How old can u be to be a pro flutist, and is there any young pro flutist.

Being a "Pro" means getting paid.
Although there are younger players, it`s not as common as some other instruments such as piano because of the issue of holding and blowing. One needs to be a bit older to start and then it takes a few years to develop technic. As an example, Mozart was rather young when he started performing professionally on piano.
~Bilbo

can u get a professional sound out of a closed holed Gemeinhardt flute with a low c foot, if not I`ll just wait until I get a pro flute.

P.S I know about the different types of flutes, and what flutes are better to play,So I really don`t need help on what flute to get , I just want to know if u can get a professional sound out of a closed holed flute and thats it.

Lots of proffesionals play closed hole flute. I personally can`t play an open hole flute because of damage to my hands. The issue is not open or closed hole, but how well the flute is made. If you look, most proffesional ranges of flute offer closed or open hole.

Also, I`m not entirely sure what you mean by "I`ll just wait until I get a pro flute" Wait for what?

It is just about possible to make any flute sound good as long as you have a very good embouchure. Galway has proved that theory before. So don`t be confused by thinking that by going out and buying a professional flute will make you sound like a pro.
Mrs. C is correct. There are plenty of professional flutes that are made with closed holes. Just because it has open holes does not mean anything.
I love picking up my backup flute every now and then and just relaxing with it. It is just a student closed hole flute, but very comfortable. I have carpal tunnel in my hands and arthritis in my fingers, so I really enjoy playing on closed hole flutes sometimes.

If you have open hole keys it produces a better sound but if you have closed hole keys to produce that same warm tone you have to work harder with your lip!!!

I don`t know where you heard that, but is a coplete myth, perpetuated buy people who should know better.

NOnsense. Nonsense nonsense nonsense. Closed hole all the way

"If you have open hole keys it produces a better sound but if you have closed hole keys to produce that same warm tone you have to work harder with your lip!!!"

Excuse me for saying this, but that is one of the dumbest thing that I have ever heard! That is not true at all.
When people say stuff like that, that is what really messes up this forum.

Please get your facts straight before posting stuff like that!

Open Hole vs Closed Hole
Open hold flutes tend to have raised centers on the keys while closed hold flutes have a rather flat surface. I abhor the feel of most closed hold flutes for this, but I have played on some old close holes that had raised centers and they were extremely comfortable to play on. The surface feel is really the only difference, but a big one once you have a preference.

Inline vs Offset:
Having rather large hands the inline flute feels far more comfortable. Switching to an offset makes me feel like my left hand fingers are being scrunched. I think it`s more important for a person to make sure there fingers are in an ergonomical position on an inline/offset to determine which is best. If you have small hands I`m sure inline can be painful and if you have large hands offset will can as well.

I think the inline or offset keys thing is just a personal thing, depending on what you develop a preference for. I play an inline flute but I have quite small hands with short fingers, and I find playing offset a bit uncomfortable. I think it`s because I`ve been playing an inline flute for so long. You adapt your hand position to the flute and get used to it.

I also prefer open-hole, having played that for ages too. It is a bit easier to get a nice tone from my flute than my sister`s closed hole flute, but that might also be because of differences in silver/silver plated and because I play my flute a lot more. It definitely depends on the player though, because 2 people can play the same flute and it can sound totally different. If you`re good enough, you can usually make most flutes sound good.

At risk of seeming repetitive, I re-present the following:

In-line G:

The only claim for validity is that it improves finger position. In reality, a player has no problem in finding a comfortable finger position with an off-set G key. Indeed, the finger position is likely to be more comfortable with an off-set G, simply because the ring finger is shorter than the middle finger. A good hand position is a natural one, not one where the wrist is twisted, or the ring finger extended, so that the ring finger can reach the G key.

Also, if a player really needs a PROP to help them achieve a sensible finger position, then all this says is that there is probably something wrong with the player`s self-discpline and attitude to their playing.

Of course enthusiasts for in-line G have become used to the unnatural position, and any other position may feel a little strange initially.

If you take a decent look at a NATURAL hand and finger position, it is very obvious that off-set is more ergonomic than in-line, unless the head (with flute) are about 45 degrees anticlockwise i.e. looking form above. This is the way some people play their flute, but I`d say they are probably in the minority. The rationale behind this posture is that is `saves` arm and shoulder. However it probably also does odd things to neck as a resuklt of the prolonged unnatural position.

Something often overlooked is that an in-line G key is relatively insecurely mounted, sharing the same long unsupported span between posts as the A and Bb keys, thus weakening this key assembly. This increased flexibility of the Bb/A/G assembly over the Bb/A assembly contributes to less reliable linkages, and also potentially less reliable key-cup alignment with tone holes, hence less reliable pad seating.

If the in-line G is constructed in conjunction with a split-E mechanism, then there is significant likelihood that firm finger pressure on the G key will jam the movement of the Bb key, upsetting certain fingerings, for example third octave trill from F to F#. This is not an uncommon syndrome, even with professional model flutes. The problem is not the split-E, but the in-line G.

In my opinion the only reason that the in-line G has lingered on, is that it looks pretty to have all the keys in line.

Open holes.

Many reasons are touted for having them but for perhaps 95% of players they serve no purpose and have significant detractors. Some issues are:

1. Intonation: A flute goes quite sharp when it is played loudly. This can be compensated for (for SOME notes) by partly closing a tone hole. This is possible only with open holes. Alternatively, the pitch can be humoured with special fingerings when playing very softly. However an accomplished player has sufficient versatility in embouchure and air pressure to correct the intonation by other means. Certain alternative fingerings are available to humour pitch with close-hole too.

