#000605
Complete Irish Flute Book
Mizzy McCaskill & Dona Gilliam
A practical method for playing Irish traditional music on the modern silver (Boehm-system) flute rather than the wooden simple-system flute usually associated with the tradition. Mizzy McCaskill and Dona Gilliam teach the ornamentation that gives Irish flute its distinctive voice — cuts, taps, rolls, and cranns — with detailed fingering charts, exercises, and technical essays aimed at approximating the wooden flute's sound on a silver instrument. The book bundles this pedagogy with a generous tune collection: hornpipes, reels, jigs, set dances, and slow airs and songs, with accompanying audio demonstrating a selection. Written for classically trained flutists crossing over into folk playing, it is thorough and well organized, filling a real gap for silver-flute players who want authentic Irish style without switching instruments.
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The authors
Mizzy McCaskill and Dona Gilliam are American flutists and educators. McCaskill, trained at Ithaca College and the University of Kentucky, specializes in flute pedagogy and folk flutes; Gilliam, a flutist and composer with degrees from LSU and Kentucky (including a law degree), collaborated with her on this and related folk-flute methods. Their background is in the classical Boehm flute, which shapes the book's approach.
The book
Published by Mel Bay, the Complete Irish Flute Book combines a method for Irish ornamentation on the silver flute — fingering charts, exercises, technical essays — with a large collection of tunes and an accompanying recording of a selection of them.
How to read it
As a bridge for classically trained players entering Irish traditional music. Its explicit premise — using the Boehm flute to approximate the wooden simple-system sound — is both its niche and, for purists, its point of debate, since much of the tradition is bound up with the wooden instrument. Taken on its own terms, it is a clear, comprehensive resource.
For more context
Recordings by traditional wooden-flute players and tutors for the simple-system flute round out the style.
Sources - Complete Irish Flute Book — Mel Bay - Complete Irish Flute Book — Google Books
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Mizzy McCaskill & Dona Gilliam
- Publisher
- Mel Bay
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Music
- Location
- Colorado