Blackwood wrote:No, it means this, that for many players,
the C natural key is the key they most commonly use.
Not sure what the insistence is on this statement, but it is certainly not true for the vast majority of Irish trad players that use keys.
Will you be able to find a couple of people that mostly use the C natural key? Maybe. But then these people would not play an extensive repetroire of tunes in keys which invariably require the keys of F nat, Eb, G# and even Bb.
Granted in some cases you can use cross fingerings, but the reality is in many cases you are not able to play these tunes effectively (ie at speed, or volume) without the keys. That's why the keys were invented in the 1st place!!
The C natural can be helpful in the 2nd otcatve, but it is a rare occasion that this key is required for the purpose of playing a C nat. The same cannot be said for the other keys.
I think I understand you. I agree, of course, that you don't need the key to play C natural and
more often do need to use the other keys you mention to play the notes you mention.
The reason I say that for many Irish flute players, the C natural key is the one they
most commonly use is this: following Gordon's report above, a fair number of people
report that they do.
I expect that a number of these people are not
playing a high percentage of tunes that involve the other keys.
Most ITM doesn't involve them. (That's why people like Pat Olwell sell
lots of keyless flutes.)
But ITM routinely involves lots of C naturals. And there's
lots of people who use the C natural key to play a number of the C naturals
they play, that's what they say: so the key is going to get used more than other keys.
That's the reasoning.
I just want to emphasize that the claim that 'for many players,
the C natural key is the key they most commonly use' is consistent
with this NOT being the case for many players.
Let me try say this clearly:
The fact is that, over the years, many people have written to this board
that they use the C natural key a fair amount in playing C natural,
though often they cross-finger too--that's a common report. And there are lots
more C naturals than F nats, Ebs, G#s and even Bbs, which don't
happen in most tunes most of the people on this board play.
So many people are using the C natural key more often
than they use other keys.
A few years ago Dave Copley showed me the flute
he had made for himself to play. It had just one key: C natural.
A lot of people find it a very useful key. Terry M considers it
the most useful (see my preceding post).
