Double Double...

I picked up a double whistle, just for kicks, a while ago. It was cheap and I figured it would be fun to use from time to time for a silly look-what-happens-when-whistle-players-get-drunk thing. And down the slippery slope into a new musical realm I went!

Double Whistle in C (Susato Dulce Duo)

The first double whistle I got has a full pennywhistle on the left and a three-holed tabor whistle on the right (same as the last 3 holes of a whistle.) The instrument maker imagined this instrument being played with the left hand on the pennywhistle side and the right hand on the 3 holed whistle. You can play in F major with the harmony and melody switching from whistle to whistle and dancing around each other as needed quite easily this way. However, the seller suggested using 4 fingers on the left hand by adding the pinky on the whistle to get some notes that overlap on both instruments and some neat parallel 3rds. Both strategies are quite fun and create great music.
Naturally, I did neither of these things.
Instead, I use tape to cover the top 2 holes of the 3 holed side and use my pinky to cover the last hole. I still use both hands to play the left side whistle normally. This basically turns the right side whistle into a 2 note drone in the bottom octave. Now the nifty thing is, in the next octave those drone notes can be overblown to the 5th as well and gives me 4 notes up there. Getting even wilder, if I uncover one side of the mouthpiece slightly I can (with great care and practice) keep one whistle in the low octave while going high on the other. To a point since this does affect the tone quality some.
What all this boils down to is I have 6 possible harmony notes available to me along with a full whistle for melody. Dorian tunes really shine in this set up and major is great fun too.
By the way, you can find instructions on-line for taking two cheap whistles and making this design yourself if you want. Most separate the two whistles more than this into a wide V-shape which makes reaching the bottom hole with your pinky difficult (if you want the alternating drone set-up) but creates a neat visual impact (if you use the one-hand-on-each-whistle approach).

Double Whistle with Tabor Pipe by Carbony Celtic Winds

But wait, there's more!
I then went out and found someone who would make a double whistle with a tabor pipe on the right that has 2 holes in front and a thumb hole in the back. I covered the middle hole (upper one in the front) on the right side tabor pipe so my pinky still covers the bottom hole and my thumb covers the higher 3rd hole but all my other fingers are free for the pennywhistle on the left side. AND I can half-hole the thumb creating 4 possible harmony notes in the bottom octave and nearly a full octave possible in the 2nd octave. While STILL being able to play the pennywhistle side (more or less) normally.

Back

Thus explaining why I now look permanently confused and distracted--I'm recalculating all my fingering and harmony strategies!
D Dorian (minor with a raised 6th) is perhaps the easiest scale to use with these double whistles. However, with a little creative thinking (and knowledge of music theory) it is quite possible to play in C or F major, F Lydian (major with raised 4th), G Mixolydian (major with a lowered 7th) and A Aeolian (minor). The tabor pipe side can be used for mostly long chord/drone notes or with more lively moving notes. The line between harmony and melody gets a bit blurry with the moving notes but that is part of the charm.
Notice that the two sides are even closer together making it very easy for the fingers to reach all the holes on both whistles.

I know I haven't even come close to figuring out everything I can do with this yet. But here is a sample of what I've done so far. (This track was recorded beside a rushing creek after a heavy downpour.)




I said at the beginning this is a drunk whistle player trick. But I actually think it is more than that. I think this instrument shows a heavy influence from South American Indigenous flute music which delights in using multiple flutes at once. Both by having a single player handle two (or more) instruments and by having multiple players on flutes.
So I suppose it only makes sense that next I got a double ocarina, an instrument that originated in South America. The double ocarina has two chambers a fifth apart that each play one octave with a completely different fingering arrangement than I'm used to. The tone is dark and rich in spite of being high. This all makes this instrument quite different from the other doubles, especially how the tonic note shifts from one key to another in the middle of a tune!

So that's how a whim became a whole new set of musical ideas and experiences. I'll just be heading off to play some solo duets now...

Album 3; A Few Flutes Shy...

Got the digital tracks uploaded! Have physical CDs for in person.
Here's a look at the art and program notes to the 3rd solo recording of a mad flutist!

Available at the usual music sites.

A Love Story

Some people devote themselves to one specific instrument and remain faithful to it their whole lives. Some people fall for multiple instruments and learn to juggle their various passions. I fall somewhere in between these two forms of musical devotion by playing several different types of flutes. Each flute requires slightly different adjustments in how they are played but I love the changes of tones the different materials and designs have on the basic flute sound.

The concert flute is my first love and the flute with the most flexibility in scales, accidentals and the widest range. It is the flute most people think of first and are used to seeing in orchestras. It is generally the top sound and gets some of the most ornamented parts. It can be flashy and used to imitate birds but it also is used for slow, sad tunes. It is often used in music meant to evoke natural settings. As popular as it is in Classical music, it is generally ignored by other genres such as Jazz (sax players often double on flute but solo players are rare) and folk (guitar and/or traditional instruments are much more common) so it actually adds some unusual sounds to these areas.

The alto flute has a wonderful lush sound in its lower register. I was captivated by it the first time I played one (not uncommon for those who like this instrument) but it is the heaviest flute I play. This is the flute I lift weights for. Much as I love it, playing an entire show on this instrument alone is not practical if I want to keep my arms in good working order. So this flute gets short, attention grabbing appearances mixed in with the other flutes. It is associated with darker music than the concert flute and gets used for more mysterious pieces. It is lush, velvety and surprisingly powerful.

I play 2 different sizes of glass flutes. The one in C is similar to a piccolo or a fife. The one in G is halfway between a regular flute and a picc. Their sound is bright and cheerful and a kick to play in the rain. These are both from Hall Crystal Flutes. I'm not generally a fan of piccolo sounds (I like low better) but the glass material darkens the sound wonderfully. And I admit, it is very nice to have light instruments that are easy to clean up after a long dusty day. Smaller flutes and piccs have light and bright sounds but they are also very effective at creating haunting music. The key is getting the contrast right between their brilliant sound and a darker musical line.

The one-keyed Baroque flute sounds soft and quiet up close but always surprises me with how far its sound carries. Mine was made by Daniel Dietz. Wood flutes generally have a rich dark sound which is part of what gives period and traditional flutes their distinct timbres. I am especially enchanted with how wood flutes can imitate the alto flute sound in a smaller, lighter instrument. This flute is wonderful with Troubadour tunes and other Medieval and Renaissance music of course but it really takes flight on the lively pieces.

Alto (with curved headjoint), Glass flutes in G and C, Baroque flute and Concert flute.

Recently, I was swept off my feet by some Penny-Whistles (also called Irish Whistle, Tin Whistle or Celtic Whistle) and rim-blown flutes. They are full of surprises and each one is different (unsurprisingly). They dance, dream and delight.
For more see Whistle While You Work or  Mythical Jacquaflute

High F Elfsong Copper Whistle, Low F MK Whistle, D Milligan Whistle

Rim-Blown Diatonic Flute based on Ancestor Pueblo/Anasazi Flute design

I have several different ocarinas (they just sort of accumulate) that are lots of fun to have on hand when the flute is just too large to be practical. They are basically extremely fancy whistles with a full octave range. Though the 10-holed chromatic wooden one I recently got goes a bit beyond that! Learning to fit tunes on this little whistle has become my version of Sudoku puzzles but much more fun. It has a soft voice that invites listeners to come close and lose themselves in musical stories.
I have a set of panpipes but I haven't really caught the trick of them. Truth to tell, I dislike how it feels to move the instrument on my lip so I leave performing on this instrument to others. They are quite fun to have though and they have taught me a great deal.
Then there are the recorders. I do play and teach recorder but we've always had a complicated relationship. They are very delicate sounding and it is surprisingly tricky to play them WELL. They take a precise touch that is rarely mastered by people who think of them as a children's instrument. It makes perfect sense to me that they were used in the same age as lutes and other subtle sounding instruments when amplification only existed in cathedrals and caves.