2. Intonation: Theoretically the notes which involve open holes are slightly better vented and are theoretically slightly sharper, so the flute maker allows for this in tone hole position or size. However many players on open-hole flutes plug the holes, theoretically putting the flute out of tune. In reality, the venting of holes on a flute is so good anyway, that this intonation effect is probably so small as to be negligible or non-existent.

3. Comfort: Many players plug the holes. One type of plug projects and is uncomfortable, another tends to push through the hole, and both are capable of leaking.

4. Hand position: Open hole encourages an UN-ergonomic position for wrist in order to reliably cover the G key. Some players want to believe so much that the open-hole system is better, that they convince themselves that the distorted wrist position is indeed more natural, but this fails the common sense test.

5. Hand position: Some teachers claim that they cannot get pupils` fingers into `good` positions without the aid of open holes. In answer to that I`d say that I have taught over 400 beginners on closed-hole flutes, and this has not been a problem.

This so-called `good` finger position has the balls of the fingers (under the nails) centred on the key cups. If the fingers are not perfectly centred on the keys (much frowned upon!) what is the big deal, really? Bagpipers and recorder players have no problems with fingers projecting well over the holes. And there are few keys on a saxophone where the fingers are central.

7. Acoustic theory: "There should be as little interruption to the bore as possible." Open hole introduces a further step, up from the bore to the pad, and then up again to the finger.

8. Acoustic theory: The bore should be of a hard material. The washers and screws of a closed-hole pad are far harder than the `squishiness` of a chimney of air leading up to a soft finger.

9. Servicing: If a pad needs to be taken out for shimming, it is far more likely to be distorted or damaged during removal if it is on an open-hole key, where there is a difficult-to-remove pad retaining grommet.

10. Perhaps most important of all - Leaks! My finger skin is hard, but not very hard. Air leaks badly along my finger print grooves on open-holed keys. Try this test: Cork the lower end of the body of an open-hole flute. Close the keys with the fingers and `squirt` a mouthful of air gently into the other end. An open-hole flute will leak unless the fingers are pressed quite hard - harder than a player should need to press. If the fingers are wetted before the test, then air can be heard bubbling out of the fingerprint grooves in the skin. This is not an issue of not covering the holes properly. It is a result of low finger pressure on a large area of skin, which simply is not flat, and therefore does not seal well.

What on earth is the use of adjusting a flute to be leak-proof for good response, and then introducing finger leaks by having open holes!

11. Finger Contortions. For people with a short right pinkie relative to the D finger, contortions are needed to play low C or low B without introducing a leak under at lest one of the three right hand open-holes. Again the flute is not ergonomic.

12. Tone: It is claimed that the extra venting offered by open-holes improves the tone. Pause to think about this. Of the twelve notes in an octave, there are only five where open holes contribute to venting. Have you ever heard of a player saying how their Bb, A, F#, F, & E have a better tone than the other notes? An emphatic NO! Therefore the notion of better tone is bunkum!

13. With open-holes, a wider range of unusual effects are available, such as warbling notes, 1/4 tones, slides from one note to another, two notes sounding at once, etc. Perhaps only 2% of players ever use these, especially after the experimental novelty wears off. There are plenty novelty effects available on a closed-hole flute for the one-time experimenters to play with.

14. Open-hole flutes usually cost slightly more. So it is my guess that when buying a flute, the typical player, encouraged by a teacher, assumes that because the flute costs more it must be better. They can stretch their budget that little extra so open hole is what they buy. Or it could be simply that the cheapest student flutes are not offered in open-hole versions, so it is assumed that open-hole is superior.

So in spite of having played an open-hole professional flute for a decade, I changed back to the more desirable closed-hole flute to avoid all these problems. Choosing open holes seems to be largely a `fashion`, or prestige-driven thing, nurtured by teachers and marketers who have not really thought much about it, and supported by manufacturers who oblige the market.

The inclination towards open holes is much stronger in some countries than others; America seems to have rather unquestioningly adopted the idea from the French. There are many superb players in the world who do indeed play on closed-hole flutes.

There is a common notion that manufacturers do not offer closed holes in their top models. This is far from the truth. The truth is that many market outlets have never offered the closed-hole options that the manufacturers offer. Perhaps it is simply so they can carry a smaller range of models in stock.

I have played on an open-holed in-line flute for 35 years. I have small hands, and additionally have extremely short "pinky" fingers in comparison to the ring fingers. That said, I can in no way dispute Arak`s information, yet I personally have not experienced these problems. Everything he says makes sense, I just don`t seem to have any of the problems. I think you need to gather all information, and most of all listen to your body. If you espereince pain, there is a reason.

Arak (or anyone), do you know of any study that monitored specific physical problems (carpal tunnel, neck nerve issues, shoulder issues etc.) in comparing use of inline vs offset, or open vs closed?
I know that these types of physical problems seem to occur frequently with flute players.

Ultimately the flute style one chooses to follow should be one of comfort and ease of play. Inline and raised key centers does this for me.

Now raised key centers is just a "feel" that I personally enjoy. Offset keys on the other hand are something that can cause physical pain.

If offset keys worked for everyone there would not be a need to have half-offset and inline key options on flutes. For those of us who have large hands the offsetting of the keys forces a very unnatural and uncomfortable "crab-like" arch.

I do also own a closed hold offset Armstrong and now a Buffet as cheap backup flutes, but I would never practice for more than and hour and a half on these as the only experience with carpal tunnel in my left hand was due to practicing on an offset flute.