Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Completely OT: Flute & Piano

Many of you may remember me eldest son, who I called Piano*Son. Well, my youngest also plays, but he would go by Flute*Son, I guess. Youngest wanted nothing to do with the piano. That was for me and eldest. He listened to a different drummer, so to speak.

For your amusement, here is a performance given by Flute*Son at a recent event in Smithfield VA. A group in Smithfield sponsors a wonderful annual teen concert that allows six young musicians from eastern VA to play a fifteen minute set of works. I wish there were many more such opportunities for young people to play a sustained set of works in public.

This is the first piece he played. It's a pretty standard piece for high school flute players.

Very nice. Flute and piano sound wonderful together.

Over the years I tried to get my brother, sister, wife, daughter or son interested in flute to no avail.

I now record flute pieces on my keyboard and play the piano with them, it's the closest I can get.

I'm envious.

Roger,

I have played some things with him over the years, but, you know, that father thing often gets in the way.

That was very well done! You are I'm sure so very proud! My teacher's first instrument is flute (she used to perform). When I asked her if she would do duets with me during my lessons (as she does for my children) she was all enthusiastic and told me she would go through her piano for 4 hands music as well as her piano and flute music. That was exciting! When I return to lessons in the fall we will start.

Your posting of your piece by your son was very timely for me and got me even more interested in flute pieces.

Again great performance by your son.

If you are interested in having some fun exploring collaborative playing, there is a lot of excellent flute/piano music available in all styles from Renaissance to contemporary.

Funny thing though ... original instruments post a problem. F*S has a nice new baroque flute. But no contemporary piano will do, since the flute is set at A=415. I guess I have to get a harpsichord now.

That's good to know. Another section to peruse in the music store. Yeah!

... and to make this thread even MORE off the topic of piano ....

Here is the second "piece" he played. It's a medley of Irish stuff, played partly on Irish Whistle. He got a good laugh by mentioning that his "Irish" whistle was made in Germany.

Again, for pianists, accompanying can be good fun. The accompanist here was just improvising off of the chord structure of the Irish tunes.

Wonderful, I love it, thanks.

Is the fingering on an Irish whistle similar to that of any other woodwind? Now I'm itching to try one. So pretty! I almost never get chances to pull out my flute anymore, though, so it wouldn't be the wisest use of my money.

I don't play the flute or the whistle ... or any other woodwind for that matter, so I can't really give a good technical reply. When I asked F*S he gave me an answer, but the story quickly got into territory I didn't fully understand. My basic questions and my bemused look of moderate incomprehension eventually got me a pat on the head and a reply of, "it's complicated."

You can get whistles in most keys, but the common ones are in the key of D (soprano and tenor). He has those two. He says you can play things written in D, G, and A pretty easily on the D whistles, and half-holing can produce other notes.

As far as fingering goes, he says the basic scale is pretty similar to the silver flute, except for all the complications from the thumb hole and all of those dang key gadgets attached to the modern contraption. The whistle fingering is pretty much the same as mid-19th century wooden flutes like the keyless Pratten. He is actually getting one of those shortly, made by a great flute maker here in VA.