Bflat flute

For those of you who are new to the site, I set out a number of years ago after requests from many you tubers and fans of the B flat marching flute to develop a site dedicated to the instrument and many popular tunes played by fifers and flute bands today.

iAlong with the tutorials I produced a double CD with over 200 tunes played solo on the Miller Wicks flute which accompanied the book 'The Fluter's Companion'

The books are available from Blurb.com and search for Accordionstu. Those of you who are experiencing supply problems for the CD, bare with me as Iam getting to the end of the queue this week (5th October) and have a new order in with the CD publisher. I expect another bach of Cd's to be ready for April 2010

Keep tuned in and if you have any queries get in touch

stuart@stuartboyd.co.uk

or visit my youtube - Accordionstu

The Bflat flute is a great instrument and has been played in the Uk for hundreds of years. Originally brought over to Europe by Swiss mercanaries the fife was used to relay signals to soldiers on the battlefield , before two way radios or mobile phones were invented and was later replaced by the bugle.

 The instument has went through many overhauls and it is as a five keyed flute version that it proves to shine on it's own, reaching two and a half octaves and playable in most keys. It has been played for many years by infantry regiments in their Corps of Drums as the main instrument and although Corps of Drums music is in decline within the British Army, the flute band tradition in Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland and England is still very popular and it is from within the Loyalist Flute Band tradition that I first fell in love with the instrument and after playing in many flute bands over the years in different styles from Blood & Thunder to Melody and Corps of Drums I have decided to put some of the knowledge online so that others who are just starting to learn the instrument may benefit.

 As I mentioned earlier, I put some videos on Youtube a few years ago of me playing a few tunes and soon attracted a following of budding fluters (not flautists) wanting to know how to play certain tunes and if I could help by providing the notes for the tunes. So I started to do this and then people asked for a booklet and DVD's etc and after searching online there wasn't really anything out there for our instrument so along with posting free video tutorials online, I looked into publishing a basic tutorial and tunes book which has has been a massive success and a link is available on this site if you wish to purchase a copy for yourself.

 Following on from the success of the Book 'The B Flat Fluter's Companion' I was asked for Cd's with all 220 tunes from the book, so I looked into this and now the CD is into it's third run and has helped many people grasp the flow of the tunes in the book which are written in ABC rather than music notation.

 I am also working on other projects and have been approached by a couple of britains finest flute makers to design a tutorial with key charts specifically for their B Flat Flute, F Flute and Picollo however this is still work in progress and further news will be posted on the various band forums when this is ready.