Do you ever see advanced or professional level players using flutes with a C Foot or
even a flute with closed holes?

Yes, especially outside USA.

Why do you think that is?

some professional flute players prefer to play on a closed hole flute due to the fact that their hands may be smaller then others... or they might suffer from joint dissorders that would effect their playing. C foot players are common.. it is rare that you need to play that low for professional flutists... but if you buy a new flute with a c foot... what are you going to do when you come accross that one piece that calls for the low b? You can`t just pretend it doesnt exist!

Pink flutist`s reply was cynical and condescending.

Personally I choose to play closed hole (after a decade of open hole) because:

1. The range of music that I was performing did not require any `odd` effects, and I was quite capable of humouring the pitch of notes with my embouchure. Therefore there was absolutely no NEED for open hole.

2. The skin on my fingers is not on the soft side, because I used them for a wide varietiy of demanding activities. Hence the ridges of the fingerprints did not readily crush, and the air leaked betwen my fingerprint grooves and the ring of the key cup, affecting response. That is, unless I pressed the keys with a gorilla grip, which is pretty difficult during fast passages, and it most certainly does not do the flute any good.

Some more perspectives on open holes follow, as published in the magazine of NAPBIRT (National Association of Band Instrument Repair Technicians.

BTW, on the two occasions I needed a low B, I added about 3 cents worth of soft plastic tubing to my flute to convert C into B, in spite of having a B foot available. Of course this made C temporarily unavailble, but C is almost never found in conjunction with B. It also flattened C# a little, but I was easily able to lip it up to pitch.

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 love my closed hole flute...it`s one less thing to worry about. I`ve played open hole (well, just like messing around), but it`s hard, I`m just not used to covering the holes and all.

Hi! I totally agree with `pink flute`. I think that Meme`s reply to the query was one-sided, although I do totally agree with her about plastic tubing 4 B`s.
I also think that Meme was wrong to call Pink flute`s opinion was `cynical and condescending`. I think that everyone is entitled totally to their own opinion. Like this is just my opinion. I have an open-holed flute, and I feel that there is so much more scope for experimentation and variety in my playing now. I get a fuller and more deep sound. And I think that going for the easy option is not always the best way to go. I had `plugs` to put in the holes in my flute, then took them out 1-by-1 as I got used to the holes!
Ok, bye, no doubt lots of people disagree with me, but hey I just thort that I`d better stick up for my poor flute and its rights he he he!!!
Beth xxxxxxx

One sided?

Admittedly, there were only a few positives I had to say, but this is actually a rather one-sided issue.

If you think my presentation is so unbalanced, then how about providing an equally SOUND (provable), equally DETAILED, equally long list of reasons in favour of open holes covering items I have NOT fairly covered already.

I`m not saying that you are not right. I`m simply sayin that every1 has preferences, and I think that open-holed flutes are the best option for lots of people - I am not sufficiently knowledgable on both open AND closed holed flutes to give a fair evaluation, BUT there MUST be something about open-holed flutes that makes Susan Milan, Trevor Wye and James Galway play on them, along with an awful lot of other leading flutists. I have tried opened and closed holed flute at exactly the same price - £2900 & 4 me - there was absolutely no comparism - I find that I can get much more depth of sound on an open-holed, and I notice you mentioned that plugs are not an adequate solution. I however, find them fine, and I think that very occasional leaking holes is a very small price to pay for much more versality and depth of sound. That`s just MY opinion, but I was just saying that you were basically saying that Pink Flutist was `wrong` but everyone has their own opinion, especially on something majorly `flutey` like open/closed holes!
Bye
Beth xxxxxxxxxx

The guys you cite are most certainly rather different from the vast bulk of flute players.

For your comparison test to be valid ALL other parameters would have to be the same, and you (and the listeners) would have to not know which flute you were playing during the test. If you do not appreciate this, then perhaps some formalin-depth study of human psychology would help. There is no limit to the extent that the human mind can be deceived, even by itself, hence the placebo effect. Nevertheless, there is nothing wrong with people using this deception to their advantage, which it sounds as if you are doing.

Yes, some plugs are successful, and the best type are made from metal and have tiny, sealing, rubber O-rings.

If you really think the open holes make a big difference to standard playing then that difference would have to significant for 5 notes of the chromatic scale(involving the open holes) but not others, as my list pointed out.

I`m sorry to have to present this "balance" here, but to suggest that some leaks are acceptable in a fully functional flute simply demonstrates ignorance. As a very experience specialist in dealing with leaks, as any good technician is, I can definitely say you are barking up the wrong tree here!

I agree about some versatility offered by open holes, and stated this in my list, in order to present balance. But the nature of that versatility is not needed or used by the vast majority of flute players. (If you REALLY want versatility you should be working toward getting a Kingman 1/4 tone flute!)

Yes, open holes may have a useful purpose for top professionals extracting every nuance possible of pitch/tone control, and playing some `odd` effects demanded in some modern music, but that does not validate the the sheep-like behaviour or lesser players fixating on open holes.

I find nothing wrong with a C foot and closed holes had it been up to me I would have purchased one of those when I bought my flute about 7 months ago.
However, I played my flute in church and quite often the music called for the low b so I needed or at I thought need until reading this message board a Low b key.
I was told that in order to get a flute with a b key that didn`t have to be special ordered that I would have to get one with open holes. So I have rubber things inserted into my holes to keep them closed.
Is it possible to get a b-foot with closed holes?
Not that there is anything I can do about it now, but it would be nice to know in case anyone asks, I have a lot of younger cousins who want to be my carbon copies.

I think that Meme makes loads of valid points, but I still think that even for some1 of my level (dip standard - post gr 8)it makes a significant difference. And I also understand that you are a much more experienced player, but as I said that`s just my opinion, and the occasional leak really should NOT occur, but for the difference it makes to me, I don`t mind. All my plugs are out anyway, so lol!
beth xxxxxxx
ps sorry tanya, know NOTHIN about it!

Ummm for those doubting open holed I just have to say,the world`s greatest flutist plays open holed and he knows what he is talking about,get over it.Just because it is hard for some people to handle does not mean open holed is a no.

Tanya wrote, "Is it possible to get a b-foot with closed holes?"

Yes, definitely, but USA has such a `fixation` on open holes that in USA it would probably have to be a special order.

Priscilla wrote, "Just because it is hard for some people to handle does not mean open holed is a no."

I hope that that condescending comment was not directed at me. You will note that my list never mentioned anything about being difficult to handle. I had no trouble myself in "handling" a professional open hole flute for 10 years, although I did get fed up with the leaks, whcih as I explained, had nothing to do with what you probably mean by "handle". I don`t think ANYBODY who plas open hole regularly for a few weeks actually has problems actually placing their fingers appropriately over the open holes, unless as I explained in my list, the relative length of the fingers (which is quite variable for human bings) precludes this.

If you want to make such comments, then it would be rather helpful if you explain exactly what you mean by "handle", otherwise your statement, although phrased in a derogatory way, has no content.