flute vs. low whistle

[DCrom]

Yes, flute is a bit harder than low whistle, since you need to develop an embouchure.

But it's not *that* difficult to get something that halfway works, and build from there.

I took up flute not quite a year ago. It took me a couple of weeks to get an embouchure that could reliably play the first octave, maybe a couple of months before I could play up to the third-octave D without worrying about squeaking.

Even now, I spend a lot of time working on my embouchure (and it may well be several years before I consider myself a "good" flute player), but I can play anything I can play on my low whistles equally well on the flute - and with a wider range of available tones.

Of the two, I prefer the flute - I love the feeling when everything is *just* right and it all comes together - but I still play my whistles, high and low, regularly.

If you're drawn to flute, why not give it a try for a month or so with a decent instrument? Worst-case, you can always sell it for little/no loss if you decide flute isn't for you.

[jim stone]

Flute is much more satisfying to play, it's one of the
great instruments, and Irish flute is especially lovely
as flutes go. Low D whistle is interesting but it's
not in the same league, IMO. I mean you have all
these great Irish flautists but not so many great
low D whistle players--that's no accident.

But, yes, flute is very difficult to play, it takes years,
it's as much a way of life as a musical instrument, IMO.

If you like low whistle and you're thinking of flute,
you might as well get started....

[chas]

The flute and the low whistle are simply different instruments. Yes, the flute is harder, but a Corvette is harder to drive than a Cavalier. But, just as in the car analogy, the flute is much more maneuverable. Since the player makes the sound in a flute, the sound can be changed. You can make it growl or make it sound sweet. There's no low whistle that can play as loudly nor as quietly as a flute.

For me this all adds up to a much more expressive instrument.

[crookedtune]

Well, here's my Tipple plug again: Costs about the same as a mid-priced whistle. Easy to play. Sounds awesome. Builds character. You can always resell it.

If you've asked the question, you're interested enough to give it a shot. I got hooked immediately, and it's not that hard to get started on! I do love low whistle, but given the choice.....

[josh perkins]

Right so. Before I got going on the uilleann pipes, I heard all about how it was impossible to play them. Then, within two years, I had won the All-Ireland trophy. No, not really, but it wasn't the myth many made it out to be. Hard to do well, like anything. Is flute prone to the same romantic stigmatization?

[jim stone]

No, it's bloody hard. But your mileage may vary.
It took me a couple of years just to figure out
how to hold the thing properly. Embouchure really
comes online about 9 months in, and it continues
to improve indefinitely. Fingering is tough partly
because of the position. And the D flute is big,
so speed has to develop slowly through steady
practice. It's the sort of thing that one can readily
practice two hours or more every day. At nearly
four years I'm still a good deal closer to the
beginning than to competence--though, of course,
one's view of competence tends to expand with
one's proficiency.

Because many of us are practicing so hard, we are
skating on the edge of injury. Not for the faint of heart.
I did not believe this before I took it up.

[TonyHiggins]

I've played low d for a few years, though not that often. I started on the flute a few months ago. I thought to myself, when you play whistle, you can focus on the music. When you play flute, you focus on the flute. At this point, I practice flute for about 30 minutes most days. I use up air way too fast and I lose the tone when I move my fingers too fast. I can get a really nice sound out of it if I play slowly. I do worry about my hand/wrist as my fingers already ache to begin with. Why bother? The quality of the sound is so far beyond the low whistle.
Tony

[crookedtune]

Jim, your experiences hardly sound typical to me. Maybe you should be looking at smaller flute/fifes or something more ergonomical to your build. It really shouldn't be that kind of a struggle. I didn't jump in suddenly --- sort of phased into it part-time over a number of years -- but I remember no pain, frustration or struggle. Now fiddle.......

[jim stone]

Please read Loren's post above.

As I said, your mileage may vary.

[dwinterfield]

I've been playing whistle for several years and still play most every day. About a year ago I got restless, got a Tipple and had the opportunity to get a really good flute. Took several lessons and practiced enough to get a fair tone most of the time, but with no speed. Still restless, I tried a concertina. The whistle teacher (also a fine flute player) said good luck! It's a demented, complicated machine that will drive you nuts. Well, not exactly. After a couple months and a week of intensive lessons, I can play recognizable tunes close to speed. I still don't undertstand the ornamentation, but it's only been a couple of months. Of course breath control is entirely different when the "lung" is in your hands.

