Flutes

[White Horse]

Hello everyone,

Are there any flute players out there? If there are...what kind of flute do you play?

I have been finding that very few people play keyless flutes - at least where I live. I love keyless flutes and feel rather alone

[Dryadia2]

Greetings and Welcome White Horse!
I have several wooden flutes & pan pipes from Peru and Bolivia (as Andean music is my favorite), but I'm not very good at playing them. I also have a few Ocarinas; they are easier to play.

What is a 'keyless' flute?

Peace and Blessings,
/|\

[Cosmic Ash]

A keyless flute has just holes - no keys covering them.
I have a wooden one, as well as a metal flute with keys. I played a lot when I was at school, but haven't much recently. Living in this flat where making excessive noise is forbidden puts me off. That and I don't want to disturb my neighbours - if I can hear the man upstairs snoring he'll hear every note of my playing .
I think really if I was buying another wooden flute I'd go for one with some keys, just to make some of those extra notes a bit easier. Playing in a key that has flats in it is nearly impossible!

There's a website full of flute and whistle (and maybe ocarina) players here http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/

[willowcrow]

I play the panflute. I find it appropriately druidic . I also play the orchestral flute (silver flute, regular flute, whatever you want to call it) but I like the panflute much better!

[Corwen]

Chiff and Fipple is a great website.

I play mostly 'fipple flutes', ie tin whistle, recorder etc, and I make bone flutes based on early medieval (Saxon and Viking) ones. I can fake keyless flute as the fingering is the same, and I have a couple including a family heirloom 1810ish boxwood flute, but I must say I've never mastered the embouchure. I should practise more.

I definitely prefer the sound of the keyless flute over the boehm system ones, all that clanking in the backgound is off-putting and the gracenotes and ornaments never sound right...

[White Horse]

I am so happy to hear from other flute players

I have been to C&F but most of them a VERY focused on trad playing. I like trad but I play a more free style. Many people at C&F look down on playing freely (ie not playing by reading music or memory such as The Skye Boat Song). I have run into other people who play well by reading notes but can't play improv at all. For me to play a song from memory such as "The Skye Boat Song" is like pulling teeth but playing improv flows from me like water. On C&F they made me feel like less of a musician or not a "real" musician so I stopped going to that board. I thought perhaps the bardic world would be more welcoming of my art.

[Corwen]

I guess C&F is fundamentally a tin whistle website and that instrument and its style is very tied up with folk tradition and session style tune playing. I like having a big repertoire of trad tunes, as you can sit down with people you don't know and spontaneously play great music together which is really nice, that is the joy of the tradition. Knowing the same tune is like having a friend in common

However I think its important to be able to improvise too, even if it isn't part of the folk tradition (except for variations and slow airs), its part of being a competent musician. If you can't improvise you can't join in jams, its great fun to follow and improvise around a shifting chord sequence, that's another type of musical togetherness.

[Cosmic Ash]

I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience with C&F. I haven't actually spent much time there, it's one of those sites that I pass through occasionally.
I come from the other approach to playing. I learned first by reading and was incredibly dependent on the printed page. I found it incredibly frustrating. I couldn't even seem to hold a tune for long in my memory. My real breakthrough came for me when I started learning the fiddle. I began to be able to pick up a tune without seeing the music. But I can still mainly only do that on the fiddle, or the neck of a guitar. I really admire anyone who can pick up an instrument and play beautiful coherent music on it. Improvisation is a real skill.

[lughna]

I've been trying to find someone or a group or a place where I can learn to play tin whistle in a 'session' style. I've always been a concert band player with notated music and I can sight read like no ones business while playing Sax or conventional Flute

The C&F board is all over the shop and I've not found it all that coherent.

[Cosmic Ash]

This site http://www.thesession.org/ has a lot of traditional tunes. I thought it had a play-along section, but either I can't find it, it has gone, or I was thinking of another site entirely. Still I think you might find some useful stuff there and hopefully the folks will be a bit friendlier than those at C&F.

[Corwen]

I've been trying to find someone or a group or a place where I can learn to play tin whistle in a 'session' style. I've always been a concert band player with notated music and I can sight read like no ones business while playing Sax or conventional Flute

The C&F board is all over the shop and I've not found it all that coherent.

Well the best way is to get yourself a whistle and go along to some sessions. Other whistle players are usually very helpful and will recommend books or teachers, in fact to deal in stereotypes for a moment I think whistle players are the least 'precious' and 'sniffy' of the folkies. Its hard to take yourself too seriously if you play a tin whistle.

