Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Footjoint alignment - Easing the pinky's reach

I'm in the market for a new flute, and I have only used a C foot flute before. Recently I tried several flutes with a B foot and found them much harder to play. I guess it would be a matter of getting used to it?


Dear B-foot quester:
Some flute students find B foot more difficult at first because of these two reasons:

1. The footjoint is not yet aligned to allow the little finger of the right hand to easily reach the B-roller without re-positioning or over-stretching the hand

and/or

2. The open-holed keys make it tricky, at first, for the new user to keep the open-holes covered completely when reaching for the B-foot.

I advise that if you've never played open-hole that you plug the holes when testing new flutes.

Also I advise making it easier to reach the footjoint keys by following the guidelines in this article on "how to align your footjoint for easy reach":
Article in PDF:

http://www.jennifercluff.com/footturn.pdf

You'll find the pros and cons of a B foot here:
http://www.jennifercluff.com/used.htm.
Scroll down when you arrive at the above link and look under B-foot as an option.

I find the B-foot ever more useful, with each passing year.
When first starting on a b-foot flute, twenty years or more ago, I rarely used it, but now every tenth piece I play in my current chamber group (flute and strings)
requires that I use low B. I really find it useful for flute duo repertoire as well as solo repertoire.

Best,
Jen Cluff