Thinking of taking up flute, what would you recommend under?

[Jayhawk]

I play an 8 key ebonite M&E. I think you will be happy with one. Best deal out there on a 6 or 8 key flute (I am not sure he still offers 8 keys, though). Just remember that you will not sound as good as you would like on ANY flute until you become a good player. I have seen many cheaper priced, but well made, flutes derided by new players that have soundsd great in the hands of good players.

Eric

[xabeba]

That's a nice instrument, for instance:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=90766

[LorenzoFlute]

What about the flute in my signature?

[Sirchronique]

The William Miller flute didn't come today .. the USPS tracking website said expected delivery by the 15th... I suppose it will be here tomorrow.

I emailed the maker of M&E flutes, and he told me he doesn't make 8 keys anymore. I asked him if the keys could be added to a 6 key in the same message, but I didn't really get a direct answer.

I will probably go for the 6 key then, or I might consider a nicer keyless. However, I want to stay with one flute for a very long time and get one that I won't feel an urge to upgrade within the next few years.


And of course any flute will sound better in the hands of a good player, and I do not expect it to sound as good as clips I am hearing when I am playing it. However, I think it does show that the flute does not have a "low ceiling" on how good it can sound, and gives some indication that it would be a good flute to grow into.

I was really hoping for an 8 key, as the main reason I wanted a keyed flute was for the low C and F key. This would be a very useful thing for me. I can do the other notes that a 6 key can do, without paying for 6 keys... albeit not so easily.

Hm.. I will ponder about this today while I'm at work. I'll either get the 6 key m&e.. or I'll get a bit nicer flute in keyless. I will undoubtedly come to a descision by the time I am off work, as it's a boring job and there is nothing to do except think :p .

Is there any way the extra keys can simply be added to the 6 key? Isn't the construction mostly identical, aside from the Eb key, right? Couldn't that be repositioned and two more added, and it still be worth the price, if i'm getting a good deal on the 6 key?

[Jayhawk]

The one thing you cannot do wih a keyless flute is play a good sustained Eb/D#...and sustained accidentals for most other notes likely will be dicey if playing with others. Just my $.02 worth. Also, low C is nice, but once you have it you will start to notice those low As and low Bs and shortly thereafter you will be questing for an old Austrian 14 keyed flute.

Seriously though, while I have an 8 keyed flute, the low C and C# are my two least used keys...I would be fine with a 6 keyed flute.

As for adding the bottom two keys, they can be added provided the maker has cut the holes to accept keys in future and they are not there just for tuning/venting purposes.

[Sirchronique]

Ah, I am already questing after low whistles in the lower keys, etc.

However, with flute, I only want to have one primary one to play. For me it is different, and the low C and the F key would be the ones I will use a lot, if I would have them.

I primarily play irish trad, however, I also have a large interest in breton tunes, hence the wanting for a low C and an F key. When I play them on whistle, I use a C whistle. I hear a lot of An Dros played using the C as the lowest note in the tune.

However, if the 6 key is all I am able to get, I think I can get it for quite a good deal. That leaves enough extra money for a spare C instrument for playing the tunes where I need a C note. I suppose it is really not as big of a concern as I'm making it to be, as irish music is primarily what I will play on the instrument, and the low C isn't as needed for most of these tunes.

Besides, octave mandola/short scale bouzouki is my other primary instrument, aside from woodwinds . I can always play these tunes on it, and not have to worry about range issues.


Many thanks for the responses.


EDIT: Yeahh.. I'm getting the 6 key. As soon as the person emails me back, i'm asking about paying for it. . It's the best deal I will find on a keyed instrument.

Also, that is a good point about it being troublesome to play sustained sharps or flats without a key. I would take it further, and say that it's difficult for me to play them at all, in proper tune, by using half holing. I can cross finger some of them on whistle.. but, the keys would be of huge benefit to me.. or at least nice to have for when I need them. It's better to have them and not need them, than to need them and not have them. I already have a lot of nice whistles, and I'm wanting an instrument that broadens what I can do with woodwinds.. beyond the simple fact that flutes offer more versatility in general.

[Jayhawk]

Good move...you'll not beat that price, ever.

