Got my new Casey Burns Small-Handed Irish flute!
I’m excited that I finally got my Casey Burns Small-Handed Folk Flute, a fine keyless Irish flute, that I ordered almost two months ago!
Here are photos of my flute, assembled and disassembled:
Now I have to start breaking it in, gradually, over the next month, according to the instructions.
OMG, I've got an irish flute too - mine is a Tony Dixon 3 piece in plastic. I've been grappling with it for about a month now. I was truly awful at first but my embouchure is taking shape and I'm sounding mostly OK'ish until it gets clogged with moisture. It's not very chromatic and you have to pick your tunes carefully, I find. Easy violin tunes in G and D work best I find. Articulation is quite sensitive too as the Irish style is to use a glottal articulation rather than tonguing. Tonguing can be quite noisy and takes a bit of practice to try and keep it light - seems to work on low notes but others just respond really poorly to articulation. I was strongly considering an Aulos Baroque flute to overcome these limitations, but it seems that you're going in the opposite direction ! Maybe this is what we both need :- http://scottfrasersmith.com...
Good luck and I hope you enjoy it !
Back when I was shopping around, I tried out the Tony Dixon flutes but they were all too big for my hands, hence my happiness at finding the small-handed Casey Burns, which works well for me and has a robust sound. The nature of Irish flutes, however, because of the bigger holes, makes cross-fingered notes mostly impossible, although using Baroque flute embouchure technique I got the C in with practice, so I can play in G as well as D (and the associated modes). Tonguing is definitely noisy. I don't do the glottal thing, as I don't pretend to be fully immersed in the Irish style. In Irish music, I'm just having fun, using a Baroque articulation technique. I haven't mastered Irish ornamentation either.
The Casey Burns flutes seem to be very well regarded. Similarly, I don't really have an interest in Irish music although I do like some of the tunes. I mainly try and play renaissance and baroque music. I'm currently trying to crack Jesu, Joy of Mans Desiring which fits the range very well and is a very good tonguing and dexterity exercise ! I also have both baroque and renaissance style recorders and also play the lute (badly, I should add). Here's an example. https://www.youtube.com/wat...
I'll look forward to seeing some of your videos as it will be interesting to see somebody else having a crack at baroque music on an Irish flute.