Panpipes, Ocarinas and Recorders, oh my!

I have studied a few other instruments (guitar, piano, harp, violin) over the years but never "hit it off" with them the way I did with the flute. Studying the basics on a couple of other instruments helps performing musicians be more flexible and gain more control of their instrument whether they become a doubler or not. In my case, the flute keeps tempting me back.
And so the love affair continues...

Playing the Baroque Flute

I'm not an "expert" on the Baroque flute (also called Traverso.) I was trained on the concert flute and that is where a lot of my skill comes from. But I've been playing Baroque flute for a couple of decades now and I believe I have enough experience to share some tips. In many ways, information about any transverse flute, modern or ancient, can be transferred to the others. But they do have their personal quirks which is what makes them so interesting (and frustrating) to play. Fingerings, tone, volume, range, chromatic notes, basically everything shifts for each flute. This is what gives them their unique sounds.  

-There are several books on Baroque flutes, old and new, out there and I do suggest taking a look at one or more of them. "Method for the One-Keyed Flute" by Boland has some great advice for ANY wood flute, care instructions and some technique exercises. Treat the fingerings as a starting suggestion (this applies to any fingering chart really). Each flute is a bit differently and different fingerings may work better than others. Most of these books assume you already play the modern flute or have a teacher and do not include much basic how-to-get-a-sound-out stuff. If you are starting from scratch you may want to talk to, or take lessons from, a flute teacher to get those basics down.
-Now, another approach is to get an instruction book for the Irish flute. Irish flutes are basically historical flutes of one type or another and these books often have more absolute beginner info in them. These books tend to emphasize Irish trad. playing styles which are different from Baroque/Classical styles so keep that in mind. Comparing the two styles is quite a good idea for anyone regardless of which style you want to play; there are lots of insights into both styles you can get that way.
-When looking for advice and tips, keep in mind that there are several different Baroque flutes out there. The flute went through a radical redesign at the beginning of the Baroque era (1600-1750) and then continued to change without any one style becoming standard. Some of the changes included the shape of the bore (inside of the tube), adjusting the tuning and adding a key. Then they added a couple more keys. Then they added yet more keys.  Then they argued about which keys were useful, which were "decadent" and which got in the way. Some keys closed holes when they were pressed and others opened them. The only key they all more or less agreed on was that first one for the right hand pinky. After that, it was anyone's guess which keys an instrument maker would use or a player would prefer. Plus, some Baroque flutes can be taken apart into 3 pieces, some come in 4 pieces, some have multiple different sized middle sections and the foot joint can sprout a telescoping extension that is almost steampunk looking.
There are reasons for all these apparently conflicting designs; they sound different and some music works better on one and some on an other. Baroque music was not uniform by any practical definition (this is the era of J. S. Bach, Barbara Strozzi and Turlough O'Carolan; the era when opera was invented and folk music began crossing the Atlantic Ocean) and musicians and audiences alike loved variety so naturally there was a wide range of instruments to go with all the different musical styles.

In spite of all that, tips for one style of Baroque flute can generally be applied to the others. But it helps tremendously to know exactly what kind of Baroque flute a person is talking about.
I play a one-keyed, four-piece Baroque flute. It is one of the simpler (though not simplest) styles. It has some of the most limits on chromatics and scales unless you are comfortable with half-hole fingerings. It is one of the last flutes that could be held to either side of the body though it was usually held to the right so the flute section wouldn't knock into each other too often.

Baroque flute in action. Photo by STL Photovisions

Baroque flute in pieces. Maple wood.

Now here are my three main tips (plus one extra);
1) Work with tuning and modes.
2) Try to improvise on the flute you are learning.
3) Finally play the flute regularly even if you don't sound the way you want yet.
Extra; Consider learning the pennywhistle.

1) Tuning on the Baroque flute is not the same as the concert flute. Not just because of the reduced chromatic notes either. The internal scale is tuned a bit differently than a modern flute and it takes time to adjust. Any tuning work on any flute will help so if tuning the Baroque flute gets too frustrating, do some tuning exercises on another flute for a bit. This improves your ear which WILL help your tuning on the Baroque flute eventually. Remember, as your ear improves, you hear the flaws in your playing more and it can feel like you are getting worse. You aren't. Your hearing and your playing are just improving at different rates.
In general, typical tuning issues on the concert flute are magnified on the Baroque flute. For example, the 3rd and 7th degrees of the major scale need attention. And any note in a chord that needs tweaking on the concert flute likely will need very careful adjusting on the Baroque flute. The trick is that you may or may not need to adjust in the same direction or the same amount.
Closely related to tuning is playing in modes. These are scales that use different patterns than major or minor. Playing in a mode is often easier than trying to play in many major or minor scales other than the scale the flute is tuned to. (That's what all those keys are for-chromatics and shifting keys.) This is why you will find quite a bit of older music and folk music that uses modes. It fit the instruments better (or the instruments fit the music better if you prefer). 
What's more, playing in a mode makes you listen to your tuning differently. You will notice that some modes are easier to play in tune than others. This is partly a result of how you are listening to and adjusting your tuning. Each scale rearranges your hearing and tuning sense whether you notice it or not. A note that sounds fine in one mode may sound badly out of tune in another. This teaches you a lot about the tuning of your instrument.
This takes time and work, no way around it. But here's the good thing; if you keep at it, you eventually will develop a more instinctive understanding of how to adjust on the Baroque flute. You will always need to pay attention but it will become more natural, at least on some scales. This link is a short introduction to the modes if you want to know more about them.

2) Now, improvising is a WONDERFUL way of getting to know an instrument, in my humble opinion. Chasing down a melody in your head will really teach you what an instrument is capable of in your hands. Additionally, playing a wide range of music helps you find out what works on a specific instrument faster than almost anything. I suggest looking at older music that was written when these flutes were commonly played (though some of these may prove a bit challenging!) or folk music (those books on Irish flutes I mentioned often have Celtic tunes in them that work well). This music is often written with some awareness of which chromatics are difficult to handle. Take these tunes as leaping off points; ornament them, add notes and let the tunes lead you into improvised melodies that explore the flute's sound. But don't stop there. Experiment with music you like that is outside the typical style for the Baroque flute. Some pieces will work, some will sound dreadful and others will sound oddly transformed. This is all useful when getting comfortable with a new instrument.
You also need time to develop the tone you want and improvising is a great tool for that too. The tone of a wooden Baroque flute will naturally be different than a metal concert flute (this is why many people like it.) But there is a wide range of possible sounds within that wood tone. Listen to your sound, the sound of other players and see if you can change your sound to match others. Experiment to find out just how many changes you can make to your tone. Not every change will create a "pleasant" tone and this is ok for our purposes. The more tone options you have, the easier it is to create a tone you like or that fits a specific performance. It is nearly impossible to describe in words just HOW a person changes their tone. We tend to resort to "relax your throat" or "let the air pour out" or "make it sound like melted chocolate" to cause students to change embouchure shapes. The control of those tiny muscles develops almost subconsciously the longer you play and listen to others. Which makes playing for fun (and I think improvising is wildly fun) one of the best tone exercises around.

3) Don't be discouraged if you don't sound like a virtuoso right away. Just keep at it. Playing/practicing in short, regular sessions is the key. Five minutes once a day will bring about improvement. Fifteen minute sessions each day or every other day are plenty long enough when starting out. You don't want to exhaust yourself and regular practice rather than long is what keeps you from forgetting what you've learned.
And if you miss a day (or three) don't beat yourself up. You won't forget everything THAT fast! Besides, breaks are good both for your playing and for your enthusiasm. I firmly believe that having one scheduled day a week that you do not practice (unless you just feel like it) keeps you from getting overwhelmed and frustrated. You need that down time to remember how much you enjoy playing, to find and listen to recordings you want to sound like and to get some rest.

