Matching Keys With Other Instruments

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Playing the NASF alone can be a lot of fun. Playing improvised melodies yourself can be a very rewarding activity. You may do it for just pure enjoyment, but other effects may include potential health benefits and promoting a state of calm meditation.

Sooner or later, you may want to make music with a friend who plays another instrument. When you decide to do this, the first thing that you want to make sure is that your flute is tuned according to standard “concert pitch”. Some excellent NAF’s and NASF’s are not necessarily tuned to the established western tuning system. A flute like this may be fantastic to play alone, and may even be your favorite, but you will have a hard time making it work properly with other instruments. The exception to this may be a guitar or other string instrument that can be tuned “out” of its normal concert pitch. Other instruments like the piano will not be able to alter their tuning.

Presuming that your NASF is tuned to standard western pitch (they call it A = 440), the next challenge is to match the key that you are playing on your NASF with the key your friend plays on the other instrument. Since NASF’s are made in all sorts of different keys, it is sometimes confusing for players to come to an agreement with other instrumentalists about the key they will be playing. In the paragraphs below I will give you guidelines about how to match keys with other instruments if you are improvising melodies using any of the scales discussed on the section

The easiest situation is when you play improvised melodies based on the basic Minor Pentatonic scale. In this case, your tonic or “home base” note will be the lowest note on your NASF, or the note fingered like this:

The key that your friend should play on her instrument should be a minor key of the same name as your flute. That is, if your NASF is in Am your friend will play in Am; if your NASF is in F#m your friend will play in F#m… and so on. On the table below you will have several chord sequences (or chord progressions) that your guitar or piano playing friend can play, while you improvise melodies with the basic Minor Pentatonic scale. I have included only NASF’s in the more common keys. Probably guitar and piano players will be able to make the necessary transpositions if your flute is tuned to another key.

When you improvise melodies with “Mode 4” of the Minor Pentatonic Scale, playing with another instrument may get a little tricky. The reason for this is that now your tonic or “home base” note will not be the lower note on your flute, but the note fingered like this:

So, the guitar player or pianist will have to play in a minor key that is a “perfect fourth” over the key of your NASF. You don’t need to understand the musical theory behind this concept. The table below will show you similar progressions to the ones shown on the previous table, but transposed to keys that will work if you improvise with the “Mode 4” Minor Pentatonic scale.

If you improvise on the first version of the Major Scale that was described on the section the tonic note or “home base” for that scale is the note fingered as:

This note is at a distance of a “minor third” from the lower note of your NASF. So, your pianist or guitarist friend will need to play in this time on a major key that will match this note. Again, you don’t need to understand the musical theory behind this concept. The table below will show you two progressions that will work if you improvise with the major scale.

If you improvise on the second version of the Major Scale that was described on the section the tonic note or “home base” for that scale is the note fingered as:

This note is at a distance of a “perfect fourth” from the lower note of your NASF. So, your pianist or guitarist friend will need to play in this time on a major key a perfect fourth above the key of your NASF. The table below will show you two progressions that will work if you improvise with this major scale.

You may also want to share the music with another NASF player. In this case, the most straightforward approach is that both you and your friend use flutes tuned in the same key, and that both of you base your improvisations on the same scale. On the other hand, flutes tuned to different keys can be made to sound good together if the players know how to adjust their melodies using different scales. One way to make flutes in different keys work is when the flutes are tuned to intervals a “perfect fourth” or a “perfect fifth” apart. When that is the case, if one of the flute players uses the Basic Minor Pentatonic scale and the other uses “Mode 4”, the two flutes will sound good together. As with previous examples, you do not have to understand the theory behind these interval relations. Follow the guidelines presented on the table below and you can enjoy playing with flutes tuned to different keys. The information shown on the table will work irrespective of whether the flutes are“high”, “mid” or “low”.

So, get together with a friend who plays the guitar or piano or any other instrument that may play chords. Or get together with another NASF player – and begin to share the joy of improvising music together!

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