Flutes come in two varieties – open-holed and close-holed, but why is this the case? You don’t see a close-holed clarinet or an open-holed saxophone, so why are there two types of hole for the flute? When buying a flute, one of the most important things you need to decide is whether you want your flute to be open- or close-holed. Some of the reasons for having both varieties are obvious and some a bit more surprising.
The biggest reason flutes come in open- and close-hole varieties is that open-hole flutes allow for more advanced techniques that a beginner will not require, but they are harder to master. For children, the holes in a flute may even be too big for them to cover.
There are plenty of reasons why you might choose an open- or close-holed flute, but you should be making an informed decision. There isn’t a right or wrong answer, it depends on your preference, budget, skill level etc. It’s worth taking advice from your teacher, but in the end it should be your own decision – if you don’t like their suggestion, it’s unlikely to be right for you. Your skill level is one of the biggest factors, which I’ll talk about now.
Should I only get an open-hole flute if I’m an advanced player?
Lots of people think that open-hole flutes are for professionals and advanced amateur players and close-holed flutes are for beginners, but this is not always the case. The sound quality of the two types is slightly different – a close-holed flute has a brighter sound, so this might affect your decision.
If you’re a professional flautist, it’s likely that you will want to go for an open-holed flute. They’re great for positioning your hands in the best place for your technique – I could play much faster after transitioning from close- to open-holed. They also allow for more extended techniques, like quarter tones and other types of pitch bending, which a professional is more likely to need than an amateur player.
On the other hand, some professional flautists don’t like that their finger positioning has to be so exact. If you have very small or very large hands, you might find that a different position is more comfortable and an open-hole flute actually hinders your technique. Some may also prefer the sound of one over the other.
For a beginner, the decision is quite different. For a young child, it might be that it’s very difficult for them to cover the holes in the keys, as the flute might be almost too big for them anyway. On top of this, when you begin the flute, you’re likely to experience some amount of tension in your hands, as you try to adjust to get the correct position. Your flute teacher should be aware of this and work with you to get the most comfortable position but using an open-holed flute can exacerbate this problem for both children and adults.
Plugs for open-holed flutes exist so this does not necessarily rule out open-holes completely but most people would recommend a close-holed flute for beginners. The plugs are simply a small piece of plastic fitted into the hole so that you do not have to cover it completely. These can be great in the short term if you’re transitioning to an open-hole flute and can’t quite get it right but aren’t generally used long term. There is no real reason why a beginner couldn’t play like this though.
Are open-holed flutes more expensive?
Another important thing for beginners is that an open-hole flute can be a lot more expensive. As a beginner, you may be a young child, in which case you’re unlikely to be as careful with your instrument as an adult, making it a wise choice to get something cheaper in the short term at least.
The other important thing to consider with cost is how serious you are about the instrument. If you’re just trying it out and you’re not sure how long you’ll keep it up, investing in an open-holed flute might not be a sensible thing to do. If you’re really confident that you will be playing for a long time, it might be the right option to get a more advanced flute from the start and grow into it. This will save you money in the long run.
The actual cost of manufacturing open- and close-holed flutes is pretty much the same, however, you won’t find many cheap flutes with open holes. This is because beginner flutes are vary rarely made with them. It has become the norm that only advanced players use open-holes, while beginners use closed holes. While this is more common, it’s still not necessarily the right choice for each individual.
Why don’t other woodwind instruments have a choice between open- and close-holed?
So if the flute can be made either as an open-holed instrument, or as a close-holed instrument, why can’t the others? The easiest of these to answer that question for is the saxophone. If you make an instrument open-holed, the holes have to be in the centre of the keys. With a saxophone, it’s too big for players to reasonably reach the middle of the keys.
If you look at a sax, you’ll see that there are two parts to the key – the part you rest your finger on and the part that covers the hole. While these do overlap, it’s not always fully and it’s not usually central on the key. If you were to make an open-holed sax like this, with the holes off-centre, you’d do some strange things to the intonation. As well as this, the holes in the sax are so big that you almost certainly need to cover a bigger area than the size of your fingers if you’re not going to affect the sound.
With a clarinet, the issue is a bit more subtle. Actually, a close-holed clarinet does exist, called the Plateau clarinet. Not many people say nice things about this and it is known for having a stuffy, muffled sound. It is occasionally used though and can be particularly useful for people with small hands, particularly young children just learning the clarinet. It’s more just tradition that prevents it being more in mainstream use.
Let’s move on to oboes. Open-holed oboes are no longer made, so if you want one you’d have to go second-hand, however, there used to be the option to have either open- or close-holed, like the flute. Many of the reasons for choosing either are similar, but there seems to be a bigger difference in tone from the oboe than the flute when going between open- and close-holed.
Many people say the tone of an open-holed oboe is loud and a bit raucous. I like to think of it as, if controlled properly, the open-holed oboe would be the jazz version of an oboe! It has more edge and needs a bit more support but can sound great when played by the right person in the right style. Unfortunately, the shortage of jazz oboists is probably part of the reason these are no longer in production.
You tend to find that most larger instruments will be close-holed, purely because it’s difficult to cover the holes on a bigger instrument, because the holes are also bigger. The bassoon, however, does have some open-holes. This makes it difficult to play unless you have pretty big hands, but the sound quality seems to change quite a lot between and open- and close-holed bassoon. Also, minimising the amount of keywork on such a big instrument is great in terms of both cost and weight.
It seems like there could be a link between the material the instrument is made of, and whether it’s a good idea to have the option of both open- and close-holed versions. It seems to affect the sound a lot with a wooden instrument, whereas with metal, the intonation doesn’t change that dramatically. This could be coincidence, but it seems like this could be the reason why it’s not really that big a deal intonation-wise to change between open- and close-holed flutes, but it is with clarinets.
So why aren’t all flutes open-holed?
The reason why all flutes aren’t open-holed seems to be personal preference. While any player could play an open-holed flute and plug the holes for any keys they struggled to cover, some people just don’t want to. The fact that both exist creates the option for one or the other, and when the difference is there but isn’t substantial, you will always get some who prefer one option and some who prefer the other.
As someone who played a close-holed flute as a beginner and an open-holed flute as a more advanced player (probably the most common combination), I think this was the best option for me personally. I needed some improvements to my technique when I got more advanced, however, had I started on an open-holed flute earlier, it might have just been too much all in one go. Some people can benefit from going one step at a time more than others, some will choose the way they like from the start and stick with it.