Whatever you do, make sure you have fun! Perfection is not the goal of music; delight and joy is.

P. S. 
It recently occurred to me that learning the pennywhistle is tremendously useful for learning the Baroque (or any period) flute. Whistles use a 6-hole fingering pattern that is basically the same as the Baroque flute AND uses cross-fingerings most people don't mention with period instruments. The cross fingering are not always transferable but sometimes they are. Add to that, you get to hold the whistle in front of you and PUT YOUR ARMS DOWN! Trust me, the chance to rest your arms and keep playing is fantastic. Not to mention whistles are a great deal of fun all on their own. For more on this idea, see my post 6 Holes-Where Traversos and Whistles Meet.
Just make sure you get a pennywhistle with a tone you like! You don't have to go to the most expensive or fancy whistle (though you can; I sprang for a wooden whistle and couldn't be happier). But do ask to hear a sound clip or try the whistle out first to see if you like it. I suggest Elf Song Whistles (the Jasper Whistle) or Tilbury Whistles as fairly good starting points without spending large amounts of cash. There are cheaper whistles but they can be inconsistent. That doesn't mean all bad-some professional players use $15 whistles to this day-it just get trickier to find a good one. (By the way, the word "tweaked" next to a cheap whistle means "someone has modified this whistle from the original". This is usually good and means various issues have been cleaned up a bit.)
Or look up the "Wandering Whistler" on-line and check out his whistle reviews.

Second P. S.
Tone advice; Since I can't comment or reply to my own posts (a tech issue I hope is resolved soon), I'm including a reply to a question on tone here.
All the tone exercises concert flute players learn are great for the Baroque flute too. Slow but beautiful tunes are good when you've gotten bored with the long tones. Octave jumps can help since the more your upper and lower octaves match in tone, the more likely you are to have a good (or better) tone. Listen to other players and compare your tone to theirs. You may not like their tone but that's ok. You want your ear to process that Baroque sound so you can hear yourself as accurately as possible. Wood instruments often sound "softer" or "darker" or "airier" than metal flutes and that can take getting used to. Try to change your tone intentionally. The more changes you can make to your tone, the more control you will have over it.
And try to play the Baroque flute fairly regularly (daily, every other day or every third day if possible) so your embouchure muscles remember all the new things your trying to do. Keep at it and good luck!

6 Holes-Where Traversos and Whistles Meet

Pennywhistles and Baroque flutes.
Whistles are often used to introduce children to musical instruments based on the (mistaken) idea that all you have to do is blow. Traverso or Period flutes are often considered challenging for skilled musicians let alone beginners.
The current pennywhistle design was invented in the mid 1800s. Traverso players typically go back as far as the 1600s for their flute designs and avoid playing any style of flute after 1850 or so (when Boehm's redesign more or less created the modern concert flute).
In spite of these differences, these instruments are oddly entwined with each other. So much so, that I think learning one increases skill on the other and vice versa.

Let's start with an odd similarity in how these instruments are taught. They aren't. That's right, students rarely get any instruction on either instrument.
It is often assumed people can work out how to play a whistle by themselves because it has no keys and no special embouchure (mouth shape) is required. This means few people bother with much instruction. Now, it is true that if you ALREADY play a wind instrument, you may be able to work out the fingerings and get a decent start but kids being introduced to playing have a much tougher time. It strikes be as very odd and contradictory that previous musical experience is (somewhat unconsciously) assumed with an instrument that is often given to young children!
Meanwhile, traverso flutes have a reputation for being mysterious and difficult to learn partly because it has no keys (ironically enough) and don't play chromatic notes the same way modern flutes do. Finding a teacher is difficult not only because of how few concert flute players "dare" to pick up period instruments but also because there are so many different styles of flutes. If you do find a teacher, the odds are they aren't playing the exact same instrument as you and may not play flute at all (I ended up working with a Baroque bassoon player to get started). Books are still few and far between and generally assume the student is already a college-trained concert flutist, not a beginner. Generally, traverso players are left to muddle along on their own just like the whistlers.
The result is that both of these instruments are largely self taught because of the myth of their difficulty/easiness level and an assumption of previous musical experience.

Now the basic finger-hole pattern of these instruments.

Both are based on 6 finger holes, covered by the first three fingers of each hand with the left hand closer to the mouth. And both play a major scale using (basically) the same fingering pattern. The earliest traverso flutes from the Baroque era (1600s) have 6 finger holes plus one hole that is covered by a key that is almost always closed and therefore functions more or less like a 6 holed flute. Later traverso flutes had more keys added and with them more holes but the basic idea of 6 holes remained the framework design for most styles. (Fifes have the 6 finger pattern too in case anyone was wondering.)

Three Whistles-6 Finger Holes

Baroque Flute-6 Finger Holes Plus One Key

This means the fingerings of the pennywhistle often work on the traverso and vice versa though some fingerings need tweaking. This is especially helpful with the chromatic notes. Whistles have a slew of alternate fingerings for chromatic notes (so many it can be overwhelming) many of  which work on a period instrument. This can be wonderfully helpful since the fingerings for older flutes are not as detailed or extensive as the modern flute by a long stretch.

Modes, scales and folk music.
Both play the same basic set of scales or modes with relative ease. This means whistles and traversos can both play major/ionian, dorian, mixolydian and natural minor/aeolian and harmonic or melodic minor without too many half-holes or cross-fingerings.
Celtic music, old time fiddle tunes and a lot of other folk music use these modes and scales all the time. These styles use whistles pretty regularly and therefore, lots of this music will "fit" on the traverso flutes without resorting to chromatic fingerings. This means you can learn the ins and outs of the traverso on tunes that don't require the more difficult half-holes and cross-fingerings nearly as often as the more formal (and modulating) Baroque and Classical composers. And learning to play a couple of Bach or Telemann tunes on the whistle can make learning the half-holes and cross-fingerings a bit less challenging. Not to mention a great deal of Classical music actually was inspired by folk music so you may find some interesting musical relationships hiding in the staffs.

An interesting cross-over from the Celtic folk music realm; Because the Irish flute is (more or less) a traverso, an instruction book for Irish flute can be used with some traverso flutes. These books tend to have more absolute beginner information and you get some modal Celtic tunes in some of them.

Finally, there is one other advantage to learning the whistle with the traverso. It gives you a way to change your arm position and lower your arms from time to time. This helps with the repetitive use injuries musicians are so very prone to. Just the act of switching instruments lets you rest and recover without having to stop playing.

The more instruments I learn, the more each one informs my understanding and skill on the others. They open up worlds of musical styles and ways of thinking. They expand the possibilities and styles of music I experience and, with a little luck, let me share something fun and lovely with others.

Whistle While You Work

As some of you may know, I've been adding to my flute collection the last couple of years. I've also been working on playing by memory and recording more often. The result is I have music tracks of pennywhistles to share.

The first track is a low F whistle from MK Whistles in Scotland and the tune is "The Farewell to Music" by O'Carolan.
The second track is a wood whistle in D made by Gene Milligan and the tune is "Banish Misfortune." Still a bit slow since I only memorized it a month or so ago.
The third track is a high F copper whistle from Elf Song Whistles made by Sandy Jasper and the tune is "The Little Beggar Man." I used this tune to teach myself double tonguing as a youngster.



What I've learned so far.
Of course each whistle has a distinct sound/personality (just like other flutes) but I was startled by how some folk tunes "fit" under the fingers better on the whistles than on the concert flute. There are times when playing by ear is considerable less tricky on the whistles too. I think this is partly due to being able to see my fingers without a mirror for the first time ever. But only partly. The tunes (well, some of them) are just easier to work out on the whistles.
Playing with brass bands on the tiny whistle also seems to work better than the concert flute or even the picc. It's challenging to be heard but the tone works better when it is audible. Whistles with flats (F major whistle is my pick but B-flat would do) are best for this.
I vastly prefer the quieter whistles, especially the high ones, to save my ears and ear plugs travel with the whistles everywhere. Loud whistles may cut through large groups better but I like my hearing and intend to keep it. And I prefer the tone of the quiet whistles when playing solo or just "dreaming" in the woods.