Learn a few tunes, a dozen commonish ones will do. Whats common in any area varies, but if you hear a set everyone seems to know ask someone what those tunes were called and wrte them down to learn for next time. Try to learn tunes in sets so you have full sets to play, learn them by heart because having sheet music at a session is definitely not the done thing! A set is (usually) 3 tunes in the same key or which lead into each other well enough, definitely the same time signature. You play each tune (usually) 3 times before going smoothly into the next, so practise the set as a unity including the changes. Its generally acceptable to start with a relatively obscure or slow tune but the second tune, and certainly the last should be well known so everyone can join in. Tell people that you are a beginner and try to follow session etiquette (there's lot of stuff written about this on the net).

Its worth learning a second trad instrument such as bodhran or bones. I take bodhran and a bunch of jews harps in different keys (a bit weird but folk generally like them as an occasional seasoning) for a change from playing whistle. You could also take a tabor drum to an English or Scottish session. Once you've learnt your second instrument to a reasonable standard, which will take much less time than learning a melody instrument, then you can take it to sessions and play along to a few things you don't know on the whistle yet. Obviously don't play through everything, that would be a breach of session etiquette, but at least it will reduce the time you are sitting there like a lemon and let you make more of a contribution. Be warned though, inappropriate bodhran playing is especially hated among sessioneers!

You might try the BBC Radio 2 virtual session for some inspiration for tune sets: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/sessions/swf/folkmenu.html

Also get yourself a piece of software which plays abc format tunes as most folkies on the web share tunes in .abc format

Have fun!

[Cosmic Ash]

[quote="Corwen"
You might try the BBC Radio 2 virtual session for some inspiration for tune sets: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/sessions/swf/folkmenu.html
[/quote]

THAT'S the site I was thinking of! Thanks Corwen!

[lughna]

Thanks for the info and suggestions!

[White Horse]

I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience with C&F. I haven't actually spent much time there, it's one of those sites that I pass through occasionally.
I come from the other approach to playing. I learned first by reading and was incredibly dependent on the printed page. I found it incredibly frustrating. I couldn't even seem to hold a tune for long in my memory. My real breakthrough came for me when I started learning the fiddle. I began to be able to pick up a tune without seeing the music. But I can still mainly only do that on the fiddle, or the neck of a guitar. I really admire anyone who can pick up an instrument and play beautiful coherent music on it. Improvisation is a real skill.

Thank you for your kind words Cosmic Ash. I agree it is good to do both (and I am trying again to learn music). It is nice to feel welcomed here. I have been playing woodwinds for over 15 years. During my trip in Ireland I got come great compliments by the locals when I played in a restaurant on the island of Iona. It made me feel that I did not waist all that time for 15 years.

I know I should be above that "sort-of-thing" but I get flack from other flute players for playing improv and it was so nice visiting Ireland herself and feeling that my music was welcomed and enjoyed!

[Kain781]

If an ocarina counts as a flute then I'd say I play one lol

[Corwen]

If an ocarina counts as a flute then I'd say I play one lol

An ocarina is definitely a flute- often classified as a 'globular flute', a great name! An ocarina is closed ended, so its a Helmholtz resonator (like a bottle when you blow across the end). Helmholtz resonators sound an octave lower than you'd expect for their size, because the sound waves are folded double inside.

[Aitrus]

I play a tin whistle occasionally, and I play an Ocarina when out hiking. My ocarina is from mountainsocarina.com. The shape is unconventional, but the things are darn near indestructable.

I only know a couple of songs on each, but I'm learning.

[Spirit Bear]

Greetings and Welcome White Horse!
I have several wooden flutes & pan pipes from Peru and Bolivia (as Andean music is my favorite), but I'm not very good at playing them. I also have a few Ocarinas; they are easier to play.

What is a 'keyless' flute?

Peace and Blessings,
/|\

Hi Dryadia,

Nice to hear that you like Andean music

I play recorder (renaissance & baroque music) and I play zampoña (peruvian panpipes) and a bit quena (peruvian flute).
If you want information on how to play quena or zampoña you can always ask me. I played 10 years professionally Andean music with my band Los Chasquis. My husband is from Peru and quena and zampoña are his prime instruments. Mine was charrango (string instrument).

Bright Blessings,