, and light enough to carry unlike a subcontrabass recorder.

You'll probably find that you can play the penny whistle devastatingly fast, so fast that you can't feel your fingers because they're moving so fast. They're cheap enough to get into. For range though, I think a low D by a decent manufacturer would be the way to go. It would complement your guitar work too.