I've realized that when I first played pennywhistle (as a grade-schooler) there were two basic issues that caused me to think I didn't like the instrument. First, the cheap, easy-to-find whistles aren't always in tune and I didn't like their tone at all. Knowing enough to be able to find whistles that are in tune and that have tones I like makes a big difference (the wood whistle is my favorite on pure tone but they all have their charms). Second, I wasn't a good enough player to handle the whistle at the time. I already played flute but even so, I wasn't ready to tackle the whistle alone. Which is very intriguing since teachers often give whistles or recorders to kids to get started in music because "they're easy" and then never give them much, if any, instruction on the whistle. No wonder so many kids who start that way don't continue! The first time they can't figure something out without help (which happens soon!) they are likely to think that if they can't play this "easy" instrument, they will have an even more difficult time with other instruments. If they got some instruction, they would have a much better experience.

Two important tips: 1) Learn your modes and where they are on the whistle! Especially Dorian and Mixolydian; there are many folk/Celtic tunes in those two modes. (Modern Modes Intro) 2) Learn to transpose in some fashion. You can chose to re-write tunes into the key you read or learn to transpose by sight (several tricks for that-Transposition on Key-less flutes) whichever. Not all tunes are written in the whistle's range but that doesn't mean you can't play them. Just learn how to put them in your range!

A musician I encountered a few years back described the whistle as the scariest instrument to play in front of others because it is all about breath and lung control. There is no reed, no register key and no way to change-your-embouchure-to-help-adjust. Controlling the speed of the air is all there is between a good note and a missed one. This means the whistle requires precise and exacting control of your own lungs and every large and small muscle linked to your lungs. Rewarding, delightful, good for everyday breathing issues and intensely personal but not easy.

Anyway, here I am falling madly in love, at last, with several new whistles.
Enjoy!

Young Whistlers

When I play, it is not unusual for kids to ask "can I try?" When possible, I give them a short lesson on getting sound out or at least advice on "playing" water bottles as practice. This year, I noticed that when I play my (new) wood penny-whistle, kids are even more likely to run up to their parents and say "I want to learn that!" So I thought I'd write up some advice about getting a penny-whistle for a beginner.

First, DON'T tell them it will be easy! Getting sound out of a whistle isn't difficult, true, but playing WELL takes quite a bit of work. It requires precise breath and finger control which takes time and patience to develop just like all wind instruments.
Whistles are generally high and loud. Add to that that most beginners tend to blow too hard and beginning whistlers can create some painfully high sounds. It is not uncommon for parents and roommates to get frustrated with beginners who haven't learned to play gently yet. Be patient and/or set up a space where they can practice without disturbing others. Outside on a nice day is great. The lack of walls really eases the intensity of the sound a lot and suddenly the whistle becomes fun to listen to. Putting one empty room between the beginner and others can help too and is a great solution for cold weather.
Be prepared, cats and dogs will likely have an opinion about the whistle. They may hate it and flee the room or they may insist on being right there to keep an eye on things. (I have had a cat who sat in my lap, a cat who hid under the sofa cushions, a dog who howled unless let out and a dog who scratched at the door to sit under the music stand when I played.)
And remember the more the beginner practices, the more control they will have and the easier it is to listen to them in a confined space so don't throw them out of the house forever! You will miss hearing the music they are making as they progress.

Second, if you are getting a whistle for a young kid, I'd suggest getting a C whistle. Most whistle experts recommend D whistles for beginners because they are used most often in Celtic ensembles. But the C whistle is just a little less high and shrill which makes it just a little easier to live with. If they keep playing for more than a month or so, you may want to get a D so they have a more standard key but starting with a C can make the difference in a feud over practice sessions being too high and loud.
For older kids (over 8 or so) and adults, the D whistle is likely a better place to start. There is more music available and as I said, it will fit in with ensembles more often.
Keep in mind that some brands or styles of whistles are actually quieter or gentler sounding than others so it is well worth exploring different whistles (see next tip).

Third, get advice on which whistle to get instead of just getting the cheapest available. One of the nice things about whistles is that they tend to be less expensive than other instruments but all the same, you want an instrument that is well tuned and the player likes to play. Not all whistles fit the bill. There are "tweaked" versions of cheap whistles which can be a good starting point and stores specializing in whistles often have good advice on brands to start out.
Personally, if I was going to get a metal whistle (to go with my wood one), I'd pick a Tilbury Whistle which currently runs about $75. It has a tone I like, is well tuned and while it is considered high end in the whistle world, the price isn't outrageous (compared to some of my other flutes that is). If that is more than you can stand, don't give up the idea. There are $20 or $30 whistles that sound just fine and some excellent players choose to play the cheaper whistles for their entire career.
The Wandering Whistler  has reviewed a number of whistles and sometimes includes a sound clip. The recording quality is variable but it can help a lot to hear the whistle played by a good player. Click the drop-down menu to see what whistles he has written about.
Getting a whistle that the player enjoys increases the odds that they will keep practicing and have a good time.

Fourth, get a book of simple tunes for the whistle and/or get some recordings of whistle music. Celtic is the easiest to find but there are other styles of music that the whistle fits into nicely. You want tunes that fit the range of the whistle (about two octaves) and don't include too many chromatics especially at first. The whistle can play chromatics but the cross-fingering and half-holing is more advanced skill-wise so stick with fewer chromatics to avoid frustration. There are actually quite a few books out there so look around and see what looks good.

Finally, if the whistler starts to lose interest in playing after a few months, take a look at some OTHER whistles. It may well be that they are just developing a dislike of the tone of their whistle!
Finding a whistle they like better may re-ignite interest. And they will have a better idea of what they like in whistle after playing for a bit.

And whatever you do, have fun!

Wood and Bone - A Very Short History of the Flute

The oldest instrument ever found is a flute (in a general sense) that is made from the bone of a vulture’s wing. It has been dated to around 30,000 to 40,000 years old. (There are older artifacts that some claim are parts of flutes but that is still being argued with great passion.) The top is an open tube with a v-notch on one side. The assumption is the player blew through the top of the tube down the v-notch while holding the flute vertically. This is a fairly well developed design that suggests this type of instrument dates from even earlier but finding anything older will likely prove tricky. There are a number of current folk flutes that use similar "rim-blown" vertical designs and the history of the vertical flutes (and more than a few reed instruments) have been well and truly tied to the flute's history. But today the instrument we most often think of as a flute is the horizontally held concert flute or transverse flute.

Rim-blown Flute

Bone was a common material for flutes and wind instruments for a long time. Some old flutes and reed instruments were named after the bones typically used to make them (the tibia is the name of a double reed instrument in Ancient Rome and there is a type of whistle called phalanges). Not too coincidentally, flutes and reed instruments were associated with sacrifices and religious ceremonies. Some cities kept wind players on an official payroll because they were required at religious ceremonies regularly. At the same time, they were often considered rural instruments that were played by country people and associated with nymphs and wild Gods who couldn’t quite be trusted. In many cultures, playing a wind instrument wasn’t as respectable as playing strings or singing. Girls and boys both could seriously damage their reputations by learning to play them.

Wood and other plant material were also popular material for flutes. Possibly they were more popular and we just have fewer surviving examples. Native Americans have stories of the first flute being made from yucca and sunflower stalks. There are many trees with the common name of “whistlewood” because they were/are used for flutes and whistles by instrument makers or children. Occasionally, even poisonous trees were used though eventually someone pointed out what a bad idea this was! In Europe's more recent history, boxwood was one of the favorites for most wind instruments for centuries but today grenadilla has become very common. So many other woods are used that the list tends to get excessively long. (I happen to have flutes made from grenadilla, maple, sycamore and sapele.)