The point is to try the flute and understand that some instruments will be great for you and some won't. BTW, I'm keeping the flutes out of stubornness and one day will be able to play the damn thing.

[bjs]

Well, here's my Tipple plug again: Costs about the same as a mid-priced whistle. Easy to play. Sounds awesome. Builds character. You can always resell it.

If you've asked the question, you're interested enough to give it a shot. I got hooked immediately, and it's not that hard to get started on! I do love low whistle, but given the choice.....

I would endorse that. I got a tipple flute too and enjoy playing slow stuff. Didn't take too long to get one and a half octaves. I keep the flute near the kettle and have a go when waiting for it to boil. Little and often does the trick.

[Loren]

I think perhaps a good place to start, when considering flute, is by considering what your goals are:

There are many ways to enjoy music, none "right" or "wrong", with that in mind, if you simply like to pick up an instrument and play for a few minutes now and then, with out much concern for making "progress" and you don't have specific goals you want to achieve with regards to tone, then you may very well be happy playing a little flute here and there, along with your whistles.

If OTH, you are now, or become of the mind that you want to become a "good" flute player (whatever that means to you), if you want to play ITM, or any other style authentically, if you want to achieve a certain particular tone, or if you are in any other way a perfectionist by nature, then the flute is a very long, hard road indeed. So it depends where your head is at really.

One thing would be flute players most often aren't aware of, is that playing the flute, due to it's embouchure requirements, is not like playing the guitar, or many other instruments which you can just pick up and always have the basic physical facility needed to play, once developed. You see, one of the things about playing the flute, is that you really do need to do it constantly, by that I mean on a nearly daily, if not daily basis, other wise you lose the progress you've been making, with regards to tone and intonation, and this happens quite rapidly, and can be extremely frustrating. With a low whistle on the other hand, once you get the tunes and ornamentation under your fingers, you can put the instrument down for months, and then pick up nearly exactly where you left off when you come back. Not so with flute - when you come back to it after months off, you will feel like you are starting over, nearly from scratch, unless you'd been playing many years previously.




Loren

[Loren]

I've played low d for a few years, though not that often. I started on the flute a few months ago. I thought to myself, when you play whistle, you can focus on the music. When you play flute, you focus on the flute.

This is a Huge, HUGE point that Tony has made here, and an extremely important one, IMO - learning to play the flute when you don't already know how to play a bunch of tunes well, in a particular style yet, is like trying to learn to Juggle and learn to ride a unicycle at the same time - which can be a very bruising and discouraging experience. I honestly think flute is best learned (as an adult anyway) once one has already learned a bunch of tunes quite well on the whistle or low whistle, because for the first year or so of flute playing, you're going to need most of your concentration for the flute, not the tunes, as Tony says.



Loren

[Coffee]

Not a big surprise that this topic would generate a lot of discussion. One thing to keep in mind though, try playing a low whistle quietly in the second octave. You can do that on a flute. I've not been able to do it on a whistle.

[Loren]

Not a big surprise that this topic would generate a lot of discussion. One thing to keep in mind though, try playing a low whistle quietly in the second octave. You can do that on a flute. I've not been able to do it on a whistle.

Yes, I think this has been mentioned previously in this thread. Certainly one of the major limitations of whistles is that they lack much dynamic range with regards to volume.


Also, as an addendum to what I wrote in a previous post. For the would be whistle to flute transitioner: While "knowing" a bunch of tunes is helpful before jumping to the flute, it needs to be understood that tunes are not played the same one on flute and whistle. By this I mean that if you simply pick up a flute and try to play with the same articulation and phrasing, it's not going to sound very appealing - one really needs to listen carefully to much good flute playing (and the help of an instructor doesn't hurt either), in order to start to understand what makes for good fluting. The whistle and Flute are different beasts, and as such benefit much from being played differently from one another.





Loren