Hardest to play.

[I.D.10-t]

Congratulations -- I too, came to this instrument via a different one. For me it was (and still is) the oboe, with some (a very little bit) bassoon in my background as well. I think that you will probably find that it does indeed take more work to begin to make a good sound on the flute than the clarinet. Since my background is double reeds, I can tell you that it does take more work to move the air for the flute. Remember, in a clarinet, all of your air is used to move the reed and make the sound. In a flute, half of the air is sent of into space, and only half of what you blow goes down the instrument.

I have heard many times that the flute is hard to play compared to a whistle. I don't get it. I am not an accomplished player, but I could never get a whistle to sound anything than a squeaky noise maker. I have tried several. Now read the above and wonder what makes an instrument hard to play? If you can blow across the top of a coke bottle and make a noise you should be a make noise out of a flute. Right?

Or am I an odd ball? (in this one topic)

[lixnaw]

you're on the ball there I.D.
i had all sorts of ergonomic problems with whistles, and i felt like i was blowing up a balloon.
so i surely won't be any match for oboe.
i found that flute and button accordion are more natural for me.

[fluti31415]

All I have to say is -- if oboists are really as crazy as everyone says, then why do they let us carry such sharp knives?

(OK -- I am going back to make some reeds now.... )

[Cathy Wilde]

Lixnaw, this is OT, but .... I am dying to know about that horse in your avatar photo and can't contain myself. He's spectacular! Is he a horse you know? Fill me in! (if you're willing, of course)

Oh. And I think whistle's harder than flute, too. In fact, the more I play flute the more I realize how WRETCHED I am on the whistle.

[lixnaw]

Lixnaw, this is OT, but .... I am dying to know about that horse in your avatar photo and can't contain myself. He's spectacular! Is he a horse you know? Fill me in! (if you're willing, of course)

hi Cathy, my pleasure!
it's a type of an Irish Travellers horse called "skewball, or stueball".
this one was bought by Germans. http://www.harzer-tinkerhengst.de/index.html
you'll see them at horsefairs like Ballinasloe.
my neighbour often had no more room in his backyard.
he walked his horses through my front door, through, the kitchen, to my backyard.
i was never much of a horseman...
here's some more on those horses http://www.bunclodyns.com/nomads03/html/horses.htm

[Nanohedron]

Oboe.

Because I don't know how.

[chas]

I can't comment on flute vs oboe, as I've never played an oboe. I can say that when I took up the clarinet I instinctively played with an oboe embouchure (i. e., lips on top and bottom as opposed to teeth on top). But as for flute vs. whistle, I find the flute many times more difficult.

To take your coke-bottle analogy a step further, anyone who can get a sound out of a referee's whistle or a boatswain's whistle can play a tinwhistle. Or, show me someone who can get 2+ octaves and a range of colors from a coke bottle.

[I.D.10-t]

To take your coke-bottle analogy a step further, anyone who can get a sound out of a referee's whistle or a boatswain's whistle can play a tinwhistle. Or, show me someone who can get 2+ octaves and a range of colors from a coke bottle.

You can do that with a referee's whistle or a boatswain's whistle? Wow!
I have a boatswain's whistle. Been working at it.

Oboe.

Because I don't know how.

Sorry I did not mention wrestling with an octopus.

[Nanohedron]

Let us not mention the thralls of Cthulhu. I'm having nightmares about regulators lately.

[AaronMalcomb]

Do you hear the gibberings of regulators in your dreams, Nano?

[Nanohedron]

Please...please stop. The unspeakable eldritch horror of it all...

[kevin m.]

Please...please stop. The unspeakable eldritch horror of it all...

"It was a thing too horrible to describe..."

[ChrisA]

I think flute is definitely more challenging than whistle, and probably more so than oboe.

With each of them you have certain fingerings, of course, which is kind of a wash, depending on the individual, which one is 'easiest' to finger will vary. With each of them you have a certain amount of breath control issues, which will again vary on individuals as to which is hardest.

On top of that, with the flute, you have an enormous set of choices to get a true note (and vary wide variation available). A more open embouchure with a thick stream of air, a tight embouchure with a focused stream of air, jet angled down and blow harder, jet angled up and blow softer, lips covering the embouchure hole not at all / a little / a lot, rolling the flute or not... all of which can combine to give you a choice of breathy tone, reedy tone, pure tone, whatever you like...

So I think there's a very good argument to made that flute is innately more difficult, because it has, on top of the difficulties of the whistle, the whole embouchure issue. But it's kind of a silly argument to make (even though I just did ).

It's silly, because it doesn't really entirely work out that way. Since the whistle has less inherent tonal variation, it becomes all the more important to work have excellent ornamentation skills... and so on for any instruments and their differences. I think, for any instrument, it is always possible to spend a lifetime working on it to get the best possible music out of it. So really, the 'how difficult is it?' question only matters in terms of 'how long before I play where other people can hear me?' since you'll presumably never have 'finished' learning the instrument.

(Nonetheless, I still think flute is more difficult than whistle , but more rewarding... YMMV)

[Jack]

Oboe is harder than flute, and flute and whistle are about the same.

Oboe is harder than just about anything, actually...

[Jay]

As a newbie to the flute, after a year on a tin whistle, I believe the flute is much more difficult than the whistle. I just bought a beautiful delrin from Jon C. (check it out in the "Flute lichen" thread, page 24). I have enjoyed its company for 4 days to date

The finger spacing is much farther apart (going from a high D to a D4 flute). I could have bridged this by first going to a low D whistle, but knew where I wanted to go and didn't want to stop in between.

The second consideration is the embouchure. I found the lower register was fairly easy; except for the lowest note which takes a slight change in air pressure to get a solid, timely sound. The second octave is quite a bit more challanging. My early attemps were very airy as I had to reeeeeally overblow to get the notes to sound. Adjusting my embouchure has helped, but I'm not really there yet. I do like how I can adjust my embouchure slightly to get a more pure or reedy note; can't do that with a whistle.

Still not convinced...I played my tin whistle today and found I have improved on the tin whistle after playing my flute all week. Hmm, actually I don't know what that tells us, but it was kind of interesting. Alright how about this. I can play "The Butterfly" in my sleep on the whistle. I started with that tune on my flute (It has a nice mix of upper and lower octaves) and haven't quite got it down after 4 days of intermittant playing. I'm not talking ornamentation; I just want to get all the notes to play at the right time. High E really gives me trouble.