In fact, flutes have been made out of nearly any kind of material that can be made into a hollow tube. Wax, glass, clay, potatoes and carrots (I’m not making this up) are just some of the examples. The metal flute is a quite recent development and some modern performers still prefer wood instruments. One common compromise is for the head joint to be made of wood and the body of the flute to be metal. This generally gives it more of a wood sound, but makes the key-work more reliable and reduces the likelihood of the wood cracking.

Metal, Glass and Wood Flutes

Nearly every culture has created several different styles of flute, including transverse types. But the transverse flute isn't recorded as being popular in Europe until the Baroque era. The most common theory is that some form of transverse flute from India or the Middle East made it's way to Europe during the Medieval crusades (not at all uncommon) and then slowly became more popular. There are several problems with this. One is that the examples of the flute that are used to show it "traveling" change design (and the direction the flute points) several times. This isn't a deal breaker since design changes happen all the time but it does make it less certain that that is how the transverse flute got to Europe. Another problem is that this theory ignores all the "folk" flutes in Europe, some of which were transverse. These folk flutes weren't written about or painted much because they were too unimportant and associated with the lower classes. Even during the Baroque and Classical era, many popular instruments were ignored because they were only being played by lower class "professional" musicians and not by the "amateur" upper-class musicians who didn't need to be paid (you have to remember that "professional" and "amateur" were social rankings not indications of how well you played and that being paid for a skill was automatically low class). My guess is that the folk flutes were influenced by the transverse flutes from the Middle East, India or even China as people moved back and forth in the Middle Ages. New music from other countries alone could have inspired new instrument designs and curious musicians usually do try new instruments whenever they can or think up ways of combining two different styles of instruments. All of this eventually led to a new type of transverse flute, the earliest version of the one we see in orchestras today.

The historical European transverse flutes that we have records of seem to have been made in one or two pieces at first (headjoint and body). Later, they were generally made in 2, 3 or 4 sections so key-work could be added with less effort, to tune them in different ways and so they could be taken apart and stored more easily. The first key was added to the flute in the 1620s. This is also around the time the flute became more popular in Classical music and began to take over the role the recorder had held for years. It also matches up with when the scales and modes were changing and new tuning systems were coming into use. As the music kept changing, people kept adding keys to all the instruments. However, there was nearly no agreement about what keys were best to use, how they should be attached or even if they should be used at all. Again, this goes with the wide range of musical styles that were in use. There are so many different designs that I'm not even going to try to explain them all (some were quite wild).

Theobold Boehm standardized the keys on the flute in the mid-1800s and adjusted the design to play Romantic music (as opposed to all the earlier stuff). Boehm's flute was then tweaked, adjusted, added to and generally changed several more times and metal flutes started turning up in the 1900s. All of these changes were bitterly argued over and there are still new keys, scale tunings and other changes being developed nearly every day. It is really an illusion that there is one standard type of concert flute in use. Some styles of music (trad. Irish and Historically Inspired Performance/HIP for example) use strictly older flute designs with few or no keys even today.

Baroque Flute Deconstructed

Every change to the design of the flute, no matter how small, changes the sound of the instrument so it is hardly surprising that nearly all the older styles can be heard today. What's more, each musician sounds different on each flute so one flute may sound brassy, bright, haunting or lush when played by different people. And this is why I so enjoy meeting the different flutes in the world and in history!

For more information;
The Flute (Yale Musical Instrument series) by Ardall Powell
The Flute Book by Nancy Toff
The Development of Western Music by K. Stolba (dense!)
Method for the One-Keyed Flute by Janice Boland
The Early Flute (Oxford Early Music series)  by John Solum
The Early Flute: A Practical Guide by Rachel Brown
The Earliest Instrument: Ritual Power and Fertility Magic of the Flute in Upper Paleolithic Culture by 
Lana Neal

The Mythical Jacquaflute

I've been wishing for a vertically held rim-blown flute for some time. There are lots out there but none of them where quite what I wanted (a few examples are the Middle Eastern ney, the Japanese shakuhachi and the South American quena). Then I found someone who makes both Ancestor Pueblo/Anasazi style flutes and keyless transverse wood flutes. I asked him to mix them together in a size that fit my hands. Here is the result.

Sycamore rim-blown flute in G made by Jon Norris Music & Arts

Blowing edge

The embouchure is quite different from a concert flute but not harder. Think of it as like blowing across a water bottle but trickier because there's a sweet spot. I spent a couple of days getting the flute to speak reliably and a week getting a feel for the range and different tones it can make. I love playing it outside, especially in the woods.

Like most flutes, getting a good recording takes a few trials and errors. I'm still working out the kinks and feedback issues that go with this flute but I think I managed to get a decent track here.



A short bit about Pueblo/Anasazi flutes.
First, the name. Ancestor Pueblo is more polite but Anasazi is more widely used (at the moment). Archeologists are a bit weird about saying the Anasazi people are related to today's Pueblo tribes. There isn't really a good reason for this. In Europe, they don't hesitate to call ancient remains German or French based on where they were found and then explain that they may or may not be direct ancestors of the people living in those countries. But not here in the Americas where we know the Native Tribes are likely connected to those ancient people. Makes the archeologists seem a bit silly to me. Anyway, the result is you need to know both terms in order to find information about this instrument.
Second, the age. The Pueblo flutes that have been found in the Desert Southwest are around 1500 years old (at least). This means they predate Columbus and even the Vikings in the Americas. It is unusual to find wood instruments this old anywhere simply because of how fast wood decays. Older flutes (and other instruments) have been found in many places but they are generally made of bone, clay or stone. Though that doesn't mean all the oldest instruments were stone or bone. It just means the 40,000 year-old wooden instrument did not last long enough for us to find.
Now the size and range. The Pueblo flutes that have been dug up are all fairly large and deep. The low range is considered part of the "voice" of this type of flute. However, this doesn't mean smaller versions didn't exist just that we haven't found any. The Hopi flute and the South America quena are both examples of more current rim-blown flutes that are smaller and higher than the Pueblo flute. It would make sense for these flutes to be related to the Pueblo flutes but again, we don't know for sure. Individual makers certainly made changes to the design that seemed good to them or to accommodate some lunatic musician's ideas. This is common for all musical instruments in all ages. Nothing in music stays static really. It is a constantly changing art form.
Finally the scale and finger placement. The Pueblo flutes don't use a diatonic, pentatonic or chromatic scale. It's pretty intriguing and seems to be set up to let the musician chose between a major or minor sound (or go back and forth) without having to go up into the higher register. I went for a scale I'm already familiar with for my first venture into rim-blown flutes but may well try out the other scale sometime. In a way, this made my flute similar to the South American quena. But without a thumb hole and with smaller, easier to cover finger holes. And a different blowing edge which gives me a wider variety of sounds and a different tone than the quena. More on the quena in a later post.

So there you go. The Mythical Jackalope flute has been sighted, lured into the open and determined to exist at long last.

Black Chin - The Mark of the Flute Player

After a long rehearsal, you put your flute away and catch sight of your face in the mirror and see your chin has a black or grey patch. It washes off easily enough but when you ask about it on-line, you are told it may be an allergy to the metal of the flute. Eek! What to do? Well first relax. Black Chin is well known among flute players and nothing to worry about.

Look Close, Very slight grey mark on chin - Mark can be large and dark or small and unnoticeable.
People with metal allergies (those who actually ITCH or develop a rash) may want to put a lick-and-stick postage stamp (don't use the self adhesive ones) on the lip plate or use a "lip plate patch". Lots of music catalogs carry them.

