Flute Grip: Classical and Piper's

[jim stone]

I use what I take to be classical grip, or one variant of it.
Lip, base of left index, rt pinky and two thumbs.
The left thumb is doing little work and I sometimes play
with it off the flute.

My rt thumb is more under the flute than pushing against it.
The rt pinky does the pushing.

Am I rt that Rockstro has the rt thumb pushing and the rt pinky waggling free?
I tried that, in fact, but couldn't hold the flute stable.

It seems that there are variants of both classical and pipers.

[Denny]

not wishing to cut/paste....
http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/Rocksto_on_ ... flute.html

I didn't see the word "waggling"
however he does go off on thumb placement

[pipersgrip]

I have some injuries from football where I am forced to use piper's grip. I am also double jointed in my T1 finger, and when it bends in the classical position, it is stubborn and doesn't want to move. I find piper's grip way more comfortable on my hands and fingers. I tried so hard to do the classical grip, but I just couldn't.

[jemtheflute]

I have some injuries from football where I am forced to use piper's grip. I am also double jointed in my T1 finger, and when it bends in the classical position, it is stubborn and doesn't want to move. I find piper's grip way more comfortable on my hands and fingers. I tried so hard to do the classical grip, but I just couldn't.

That's what you get for playing "football" with your hands! I believe hand injuries are rare in real football, except for among goalies!

P.S. that isn't meant unsympathetically - it's just my compulsion to word-play! ('cos I was never any good at any sport..... and I actually detest football ("soccer") as a spectator, but don't at all mind American Football, though that ain't a patch on rugby or even Aussie Rules. Spherical balls just ain't natural! C'mon British Lions!)

[pipersgrip]

I have some injuries from football where I am forced to use piper's grip. I am also double jointed in my T1 finger, and when it bends in the classical position, it is stubborn and doesn't want to move. I find piper's grip way more comfortable on my hands and fingers. I tried so hard to do the classical grip, but I just couldn't.

That's what you get for playing "football" with your hands! I believe hand injuries are rare in real football, except for among goalies!

P.S. that isn't meant unsympathetically - it's just my compulsion to word-play! ('cos I was never any good at any sport..... and I actually detest football ("soccer") as a spectator, but don't at all mind American Football, though that ain't a patch on rugby or even Aussie Rules. Spherical balls just ain't natural! C'mon British Lions!)

Yea, I didn't play music back in my sport days. My favorite was street football, which was playing in the road with no pads or anything. I have a few scars from that.

[LorenzoFlute]

I use piper's grip. Is really comfortable and you'll never have problems with big holes and big flutes. It is easier to half hole and slide when needed. You get an easy and nice C natural (both octaves) by half holing L1.
About keys, you just have to ask the maker to adjust them slightly (that's what i did with my lehart, and i have no problems playing it)...

[mahanpots]

I play with classical grip. The one thing I don't like about it is when I play for an extended period of time, the base of my left index finger where the flute rests gets very sore. I've thought about creating some kind of cushion on the flute or wearing a bandage of some sort, but I've never pursued this. I try to pick up the whistel for a break every now and then.
I've messed with the piper's grip, but it's like learning all over again, and I've never gotten it to stick.
I have used the piper's grip with success on some whistles.
Michael

[Berti66]

classical grip. I find pipers impossible on my hands......
berti

[Rob Sharer]

Y'all knew this was coming....

Breaking the fluthering world down into two columns, piper's and classical grips, is enforcing an artificial dichotomy. There are many different ways of holding a flute, some of which are distinct enough to merit a separate name. I've often lobbied for a different name for a straight-fingered grip that doesn't use the second joints to cover the holes; this grip (my preferred one) is as different from the so-called piper's grip as is the Rockstro from the standard classical hold.

Rob

[Feadoggie]

When it comes to holding a transverse flute, it seems there are two camps, one which favors a "classical" grip, and one which favors a "piper's" grip.

I just can't get imagine why this is a useful observation. In all my years camping with a flute in the pack....

