B Foot or C Foot?
What does this mean?
Which is best for you?
Well hello again, and welcome back here to this video series all about how to choose a flute. Now if you’ve found this page with just this video on it here and you’d like to go learn more about how to choose a flute, I have so much information for you. I’m Rebecca Fuller, the expert, the owner, and the instructor here at Learn Flute Online and I’m all about helping you become the best flute player you can possibly be.
So the first thing we are doing today is we’re going to be answering a question that many of you ask me on the email or in the comment sections in the membership area here at Learn Flute Online. A lot of people are wondering when they go to choose a flute what it means to choose a B foot. What is that? Well I’m going to answer that question right now.
If you’ll look at this picture of these two head joints, or foot joints that I have right here, then you’ll notice that they’re actually different sizes. So the shorter one came off a student model flute and it’s considered a C foot because the lowest note you could play with this foot joint on your flute is the note C. Now if you had the longer foot joint, you’d have an extra key.
If you count those you’ll see there are three keys on the bottom there, the shorter one only has two. This allows us to go one more note lower. This allows us to go to the note B.
Now, that is really the difference here, there is no difference in the tone or whatever it can make. The B foot generally will make it either harder or easier depending on your playing level for tone in those lower notes. I would tell you that the difference really is that you can play one more note with the longer foot joint, with the B foot, than you can will the C foot.
I’ll also tell you that in all my years of playing flute, which is a lot of years (like I don’t know 37, I can’t count anymore) how many years I’ve been playing flute, it’s pretty rare that we have to play the low B. It does happen if you’re playing in a symphony or maybe you’re playing for an orchestra or whatever.
You may have to play that low B, but it’s pretty rare. So I always tell my students, don’t worry about it, if the flute that you are choosing has a C foot it’s great. In fact, many professionals are ordering their professional-line flutes now with just the C foot instead of the B foot which they almost always already come with. It’s kind of standard for an upper level flute.
So, there’s really not too much to tell about that except for that’s what it means when you see the option for B foot. You can choose it, or not. There’s not going to be a big difference for you, especially if you’re just a learning flute player. No worries, that’s all there is to it.
Well, hopefully I will see you again soon because in the next video we are going to discuss another question a lot of you ask me when you are choosing a flute. We’ll see you in the next video.
Learn Flute Online today!
Step-by-Step Flute Lessons for All Ages and Levels
You have come to the “Learn Flute Online” flute lessons studio where you will find the best online program for learning how to play the flute.