Black Chin - This is when your chin turns black or grey after playing the flute. It can be a small minor mark (like the photo above) or a large smear that covers your chin. As long as the discoloration rubs or washes off and you don’t itch, it is NOT an allergy. It is a reaction between your skin’s PH balance and the metal of the flute. It is not dangerous, just annoying. It can happen with almost all metals, even sterling silver. Gold and wood head-joints are the main materials that don't cause this but both can be pricey (and a few people still get black chin with these). This is why some people will tell you to get your lip plate plated with gold (although I wouldn't spend the cash on something that may not prevent black chin especially since plating wears off over time).
Everyone’s personal PH is a little different so some people get black chin often and other people never seem to get it at all. Heat, humidity and sweat also impact how your skin and metal interact so some days the whole flute section has black or grey chins and other days only one player does. A common misconception is that only white women get black chin but that just isn't true. What is true is that the darker your skin is, the less visible the mark is and men with beards rarely even notice when their beards turn just a little darker.  Plus, most make-up and some lotions dramatically increase the amount and frequency of black chin. Which means people who wear make-up or lotion (mostly women in this day and age) are much more likely to have noticeable discoloration on their chins. And male and female teenagers alike should keep in mind that some acne treatments may aggravate black chin or even take the finish off your flute so washing your chin before playing is highly recommended!
Finally, if you polish your head-joint, you will almost always get black chin the next time you play (or several times). Since silver polish isn't actually good for flutes (or you; it can cause your skin to break out and getting it in your mouth isn't so great either), skip the polish and just clean the flute with a soft dry cloth.

Possible solutions are;
--spend $1000 or more on a wood or gold head-joint (not recommended for most student and starving musicians and doesn't work for a few people).
--don't wear make-up on the lower half of your face when playing to minimize the issue (lipstick, foundation, moisturizer, lip-balm, acne treatments - all should be washed off before playing).
--keep a rag handy to wipe your chin off (works best when you have frequent rests in the music and can become distracting to the audience if done too frequently).
--put a cheap lick-and-stick postage stamp (don't use the self adhesive ones) or "lip plate patch" on the lip plate.
--just don't worry about it.
The majority of the audience won't notice and those who do usually assume (correctly) that it is an ordinary flute thing. Tell the few who ask that it’s a badge of excellent flute playing. Raise your black chins high with pride!


P.S. I have recently run into the suggestion of painting the lip plate with clear nail polish to avoid black chin. Let me just say, please don't! Removing the polish without damaging the flute can be tricky especially if your flute is plated. I wouldn't want to risk nail polish remover reacting with the metal and obviously scraping it off is a terrible idea. And you will almost certainly want to remove the nail polish someday - when you get a new flute, when the nail polish starts to look bad, when your teacher has a hissy fit over the nail polish etc. A repair person may be able to remove it. Or they may have trouble if your head-joint is not made from a solid precious metal (silver or gold). It is a risk I wouldn't want to take.
And if you got here looking for ways to deal with acne on your chin caused by silver polish, I do feel for you. It can be very painful. The best advice I have is don't use silver polish on your flute. If that ship has sailed, don't despair. The polish will clean off eventually. Just wipe the head-joint and lip plate off with a soft dry cloth, GENTLY, before and after you play for the next week or so. And wash your face before AND after playing to reduce the issue as best you can.
And if you have an allergic reaction (itching or pain), go to a doctor for advice on how to recover! And look into using a lip plate patch.

Flautist, Flutist, Fluter or Flute Player

Nearly everyone who plays flute will, at some point, be asked "What is the correct term for a flute player, Flutist or Flautist?" The answer is; either one. Yes really. Flutist is the older English word with the Oxford dictionary dating it to 1603. Flautist is a much more recent term in spite of the persistent rumor to the contrary. Nathanial Hawthorne seems to have been the first writer to use Flautist ("The flautist poured his breath in quick puffs of jollity" from The Marble Faun) in 1860. Hawthorne may have been trying to sound European (a popular fad in his day) by inventing a word based on the Italian flauto (from old Occitan flaut) to get the word Flautist. Older English writers (like Chaucer) use floute/Floutour, flowte/Flowtour and my favorite, floyte/floytynge (playing the flute) with no connection to the Italian term. Floute/Floutour, flowte/Flowtour and floyte all developed into flute/Flutist in English. Dictionaries currently list both Flutist and Flautist as correct terms for flute players.

Many people think Flutist is more common in the USA but in my experience, both get used about equally. Common musicians' gossip says that Flautist is more common in England (or Europe) but again, that doesn't seem to be true in practice; in fact, in my (highly limited) experience, Flautist is used more often in the USA than in England. Some people feel Flautist is stuffy or even somewhat insulting; they claim its too similar to "flaunting" or "flouting" in spite of not being based on, or related to, either word. On the other side of the debate, some people feel Flutist is an Americanization or less technically correct; both ideas are also completely untrue. It strikes me that the objections to both words are more based on emotional reactions to (and personal associations with) the words themselves rather than on dictionary meanings of the words or their true history.

The reality is words change over time and usage shifts back and forth for mysterious reasons (take a linguistics class if you want to really hurt your head with this phenomenon.) The great Flutist vs. Flautist debate has been going on almost since the word Flautist was tossed into English and it hasn't changed much in all that time. I prefer to skip the whole issue and say "I am a Flute Player" or "I play the Flute". But I answer to Flutist, Flautist and even Fluter without complaint or regret.
Just make sure you know me before you call me a Flutter brain.

Daily Musings

A while back, I decided to work on memorizing more music. I've always kind of slacked in that department (Classical flute training allows this) and I've also always wished I didn't. So I've started keeping a musical journal where I record things I'm trying to play by memory along with some of the daily improvisations I create. Not sure where this will take me but I intend to share bits and pieces as I go.


Improv based on O'Carolan's "Farewell to Music"



"Carolan's Dream"



I'm mixing up the "simpler" folk tunes (some of which aren't that simple!) with Telemann and Troubadour music. The idea is that there will be some songs I learn more easily (which will hopefully encourage me) while I'm struggling with the longer pieces. In time, I hope to share a wider variety of tunes.

Blending and Shining in Performance

I was a shy musician as a youngster. When I first started playing flute, it was quite a challenge for me to "play out" in ensembles. Don't get me wrong, I was a reasonably good player but being heard by others made me edgy and uncertain. I had to spend a great deal of time learning to see the audience as my friends instead of a bunch of strangers and even more time learning to "shine" when others could hear me. But that is not actually what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the ability I developed as a result of being a shy musician; blending and matching tone.

Blending into the section or ensemble is one tried and true method for shy musicians to disguise themselves. It makes it easier for players with stage-fright to keep playing when they feel that their personal sound won't be associated with them but instead will merge with the overall sound. Focusing on matching another player's timbre can create the illusion of being hidden within the overall sound. This means that I spent years unconsciously developing not only the ability to play with others but also the ability to transform my tone and blend with almost any instrument.
Not that I realized this at first. In high school, when people commented on how well I matched sounds with the oboe in duets, I barely even understood what they meant. Of course I had blended with the oboe; it was how I made myself feel confident enough to keep playing even when I missed a note. It seemed so natural to me that it didn't occur to me that others weren't doing it too.
By college, I began to understand that blending was a skill in its own right and well worth praising. However, I still didn't grasp the full extent of what I had been teaching myself to do with tone qualities until I took a Jazz improvisation class in Grad school.
The assignment that opened my ears to my own knack came along about halfway through the class. We were required to find a good improvised solo, learn it and then play it with the recording. Most people did well with this as far as learning the solo went. But when my turn came round, the overwhelming comment I got back was "how did you make yourself SOUND like that Jazz flute player?!" A couple of students said that at first they thought I wasn't playing at all because I matched the tone so well. Thinking it through, I realized most of the other students had indeed sounded distinctly different than their chosen soloist; the notes and rhythms were fine but the tone and attitude remained their own which usually made the solo sound slightly "off" no matter how accurately they played. Unfortunately, I was still matching sounds mostly unconsciously and had trouble offering any tips on how to transform yourself from a Classical player to a Jazz player with your tone alone. After struggling for a bit I came up with the explanation of "It was easier to hear if I matched the solo that way" which wasn't the most helpful answer for those trying to figure out how to do this trick.

