HELP!!! advice SKIP HEALYS CHROMATIC KEYLESS FLUTE please

[crowld]

Hi.
I am reposting this as have had no replies. I have been practicing on this instrument for several years for hours at a time playing scales etc and now wonder about just giving up completely and concentrating on my six keyed flutes. I play very poorly most types of contemporary music and Irish. Please can somebody give advice???
I have just joined the forum and am a mostly at home tootler on the flute. I have several keyed Irish flutes one by Lejeune and one by Skip Healy. I love the Geert Lejeune for its quickness and ease in all keys, also the tone of the the Healy flute is beautiful but I find that it is a bit slower when playing in unusual keys requiring the 'keys' if you get my meaning.
But the real issue and the reason I joined this forum is to ask if anybody has any success with the 10-hole keyless flute which I have been trying to learn for several years intermittently. Mine is in D and although I have ?large male hands I still cannot adequately close the D hole to allow for fast play in keys requiring D. It is for me almost impossible to trill between D,E flat/ E. I have searched through youtube and the net to see if anybody has overcome these issues. I love the idea of a keyless fully chromatic flute which makers have searched for centuries to make but am I wasting my time in trying, spending hours of practice on what may be basically an unplayable dream (apologies to Mr Healy). So please help me or send a link to a video showing someone successfully playing anything on it. Obviously in some keys one could avoid using D. All the best.

[Casey Burns]

I play French bagpipes which have a thumbhole for the left hand, a hole for the right hand pinkie. Then someone got the idea of a right hand thumb hole for the minor 3rd (F natural on the flute). I can't do this - especially as my hands get older and are increasingly arthritic.

I'd say tape up the holes you don't use for a certain piece and play the ones you need. There is a reason why most traditional flutes since the Stone Age have had usually about 6 holes. It gives a scale and the other fingers are needed to hold the thing. Unless you are polydactic and have extra fingers, stop beating yourself up!

Casey

[MTGuru]

I'm guessing that the 10 hole flute is a scaled-up version of Skip's 10 hole chromatic fife. And since the 10 hole fife is not as much of an oddity in the fifing world, I'd guess you might have some luck gleaning information from fife players and fifing sites/resources. Perhaps there's a reason that the 10 hole arrangement is usually confined to smaller fife.

As for chromatic playing, have you considered a baroque 1-keyed flute? It's designed to be chromatic (within limits), and models like the Aulos copies are readily available.

The right tool for the right job ... For Irish trad the keyless timber flute is more than fine. For contemporary, jazz, etc. a nice silver Boehm flute. Why try to force the music you want to play onto the wrong instrument? The 10 hole flute is an oddball, and if you think you already play badly, an oddball instrument won't help change that.

[crookedtune]

I had a brief fling years ago with a 10-hole fife (Cooperman), and really could never get the hang of it.

I'm with MTGuru on this one. A keyless irish flute can do just about everything you need for Irish trad. A keyed Irish flute is useful if you're branching out within the trad world, and a contemporary Boehm flute is the right tool for classical, jazz and other modern forms. I'm finally to the stage of appreciating what I have, and not obsessing so much on gear.

[crowld]

Thanks very much for all your kind advice. I have a baroque flute but found that since it just cannot adequately deliver F natural except half-holing F sharp hole, placed it back in its ancient box after some considerable time. I have a Boehm flute but feel that the overwhelming number of keys and pads detract from what should basically should be a pipe where the wind is modulated by the pads of one fingers. I did/do feel that Skip's flute is perhaps the holy grail of the total flute in that all notes are produced that are used in Western music but was wondering if anybody had become proficient on it? I could find nothing on the net or anybody performing it on you tube etc. I do not think I will be taping up any holes as that would be like gouging out my eyes... well sort of.... I also have several beautiful six hole flutes. Thanks for replying enjoy your day. David

[dunnp]

Well the Giorgi flute never caught on either but I do see them a couple of times a year on ebay so they were made in some numbers.

[crowld]

yep.. I know that but with this contemporary attempt at a keyless chromatic flute is there anybody out there barring a poldactlyic one
or with a third hand who can actually play the thing. I have spent months extending my pinkie reach til it comfortably covers the D hole it is just whether it is worth spending any longer trying to trill as it seems it may be anatomically impossible. In which case although it originally cost almost $2000 it will end up relegated to a corner of our house for the children to puzzle about disposing of after the funeral.........

[dunnp]

I've seen Skip play an F version in his workshop many years ago.
He taped up the holes so I could try it.

[crowld]

F would be quite easy to play as it is smaller than the D flute which I think is the basis for the Boehm flute and is the issue with this Skip flute in D etc. The question is, is this space craft actually capable of flight?????????

[Feadoggie]

I own and play the miniature version of Skip's chromatic flute, a Healy 10 hole Bb fife. I owned four of them at one point, each with successive serial numbers. I have not had my hands on one of Skip's ten hole D flutes, though I would love to try one. I think it is a great idea but it may be less than practical for many of us.

