I think I know what you mean by this, David, but you're not saying it very well. ITM did not cause flute playing to devolve. Flute playing in classical music was already highly evolved when the Irish discovered the wooden flute and began to play it in what was already an evolving traditional music that had not until then incorporated the instrument. So flute playing in ITM evolved from that point as a base. Meanwhile, somewhat contemporaneously wooden simple system flute playing in musics other than ITM (such as orchestral music) did begin to die out (the ultimate in devolution), but this had nothing to do with the fact that the simple system flute was being used in ITM, and everything to do with the introduction of the Boehm flute. So it is by no means true that ITM caused flute playing to devolve.David Migoya wrote:Marveling at the difficulty of a tune ....in F minor no less....simply points out that ITM has caused flute playing to devolve....and it's beginning to perk up again.
Flute playing in ITM has continuously evolved from its initial starting point. The Irish were obviously not using the full capabilities of the instrument when they first picked it up, and it has taken a while for them to latch on to some of its best features, such as being fully chromatic in every key thanks to the 8 keys. But as you point out, they are now beginning to do that. From the very beginning, though, they began to exploit techniques that are rarely or seldom used in classical music, such as cuts, taps and rolls. If a classical musician picked up the simple system flute now and didn't do those things, you wouldn't say that they were devolving flute playing by not using those techniques. Really, ITM and classical music are two distinct musics that have their own separate evolution paths on the instrument.