For some time now, I've been trying to use this skill more consciously and deliberately. Instead of using it to hide within the ensemble, I try to use it to support the group. Rather than worrying that a wrong note will mark me out, I let the blending of tones smooth over the small mistakes and carry me along. Even in solos, when I am supposed to stand out, I find it helpful to remember the sound of the group and match (or contrast!) my "shining out" sound with what came before and what will be along after in a way that will help hold the whole piece together.

Matching tone is mostly about two things; learning as many different ways to change your sound as possible and listening to another musician's sound with the intent of making it PART of your own. You can't be focused on stealing the spotlight for this; your attention must be on the overall result. This also isn't about finding the "best" tone quality, but about exploring the different kinds of tone. Sometimes a rough gritty tone is breathtakingly beautiful and other times the traditional crystal clear flute sound is just right.

I still don't have a lot to offer to those trying to learn to do this. But perhaps with some more time spent being aware of this talent and how I use it, I will also learn how to explain and teach it. And in any case, approaching music from my strengths and focusing on what is working well adds to the joy I feel every time I hold my flute in my hands.

The Perfect Embouchure Myth

"I wanted to play flute but my band director told me I couldn't. There's a dip in my top lip that would get in the way so I gave up on music."
I wanted to cry when I heard this from a someone in my audience. Then track down that fool-in-band-director-clothing and make him promise never to try to teach music again. Because while yes, some people have a bit of extra flesh in the middle of the upper lip and yes, it can create a challenge for flute playing if it is large enough, it in no way makes it impossible to play. All that you have to do is play with the flute off-center. And many talented flute players have an embouchure that is off-center. AND not everyone who has a droplet in their upper lip will have any trouble at all. I know a flute player who has a large droplet that flattens out all on its own to a "picture perfect" embouchure when she plays. She didn't even realize she had a droplet for the first year she played. (For the curious, I have a very small droplet and play slightly off-center but you have to look close to tell.)
What's more, everyone has a slightly different embouchure. We have to. We aren't all built the same so a shape and placement that creates a clear tone for one player, will create a fuzzy sound for another. It is well worth trying out different ideas, shapes and placements for embouchures to find out what works for you but the real test is if you like your tone. It is quite common to try to develop a more relaxed embouchure because most folks play with too much tension at first. We feel like it takes strength and muscle to improve tone and that makes us tighten up. Of course, it does take muscles and strength but not tension. Learning how to balance that is tricky but well worth it if only so you don't get too tired while playing. The extra advantage of working with different embouchures is that you learn how to use different tones at will. Looking at the embouchure of someone whose tone you like is a good start but never forget that you may not sound the same as them. Listen to your sound, be aware of how your embouchure feels and then change something to see what happens.
This link has a series of pictures of flute embouchures and there is a wide range there! It is a great place to go if you like visual cues.
http://www.larrykrantz.com/embpic.htm

All a Flutter

Ever heard a really bad imitation Scottish accent? With lots of RRR rolling? Ever done one? Then you can flutter tongue.
Flutter tonguing isn't used that often but it turns up more and more as time goes on. It can be found in Jazz, Classical and even Folk music. The rolling of the tongue creates a buzzy, surreal sound that mixes with the clear flute sound in interesting ways. The sound can't be imitated very well by any other technique. And its fun.
(A personal plea; Keep the jokes about this topic clean please! Trust me, we've all heard the dirty jokes before and they get old fast.)

There are two ways to flutter tongue and both relate to rolling Rs. Really, both are extremely fast and repeated tongue strikes that don't stop the note or air stream. This is not a muscle controlled action; the tongue is close enough to the roof of the mouth that the air stream causes it to vibrate like a reed on a clarinet and this creates the buzzing or rolled R sound.
The preferred technique (for flute) uses the tip of the tongue. Put the tongue behind your front teeth and let it "bounce" off the roof of your mouth as you exhale, like a rolled R without vocalizing. (This is the same spot you place your tongue for a regular single tongued note-the "ta" or "da" tongue.) It is sort of like turning your tongue into a mini jack-hammer. The trick is learning to maintain your embouchure while doing this.
The other method uses the back of the tongue or the uvula R roll, the way Rs are rolled in French. Its not that different from the other one, just further back in the mouth. This is the spot you use for the "ka" or "ga" sound when double tonguing. Just faster. For the record, flutter tonguing is "easiest" for flute and brass instruments but the reed instruments can flutter too (yes, even oboes though that may count as cruel and unusual punishment.) It is however much easier for reed players to use the second method of flutter tonguing!
If you can't do one, try the other. The first method tends to be more obvious sounding and the second one has a softer buzz but either one works. If you can do both, you end up with a choice of sounds for flutter tonguing. Always a plus.
Once you get the hang of it, its actually kind of entertaining to do although having to switch it on and off at just the right moment can take some practice. Often, flutter tonguing is used on one or two notes though they may be long held notes that make your mouth feel odd after awhile. Sometimes the flutter is meant to last over several notes or used with faster passages. With luck, it will be clearly marked when to start and stop.

So how is this marked in music? Unfortunately, its not very consistent. Part of the reason is that, just like all terms in music, different languages use different words. Flatterzunge, frullato, coupe de lange roule, tremolo dental, vibrata linguale are just some of the different names used for flutter tonguing.
Most flute players agree that it SHOULD be marked with a fl, flt, flz or fltz and sometimes frull. or flutter above the note followed by a squiggly line (a trill mark) to show how long to flutter.

This is clear, noticeable and informative so of course many composers don't use it.
The next most recognized marking is to write fl or flutter above the note with diagonal lines slashing the stem of the note (a string tremolo mark.) This works but it can be confused with subdivision markings especially since composers often leave out the the fl and only use the slashes or write flutter once and never again even when the fluttered notes are mixed with regular notes. I recently played a piece that used this mark for flutter tonguing right after using subdivision marks for actual subdivisions and then proceeded to switch back and forth from subdivisions to flutter tonguing for two lines. It took me 4 times through the piece to figure out what was happening where.
Some composers simply write FL or flutter above the note with no other marking and leave you to guess how long you have to keep your tongue buzzing. Quite frustrating.
And some composers switch between all these marks just to make sure the flute section is paying attention. These are the composers I want to track down and send to remedial composition classes!
Finally, other composers make up their own marking I guess because they couldn't be bothered to look it up. As long as they explain their invented mark clearly and they use the same mark for the whole piece, I don't mind this. Consistency makes up for a lot!

Flute Shopping in the Deepest Darkest Midwest

The standard advice for trying out flutes is “go to as many stores as you can and play as many flutes as you can so you find the perfect flute for you.” Great advice. Unless the nearest store with anything other than junker flutes is a day and a half away. Of course, taking a “flute vacation” in which the trip is planned partly around good flute stores is an option. If you have time to travel and don’t mind planning your trip that way. You can also see if there are any flute conventions or gatherings in your area. My favorite repair person Judi of Judi's Woodwind Shop sells some very good flutes (student and high end) and hosts a flute party once a year. If something like this happens in your area, it may be the best way to go. But you will be limited to the flute dealers who show up. And the smaller the gathering, the fewer the choices. So for all the musicians living in extremely rural areas, I’m sharing my advice for long distance flute shopping.