The ten hole design does pretty much solve the chromatic issue. Each note is as loud and well defined as the next. There is no C natural hole (D flute parlance). So you have to half-hole or fork finger that one note. The layout is as logical as it gets, IMO. I have no real trouble in knowing where each note is or how to finger it. That aspect of the design works well. But ... the finger hole placement is a big deal, as has been pointed out.

On the fife the fingers are crammed tight, at least for me, to cover some holes. Spreading things out with a lower pitched scale could help - to a point - the point where it becomes a stretch to cover all those holes. So I did some experimenting. With the Healy fife as inspiration I made a few ten hole flutes from PVC. We all have different hands. For me an F flute is about the limit of comfort with a ten hole scheme where the holes are fixed in a permanent position. A G flute feels pretty good to me. If you have larger hands or long fingers you may be fine with a ten hole D flute. But who knows, maybe with practice and time to train the hands it could all work out.

I do not think that a ten hole flute would be a one size fits all mechanism. I would think that you would want to spend some time with the maker getting the holes in the right positions around the tube for your particular hands.

A better solution might be to judiciously make a flute with more joints that might allow some of the holes to be rotated for comfort. I have done that for simple system fingering layouts. But I have not worked on how that might be accomplished with a ten-hole chromatic layout. There is not much room for joints between holes when you are talking half-tone steps between each.

So I am of a similar mind to most of what has been said here already. I own a keyed flute but generally play keyless flutes. Provided that holes are well sized (not tiny little holes) you should be able to get all the notes you need from a keyless simple system flute. If you play a more chromatic repertoire as a rule, then go for a keyed flute, or a few keyless flutes in various pitches.

Feadoggie

[MTGuru]

I have a baroque flute but found that since it just cannot adequately deliver F natural except half-holing

Unless this is a pervasive problem with ALL baroque flutes, then what you're describing is a tuning anomaly of your particular flute, no? In which case, why not have it fixed? Or swap it for a different baroque flute without that problem?

the overwhelming number of [Boehm] keys and pads detract from what should basically should be a pipe where the wind is modulated by the pads of one fingers.

Personally, I tend to trust in the Darwinian wisdom of convention. That is, if a seemingly innovative instrument design has not caught on in significant numbers, there's a reason. In this case, it could be that the anatomical size or dexterity requirements are too far to the edge of the bell curve, and you're toward the peak. Or that the aesthetic/spiritual ideal implied by the "should" in your above statement is too idiosyncratic. When I hear well-executed flute chromaticity in art music, jazz, etc., the last thing I think of is whether the air column is vibrating against bare finger pads.

But I realize you're asking a straightforward question about a demonstration of the instrument. You might contact Skip Healy directly. He's likely aware of any artists/customers who are successfully using his 10 hole instrument, and he may be able to hook you up with a video example. And if so, I'm sure members here would be interested in seeing it, too!

[crowld]

Thanks for that, it was really helpful. Maybe I just need to get a section that swivels towards the D hole area. I did drill a dixon
flute to make a chromatic D flute. it was easier to play because the D sharp hole was in a more accessible place. But the tone was still a rather cheap flute, will somebody make me a flute that was like that with an accessible D flat hole?

[crowld]

So many thanks for all these responses. I think the baroque flute has basically disappeared because it just cannot keep up with quick playing in all keys without loads of compromising via cross fingering etc, and it is a brilliant well tuned 160 year old baroque flute recently restored. What I need to know is does anybody play the thing I own proficiently. ie is it a playable instrument or is awaiting an evolutionary change just as the opposable thumb signaled the beginning of civilisation. kind regards from the Highlands

[Peter Duggan]

I have a baroque flute but found that since it just cannot adequately deliver F natural except half-holing

Unless this is a pervasive problem with ALL baroque flutes

Which it's not. While the forked F's not the easiest note to get right, it's there, expected of the player and widely written for.

Personally, I tend to trust in the Darwinian wisdom of convention. That is, if a seemingly innovative instrument design has not caught on in significant numbers, there's a reason.

Aye, like my brilliant Copley special. Which is just perfect for a nine-fingered me!

I think the baroque flute has basically disappeared because it just cannot keep up with quick playing in all keys without loads of compromising via cross fingering etc, and it is a brilliant well tuned 160 year old baroque flute recently restored.

160 or 260? Because 160 years would date it to the 1850s, which is mainstream Romantic/eight-keyed territory...

[dunnp]

Many one keyed flutes were produced well into the eight keyed and post Boehm period.
They were not the same design as baroque flutes and as such were really amateurs instruments
best suited to playing 'national airs' rather than the full chromatic music of the period.


I used to play one of these for a while

That said many of these are very capable of playing an F nat in the right hands.