Are you having a problem playing with your current grip? Or is this a red-state, blue-state thing?

Anyway, I have seen all manner of grips over the years - lefties playing flutes keyed for righties, crossed hands, scrunched left hand fingers with flat right hand fingers, etc. You use what works for you for the reasons that have utility to you. I played Boehm flute when I was a young man. That keywork "suggests" a certain type of grip. Then I started playing simple system flutes in my twenties and there were no teachers anywhere to limit the imagination so I did what worked for me. And as you travel you observe what works for others and adjust your hold as you feel there may be an advantage. Now, many more years down the road, after injuries to the left hand, nuerological adventures and some arthritis, I play fully flat fingered with straight wrists. Piper's grip? It works for me. Tipping eludes me but everthing else is doable. I can still sit around the campfire and play with others, regardless of how they hold their flutes. Love the grip your with.

Feadoggie

[Nanohedron]

WARNING: longwinded ruminating screed ahead.

The general, default context of this forum is important. With few exceptions, the primary context here is, and has been from the start, that of the realm of simple-system flutes, and the forum's (usually) understood bellwether is the 18th Century Atlantic European incarnation of the beast in particular. A further, and original, big context that applies here is that of Irish traditional music both in flutes and in general, although of course there are again a few exceptions. While this is no longer the exclusive thrust of the forum, that is its still-honored undercurrent, and that undercurrent remains very strong. This is ignored at one's e-peril. Naturally, terminology and vernacular peculiar to this musical inheritance and idiom are very common coin here indeed, and the outlook and attitudes that go with it thrive here as well. In other words, we see the expressions of a particular, and predominant, culture and tradition.

While we of course make for plenty of wiggle room, this is not really a catch-all flute forum although sometimes it looks like it. Other flutes aside, let's take the Baroque traverso or the modern flute: players of those instruments are sometimes directed (politely, one hopes) to discussion boards specific to their instrument and art, especially if that instrument is the only one that they play; the reality is that there is a limited amount of information that can be helpful to them here, depending on who's reading the lists. Now, if you want reliable advice on Irish playing on the Irish instrument, then this is a good place to gamble on (and that's another thread). BUT: my advice to a traverso player regarding embouchure or crossfingering would be near useless, and any advice of mine to a modern flute player would be useless as well; I only play the default instrument of this forum, that is to say the postclassical late-18th-Century English-style conical-bore simple-system 8-keyed blackwood-and-silver D flute. We'll ignore Eb, and wood, for now. To illustrate context further, in the ITM vernacular that IS the "concert flute". Which is a mercy, because the other takes too long to say. And that's the crux of the issue: instrument, culture, values, and vernacular. One size does not fit all when you take context into account. If I meant a Boehm intrument, here it behooves me to specify it as such: I would probably say "modern concert flute", or the like, so as to be understood HERE.

What we have before us is a need to clarify terms when we are speaking from different worlds, and for a willingness to resist the urge to regard others' worlds as invalid. An all-or-nothing stance is provincialism or parochialism depending on your perspective, and both can cut both ways. That said, when in Rome, it's a darned good idea to learn to speak Italian or at least ask for translations, and shouting slowly in English isn't going to help. And don't point and laugh at the locals if you don't want your food unpleasantly messed with.

[MTGuru]

As screeds go, Nano, that is positively screed-tastic.

[Nanohedron]

As screeds go, Nano, that is positively screed-tastic.

I am out of e-breath, let me tell you.

[Cork]

It appears that the use of the piper's grip could largely be ITM-centric, as the use of the classical grip is known to go at least as far back as the 1752 publication of J.J.Quantz's work, On Playing the Flute, and HERE is an example of the classical grip as used on both a simple system flute and a Boehm flute.

So, because the use of the classical grip on simple system flutes appears to precede the use of the piper's grip on simple system flutes, it appears that a question as to which of the two grips, as could currently be in use by players here, could be valid.

[jemtheflute]

It COULD???!!

Can we assume that is a conditional "could"?