Eric

[Sirchronique]

No time to write much, as I must go to work soon.

I got a few offers for 8 key M&E's now. Well, 3 actually. So that kind of cancels out my considering of the six key.

I just got the william miller flute. I didn't have a whole lot of time to mess with it before work, but, I will spend this weekend playing it. I am still feeling kind of light headed. It made my head tingle and I felt like fainting. Couldn't get much of a sound out of it yet.. but I suppose that's to be expected from a beginner, as I need to improve the way I am blowing and shaping my mouth.

He includes a pamphlet that says he sells better flutes for only 20$ more. Geesh.. that might have been a good thing to tell me when we were communicating and I was expressing what I wanted as far as quality. Not sure I care much for that marketing technique. I guess it's a way to get people to buy another flute from him. I would have much rather liked to get one of those from the start, though. I wonder if all the flutes played in his videos, and that he sent out for people to play and promote them, were probably the best ones, and what you are getting doesn't have a chance of being of similar quality to the ones you are hearing that persuade you to buy the flute in the first place.

Anyway, I'll get back to the fluting after work.. and likely will go after the 8 key now. I think I'd regret it if I got a 6 key, even if it is for a cheaper price. This entire weekend will be spent improving what little sound I can get out of a flute so far :p

[jemtheflute]

Re: developing your flute-playing abilities, I'd been meaning to compile another of my help sheet documents on this topic for a while and another current thread just tipped me over the edge. I hope some of what's in it may be of some use. It will probably get amended and extended in due course, but here's the first version: Flute Embouchure

[Sirchronique]

Wow. Even in the little time since I have read your document, it is already helping slightly. This is going to take a very very long time for me to get the hang of, but that was extremely helpful. I'm still not sounding good.. but, I'm using less air than I was this morning.

I spend most of my weekend playing music, and a bit of time before and after work on weekdays. So, what I will do from now on is play my octave mandolin and whistles, as usual, and occasionally take a break from that and pick up the flute for 15 minutes or so a few times a day, and work on that. I'd love to stay at it for a longer stretch each time I pick it up, but even though I'm already using less air, I'm still not breathing correctly, and still getting a bit of a drunken feeling in the head after some time. I imagine that will gradually lessen with practice, and I'll be able to go on much longer than 15 minutes at a time, eventually. I just don't want to push myself too far and kill a lot of brain cells or faint! I am very prone to getting a fainting feeling even when not playing woodwinds. Standing up too fast can give me that feeling!

This is much harder than I thought it would be , but I am happy to know that my beginning experience is normal. That makes me feel good about this, and I'm going to be practicing flute everyday now. It is an instrument I really really am dedicated to wanting to learn.

Thanks again for the helpful document!

Also, I will be heeding what you said about lessons being best. I am taking some lessons with some really good players for helping me improve more wit whistles, and luckily, they both play flute, too.

[Sirchronique]

Wooo~! I am getting my first actual flute-like sounds now! From how things were from the start, I didn't expect it to happen so soon. I sort of had a hopeless feeling like I just wasn't going to be able to get this if it took years! I can play some easy tunes, like Polka D'ours, but only very very slowly. The breathing is still a difficulty, and when I take breathes I have to be very careful about resetting my mouth position and flute position to where it should be, when either my lips or flute have moved, even to a slight degree.

I have a problem with the flute shifting out of position when I play notes such as c, c sharp, or the bottom D. I'm going to have to focus on how i'm holding it more.

Sorry for going off topic, but I'm just so overjoyed to be getting a sound from it this soon. It was worth every single lost brain cell!

The tunes I play still sound like crap compared to how they sound when I play them on whistle, but the sound of the notes themselves sound better than I thought I'd be getting. The tunes are just sounding bad because of moving the flute when playing certain notes, and having to reset the position, or , most of all- loosing the proper embouchure shape when I go to take a breath, and having to take the time to reposition my lips into the proper shape again. I suppose after some more time at this, my lips will just go into that shape automatically without having to think about it. My mouth is tired and I'm giving the flute a rest for tonight, but tomorrow I'll be back at it! Thanks for the help from the page Jem, and thank you for the flute suggestions everyone!