First, do your research. This will be in two parts. One half of this research is to read up on the top flute brands, see what other people are saying about them, compare prices and features of different models within brands and from brand to brand. Don’t rule out a brand or model because of one person’s negative comment but do look at what they criticized about it; if they didn’t like the tone, that doesn’t tell you much since everyone sounds different on different flutes. But if they said the keywork clacked or was awkward, that is something to keep in mind. Although again, what is uncomfortable for a person with small hands and long fingers may not be the same for a person with wide hands and short fingers. Always remember that different models of the same brand may be quite different (or not) and that sometimes newer versions are constructed differently than older ones. Important: You won’t be making your final decision based on this information! You will be using it to pick which instruments you want to test out. What you are attempting to do is select several different kinds of flutes that are all likely to be very good and have those sent to you to try out. Then, you will be in a position of having nothing but good flute options.
Now the second part of your research; picking a company to send you flutes. Each store and manufacturer has a different trial policy (and some don’t allow trials) so you want to figure out which ones will work best for you. Look at cost (shipping to and from, insurance, trial fees etc.), available flutes, how long you get to test flutes, how returning the flutes works (return shipping is sometimes more expensive) and of course if they are a reputable company. If you haven’t heard of them, look them up and find out what people have to say about them. I personally recommend the Flute Center of New York for several reasons. They have a very good selection of new and used instruments, their trial policy is the most affordable of any company I’ve researched and if you speak to them, they are very willing to work with you and be flexible about the details of the trial. Example; their website states that you must be a member of the National Flute Association to try out flutes (possibly worth joining just to do this) but they were very cheerful about loaning me flutes in spite of my membership lapsing several years back. They simply make it easy to play-test their flutes even by mail which is a big plus. If you find a company with a trial policy that seems ok but you wonder if they would modify it some, get in touch and ask. Many companies are willing to be a little flexible as long as you talk with them but be understanding if they say no. It's also a good idea to compare the prices of different companies. Flute World is another good company to compare prices and descriptions of flutes, new and used, although their trial policy is pricier and more complicated than the Flute Center of NY.
A note here about shopping for used flutes; for experienced players this can be a pretty good option. If you are patient about it, you may have a chance to play or buy a better flute used than you could afford new. However, there are a couple of possible issues with shopping used. One is that you are at the mercy of what instruments are available. Two different used flutes I looked at on-line were out on trial when I first asked about them. One was returned and I got to try it, the other was purchased and I didn’t. That is just how it goes. The second issue is that used flutes may not be in top playing condition. Most places try to get even their consignment flutes into decent shape. But since they don’t actually own those flutes, they can’t force the current owners to spend money on repairs or adjustments. More experienced players can tell when a flute isn’t playing well because it needs work but it is well worth asking a repair person to check out a used flute before purchasing it. If the repairs aren't that pricey, it may still be a good idea to get the flute. One final thing to keep in mind when looking at used flutes is that the tuning (also called scale) of flutes has changed over the years. I’ll let you look up the details of the Cooper, Deveau and other "modern" scales/tunings but basically, you want to make sure a used flute will play at A=440 without pulling the headjoint out insane amounts. Most flutes made today are set at A=442 which usually works fine. A short session with a tuner will tell you if a flute is too high or low.

So which brands are good? The trouble with this question is that new flute makers pop up, brand names are bought and changed and flute making techniques change so any list you find will be limited to the time it was made as well as the knowledge of the person making the list. Of course when a brand turns up on a “best” list year after year, there is a good chance they are worth considering. Again, I suggest looking up what people are saying about different kinds of flutes on-line. But remember that there will be a wide range of opinions on every flute out there. Example; some hate the “bright” Sankyo sound while others say it has the most beautiful soaring sound out there. Both groups are making subjective personal statements about how THEY sound on these instruments and your sound on that brand may not match either statement.
Here are a few brands that have good reputations. This list is mostly geared to high end flutes. If you're shopping for student flutes, you may want to look at this site too. Buying Flutes (Parents Guide)
-Altus
-Brannen (these flutes retain much of their value used so don't expect much of a price drop)
-Burkart (older ones are called Burkart & Phelan-there are differences but both labels are the basically the same maker)
-Haynes (has changed hands some but the handmade ones are still considered good)
-Miyazawa
-Muramatsu
-Powell
-Sankyo (known for being repairable as well as good sounding).

Don’t limit yourself to just this list! I don’t pretend to have researched all the different brands out there. And there are smaller flute makers (such as Lehner in Australia) that are considered good but aren't easy to find in some places. And some brands have student or intermediate models (such as Sonare Powell or Resona from Burkart) that are not the same as the higher end instruments. Which doesn't mean you should dismiss them, just be aware of which models you are looking at. And take notes. This is not a small project, you shouldn’t expect to memorize all this information in one go.

How much a flute costs matters far less than how well it fits you. A story about this. When I was in college, a fellow flute player and friend played the same kind of flute as me (Sankyo Prima) but we did not sound the same at all. Because of this and since we both liked the other's sound, we often tested out instruments together to see what would happen. When she got a Muramatsu, she sounded wonderful on it; beautiful tone, great dynamics, just all you could want. I however sounded rather wispy and shy on that flute, nothing too special. Another time, she played an all wood flute that made her sound like, in her words, "a 3rd grader on a recorder." But when I played it, in a crowded room full of people tweeting on flutes, nearly everyone within hearing range turned around and asked about the flute because they liked the sound so much. Both flutes were good and we both played well. It was just the difference in how we interacted with the flutes that created such a change of sounds on the same instruments.
A story about my search for a new flute. At one point I had three wonderful flutes on trial; a used handmade Haynes, a used Sankyo 601 and a Powell Conservatory. All three had beautiful sounds, a wide dynamic range and a good key layout. The Haynes had the most covered (darkest) sound that was oddly reminiscent of an oboe. This flute had the smoothest transition to the top register of any flute I have every played. But the top three notes above the high C were rather difficult to get out. The Sankyo was very bright and open sounding which surprised me since it had a "heavywall" design that is supposed to create a dark sound. It almost had a brassy sound or an edge to the tone. The layout of the keys on the footjoint was simply perfect (Sankyo does that well) and extremely comfortable under my fingers. The top three high notes spoke the easiest of all the flutes. It was also very heavy and made my hands tired after awhile. The Powell spoke easily, had an open sound but no edge. The quiet tone in the low register was fantastic. The sound was quite consistent from the low to the high range. All of these flutes were a delight to play and would have been good choices but you can see that there was still quite a bit of difference between them.

Some links to get you started in your research.
Head Joints-Minor Music and Flutemonkey-Headjoint
Some info on head joints. Just buying a new headjoint instead of a whole flute is sometimes a good choice.
Parts of the Flute-on the Larry Krantz site
Many flute players pick up these terms but if you haven't (since we don't need to know all these words to play after all) this chart may help when reading descriptions of flutes. The Larry Krantz site has a great deal of useful flute information and is well worth exploring for its own sake.
Articles About Flute Construction and more-Miyazawa site
There are many different articles about the terms used by flute sellers, different key options and so on here. Keep in mind this IS the Miyazawa site so they talk up their own flutes in these articles.
Modern Flute Scales-short intro
This is a post in the Powell blog so again, they talk up their own flutes.
"Best" Flutes
This is a very short (5) list of well liked flute brands. Even these brands have their detractors so don't let this limit you.
Gold or Silver-Jennifer Cluff
The debate over gold or silver flutes is long and heated. This post has links to several articles on this issue AND a sensible summary. The Cluff site can be difficult to navigate but has lots of good information.


Links from earlier in this post:
Buying Flutes for Students
This is written for parents of younger players, but there is plenty of good info about shopping for flutes.
Judi's Woodwind Shop
Repairs and good flutes in the Kansas/Missouri area.
Flute Center of New York
Good flute selection and long distance trial policy.
NFA-The National Flute Association
Not directly related to buying flutes but of possible interest.
Flute World
For pricing of new and used flutes, descriptions of flutes, flute music, basically all things flute.
There are other good companies that sell flutes. Here are a couple that are highly spoken of although I have no personal experience with them.
Carolyn Nussbaum Music Company and J L Smith Wind Specialists

The goal is to learn enough that you can have only good flutes sent to you and increase the odds that you will find a flute that you love, that makes you sound your best and that you can't wait to play. Good luck!