Other options

[Gobae]

Obviously ITM offers a huge source of tunes for simple flutes, but what other options are there? Understandably there are key and range limitations but what other areas of music have a decent amount of accessible tunes? Renaissance/"Early Music", Baroque? Does recorder music readily transfer?

Along the same vein, what modern tunes have you seen written for simple flute, or ones that work well on them? I've seen some Lord of the Rings themes ("Concerning Hobbits"), Titanic, and "Lion's Pride" (World of Warcraft).

[FascinatedWanderer]

I would think most classical music written for flute until the late 19th century would be entirely accessible on the simple system flute...

[Mr.Gumby]

What about this?

[plunk111]

What about this?

I really didn't WANT to like this, but, wow - I'm afraid I like it a lot! Interesting flute the guy is playing, too...

Pat

[crookedtune]

Yes, very nice. It's good to be kings.

[jim stone]

American fiddle tunes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ITwq8skaPg

[Raggle Taggle]

American fiddle tunes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ITwq8skaPg

The secret must be in the tongueing

[Denny]

yeah, I think you are correct...

[toddyboy50]

There are a host of different tunes available here, including Asian, classical, and many others that are quite accessible to simple system flutes - you should be able to find something that you like for a change of pace.... Tod

http://abcnotation.com/tunes

[jim stone]

Here's another from America toward the end of the 18th century.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7rrfy9rxbY

[O'Muirgheasain]

... what other areas of music have a decent amount of accessible tunes? Renaissance/"Early Music", Baroque?

The simple system flute could easily play the earliest polyphonic song, Renaissance and Baroque music.

[Kypfer]

Does recorder music readily transfer?

Very much recorder music is written (or transposed) in the "easy" keys, C,D, F and G, though you'll need to watch out for the occaisional "low" C if your flute doesn't have any keys. A genre you might like to consider is "English Folk Dancing" music, John Playford's "Dancing Master", for instance, much of which has been prepared for the recorder

[megapop]

Ah, speaking of recorder music:
In case you don't already know it, I love the music collection "Der Fluyten Lust-hof" (the title is simply marvelous, meaning something like "The Flute Pleasure Garden") by Jonkheer Jacob van Eyck, a blind baroque recorder virtuoso. All of the tunes are in the keys of Cmaj, Dmin or Ddor, and therefore can be easily transposed for a keyless flute in D (just up a whole tone step) without having to worry about notes beyond its range. The scheme of the tunes is always the same: He first presents a simple (folk or liturgical) melody, which he then elaborates in several improvised variations, each of which becoming more and more complex and difficult. You can find a few renditions on YT.

[Mr.Gumby]

If you want to go the way Megapop suggests above there's this blog that deals with 16/17th century and later Dutch/Flemish music and has on-line versions of manuscripts and collections of same.

'Oude en Nieuwe Hollantse Boerenlieties and contredansen' is another large collection along similar lines as 'Der Fluyten Lusthof' that Megapop mentioned.

While we're at it the accordeonaire blog has a fair lot of downloadable collections of French music that could suit the flute.

[chas]

That's cool, Peter! Thanks for posting that; I've already found a couple of interesting tunes. I always love trying to read the period manuscripts.

I also second Kypfer's suggestion of the Playford tunes. There are a few hundred of them, so they can provide hours and years of pleasure.