I'll see what I can get the 8 key for, and who I want to get it from, and then I'll probably post back here after I eventually get it, and have spent some time with it.

Has anyone here played both the M&E and the William Miller "windwood" flutes, and can tell me if the M&E is easier or harder to get a sound out of? Or is it a completely different thing completely?

I'm off to listen to some of my new Molloy, Peoples, and Brady mp3's for inspiration. I'm really happy about the little bit of progress I've had in the short span of time, it makes me very optimistic. I'm still open to hearing flute suggestions though, in case anything falls through with the 8 key plan, or incase there is a much much better deal around on something else. As I mentioned before, I'd prefer the 8 key... but, if there is a keyless or a 6 key around that is 5x better than the 8 key for much less price, well yeah, I'd go for that!

Xau! and thanks again!

[Jayhawk]

I've played Olwell bamboo flutes and flutes from several other bamboo flute makers (including myself, back when I made them). They are similar in getting the basic sound from them, but the bore on the M&E will be smaller so it'll take a bit less air, the embouchure will take some adjustment (it's deeper on the M&E compared to a much thinner bamboo wall), it's easier to half hole notes on a bamboo flute (again due to the thinner wall and also the larger tone holes since bamboo is basically cylindrical and M&E is conical bore), the finger stretch will be easier on the M&E, and that's about all I can think off right now.

The first time I tried to play flute was in 8th grade (that was a long, long time ago). I rented a silver flute from our local music store, and tried for nearly a week to get a decent sound out without passing out. I seriously did get very lightheaded and dizzy, so I gave up...my dream of being the next Ian Anderson tossed aside I went back to playing sax which was my first instrument.

Skip forward twenty years, and I was increasingly unhappy with just playing whistle (and my brief detour into mandolin playing wasn't a good thing - I'm just a woodwind kind of guy I guess)...I'd always loved the sound of Irish flute, and no matter what whistle I bought I always felt unfulfilled playing it. So I tried a Hall Crystal flute (again hard to get a good sound out of, but not as bad as when I was in 8th grade), and then I found the flutomat online with "recipes" for making keyless flutes out of pipe...and that was much easier to play. I hadn't heard of or found C&F, so I just made my own flutes and eventually moved on to bamboo and sold those at a local folk music shop. Then I found C&F, and it all went downhill and I ventured into the realm of conical flutes and have never looked back. To this day, I still find a silver flute harder to play than a wooden flute (although I no longer nearly pass out). Horses for courses I guess.

I hope you like your M&E. It'll roll around less in your hands because it's quite a bit heavier. Definitely work on your grip in the meanwhile, but weight does help on the notes you're having problems with.

Eric

[Sirchronique]

Thanks Jayhawk,

I am quite surprised that my current flute would be considered thin walled. The wall of this one seems to me to be extremely thick! I'll take a measurement later!

I'm glad to hear that weight might help with the instrument shifting so much. I imagine I couldn't find a lighter weight flute than a bamboo one.

I am also happy to hear it might use less air. The finger stretch isn't really a big issue for me, as I mostly play low whistle. The flute is much easier than the finger stretch on any low whistle I have played, which isn't a problem for me either anymore. Perhaps it's the angle of the flute that makes it easier to finger.

But now, I think I'll go practice! Thanks!

[jemtheflute]

I have now made some significant revisions and additions to the Flute Embouchure document, including correcting the link to the Flute Hold document. Moreover, I have rearranged the folder on Box.net so that all the Flute Resources are now in a separate sub-folder.

Anyone who downloaded the original version of the Embouchure doc. may care to replace it with the current, improved version.

Sirchronique, I recommend you to peruse the Flute Hold document to address your insecurity issues.

[benhall.1]

I have now made some significant revisions and additions to the Flute Embouchure document, including correcting the link to the Flute Hold document. Moreover, I have rearranged the folder on Box.net so that all the Flute Resources are now in a separate sub-folder.

Anyone who downloaded the original version of the Embouchure doc. may care to replace it with the current, improved version.

Sirchronique, I recommend you to peruse the Flute Hold document to address your insecurity issues.

Moreover, nonetheless, and notwithstanding the heretofore ...

...it ain't a bad document.